Chapter 23 - 22: Sky-High Priced Mutant Milk

After a delicious meal of mushroom soup, Sev Steele decided to make a trip to the trading hall. The biscuits Doctor Jenkins had given her were limited and lacked sufficient nutrients. She needed to buy some female Mutant Beast milk as soon as possible to ensure Silvy’s healthy growth.

Sev carried a synthetic fiber bag in her hand, the kind handed out at the safe zone’s main gate during settlement. Upon entering the trading hall, her eyes immediately darted to the electronic advertising screen scrolling with countless trade listings. Some were looking to buy tools and weapons, while others were selling various fresh wild vegetables. She searched for a long time but couldn’t find a single listing related to Mutant Beasts. She began to suspect that Doctor Jenkins had lied to her last night; perhaps there was no beast milk for sale here at all.

Glancing around, her gaze finally landed on the self-service trading terminals. She slapped her forehead in frustration. Why hadn’t she thought of this? Countless people from The Slums flooded the trading hall every day to sell the supplies they had scavenged from the wild. However, the wealthy disdained mingling with them in the main hall, so they opted for the self-service trading platforms instead, renting private rooms for face-to-face transactions. Naturally, any goods related to Mutant Beasts wouldn’t be cheap—definitely out of reach for the ordinary slum dweller. Therefore, such high-end trade listings wouldn’t be displayed on the public screens outside.

Sure enough, when she accessed a self-service terminal and searched for "female Mutant Beast milk," three listings instantly popped up. After comparing the prices, she clicked on one of them, and a video immediately started playing. The footage showcased a female Mutant Beast cow about the size of a fully grown elephant. On screen, the creature appeared docile as a short man, skinny as a monkey, squatted beside it, milking it. Accompanied by the occasional low MOO from the beast, the short man wore an obsequious smile and spoke in a similarly fawning tone.

"Greetings, esteemed guests! Welcome to my shop for female Mutant Beast milk. It’s fresh, delicious, and of the highest quality! At only three hundred points per liter, your satisfaction is guaranteed!"

To be fair, Sev was slightly put off by the man’s appearance. It wasn’t that he was particularly ugly, but his rat-like features made him look rather untrustworthy. Of course, she knew better than to judge a book by its cover. All she wanted was the milk. Although the price was steep, Silvy desperately needed it. When it came to essential supplies, Sev was never stingy. Then, she remembered the four skin-and-bones kids back home. They were visibly malnourished and could use some supplements as well.

With that in mind, she opened the chat box and sent the seller a message: "Excuse me, can ordinary people drink this female Mutant Beast milk?"

"Yes, yes, absolutely! While ordinary people will go mad if they eat Mutant beast meat, Mutant Beast milk won’t do that.

"Because the milk is produced by the mothers to feed their cubs, it’s rich in nutrients and contains mild Energy. Anyone can drink it, regardless of age or gender.

"Plus, let me let you in on a little secret: if children drink Mutant Beast milk regularly, it increases their chances of awakening an Ability!

"The kids in The Gilded Ward all drink this stuff. That’s why their chances of awakening an Ability are at least two to three times higher than the kids in The Slums!"

Skinny had sent a long voice message. Even though Sev knew it was just a sales pitch without any scientific backing, it still got her fired up. In the original novel, all four kids in the family eventually awakened an Ability when they grew up. But she hadn’t read the story carefully enough to note the exact age they awakened. However, Sev figured that if the children were properly nourished, their awakening would definitely happen sooner. After all, an Ability was a special kind of Energy within the human body, and nutrition was the means to replenish Energy. An Ability likely required sufficient nutrition to be sustained.

Thinking along these lines, she decided to buy milk for all four children. But if she just bought milk and handed it directly to them, her persona as the wicked adoptive mother would crumble in an instant. No, she had to come up with a more suitable excuse.

As Sev’s mind raced, another voice message from Skinny popped up in the chat:

"Esteemed guest, let me tell you, female Mutant Beast milk isn’t just for kids; it’s great for adults’ health too!

"Word is, before the Great War, everyone drank milk like water—a glass in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Ordinary people back then lived to be a hundred!

"Look at us now. If someone in The Slums makes it to sixty, that’s considered a long life. Isn’t that just because they can’t afford milk?

"You’re in luck today, because I’m running a huge promotional discount.

"If you subscribe to my milk for over thirty days and buy more than a liter a day, I’ll give you a twenty percent discount!

"An opportunity this good won’t last forever. Buy now before it’s too late!"

Skinny’s voice was laced with heavy temptation. Back on Azure, Sev had possessed an incredibly strong resistance to these kinds of sales pitches and wouldn’t have been swayed in the slightest. But since she just happened to be looking for an excuse to get the four kids to drink milk, she decided to splurge just this once!

"Excuse me, do you offer home delivery?" Sev asked.

"For orders of three days or more, we deliver right to your door. For orders of thirty days or more, we’ll even install a milk box for you free of charge!

"I can have it delivered through the milk box slot before dawn. That way, it won’t delay your breakfast, and it won’t disturb you and your family."

Sensing that she was genuinely interested in ordering, Skinny’s attitude grew even more enthusiastic.

Sev immediately started crunching the numbers in her head. The whole family, plus Silvy, made six mouths to feed. Her original body also showed obvious signs of malnutrition. If they were going to drink milk, they might as well all drink it together. Normally, three to five hundred milliliters of milk per person per day would provide enough nutrients. But this was the wasteland, where nutrition was scarce to begin with, so she decided to go with the upper limit. That meant the six of them would need three liters a day. With a twenty percent discount, that came to 720 points daily, totaling 21,600 points a month.

Ignorance was bliss, but the reality check was startling! Yesterday, she had gotten incredibly lucky, risking life and limb to score a huge windfall, which was the only reason she had earned 470,000 points. Two daggers had already cost her 100,000 points, leaving her account with a balance of 370,000 points. If she wanted the whole family to drink milk every day for nutritional supplements, that meant spending nearly 260,000 points a year!

Sev took a deep breath. She had originally planned for the whole family to drink milk long-term, but now she had to bow to reality. "Never mind. I’ll just subscribe for a month first!" she thought. She needed to see the results of drinking milk before she could muster the courage to drop over twenty thousand points a month on nutritional supplements for everyone.

After some back-and-forth haggling, Skinny finally made a small concession: three liters a day, subscribed for a month at once, for a flat fee of 20,000 points. This effectively saved her another 1,600 points. While it wasn’t much compared to buying luxury goods, it could at least buy her 320 Nutrition Blocks.

At this moment, Sev finally understood what a former classmate of hers had meant after their family suddenly won a five-million lottery. She had said that there was never enough money in the world. When your family only had fifty thousand in savings, you thought you could kick back and relax if you had a million. But once you had a million, your level of consumption changed entirely. By then, you would still feel like you didn’t have enough to spend, still lacking a sense of security. Just like her right now—the massive fortune of 370,000 points wasn’t even enough to let her whole family drink milk freely.