Eventually, we were all called for dinner again, and this time we were served a royal feast. We all sat down at the table and then were served by Clawdia’s cats who placed our food and drinks down on fancy plates in front of us. Not only was every single one of us served macaroni and cheese which looked… far, far cheesier, seasoned, and overall better than what was originally served, but every single one of us also had a customized side dish.

Vala had a slab of rare beef for a side.

Delphi had a bowl of some sort of noodle soup.

Cami had a dog-safe chocolate bar.

Lavi had a small cake that was designed to look like an evil, dark fortress.

Window had a person-shaped cookie that had icing on it which made it look like one of her idol girls from those games she played.

Luca had a normal, chocolate chip cookie.

Honey had a muffin with honey drizzled over the top of it.

Lake had a glass of whiskey and a fillet of what looked like salmon.

Clawdia had… what looked like really fancy cat food with pieces of catnip sprinkled on top of it.

Chloe, meanwhile, had large block of cheese. Just plain cheese. Served as a side with her macaroni and cheese. Apparently, Chloe loved cheese because that made her light up even more than the actual main dish did.

And finally, there was Valkyria who had what looked like a ration bar or something from the military.

And then there was me.

Served with my macaroni and cheese… was a salad. A salad that looked full of fresh, home-grown vegetables where everything was cut to perfection, there wasn’t a single imperfection anywhere, and it had what was probably extra virgin olive oil drizzled over the top of it. I could also smell some vinegar, so there was probably a combination of both olive oil and vinegar drizzled over it.

Tomato, lettuce, cucumber, banana pepper, and onion. Five simple ingredients topped with olive oil and vinegar. All that a salad could ever need.

“Dr-Drake,” Valkyria said, “are… you sure that a salad is alright for your side?”

“It’s the best possible side you could have given me,” I replied. “After all, part of the reason why I love gardening is to be self-sustainable. To grow my own food so that I never have to deal with other people and paying them for food that I don’t know how it was grown, what kind of person grew it, what they did to it, you get the point.”

“Is… what kind of person somebody is important to how it turns out?”

“It is. I wouldn’t want a man who doesn’t love his crops to put food on my plate. What if he doesn’t respect them? That carries over to the taste when you eat it. A man who doesn’t respect his crops doesn’t respect you. If he accidentally steps on them, then that’s the same as kicking you in the face with a dirt-covered boot. If he spits on them, then that’s the same as spitting directly in your mouth. If he insults them out of anger, that’s the same as insulting you. But if a man raises his crops with tender love and respect, then that’s the same as him gently caressing you and giving you a massage while you eat the result of his labor. It is not only an act of love for the crops, but an act of love for the one who has to eat them. That is why by treating my own plants with the utmost respect, when it eventually comes time to eat them, it’s like giving myself a massage while I eat my own produce. The more I love my plants, the more I love myself. Anybody who does not love their plants has no right selling them and should be banned from ever raising a single living being of any sort. If one cannot love a plant, how could you expect them to love anything else? How could you expect them to love their parents? Their children? Their neighbor? Their lover? A person who does not love the plants they grow is somebody who is devoid of all love and is better off being put on a rocket and sent into the sun.”

Everybody stopped whatever they were doing to stare at me as I ranted.

“And all of that is without even getting into how expensive fresh produce is,” I continued. There was no way that I was done talking about such an important topic with just a single rant. “Not only is most of it grown and sold without any love, but is marked up to an absurd price when you could easily grow far more of your own for a far cheaper cost. Now, if I had proof that somebody loved their produce, which is incredibly apparent once you actually take a bite of it, then I would gladly pay ten times the standard price for it. But they don’t love their produce. They don’t love anything at all. Why would I want to line the pockets of somebody so devoid of love? Give me a man who loves his produce like it’s his own child and I’ll stuff his pockets until they’re overflowing with cash. Give me a man who is trying to charge me several dollars for a bag of potatoes that he doesn’t even love, and I’ll take the potatoes from him, whack him over the head with it, and then send him into the sun.”

The girls continued staring. Even Clawdia’s cats stared at me.

