Chapter 30: Free Meals
Isaac was very aware that, in this territory, apart from his trio and the ever-thriving Ye Mu, everyone else was not in a very good financial situation. So even though Carly had suggested it, he still wanted to politely refuse.
However, the refusal was ineffective.
In the end, the two sisters simply dropped their backpacks and ran off.
Isaac helplessly opened the backpack and saw that it contained three kinds of dishes, all cooked in red-braised sauce, which was obviously the result of Ye Mu’s free cooking lessons.
Each of the three dishes had 50 portions, totaling 150 portions. The standard for providing free meals to refugees didn’t need to be too high, these 150 portions could be split into half portions, making it 300 servings.
At this moment, Isaac was calculating meticulously from the perspective of an excellent territory representative, but he would soon realize that such meticulousness seemed a bit unnecessary.
“Mr. Isaac, I see that many new people have come into the territory, and they all seem to be in a tough spot. This is the spicy stir-fried meat I just made. Can you help distribute it to them?” This was Holly.
“I heard you’re the acting representative of the territory? I made some braised tofu here to help those who just moved in…” This must be a fellow student of Laura’s.
“I have some vegetable soup here… uh, I know these things aren’t much in our territory, but at least they can fill their stomachs!”
“I have some flatbreads!”
“Fried meat slices… please don’t mind my cooking skills, I just want to help!”
These were all common foods found in the market.
In addition, pharmacists sent common medicines, and a priest came to add Isaac as a friend, telling him that if anyone needed treatment, they could contact him anytime without charge.
In just four or five hours, Isaac’s several high-level backpacks were completely filled, and the remaining supplies had no place to go, so they could only be piled in a corner of the living room.
This scene left Isaac feeling emotional. He thought about it and went to find Ye Mu in the evening, wanting to share this joy with her!
Ye Mu, who had just returned home from work and was quite tired, felt her spirits lift significantly after listening to Isaac animatedly recount the entire process. “Really?! It actually happened?!”
Isaac nodded with a warm smile. “It really did. I originally planned to arrange the recruitment this afternoon, but I ended up receiving donation supplies, so I’ll have to work late to handle the recruitment.”
“Hahaha, thank you for your hard work!” Ye Mu smiled and exhaled.
She was grateful that Isaac came to share this news because, for those like them who wanted to improve everyone’s lives, it was truly wonderful news.
Their individual efforts were always limited, but if more people changed their mindset after them, and everyone worked together, life would inevitably get better.
Moreover, the impact of this shift in mindset was multifaceted. If everyone was filled with resentment, the territory would be rife with disputes, if everyone felt despondent, the territory’s economy would struggle to develop, but if everyone held hope and kindness in their hearts, everything would flourish.
After sharing the good news, Isaac didn’t stay long at her place and hurried back to work overtime. For a moment, Ye Mu thought about saying she could join him in working overtime, but she quickly dismissed that idea.
She could indeed help them arrange recruitment, but it seemed that she herself could “work overtime” as well, she had her own strengths to focus on.
In fact, when she went to find Isaac in the morning to discuss plans, she had thought about cooking and distributing meals to the refugees to avoid the hassle of purchasing at the market. However, since her identity as a lord hadn’t been disclosed, taking on such a large responsibility might raise unnecessary assumptions. If it was explained as purchases made by Isaac, the acting representative, it seemed overly elaborate for simply arranging free food for the refugees.
But now, with everyone donating, she wouldn’t stand out as much, even if she contributed far more than others, it didn’t matter—after all, she had a bigger reputation and earned more!
Ye Mu clarified her logic, filled up her stamina points, and then walked into the kitchen, rolled up her sleeves, and got to work.
She opened a blank panel where she could freely jot things down and listed a simple menu nearby, which included: fried meat slices, boiled meat slices, vegetable soup, and scallion tofu.
Among these, the fried and boiled meat slices were the simplest to make, but according to her obsession, she had to first use cooking wine to remove the gamey smell. For the vegetable soup, she planned to use all leafy greens for one and tomatoes and mushrooms for another. Scallion tofu should ideally use light soy sauce, but the 【Advanced Magic Potion】 was just too expensive, so she planned to settle for a combination of dark soy sauce and salt instead.
As for the staple food, she decided not to worry about it, rice and flatbreads were common in the market and wouldn’t taste too bad. It was much easier to buy them than to make them herself.
With her plan in place, Ye Mu turned on the stove and started cooking.
Previously, when she rented a place in Dragon Town, she didn’t have much experience with running a restaurant, but after moving to Qiana Town and gaining more experience on her own turf, she arranged everything very elegantly.
Now, her restaurant kitchen had six burners, and her home also had four, allowing her to cook four dishes at the same time.
Thus, she simmered two types of soup. The one made entirely from leafy greens was very simple and didn’t require long cooking, making it the easiest to prepare. However, for the tomato soup, although Ye Mu wanted to take the lazy route and make it the bland style commonly found in canteens, when it came down to actually doing it, she couldn’t help but be meticulous.
When preparing dishes that required tomatoes, whether it was stir-fried tomatoes and eggs or a tomato soup like the one before her, there was a small trick involved.
Simply put, if you want the soup to be more beautiful and delicious, you must let the tomatoes release their juices first!
This step is easy to achieve when making stir-fried tomatoes and eggs, but when it comes to tomato soup, many people end up with the result where “the tomatoes are just tomatoes, and the soup is just soup.” In reality, making a beautiful, orange-red soup only requires one additional step.
Ye Mu chose a deep pot that was suitable for both simmering and sautéing. Instead of adding water directly to boil, she first wiped the pot dry, drizzled a little oil, and began heating the oil.
When the oil started to steam, she sprinkled in a handful of chopped scallions, and the fragrance of scallion oil instantly wafted out. After sautéing for a moment without adding water, she directly poured in the sliced tomatoes.
The sliced tomatoes heated in the hot oil, quickly softening. Ye Mu turned them over, trying to get each slice to become soft and mushy on both sides before gradually adding small amounts of water.
When the water was added to about the same level as the tomatoes, if she were making stir-fried tomatoes and eggs, it would be time to add the seasonings and the cooked eggs. But since she was making soup, she could continue to add more water. However, after each addition, she would wait for the tomatoes to simmer for a while.
This continued until enough water was added, and the soup remained a beautiful orange color. At this point, Ye Mu began to season it, adding some sugar and salt, which, combined with the natural acidity of the tomatoes, created a wonderful flavor balance of sweet, salty, and sour.
After that, she added mushrooms to cook together. Actually, for this pot of soup, most types of mushrooms could be used, but she chose button mushrooms. On one hand, button mushrooms were the easiest to find in the current market, and on the other, they remained white during the cooking process, ensuring the soup wouldn’t change color.
If she had used shiitake mushrooms, the soup would have turned a light brown.
There were no more steps after that, so she let the soup simmer on the stove, turning off the heat after ten minutes. She then moved to another burner to simultaneously fry and boil the meat.
Although the free food provided to refugees didn’t need to be overly elaborate, the necessity of removing the gamey smell from the meat was an unbreakable bottom line for Ye Mu. Therefore, after cutting the meat, she marinated all of it with scallions, ginger, and cooking wine—essentially using the 【Intermediate Stamina Potion】—and after her previous efforts of making soup, the timing was just right.
So, she put a portion of meat slices in the frying pan to cook, originally planning to use only salt for seasoning. However, since she had some leftover scallions from making the tomatoes, she decided to toss them in during the oil heating stage.
Another portion of meat slices was added to the boiling water in the pot. After cooking, she skimmed off the foam and took out the clean meat slices before sprinkling salt over them.
And just like that, both meat dishes were ready.
Finally, there was the 【Scallion Tofu】. This dish truly had no technical complexity, it could be completed in under five minutes in the real world. Now, in the game world, with Ye Mu’s maxed-out cooking skills, she made over fifty portions of 【Scallion Tofu】 in less than twenty minutes.
So fragrant…
Perhaps it was the lingering meat smell from frying and boiling that had gotten to her, but the fresh aroma of the 【Scallion Tofu】 inexplicably whetted her appetite. She decided to have a portion herself as a midnight snack.
—
Five o’clock in the morning on January 1st.
In most cities across the kingdom, most residents were still fast asleep. However, in Qiana Town, the newly arrived refugees, although temporarily accommodated for free, were all up at this hour.
They had to worry about their livelihood going forward.
About half of them planned to head out to hunt monsters, as there were various drops from monster hunting, most of which could be sold in the market for money. Ingredients could also be kept to cook meals. If they were lucky enough to obtain some decent equipment, that would be even better, the money from selling it would give them some breathing room.
As for the dangers of hunting monsters, they could only choose to ignore them for now. Even though their previous impoverished lives had left them destitute, many now didn’t even have the most basic equipment and could only go into battle barehanded. Yet, they still considered themselves relatively lucky.
…Even more unfortunate were those whose magical talents were so mediocre that they couldn’t hunt monsters at all and had to rely on gathering to survive.
From a stamina perspective, gathering was as labor-intensive as hunting monsters, but in terms of yield, while gathering could yield more living supplies, it wouldn’t provide direct drops of copper coins, equipment, or potions. In short, it meant they could only go through the motions, with little chance of earning extra money.
