（Please collect, please vote for recommendation!）
Male God's Cabin.
Cooking maid Miya had long since prepared all sorts of meat and side dishes, only waiting for Lord Matthew to return before putting them in the pot.
She still wore her black and white maid outfit, but she was sitting on the sofa, her eyes narrowed lazily.
Beneath the coffee table, Little Black Sand Dog knelt on his hind legs, massaging her legs.
"Lord Miya, how does the strength feel?" Little Black said obsequiously.
"Mm, it's okay." Miya said.
"Lord Miya, you'd say my technique is pretty okay too, right?"
"Mm, once you've had lunch I'll reward you with a bone."
"..."
The three-tailed hellhound was still a dog at heart, so it was only natural he loved bones.
But Hages hadn't come here to get beaten and scolded and play the meek grandson just for a few bones.
He didn't argue.
Based on his recent interactions with her, Hages had pegged Miya's intelligence as somewhat below average.
With this kind of little witch, all he had to do was flatter her and keep her comfortable, and every other problem would sort itself out.
Just then—
his nose twitched wildly. "Lord Matthew's at the door!"
"Wait, it's not just Lord Matthew alone. There's a goddess with him."
Miya, who had been leaning back, snapped her eyes open at once and asked, "Which goddess?"
Little Black: "Spring Goddess Vivian!"
"That little bitch!"
Maiden Miya cursed and leapt up, nearly bursting through the ceiling.
"No wonder she's been so quiet these past few days—she was waiting for Lord Matthew to go out."
"It's my fault too, for not keeping a close enough watch on Lord Matthew... if she's coming back together with him, she's probably already succeeded. I need to salvage this as fast as I can!"
Whenever anything touching on palace intrigue came up, Miya's brainpower would spike by 1200 points.
In this scenario, she was the guardian protecting the great treasure, while Vivian was a cunning huntress.
Head-on, the huntress was no match for the guardian.
So the huntress had first feigned disappearance to lull the guardian into letting her guard down, then waited for the great treasure to step out—or simply stirred up some incident outside to lure the treasure out of the house—before "capturing" it.
The guardian had grown careless.
The cunning huntress had succeeded.
The only uncertainty now was whether the huntress knew the guardian's true identity. If she didn't, Miya still held the advantage, and a considerable one at that.
Photo Album No. 29, back in its place!
Outside the door, Matthew turned the doorknob.
Little Black had been right—Spring Goddess Vivian, in her Clear Spring Robe, was right behind him, having come back together with Lord Matthew.
Vivian spotted Miya at the study room door and secretly made a "thank you" gesture.
Miya returned it with an "OK."
Good news: the righteous guardian's true identity hadn't been exposed yet.
Bad news: the bad cow woman had started chatting with Lord Matthew about the preparations for the trip to the different world to challenge the demon king—her scheme had already succeeded.
"Lord Matthew, welcome back!"
"Good morning, Goddess Vivian."
Maiden Miya said sweetly.
Matthew, now home, nodded. In truth, he found Vivian's persistent questioning quite tiresome.
Did fighting a demon king require preparation?
Or didn't it?
At the very least, Matthew had never prepared anything.
A god of the God Realm was required to challenge a demon king within a fixed period of time.
Matthew's process: receive the quest notification → select the quest → walk through the teleportation portal into the different world → find the demon king, settle it with one punch → return via teleport to the Male God's Cabin, quest complete.
There was nothing to prepare.
So Vivian's questions about preparation were essentially pointless.
"I'm tired, don't disturb me. Miya, go make food."
Matthew walked straight into the master bedroom.
Little Black Sand Dog, who had been staring at the floor, became his new tagalong, since he'd seen Lord Matthew beckon to him with a crook of his finger just before walking in.
In the living room.
Vivian set down the pen and manga in her hands and said despondently, "I'm too dumb, I don't understand anything at all... Little Miya, do you think Lord Matthew's starting to find me tiresome?"
"It'd be great if he did find you tiresome," Little Maid Miya muttered under her breath.
Vivian: (⊙?)
Miya immediately explained, "I mean, if things keep going like this, Lord Matthew is bound to grow tired of you."
Vivian flinched, startled, and asked, "Then what should I do?"
"It's simple, I'll help you."
Miya patted her small chest and said, "In half an hour it'll be Lord Matthew's mealtime. This is also your only chance to show what you've got and turn around your image in Lord Matthew's eyes."
"Come with me to the kitchen and cook—I'll do half, you do half. When Lord Matthew eats it, if he says it's delicious, I'll tell him this part was your doing too. If Lord Matthew says it's bad, don't you dare open your mouth, understood?"
Vivian was confident in her cooking skills. "But what if the dish I make doesn't suit Lord Matthew's taste, and he holds it against me—wouldn't that end up hurting you too?"
Miya told her to set her mind at ease. "I'm Lord Matthew's personal maid—one bad meal won't make Lord Matthew do anything to me. You're the one who needs to work hard, Vivian. The people of the different world are waiting for you to save them, and only if Lord Matthew is happy will this journey to another world of yours go smoothly!"
By now, Vivian had already come to see Miya as a warmhearted, kind little sister.
Miya, however, felt otherwise.
Lord Matthew had never even looked at Photo Album No. 29.
And yet Vivian, without having handed over her photo album, had somehow gotten Lord Matthew—who despised meddling in other people's business—to agree to her request to accompany her to the different world. The depth of her scheming was plain to see.
There were two things about Vivian that Miya found somewhat intimidating.
The first was her chest—a fine pair, and Miya had to admit, in that department she couldn't catch up to her anytime soon.
The other was that Miya's proudest asset, her cooking skills and talent, seemed to be utterly outclassed by Vivian's.
This point mattered a great deal, even more than the chest.
Because "to capture a man's heart, you must first capture his stomach."
Today, Miya had watched Vivian break through the restriction of handing over her photo album and successfully get close to Lord Matthew—tomorrow, this woman might well seize some other opportunity to get close to the kitchen that had once belonged solely to personal maid Miya.
Since the outcome would be the same sooner or later, better to make her reveal her trump card right here in front of her.
If her craftsmanship proved inferior to Miya's, all would be well.
On the other hand, with Miya present, she'd have room to maneuver, and could even secretly learn from her skills.
And as for hiding anything, since this lunch was for Lord Matthew, that bad cow woman Vivian surely wouldn't dare try anything underhanded.
In conclusion, secret agent Miya intended to use this opportunity to thoroughly investigate the enemy's true strength.
"Heh heh heh heh, this young lady's goal is to become Lord Matthew's personal Head Steward—no one's stopping me!"
……
Inside the master bedroom.
Matthew stretched lazily, took off his shoes, got onto the bed, and leaned back against the headboard.
On the floor, Little Black Sand Dog knelt with his dog head lowered.
"You already know you were wrong, don't you?" Matthew said.
"Yes, Lord Matthew, I'll never do it again!" Little Black Sand Dog looked utterly remorseful.
Matthew nodded at that. Setting everything else aside, Hages's talent for mining gold was something he needed—what was past was past, better to let it go.
Then Matthew said, "This time, heading to Becken World, I plan to bring you along..."
✦✦✦