“And don’t even get me started on lawn culture and how horrible that is for the local wildlife, bees, and ecosystem diversity. Anybody who mows their grass hates nature or is simply ignorant enough to not even think about nature, which is potentially just as bad as hating nature itself. Honestly, if you gave me a gun with only one bullet, and then put me in a room with a genocidal dictator and somebody who maintains a short-cut lawn devoid of flowers and vegetation, then I would shoot the genocidal dictator first and then send the lawn-keeper into the sun, because shooting him would be too quick of a punishment. I want him to watch as he gets closer and closer to the sun with his ship heating gradually heating up.”

I took a deep breath.

“And then there’s—”

“Papa,” Luca said, using a soft, almost sad-sounding voice as she tugged on my arm. “Can… can we eat now, please? I promise I’ll let you ramble all you want at nighttime when it’s time for me to go to bed.”

“Are you trying to imply that my rambling puts you to sleep?”

“M-maybe.”

“That’s fair. Alright, I suppose I did get a bit off topic there. Anyways,” I looked at Valkyria again, “yes, salad, thank you.”

As for Clawdia, she stood up again with her hands on her hips and said, “I’ll have you all know that I didn’t make a single thing here, nya! All I did was instruct her on what to do. But everything you are about to eat was made by her hands and her hands alone! I also gave her a crash course on social progress for the last few decades, so she shouldn’t believe in anything lame anymore, nya. All we need to do now is binge watch some anime with her to finish getting her caught up on the important stuff. We can start with the greatest anime of all time so that she can personally witness galaxy-sized mechas fighting each other while the power of love, progress, and determination conquers all, nya! Now then.” Clawdia sat back down and looked at her side with… somewhat of a perverted look on her face.

I was going to have to deal with a clingy cat queen once she was done with her side given the effect that catnip had on her.

“I—I do hope you all enjoy it,” Valkyria said. “And I apologize for my assumption before. It… helps knowing that no matter what any of us eat here, due to how this entire… universe of Vala’s works, that we will always have the perfect amount of nutrition and stay in optimal health at all times. That means I can bake and cook whatever I want for us without worry!”

Cami nodded a couple of times and then said, “So, make lots of chocolate.”

That would normally be a moment for Delphi to interject and say that Cami isn’t allowed to eat chocolate due to her canid nature, but Delphi was too distracted looking at her soup with eyes so overwhelmingly full of admiration and love that she couldn’t be distracted away from it.

The way that Delphi looked at soup was how a farmer should look at his crops.

After eating, not a single one of us at the table was anything but utterly satisfied.

“That was great, Val. Thank you,” I said, prompting everybody else to more or less say the same thing immediately after me. It reminded me of those jokes I saw online before about children staying at one of their friend’s houses. As soon as one kid thanked the adults for something, everybody else started doing it so that they wouldn’t be left out.

And the more praise that we gave Valkyria for her food, the happier she looked to the point where she had to cover up her cheeks with her hands to hide how much she was blushing.

“I—I don’t deserve all that praise. Please, if anything, you should thank Clawdia for it. Clawdia is the one who educated me and guided me to make all of this food for everyone,” Valkyria said before looking over at Clawdia—or rather, before looking at where Clawdia was supposed to be. “Eh?” Valkyria tilted her head. “Where did she go?”

With perfect timing, as soon as Valkyria asked that, Clawdia reappeared… underneath the table… between my legs. “Maaaasssstttteeeerrrrrr,” Clawdia whined out with a purr following it up as she climbed up between my legs. “You haven’t fed your kitten enough milk lateleyyyyyyy. Your personal kitty maid is ready for her dessert nowwwwwwwww.” When she got like that, she just completely dropped all of the nya-ing to instead almost constantly purr, her body vibrating up against my thighs as she brought her face closer and closer to my crotch. “Maaaaaassstttteeeerrrrrr, I want your nice, warm, milk. I’ve been a good girl, haven’t I? I even helped our new waifu in the kitchen. I’ve been a veeeeerrrryyyy good kitten and deserve lots and lots of milk nowwwww.” Clawdia then directly rubbed the side of her face up against my crotch, and that made the vibrations from her purring very obvious.

“Tonight, alright?” I replied. “After I ramble Luca to sleep. Also…”

I looked to my side.

Fortunately, Window was there covering up Luca’s eyes and ears, so she couldn’t hear or see anything that Clawdia was doing.