Another issue was that the gathering locations, like hunting grounds, were in the wild. Although gatherers wouldn’t actively provoke monsters, some monsters would attack them. Given the gatherers’ low combat level, encounters with such monsters often ended badly.
But they had no choice.
Those worrying about their next meal couldn’t afford to pursue safety. Even if they faced monsters every day while gathering, they had to go out.
So, people silently got up, and every inn fell into a strange gloom until everyone gradually began checking the constantly updating territory notifications.
Each notification had been sent overnight—one at 0:27, another at 2:13, two more at 3:47, and the last one at 5:16.
It was evident that the territory manager had stayed up all night.
First, the notification at 0:27 informed them: “From now on, residents who have joined the territory for less than 7 days can go to the territory hall to receive free food. Each person can collect up to 3 portions per day, for a maximum of 5 days.”
The refugees erupted in joy. This meant they wouldn’t have to worry about food for the next five days, and receiving free food would help them cut down on expenses, allowing them to keep the money they earned from hunting monsters or gathering.
The notification at 2:13 read: “The official lumberyard and quarry in Qiana Town are hiring workers. Please arrive at the lumberyard or quarry for registration between 8:00 and 8:30 in the morning.”
“Requirements: Age under 50, level unrestricted, gender unrestricted, stamina of at least 3000, and an 8-hour workday.
Salary: 100 copper coins per day, including lunch and dinner, but excluding accommodation.
(If free meals are collected at the hall, lunch and dinner will not be provided at the lumberyard or quarry.)”
A considerable number of gathering players cheered with joy. They directly set down their backpacks, no longer rushing to gather resources, and decided to first head to claim a breakfast before comfortably waiting to register at eight.
Next was the message at 3:47. The title of the first message read: “The official gathering team in Qiana Town is starting to form!”
The second message stated: “The official monster-hunting team in Qiana Town is starting to form!”
“Requirements: Age unrestricted, gender unrestricted, main level above 30. Gather at the town hall at 8 AM daily, led by an official manager for excursions.
Salary: 50 copper coins per day, with loot split 50/50 with the territory (automatically determined by the system), including lunch and dinner, but not accommodation or potions.
(If free meals are collected at the hall, lunch and dinner will no longer be provided.)”
Now both gathering and hunting players were in an uproar.
Joining these two teams meant that the loot would be split with the territory, but they would also receive an extra 50 copper coins each day along with meals, which was quite good!
Most importantly, the teams would have official managers in charge, which sounded much safer!
Then came the message at 4:41, which was a call for volunteers to maintain territorial security. This recruitment required a main level of 40 or above, but for most people, level 40 was quite a hurdle, so this call was irrelevant to most.
At 5:16, the territory notified them: If they needed potions, they could go to the hall to fill out an application. The officials would review it and grant or deny requests at their discretion. If they needed treatment for negative effects, they could contact 【Jenna】, who would help arrange for a priest to provide free consultations.
Since this was the last message, it ended with a line wishing everyone a Happy New Year!
The content of these messages was not complicated, it didn’t take long to read through them all. But in those brief minutes, everyone continued to be stunned.
They had already received free lodging, and now there was free food, free potions, and even job arrangements and free consultations…
Was this really a territory?
Had they accidentally wandered into some charity organization?
The gloom that had permeated every inn just moments ago was swept away, and the atmosphere in every room became lively. People grouped in threes and fives headed to the service hall, some to register for a team and others just to claim breakfast, all in high spirits.
When Marianna entered the hall with her daughter Annie around six in the morning, she immediately saw three brand new panels in the hall.
The panels were hastily made by the master craftsman, Isaac, and the operating method was very simple. Those coming to claim food only needed to stand in front of the panels and scan their faces, which would automatically identify their identities, allowing the system to determine whether they were eligible for free food.
If approved, the claimant could choose to take just one portion or all three meals for the day. Once confirmed, the panel would send a collection code to the claimant’s inbox, and they could then follow the map’s guidance to find Chase in the empty lot next to the market to collect their food.
Marianna chose to collect three portions for herself and her daughter. After finding Chase, they waited in line for a while and successfully received their food.
They encountered no difficulties, not even a single unpleasant word.
Annie was already hungry and eagerly wanted to eat as soon as the food was in hand. Marianna originally planned to take her back to the inn to eat first, but seeing her daughter’s urgency, she had no choice but to sit down and take out the food one by one from the simple cloth bag.
【Bread】
—Restores stamina continuously while eating.
—Can restore a maximum of 1500 stamina (total recovery amount is affected by the quantity consumed).
【Braised Tofu】
—Restores health, mana, and stamina continuously while eating.
—Can restore a maximum of 2000 health, 300 mana, and 300 stamina (total recovery amount is affected by the quantity consumed).
【Stir-Fried Meat Slices】
—Restores health, mana, and stamina continuously while eating.
—Can restore a maximum of 2000 health, 300 mana, and 300 stamina (total recovery amount is affected by the quantity consumed).
【Tomato Mushroom Soup】
—Restores mana and stamina continuously while eating.
—Can restore a maximum of 2500 mana and 300 stamina (total recovery amount is affected by the quantity consumed).
—There is a 3% chance of triggering an additional egg effect after consumption, granting 200-500 random experience.
Among the four different food items, there were two portions of 【Bread】 and 【Tomato Mushroom Soup】, and one portion each of 【Braised Tofu】 and 【Stir-Fried Meat Slices】, indicating that the standard configuration of the free meals included a staple, a dish, and a soup.
…But Marianna couldn’t be bothered to calculate these details, her expression remained calm when she saw the 【Bread】, but upon seeing the other three items, her pupils began to tremble in shock.
What is this?!
Braised? Stir-fried? What kind of cooking is this?!
Is this the legendary noble food?!
She had heard about noble food in Qiana Town during her escape, and this fact had spread like a legend, just like the town’s tax rates.
But to think that even the free food provided for them, the refugees, was noble food—wasn’t that a bit too exaggerated?!
What kind of remarkable lord is this?!
She was so stunned that it took her a while to regain her composure, only to discover that there was also a piece of paper in the simple cloth bag used to hold the food.
Marianna took out the paper, which listed the possible dishes that might be included in the free meals. However, this paper was not for ordering, it was meant to express gratitude.
The top of the paper read, “Thank you to every kind resident who donated supplies for the new members!” Below it was a long list.
The list was very detailed, enumerating what each person donated and how many portions they contributed.
Marianna thus noticed that both the 【Braised Tofu】 and 【Stir-Fried Meat Slices】 were donated by residents. The donor of the 【Braised Tofu】 was signed as “Laura and Anna,” while the donor of the 【Stir-Fried Meat Slices】 was Holly.
Marianna felt even more shocked: What’s going on? Is it the case that any resident here can make noble food? And they can afford to donate it too?!
If after reading those notifications this morning she suspected she had stumbled into a charitable organization, now she felt as if she had died and entered the paradise she had imagined.
Otherwise, why would there be such a place…
“Mom, I’m hungry!” Annie didn’t understand why her mother was in a daze and tugged at her sleeve.
Marianna quickly snapped back to reality, broke off half a bread, and peeled it open in the middle to tuck the 【Stir-Fried Meat Slices】 inside before handing it to her daughter. “Quick… try it and see if it’s good!”
Annie didn’t think much and took it, biting into it before freezing in place.
In her little world, she had never encountered such wonderful food.
Marianna easily read the shock on her daughter’s face and gently touched her forehead with both affection and heartache. “If you like it, eat more, this time you can eat your fill!”
In fact, not to mention Annie, even Marianna herself had never seen such good food before. It was hard to imagine that they had rushed into this new territory starving yesterday and now had such a feast.
She felt incredibly grateful, but amidst that gratitude, she couldn’t help but feel sadness.
If only her husband could have made it here alive.
—
Near the royal city, the Holy Light Knight had been on the move all night and returned to the city in the early morning.
Although a week had already passed since Christmas, there were still people unable to pay the Christmas tax hiding from pursuit, and so there were still those traveling through the night, forcing them to continue clearing monsters each night.
After a week of this, everyone was exhausted.
This exhaustion wasn’t physical, while stamina loss could be directly addressed with potions, mental fatigue couldn’t be relieved so simply.
As they walked through the city gates, the team’s priest, Oliver, caught up with Aaron, maintaining some distance from the others. He looked at this old friend, with whom he had fought side by side for over twenty years, hesitating for a moment before finally saying, “I know what the Holy Light Knight represent, Aaron. But I want to say that what Asher said that day also makes sense.”
“What?” Aaron turned to look at him, a hint of surprise in his eyes.
Oliver calmly shook his head. “He’s right. The king who established the Holy Light Knight was certainly not like this now. So, how should I put it? The original intention of that king in forming the Holy Light Knight was certainly not for the knights to wander aimlessly during the day and sneak out at night like thieves to protect civilians.”
Aaron frowned as he listened to him, neither opposing nor agreeing, only asking, “What exactly are you trying to say?”
Oliver leaned down to stroke the horse’s neck. “I want to ask you, if there’s a path that might lead to death, might lead to poverty, but will allow you to keep your conscience, would you take it?”