He turned on his heel, determination radiating from him. The wolf padded silently behind him, a grey shadow of unmet potential. Lloyd marched back through the gardens, past the fountains, ignoring the suddenly very judgmental-looking topiary animals, and headed straight for the heart of the estate's culinary operations: the kitchens.
He burst through the kitchen doors with purpose, startling a small army of white-aproned staff who were busy chopping, stirring, and generally making deliciousness happen.
"Cook!" Lloyd announced, his voice louder than intended. Heads snapped up. Whisks paused mid-air. A pot lid clattered to the floor.
The Head Cook, a stout woman named Martha whose glare could curdle milk from fifty paces, turned slowly, wiping her hands on her apron. "Young Master Lloyd? Is everything alright?" Her tone suggested she suspected everything was very much not alright.
"Perfectly alright, Martha," Lloyd beamed, trying to project 'confident heir' rather than 'man on a bizarre System-mandated mission'. "I require… chicken."
Martha raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Chicken, sir? For breakfast? You just had sausages."
"Not for me," Lloyd clarified, gesturing vaguely behind him. The small wolf poked its head nervously around Lloyd's legs, eliciting a collective gasp from the kitchen staff. "It's for… the dog."
"Dog?" Martha squinted at the creature. "Looks more like a skinny wolf, if you ask me, sir."
"Details, details," Lloyd waved dismissively. "He requires sustenance. Urgently. A large portion, please. Cooked. Preferably roasted, if it's not too much trouble. Breast meat is good. Maybe a leg?" He was mentally calculating the nutritional requirements for rapid wolf strengthening. Protein. Lots of protein.
Silence descended upon the kitchen, broken only by the nervous shuffling of feet and the timid whining of the wolf, likely overwhelmed by the sudden attention and the overwhelming smell of food it wasn't eating.
"A… large portion?" Martha repeated slowly, exchanging bewildered glances with her sous-chefs. "For… the wolf-dog?"
"Indeed," Lloyd confirmed crisply. "As much as you can spare. Immediately."
Martha hesitated for only a second before decades of ingrained service kicked in. "Right away, Young Master Lloyd." She barked orders, and suddenly the kitchen staff scrambled into action, albeit with numerous confused backward glances towards Lloyd and his scrawny companion.
Minutes later, Lloyd was presented with a platter piled high with glistening, roasted chicken. Enough chicken to feed a small family.
"Excellent!" Lloyd declared, taking the heavy platter. He turned to leave, the wolf trotting eagerly at his heels now, its nose twitching.
As the kitchen doors swung shut behind him, he could already hear the hushed, frantic whispers erupting.
"Did you see that? Young Master Lloyd?"
"Feeding a wolf? In the house?"
"Said it was a dog! Blind as a bat, that one…"
"And the amount of chicken! Enough for the Duke's hunting hounds!"
"Has he gone mad? First the sofa business with the new mistress, now this…"
"Maybe it's a phase?"
"Feeding a scrawny wolf roast chicken? That's not a phase, that's a cry for help!"
Lloyd ignored them, a smirk playing on his lips. Let them gossip. He had a mission. He carried the platter back to the secluded clearing in the garden.
"Alright, Fang," he said, setting the platter down. "Feast."
The wolf needed no further encouragement. It fell upon the chicken with a ferocity that belied its frail appearance, tearing into the meat, crunching bones, its tail now wagging with genuine enthusiasm. Lloyd watched, fascinated. This was… progress? Maybe? 5 SC worth of progress, hopefully.
He sat on the grass, leaning back against the oak tree, watching the wolf eat. The System. Chicken. A weak wolf spirit. It was all bizarre. But it was his bizarre reality now. And he finally had a tool, a path forward. Even if that path started with poultry.
He spent a good hour there, watching the wolf demolish the chicken, occasionally glancing at the System interface, which remained stubbornly unchanged. No immediate coin reward. Right. Seven days. Consistency. Fine. He could do consistent. He'd managed eighty years of consistency on Earth, after all. Mostly consistently showing up for work and complaining about the commute.
The wolf, eventually satiated, licked its chops, looked significantly less pathetic, and curled up near Lloyd's feet, letting out a contented sigh before promptly falling asleep.
Lloyd looked down at the sleeping spirit. Maybe it wasn't so bad. Just needed some TLC. And a metric ton of chicken.
The lingering scent of roast chicken, a surprisingly persistent aroma for such an ethereal concept as Spirit Power cultivation, seemed to follow Lloyd Ferrum like a particularly savory ghost as he navigated the upper corridors of the Ferrum Estate. He'd successfully completed Day One of 'Operation: Canine Cuisine Upgrade', his scrawny wolf spirit—now tentatively dubbed 'Fang'—was currently digesting enough poultry to alarm a small village, and Lloyd possessed precisely zero System Coins for his efforts. Still, progress. Baby steps. Or rather, chicken-fueled wolf steps.