Save the Starving Frontier! The “Buyer” of the Reversed Chastity World - 12

Chapter 12: Let’s Feed the Knights!

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While I was handing out food in the southern district, the road I had just come down suddenly grew noisy. With the clatter of metal, a troop of women came marching in. They were all women, but armed. Still, they weren’t bandits. The one leading them wore plate mail and carried an impressive sword.

“We are the Frontier Knights of the Wahlheit Region! Make way!”

She sure spoke in a pompous tone. Knights, huh. Female knights, at that. She is like the kind you always hear about in stories, the ones who get grabbed by orcs and cry out “kukkoro.”

The knight order spotted me in the middle of the crowd and shouted.

“I ask you! Are you the ‘man’ who has been distributing food around here these past few days!?”

“Yeah, obviously. Can’t you see?”

At my reply, the kids stuffing their cheeks with cake nodded enthusiastically. Men, women, and children alike were eating food all around me. Anyone could tell I was the one distributing it.

“I command you! Surrender provisions to the house of the Margrave! Resist, and—”

“Sure, take what you need. What do you want? Wheat? Meat?”

Time seemed to freeze at my answer. The female knight in plate mail—probably the commander—stared at me, looking clearly dumbfounded.

“Wha…? I–is that…Acceptable…?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. Eat as much as you like. …You haven’t been eating properly either, have you? Your cheeks are sunken in.”

Not just the commander—all of them had hollow cheeks. It was obvious they hadn’t eaten properly in days. If even knights, who were part of the nobility, looked like this, then the noble quarter must have run out of food too.

For now, I bought about four folding handcarts so they could haul stuff back. Foldable carts sure came in handy.

“Not sure if this suits noble palates. I’ll give you flour. Stack it on those and haul it off. Here it comes.”

Flour was available in bulk. A twenty-five–kilogram bag cost around four thousand yen. I just needed to order it using “Purchase” and the bag arrived as it was. 

I dropped four hundred thousand yen and bought about a hundred bags. A mountain of flour bags piled up in front of us, leaving the female knight commander wide-eyed.

“You need meat too? Forgive me if it’s not to your taste. Whole cuts aren’t sold much.”

Then, I bought sixty boxes of luxury ham sets. I also bought about a hundred of whole chickens—heads cut off, guts removed. They were about eighteen hundred yen each. If not for the mountain of straw and rocks from the farmland earlier, I might’ve run out of money. Lucky me.

“Wh–where did you get all this…?”

“I’m just exchanging items for stuff that contains magic power. If you want food, gather rubble, dirt, grass, whatever’s around that’s got magic in it.”

At my explanation, the knight commander hesitantly cut open a flour bag with a knife. She tasted a pinch, and her face showed how shocked she was. Well, it was wheat, all right. Would whole wheat flour have been better nutritionally?

“Incredible… Such fine wheat, in such quantity…! Hurry, load it up!”

“Wheat alone won’t be enough. Do you want salt and sugar too?”

Salt and sugar came in two-kilo bags. I bought about a hundred bags of each and stacked them beside the flour.

“Th-thank you! Spread out and load it all!”

The commander barked orders. Leather-armored women scrambled to pile it onto the carts.

“Commander, we can’t load it all!”

“Relax. No one is going to take it. There’s more where that came from. Just make another trip.”

At my words, the commander bowed deeply.

“My apologies, to receive so much… We will gratefully transport all of it. May we leave some here for a while?”

“Sure. If someone else comes to take some, let them. I’ll just restock it.”

She looked genuinely relieved at that. Still, weren’t they hungry themselves?

“Hey, once you finish loading, come eat here with us. Anyone who’s starving is free to eat here. In fact, eat first before hauling all that stuff back.”

“Y-yes, of course. …Everyone! Accept his kindness! Those finished loading, go get your meal!”

While the knights worked, I operated the Internet Mall. What should soldiers eat after heavy labor? Probably meat.

I set up a frying pan and stove and decided to grill some kuroge wagyū steaks. Pretty fatty stuff, but with their stamina, it’d be fine. I didn’t know what nobles here usually ate. I couldn’t serve them commoner food, so I’d settle for expensive beef.

Soon, once the carts were loaded, the knights gathered around me. I grilled wagyū steaks in the frying pan, seasoned with salt and pepper. Good meat didn’t need to be cooked through. Once grilled, I roughly cut them up, added steak sauce on paper plates, and served them. Meanwhile, I threw the next cuts into the pan.

For bread, I laid out boxes of bakery loaves—hard to complain about that. For drinks, orange juice would do. There had to be juice here too, right? They were nobles, after all.

“What is this…!? The meat… The meat melts…!? This black sauce is good, but this spice on the meat… Is it pepper!? Real pepper!?”

The pepper was a hit. No surprise—it was worth its weight in gold back in olden times. I tossed them some 100-yen-store black pepper and salt-and-pepper mix.

“Use as much as you want. I’ll keep grilling.”

I grilled meat one after another. The knight order had about twenty members. Would ten kilos be enough? Probably not. At two hundred grams each, I’d need about fifty steaks. I also added more of the luxury ham I’d given earlier. The ham was a hit too.

“This is… Cured meat!? No, it’s too fresh and juicy… What is this!?”

Ah, cured meat was that hard, salty stuff. A survival ration. This was smoked meat—they should’ve known it. Or maybe not…? Maybe they didn’t know the smoking method yet.

Fine, I’ll pull out the camping smoker next, damn it.

“This juice is delicious too! Such rich fruit! Citrus, yet so sweet I can’t stop drinking it!”

It looked like the juice was a safe choice too.

Well, yeah. That’s the pride of Ehime for you. The citrus from the Ehime region is so good that there is this urban legend. The popularity of Ehime citrus would make every household have a special faucet for orange juice. 

“You…!”

“Whoa there, Knight-san. No sudden moves.”

As the commander stood, Aisha slipped in front of me. Yes, she was doing her duty as my bodyguard, but the commander didn’t mean me harm.

“No, forgive me. Thank you for the excellent meat, bread, and drink.”

“Don’t worry about it. Keep eating, I’ll keep grilling.”

I’d bought ten kilos, after all. I couldn’t leave raw meat lying around.

“I must ask—what beast is this from? So fatty, so tender, and so delicious…”

“It’s from a cow. A breed raised solely for meat—the finest beef.”

At that, all the knights looked shocked. No wonder, since their cows must have been tough and gamey. Even in Japan, imported beef used to stink so badly kids wouldn’t eat it.

This wagyū beef was a delicacy praised even in meat-loving America. Of course these nobles from otherworld couldn’t even complain about it. 

“If… If possible, might we also have some of this meat in addition to the salt and pepper? No, forgive my rudeness!”

“The same amount as before sounds good to you? This meat is pricey. If you want more, bring me more items with magic in them. Digging up dirt works too.”

At that, the commander immediately ordered three of her knights to start digging. After all, anything with magic would do.

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