Exclusive Deal (2)
“Malphite?”
Penny poked her head tentatively into the Head Mod's bedroom.
The sheets were cold and untouched. Nobody was there.
“Are you in here?”
She pulled open the storage room door and searched every corner, but there was neither hide nor hair of him—not even a stray thread from his clothes. Three whole days had passed since the Head Mod had vanished without a trace.
Going over to the kitchen cupboard, she retrieved a pack of instant ramen along with a few side dishes, setting the dining table with practiced ease. Just in case, she had prepared two steaming portions to share, but no matter how patiently she sat, he never returned.
Penny picked listlessly at her noodles before giving up entirely. Slumping across the table with her chin pressed against the cool wood, she stuck out her lower lip and murmured to the quiet room.
“I'm lonely...”
The ramen was shockingly delicious. The Head Mod's bunker held an endless bounty of such delicacies, and illustrated storybooks were piled up like mountains in every corner. Yet none of it could dispel the creeping void settling deep within her chest. A thick, helpless lethargy clouded her face.
Across the other world, the agonizing food crisis was finally stabilizing. That relief owed entirely to the staggering quantities of cheap instant ramen, crusty baguettes, and clean bottled water that had flooded into the public marketplace.
When it came to supplying frontline troops fighting the demonic beasts, instant ramen had glaring shortcomings. In the frantic bloodbath of an active siege, soldiers scarcely had the leisure to kindle fires and boil kettles.
And so, he had settled on Hardtack.
With its staggering cost-efficiency and astronomical volume, nothing was better suited to serve as combat rations. In every practical sense, it was human-grade livestock feed.
“Is this the food our brother Judddak sent?”
“Aye. Word says it will prove invaluable in the clashes to come...”
Inside the war council of Kilgrote, commander-grade dwarves sat assembled around a heavy stone table. Resting dead center were bulky sacks of hardtack. Each dwarf leaned forward, peering into the open burlap with unvarnished curiosity.
“Did he call them 'hardtack'?”
“Look like dried chips of wood. Peculiar little things.”
Thick, calloused hands reached out, picking up individual biscuits to inspect them from every possible angle. Hardtack was a surprisingly serviceable snack in its own right. Fry it in a pan with melted sugar, and it turned into a splendid dessert; pop one in your mouth and let it dissolve, and it gave off a savory, roasted aroma.
However, what Judddak had ordered to maximize budget was the ten-kilogram bulk sacks of Barley Hardtack. For a pampered modern palate, it was a chore to chew through—a biscuit engineered strictly around mass and bargain pricing, not refined culinary pleasure.
“Well, we won't know till we put them to the tooth.”
“Has brother Judddak ever delivered anything that didn't hold up?”
Using their shovel-like hands, the dwarves grabbed a dozen biscuits at once and shoved the lot into their mouths. A sharp, dry crunch resonated through the chamber, immediately followed by the robust, roasted perfume of barley and a rich nuttiness that coated their palates.
In an instant, the dwarves' eyes popped wide open.
“O-Oho?!”
“Mmm... Hmph! This is sturdy. Nay, it's downright delicious!”
It might have been designed for cheap bulk over gourmet flavor, but to the palates of medieval survivors who had stared down starvation day after day, the verdict was entirely different. It was crisp, rich, and hearty. There wasn't a speck of mold or rot anywhere—every single piece was uniformly baked to perfection, commanding immediate respect and trust.
A bit dry? Chalky? Compared to the lean winters where they had boiled tree bark into paste just to fill their bellies, this wasn't dry at all. And above all else—
Thump!
“Your Majesty?”
“Hrm. Well, I mean...”
Sitting at the head of the council, Taldain, High King of the Dwarves, hoisted an enormous wooden beer tankard onto the table. Aye. It was the ultimate, undisputed drinking snack, practically crying out for a draft of ale.
“Pour a round for every man! This taste demands a good brew!”
With royal sanction granted, beer tankards clattered down across the table as if the entire room had been waiting for that single command. With stuffy protocol cast aside, the commanders offered their unvarnished reviews.
“What do you make of it, lords?”
“The flavor is fine enough, Sire, but the price is what leaves me breathless! How in the world can this be sold for a mere twenty-five dango?!”
Twenty-five dango was pocket money that even the poorest dwarven laborer could scrape together in an afternoon. Yet for that pitiful pittance, they were receiving a colossal ten-kilogram sack of hardtack.
“Its value goes far beyond emergency field rations. This could sustain our populace as a primary staple.”
The shelf life was magnificent. Though marked for several months, any dwarf worth his beard could tell these rock-hard biscuits could sit in a dark cellar for years without turning foul. And above all—
“Wait, what is this?”
“What's caught your eye?”
“Your Majesty, look here.”
Midway through crushing biscuits and guzzling ale, a dwarven noble rose from his bench and approached the throne. Resting in his palm were gleaming white crystals. They looked like exquisite gems at first glance, yet their facets were remarkably large and well-defined.
“It appears to be called Star Candy.”
“Star candy?”
The name alone carried an air of wonder. As natural artisans with an instinct for gem-cutting and fine craft, the dwarves crowded together to get a closer look.
“Can crystals like this truly be harvested from the earth?”
“I believe it is artificially crafted. I braved a taste, Sire—it is pure sugar.”
“Sugar?!”
“Astounding. How could anyone sculpt sugar into such minute, flawless shapes?”
Sugar was practically unobtainable for common folk. Even wealthy dwarves, when desperate for sweet energy, had to melt minuscule shavings of sugar or honey into scalding water just to sip it as a rare treat. To find pristine, star-shaped crystal clusters nestled inside the ration sack looked to them like an aristocratic luxury confection.
“Hold on, mine didn't have any!”
“It seems they are distributed by chance. Only certain sacks contain them...”
“Hand one over here at once!”
“Right away, Sire!”
The dwarves tore into fresh sacks across the table. Sure enough, star candy appeared in roughly one out of every ten bags. Taldain took a crystalline star and tossed it into his mouth.
“Oho!”
“How is it, Your Majesty?”
“The crunch, the sweet bite... it isn't sticky or cloying in the slightest. Crisp and clean! A magnificent treat!”
In this medieval age, quick sugar was a scarce luxury. Hiding high-end confections among mundane rations like a hidden treasure meant a soldier could eat hardtack for weeks on end without ever growing sick of it.
“What do you think, lad?”
Taldain turned his gaze toward a dwarf seated nearby—Thaldru, the warrior who stood closest to Judddak and spoke with him as an equal. Thaldru stroked his thick, braided beard in deep contemplation before looking up with fierce certainty.
“It is the greatest provision ever forged for dwarven kind.”
“I knew you would see it as I do.”
It paired sublimely with alcohol. It was unmatched as a wartime ration. The occasional star candy provided an elite burst of sugar. It was dirt cheap. The only flaw was what would happen once this hit the public gallery market.
“If this is released to the general market, supply will naturally be limited, making steady procurement a nightmare.”
“Indeed, Sire. Our folk would have to fight tooth and nail in daily bidding wars.”
“And even if we succeeded in buying in bulk, the other races would cry hoarding and point their fingers at us.”
Taldain's expression hardened. Hardtack and star candy—wasn't this a ration that brother Judddak had custom-crafted specifically for the dwarves? Furthermore, considering how the market fluctuated, there would inevitably be days when not a single sack was listed for sale.
“If it is this cheap, the labor required to manufacture it must be an unbearable nuisance...”
“He must have forged it through profound magic.”
An Archmage personally handcrafting desserts through supreme sorcery!
A wave of deep, humbling gratitude washed over Taldain. To think an Archmage would personally weave magic to forge profitless rations just to support the dwarves ahead of their war... Of course, Judddak had simply clicked a few buttons in the system store to churn out infinite supplies. But the dwarves had no way of knowing that.
“Mages care nothing for the commoner's bread. Especially one standing at the pinnacle of magic...”
“He certainly did not invent this for petty profit.”
“He must have racked his brilliant mind day and night to devise a food solely for our dwarven brothers.”
Judddak was already the supreme benefactor who had helped them reclaim their ancestral home. That was precisely why, despite his mysterious origin, he had been granted the unparalleled honor of being named an honorary dwarven brother. Taldain slammed his fist onto the council table.
“We cannot abuse our brotherhood to strip the hardtack Judddak labored to create at such an insulting price.”
The commanders froze, tankards held mid-air as they gave their king their undivided attention. Kilgroth had been liberated; the kingdom's mines were already yielding rich veins of ore and steady profits.
“When one receives grace, one must return it with honor and goodwill. If we fail in that, how are we any better than those shameless, leeching elves?!”
“Hear, hear!”
“A dwarf pays his debts with steel and gold!”
The elves caught stray insults out of nowhere, but not a single dwarf in the hall cared. In their eyes, twenty-five dango was an almost offensive underpayment. Taldain's decree rang with absolute authority.
“Kilgroth shall secure an exclusive monopoly on this hardtack.”
Rising from his throne, the dwarf king brought the council to a resounding close.
“Draft a contract and contact brother Judddak immediately!”
Have you ever heard of a Head Mod being kidnapped by his own assistant mod? Regrettably, that pathetic soul was me.
Whenever I found myself with a spare moment, I tried to map out an escape route, but pulling it off was nearly impossible. The Soon-to-Die Vampire practically lived glued to my side, never letting me leave her sight.
“What is it? Do you need something?”
“No, that's not it...”
She had bragged that her floating ancestral castle had hundreds of rooms—over three hundred and several dozen, in fact. Yet she spent every single hour of the day lounging in the guest bedroom I had been shoved into. Whenever I tried sneaking a glance toward the door, she picked up on it like an apparition, tilting her head to meet my eyes dead-on.
This is seriously getting out of hand.
I had a demon waiting back at the bunker! Bringing that up seemed like a surefire way to trigger a catastrophic temper tantrum, so I prudently kept my mouth shut. And so, while I was lying limply on the mattress after another round of having my blood politely drained, a notification chimed.
“Hardtack? Oh right, I did send that over.”
The demonic beast threat inside and around the dwarven realm was worsening by the day. Hardtack had only ever been intended as a quick stopgap ration. I had actually been debating whether I should equip them with firearms if the siege got desperate, so why was he bringing up biscuits now?
“Wait, an exclusive monopoly?”
Food was plentiful enough in the system shop to make anyone's eyes glaze over. But during a catastrophic food shortage, granting one faction a total monopoly over an ultra-cheap, mass-produced ration felt a little... As if anticipating my hesitation, Thaldru immediately typed ahead to cut off my objections.
“Wouldn't buying it dirt cheap be far better for the dwarves?”
Why on earth were they volunteering to bury me in dango?
“Labor? What labor?”
I glanced sideways at the glowing system shop window. My entire "labor" consisted of typing 'hardtack' into the search bar and clicking 'buy in bulk.'
The dwarves were quite literally threatening to drown me in money.