“Milk?” Valkyria asked. “If she wants milk, I would be happy to go and get her some!”

Vala then said, “She’s not talking about the normal kind of milk. She’s talking about the kind of milk that you can only get from a man. Or...” Vala focused her eyes onto Valkyria’s chest. “Maybe she’d like a tank’s milk, too. Heh.”

There was a single, cheesy noodle left in my bowl, so I picked it up and threw it at Vala, hitting her directly in her forehead.

Vala looked at me with eyes that looked as if she was about to cry as she held her hands over her now-cheesy forehead. “What—what was that for?”

“For being a pervert,” I answered.

“But Clawdia’s doing it!”

“Clawdia is high and cute. You’re just acting like a perverted old man.”

“But I’m high and cute, too!”

“What are you high on?”

“I’m high on my love for you. All the time.”

“That—alright, that was cute.”

“Now lemme pinch your butt while you walk by.”

“Perverted geezer. You’re lucky I don’t have any more noodles to throw at you. Then again, I could always throw my fork like a spear.”

“Hah! As if a feeble little spear would ever hurt me. Do you have any idea how many armies of men have tried to slay me with spears and bows alike? They’ve even used catapults and ballistae against me! My scales would never be penetrated by the likes of human weapo—”

I threw my fork at her. Not with a lot of force, because I didn’t want to actually hurt her, but I still threw it.

And it landed… right against her chest, bounced off her breasts, then landed on the table.

Vala looked like she was about to cry again as she held her hand over the breast I hit.

“What happened to not getting hurt by human weaponry?” I asked.

“You—you hit my boob,” Vala whined with watery eyes. “All I want to do is love you, but now you’re abusing me. You’re supposed to abuse Clawdia, not me!”

“Maaaasssstttteeeeerrrrrr,” Clawdia purred. “You can abuse my throat all, night, long. I want you to abuse me until I can’t even think straight annnyyyyyyymore. Abuse me until all I can think about is your milk.”

"Dang, I really can't compete with that."

A heavy sigh left Window’s lips. “I swear, this series is going to end up smut by the end at the current rate.”

“It’s alright,” I said. “I’ve got this.”

I knew exactly what needed to be done in order to calm Clawdia down.

And that… was placing my hand on top of her head.

That would be enough to send her to the ground in an instant, unable to do anything but twitch in pleasure.

Or so I thought.

Instead… she resisted giving in to the touch of my hand.

“Nyahaha, that won’t work on me now, Maaasssstttteeerrrr,” Clawdia moaned. “It feels really good when you touch me, but catnip makes me immune to breaking that easily. You’re going to have to touch me a whooooollllleeeee lot more if you want to really break your little kitty maid. And I have lots of places that you can touch me howevvveeerrrrr you want.”

“Alright,” I said, standing up and pulling Clawdia out from the table before tossing her up over my shoulder. “I’m going to go deal with Clawdia. Val, dinner was amazing and I’m looking forward to eating more from you in the future. I’ll be back soon. Since nobody else has gotten to really socialize with you like I have, go ahead and… you know, become friends with everybody seeing as how you’re now dating everybody here, Lake and Luca excluded, by default.”

“A-alright!” Valkyria said. “Are—are you sure I should not go and get some milk from the kitchen for her?”

“I’ll give her plenty.” I looked at Vala. “Can you put up a soundproof barrier around the bedroom so Luca won’t be able to hear anything from upstairs?”

“Already done,” Vala replied, giving me a thumbs-up.

Cami then raised her hand and asked, “Can I come?”

“As long as you spend time with Valkyria later,” I answered.

Cami nodded and looked at Valkyria to say, “We’ll have our own private date later. Okay?”

“S-sure?” Valkyria replied, clearly unable to keep up with everything going on.

With that, Cami ran over to me and Clawdia and the three of us went upstairs to the bedroom.

Clawdia’s “tsundere” act was never effective against me in making me do what she wanted, but when she got high and acted extremely clingy and lovey and was honest about everything she wanted?

It was impossible for me to resist when she was in that state. Especially when she rubbed her purring face all up against me like she was. So, it was time to deal with her with some assistance from Cami while everybody else got to know Valkyria better.