The system pinged during the morning rush.
**Congratulations. You have served 400 pizzas.**
I blinked at the notification. Stood there with flour on my hands and a half-stretched disk of dough in front of me.
Four hundred. When the hell did that happen? I checked the counter. Sure enough.
Number 400 was sitting on the prep table, waiting for toppings. A hundred days. Give or take. That's how long it'd been since I woke up in a body that wasn't mine, in a world that had no business existing, with a pizza oven and a system floating in the corner of my vision like a half-dead monitor.
Four hundred pizzas. The math didn't add up. I wasn't doing four pizzas a day. Some days I did twelve.
Some days I did three. Sometimes the lunch rush hit like a wave, and sometimes I stood behind the counter watching dust motes float through the afternoon light. But four hundred was four hundred. No reward popped up.
No skill unlock. No attribute points. Just the notification, and then another line.
**Next milestone: 500.**
"Five hundred," I said out loud.
Al looked up from the corner table where he was practicing his dough balling. Hourglasses lined up like soldiers. He'd gotten good at it. Not fast. But precise.
"Sir?"
"Nothing."
"Just... four hundred pizzas." He set down the dough. Wiped his hands on his apron. Walked over and looked at the counter display.
He read it quietly, then nodded.
"That is many pizzas," he said.
"Yeah. It is."
I thought about the first one. The absolute abomination I'd pulled out of that oven. Burnt edge, undercooked center, cheese slid off like it was trying to escape.
I ate the whole thing anyway. Sat in the empty dining hall at midnight and forced it down because I'd made it, and by God, I was going to finish it. This one was going to be different. I took my time with number 400.
Hand-stretched the dough until it was paper-thin in the center, puffy at the edges. The flour dusted the counter, soft as snow. I worked it slowly, feeling the gluten relax under my fingers, the air bubbles popping beneath my palm. There was no rush.
No line of customers. No Varn watching from a corner table. Just me and this disk of dough. Ladled the sauce in a slow spiral.
Layered the mozzarella in even slices — not too thick, not too thin, spaced so every bite would have the same balance. Drizzled the oil. A pinch of salt. A few leaves of basil, torn, not cut.
I'd read somewhere that tearing bruises the leaves less. Don't know if it was true. But I did it anyway. A Margherita.
Simple. The one that started it all, back in that other world. The first pizza I ever learned to make. I'd spent weeks on Earth getting it right — trial and error, cookbooks, late nights in a shared kitchen. The flour. The heat. The way the dough felt when you stopped fighting it. Cooking was the only thing that ever felt like mine. And this pizza was its first chapter.
Easy on the sauce. Let the cheese breathe. Don't rush the oven. I slid it in. Watched it through the flame window. The crust bubbling.
The cheese melting into the sauce. The edges browning. When it came out, it was perfect. I didn't serve it to a customer.
I cut it into eight slices. Plated two of them. Set the rest on the counter. Pulled up a chair and gestured for Al to sit. "Eat," I said.
He hesitated.
"Sir, this is your—"
"It's pizza. Eat it."
He sat. Took a slice.
Bit into it carefully, the way he did everything, like he was afraid of breaking it. His eyes went wide.
"Sir."
"Yeah."
"It is... very good."
I laughed. Actually laughed.
First time in days. "Yeah. It is." We ate in silence. The pizzeria was empty. Lunch rush hadn't started yet.
The Pizza Cat was asleep on the windowsill, tail twitching in some dream about birds or mice or whatever cats dreamed about. The pizza was exactly what I wanted it to be. Crisp on the bottom. Chewy on the edge.
The sauce bright and acidic. The cheese fatty and rich. The basil fresh and green. It tasted like I knew what I was doing.
I didn't, of course. Not really. I was still figuring it out day by day. But for one meal, one plate, one moment, it felt like I belonged in this kitchen.
Al finished his slice. Reached for another. Caught himself.
"Go ahead," I said.
"Sir, I should not—"
"There are seven more slices. I'm not eating all of them."
He took another.
Held it up. Looked at it like it was something precious.
"In my old life," he said quietly, "I never ate food like this."
"What did you eat?"
"Bread. Sometimes. Porridge. Whatever the kitchen scraps were."
He bit into the slice. Chewed. Swallowed.
"This is not food. This is..." He didn't finish. Didn't have to. I finished my slice. Leaned back in my chair.
Looked around the pizzeria. The wooden tables. The chalkboard menu with my handwriting. The shelves of spices and oils.
The oven glowing in the corner. A hundred days. Four hundred pizzas. And somewhere out there, a grey-cloaked woman was watching me.
A dragon knew my secrets. Big Brother Dearest's agents were circling. Fendrel the alchemist was testing my flour. Varn from the Merchant's Guild was making offers that sounded a lot like threats.
And I was sitting here, full of pizza, watching my butler discover that food could taste good. It wasn't much. But it was mine. "Five hundred," I said. Al looked up.
"Sir?"
"Next milestone. Five hundred pizzas."
I picked up another slice.
"I'm going to make every single one better than the last."
He smiled. A small thing, barely there.
"I believe you, Sir."
I didn't.
But I wanted to. The oven breathed heat through the kitchen. The cat stretched. The hourglasses on the corner table ran their sand down, one grain at a time.
Four hundred down. A lifetime to go.