Volume 5, Chapter 25 – Daily Life at the Orphanage

By the time the children of the orphanage finally returned, Yisi, Andrea, and Mary had also finished making a corresponding number of desserts. Normally, it shouldn’t have been done so quickly, but the existence of the oven had greatly reduced the production time. Naturally, Andrea, who was now well aware of the oven’s convenience, was absolutely in love with it.

Now, Yisi stood in the large hall that served as a dining room, watching Andrea, Mary, and the orphanage staff distribute desserts and dinner to the children. For humans, this would be considered breakfast, but for the Blood Clan, day was night, so after this meal, the children of the orphanage would be going to bed.

As if she had returned to her school days, more than a hundred children, ranging from six to fifteen years old, were lined up with bowls in their hands.

“No pushing.”

“You few, Her Majesty the Queen is personally distributing food to you. All of you, behave yourselves.”

Tiffany and two middle-aged women maintained order. Worried about Andrea’s safety—children could easily be tempted by profit and become someone’s pawns—Yisi could only stay by Andrea’s side, supervising the long line of children while speaking to the elderly director standing next to her.

“Is this the usual dinner?”

The orphanage’s dinner could not be called sumptuous; it could even be described as hard to swallow. Apart from the desserts their group had made, the staple food, bread, was more or less tainted with mold. Before the bread was served, Yisi had personally seen several staff members gathered around a large basket of bread, shaving off the moldy parts.

Besides the bread, the dishes were also very simple. Eating bread alone could make one choke, so in this world, bread was usually eaten with milk or stew. The orphanage certainly couldn’t afford to provide milk, so they had to use meat broth instead. At first glance, a life with meat might sound quite good, but after seeing it with her own eyes, one would lose all appetite. The meat used for the broth was all from parts like claws, wings, tails, or animal hooves, looking like something out of a dark cuisine cookbook.

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If she hadn’t gone to the orphanage’s storeroom and known that this was all they had, Yisi would have even suspected that the director was intentionally putting on a show for Andrea in order to obtain more operating funds.

Unexpectedly, the director shook her head. “It’s specially made like this because Her Majesty the Queen is here. The meat was originally being saved for the Festival of Original Sin, but since you and Her Grace, the Duchess, made such wonderful desserts, how could we serve the usual unpresentable food?”

This is considered good? Yisi’s mouth fell slightly open in surprise. “Now that the meat has been eaten, what will you do for the Festival of Original Sin?” She had always thought of the Festival of Original Sin as being like Christmas or the Spring Festival.

“We’ll go to the City Guard again. Maybe we can get some more.”

From the director’s words, this animal meat was something they had requested from the City Guard. The City Guard would regularly conduct sweeps outside the city every month to eliminate monsters that harmed passing travelers. A portion of the captured monsters would be buried, while the other part would be brought back to the city to fill the gap in the meat supply. The wings and claws Yisi had seen were the portions allocated to the orphanage.

“Last time we were given the thigh meat, so this time we could only take the less desirable parts. But for these children, as long as it tastes of meat, it’s enough.”

“Is that so…”

No matter the world, the lives of the lower class were always hard. It wasn’t just the Blood Clan; the same was true for humans, who had relatively richer material conditions. Having something to eat was already a blessing. If one were to be picky, they would only starve to death. According to Shinku and the others, in their most difficult times, they could only survive by drinking muddy water. It seemed that the Blood Clan was not much better off.

As sympathy welled up in her, Yisi suddenly heard the faint sound of crying. Looking up, she found that it came from the orphanage children who were wolfing down their food in the hall.

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As for why they were crying, from Yisi’s observation, it was entirely because they had eaten the desserts. For most of these children, this was their first time tasting sweets, and their tears were all tears of being moved.

“Th-This is so delicious…”

“It’s even sweeter than the honey I secretly ate at my master’s house.”

It was just bread from a failed baking attempt, and very little sugar had been added.

Yisi felt embarrassed. The dessert making had been entirely handled by Mary and Andrea; she had only been responsible for the baking. But because different desserts required different temperatures, and her oven was very crude, many desserts that should have been delicious had been made to look quite ugly by her.

Even so, the children of the orphanage were crying as they ate in small bites, as if they were afraid of finishing the dessert, savoring it carefully.

“This must be the most delicious food in the world.”

“I just ate a once-in-a-lifetime delicacy.”

Perhaps hearing that last sentence, Andrea, who had already finished distributing the desserts, looked embarrassed. Her gentle gaze toward the children also became shy. Because the preparation time was too short, they had only made enough for one dessert per person at most, and there weren’t enough ingredients left to make another serving for everyone.

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The female staff member in charge of maintaining order admonished them. “These are desserts made by Her Majesty the Queen herself. Hurry up and thank Her Majesty!”

Andrea quickly added, “I-It’s alright. As long as they like the desserts, I’m very happy. Even when I make them in the Royal Castle, I can only eat them myself and can’t tell anyone else…”

Just as Andrea was defending the children, a boy suddenly stood up and thanked her.

“Thank you, Your Majesty!”

Following his lead, the other children also began to thank Andrea.

“Th… thank you, Your Majesty…”

“For Your Majesty to be willing to make desserts for someone like me, wuuu… I will definitely become a member of the Blood Clan who can help you in the future.”

“Haha, you think you can help Her Majesty, Salem? I’m more reliable. Your Majesty, I’m stronger than Salem.”

“I’m smarter!”

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For a moment, it evolved into a scene of them showing off their strengths in front of Andrea. It was only at this moment that Yisi truly felt that Andrea was actually much more mature than her peers in the orphanage.

Unable to handle the children’s enthusiasm, Andrea shot a pleading look at Yisi. Yisi gave her a helpless smile.

“I still have a few ingredients left here. Although it’s not enough to make everyone a dessert of the same size as before, if we just reduce the size of each portion, we might have enough if we scrape it all together.”

“Thank you, Lady Yisi!”

Because of Andrea’s use of “Lady,” the nearby orphanage staff cast a suspicious glance at Yisi. Yisi scratched her cheek in embarrassment. “Ahaha… you don’t need to be so formal with me, Andrea.”

After Andrea had listened to each of the children’s self-recommendations, Yisi took her and her companions back to the kitchen.

…

After finishing the work of injecting magic into the oven, Yisi said a quick word to her companions and went out around the orphanage by herself.

“Although watching a flustered Andrea is also fun, I should take care of the things I’m concerned about first.”