Chapter 146 - 144: The Big Shot Likes Taking Tonics

Having received so many expensive gifts, Sev felt a bit guilty, realizing she hadn’t paid much attention to Rick’s injuries lately.

Then she remembered that it was after eating the diced meat and braised radish she had cooked that the two children awakened their Abilities. This proved that the dish must contain some kind of super nutrients she didn’t know about. Since that was the case, she would make it for Rick again to help him recover.

Of course, she hadn’t forgotten the mutated gastrodia tuber she had dug up earlier. If she wasn’t home, Rick probably wouldn’t remember to eat it anyway. The last time she stewed the gastrodia, they didn’t have any meat at home, so she made do with Mutated Ant Eggs and aphids. It actually tasted pretty good.

She planned to follow the same recipe this time, but before stewing it, she needed to offer a piece as tribute to the hidden big shot in the broken wooden box. After all, it was a medicinal herb. Perhaps it could nourish Him as well?

Sev cut a piece of mutated gastrodia weighing over half a pound, took it to the woodshed, and tossed it straight into the broken wooden box. Only a dozen seconds later, the gastrodia turned into a pile of ash.

"Holy crap! Does He actually like eating medicine?" Sev thought in shock. "Or perhaps He’s willing to eat raw plants?"

Sev decided to run an experiment. She grabbed some carrots, shepherd’s purse, catchweed, and Mutated potatoes, tossing them into the broken box one by one. It turned out that He only consumed the mutated gastrodia. It seemed the big shot was quite picky—He only liked raw medicinal herbs and refused raw vegetables.

Disappointed, she retrieved the rejected vegetables one by one, brought them back to the kitchen, and started cooking her main dish. Considering their limited supply of carrots, she decided to add some wild greens.

The mutated dandelion leaves Rusty found yesterday were still fresh and tender. She blanched them in the pot to remove the bitterness. Once the chunked radishes, cooked with pork cracklings, had softened, she chopped the leaves and tossed them in. The vibrant orange paired with the emerald green was enough to whet anyone’s appetite just by looking at it.

Sev deliberately made an extra-large portion. Gritting her teeth, she split half of it for the broken box, then plated another portion to personally deliver to Hayden.

Seeing her about to head to Mr. Hanson’s house, Rose tugged at her sleeve and looked up with pleading eyes, clearly wanting to tag along. Helpless, Sev nodded in agreement.

Hayden’s chest wound was completely healed, and the scratch on his chin—which he had deliberately left untreated—had already scabbed over.

The moment Rose saw it, she leaned in to channel green light into him, blowing on the wound as she said, "WHOOSH! Mr. Hanson, it doesn’t hurt anymore!"

Before the two adults could stop her, the green light had already sunk into the scar on Hayden’s chin.

Hayden felt the green light from the little girl’s fingertips enter his body and immediately begin to circulate through him. Everywhere it passed felt as though it were being soaked in hot spring water. His entire body grew warm and cozy, making him unavoidably drowsy.

He knew this was her Ability repairing his genetic breakdown. Though ecstatic inside, he forcefully suppressed his joy and gently pushed Rose away.

Caught off guard by Mr. Hanson pushing her away, her small body stumbled back into her mother’s embrace. Rose instantly felt incredibly wronged. With misty eyes, she looked at Hayden. "Mr. Hanson, do you hate Rose now?"

"No, no, Mr. Hanson likes Rose very much. But you can’t keep giving me your green light. I’m worried you’ll hurt your own body," Hayden hurriedly explained.

"I won’t! Mom told me the other day that to save people, I have to protect myself first. I promise I’ll only give Mr. Hanson a little bit each time.

"If you don’t believe me, look! Aren’t I perfectly fine?" Rose said, spinning in a circle to show she was completely okay.

"Good, now I can be at ease," Hayden smiled in relief. He then made an arrangement with Sev to go scavenging together the next morning.

When Sev returned home, a large plate of piping hot food was already set on the dining table. Rusty had cooked some milk porridge. This was the simplest dish—he just had to break a Nutrition Block into pieces, toss them into the milk, and boil them together while constantly stirring with a soup spoon to ensure it didn’t stick to the pot.

Even though they had the main dish and the porridge, Sev still brought out some leftover shredded potato pancakes and placed them on the table. The three children shared a single potato pancake, reluctant to eat too much. Sev didn’t force them to eat more. After all, the milk came from a mutated cow, so its Energy content was quite high.

While eating today, Rick felt exceptionally at ease, completely free of his previous guilt over being a freeloader. Between bites, he offered Sev a suggestion. "I think you should buy some more potatoes to store before winter arrives, just in case we don’t have enough to eat."

Reminded by his words, Sev found this to be very reasonable. However, even if she was willing to spend the money, she didn’t know if the trading hall was selling any. She casually sent a message to ask Hayden, and the answer she got was: Yes, but the price is high.

As long as they had some, a higher price was fine.

Sev took stock of her account’s total balance: 363,013 points. Since spending over a hundred thousand points at the supermarket last time, she hadn’t made any major expenditures. Although the family had been eating well recently, their ingredients basically came from scavenging in the wilderness, so they hadn’t spent much money at all.

Her largest expenses were the platform deducting 6,667 points for the second installment of the milk subscription, 2,800 points for salt (mainly used for pickling Jerusalem artichokes), and 1,000 points for taxes. Then there were the miscellaneous costs: 500 points for Nutrition Blocks, 580 points for water, 160 points for electricity, and 100 points for wall maintenance.

They had used five tons of purified water this month because soaking the mutated Dragon Claw Beans and cultivating crop seeds required a lot. Adding it all up, her total expenses lately were only 11,807 points.

Her income wasn’t small, either. Last time in the Mutant Potato Forest, she had earned an extra bonus of 10,410 points. There were also the cushions woven by Rusty and Zephyr. Boss King had settled their wages for a week’s worth of weaving, totaling 1,750 points. As for herself, she was too busy to find the time to weave the one high-quality piece per week she had promised, so she would have to make up for it once she had some free time.

Overall, her income and expenses were basically balanced out.

However, this was only because it was autumn; every time they went scavenging, they were guaranteed a certain amount of harvest. Once winter came, there would be no such good fortune. Although there was still a decent balance in her account, Sev didn’t dare spend it recklessly. This money had to be saved for emergencies.

Yet, she couldn’t worry about that right now—she had to buy potatoes first. Then she would go out and work hard at scavenging.

Upon arriving at the trading hall and checking the prices, her heart truly ached.

When they were digging up potatoes earlier, the Mercenary Guild’s purchase price was 500 points per kilogram for those with broken skins, and 800 points per kilogram for perfectly intact ones. But the prices posted here were 1,000 points per kilogram for the broken ones, and 1,600 points per kilogram for the intact ones.

The price had completely doubled!

After inquiring with the staff, she learned that because The Azure Owl Mercenary Corps had brought people to dig potatoes last time and encountered a small-scale rat tide, they had suffered casualties. Originally, some smaller teams were planning to lead people to other small patches of the Mutant Potato Forest to dig, but they had all abandoned their plans. As a result, this year’s potato harvest was nearly thirty percent lower than in previous years, which naturally caused prices to skyrocket.

Although the officials announced they would issue one more potato-digging mission before winter arrived, they still couldn’t stop the rising potato prices. After all, the Mercenary Guild didn’t like taking on such small-scale gathering missions, so there was no guarantee those potatoes could actually be dug up.

Upon hearing this news, Sev quickly hurried back home. Her Rose was now quite adept at accelerating plant growth. Rather than letting her fill the entire garden with wild greens, why not let her try cultivating Mutated potatoes?