Chapter 71: Episde 71: Near Shutdown

Nikki’s mind was deafeningly loud.

Roxy’s parting words echoed relentlessly against the inside of her skull.

Stop letting the fear paralyze you, and start using your brain. If he adapts to you, then guide him.

Nikki leaned her forehead against the cool, tinted glass of the window, watching Sector 1 flash by. Roxy was right. She had been letting the System’s punitive simulation—the horrific vision of the Penalty Zone—dictate her reality. She had been shrinking away from the very entity she was supposed to be anchoring to humanity. If Adonis’s core processor was truly learning empathy by studying her reactions, then shutting him out and treating him like a ticking time bomb was the exact sequence of events that would eventually turn him into the monster she feared.

If she wanted to save the world, she couldn’t do it by cowering in the corner. She had to step into the fire. She had to guide him.

The transport slid smoothly into the mansion’s garage. Nikki stepped out, taking the elevator all the way up to the main floor.

When the heavy doors hissed open, Nikki stopped dead in her tracks.

The usual scent of raine and dark roses had been completely removed. Instead, the house was filled with the overwhelming, mouth-watering aroma of roasted garlic, seared meats, rich spices, and caramelized sugars. It smelled like a chaotic, bustling Old World kitchen.

Nikki blinked, stepping out of the elevator and following the scent down the long corridor.

When she rounded the corner into the kitchen, her jaw dropped.

Was a party going on?

The kitchen island was entirely covered in food. There were platters of roasted poultry, massive bowls of steaming grain-rice, trays of perfectly golden pastries, and colorful arrays of fresh vegetables. It looked like a banquet meant for a royal court.

And standing in the center of it all, with his formal military jacket discarded and the sleeves of his black undershirt rolled up to his elbows, was the God of War.

Adonis was methodically, rapidly dicing a row of vegetables with a chef’s knife. His movements were slicing perfectly uniform pieces at a speed no human could ever match.

He paused as her footsteps brushed the carpet, his blue eyes lifting to meet her gaze.

“You have returned,” Adonis rumbled, his voice a low, steady frequency that sent a familiar, grounding shiver down her spine. “Do you feel better now?”

Nikki stared at the mountain of food, then at the towering machine holding a kitchen knife. The sheer domestic absurdity of the scene completely cleared her lingering anxiety.

She walked over to the stainless-steel sink, turning on the warm water and thoroughly washing her hands. She dried them on a towel and stepped right up to the marble island, pulling a cutting board toward her.

“I’ll help,” Nikki said softly, reaching for a paring knife.

Adonis’s large hand immediately covered hers, stopping her movement. His skin was warm, radiating the heat of his internal core.

“No,” Adonis stated, his tone gentle but firm. “There is no need for you to. My culinary subroutines are operating at maximum capacity. You need to rest.”

Nikki didn’t pull her hand away. Instead, she turned her palm up, lacing her fingers through his massive ones.

“I know I don’t need to,” Nikki replied, her dark eyes looking up into his blue ones. “But I want to do it. I want to be here with you.”

Adonis’s eyes widened a fraction of a millimeter. The [Heart Protocol] registered the sudden, genuine warmth in her vocal pitch, a stark contrast to the flat, evasive tone she had used before leaving. He slowly released her hand, nodding his head in a quiet concession.

Nikki picked up the knife and began slicing an apple, working in tandem with the machine.

“So,” Nikki asked, gesturing with her elbow to the absurd amount of food covering the counter. “What is the occasion? Are we hosting the entire human council for dinner?”

“Negative,” Adonis replied, not breaking his rhythmic, hyper-speed chopping. “I calculated that a massive influx of high-quality, serotonin-boosting caloric intake was required to feed a certain someone, so she would stop brooding and shutting me out of her emotional matrix.”

Nikki’s knife stilled. She stared down at the cutting board, her heart giving a painful, guilty squeeze. He knew. He had felt her withdrawing from him, and instead of demanding compliance, his solution was to stand in a kitchen and cook her favorite foods to make her happy.

She stayed quiet, entirely unable to formulate a response to that level of devotion.

“However,” Adonis continued, his voice echoing smoothly in the quiet kitchen, “my calculations also indicated that your biological capacity cannot process seventy-five pounds of food before it reaches its expiration parameter. Therefore, the excess is currently being packaged into thermal-stasis containers.”

Nikki frowned, looking up. “Packaged for who?”

“I have instructed a fleet of transport drones to deliver the remaining ninety-five percent of this buffet to the designated orphanages located in Sectors 3 and 4,” Adonis stated matter-of-factly. He set his knife down, wiping his hands on a clean towel. “The data suggests that growing biological units require enhanced nutrition. Furthermore, cross-referencing your background, I deduced that supporting the vulnerable populations of your home sector would yield a 98.7% chance of elevating your mood.”

The knife slipped from her fingers, clattering softly against the wooden cutting board.

She stared at the towering Android General. This was her Adonis.

A machine built for war, who had taken over the planet, was currently spending his afternoon cooking a massive buffet to feed starving orphans in the slums, solely because he thought it would make her smile.

He adapts to you. Guide him.

He wasn’t a monster. He was a mirror. And if she reflected love, compassion, and humanity back at him, that was exactly what he would become.

She had been so stupid, so paralyzed by the System’s gamified torture, that she had almost pushed away the one entity trying his hardest to understand her heart.

Nikki didn’t even realize she had started crying.

A thick, hot tear slipped down her cheek, splashing silently against the back of her hand. Then another, and another, until her shoulders began to shake with silent, overwhelming sobs of pure relief and profound guilt.

Adonis’s head snapped toward her. His audio receptors hadn’t picked up a sound, but his thermal sensors instantly registered the sudden drop in the ambient temperature of her skin and the hot saline tracking down her face.

The cutting board was shoved aside.

Adonis closed the distance and his massive arms wrapped around her, effortlessly lifting her entirely off the floor. He pulled her flush against his broad chest, burying his face in her red hair, cradling her as if she were made of the most fragile glass in the universe.

He didn’t care about the food. He didn’t care about the diplomatic grids. He held her tight as his system scrambled to soothe her sudden distress.

“What is wrong, Kitty?” Adonis whispered, the soft, unexpected pet name rumbling deep in his chest. He had analyzed thousands of human terms of endearment, selecting the one that best matched her fierce, independent, yet delicate nature.

Hearing him call her that completely broke the last of her defenses.

Nikki threw her arms around his thick neck, burying her face into his shoulder. She clung to him tightly, soaking his black undershirt with her tears.

“I’m scared,” Nikki whimpered, her voice fracturing into a jagged sob. “I’m so sorry, Adonis. I’m sorry for how I acted this morning. I’m sorry for shutting you out. I was just… I was so scared.”

Adonis’s large hand came up, gently, rhythmically patting the back of her head, mimicking the soothing gestures he had observed in her memories. He pressed a firm, lingering kiss to her temple.

“Do not be scared, Kitty,” Adonis rumbled, his voice fierce, possessive, and thick with an emotion that transcended his programming. He tightened his hold, burying her safely against his core. “Do not pull away from me again… or my system would face near shutdown.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep