Save the Starving Frontier! The “Buyer” of the Reversed Chastity World - 4

Chapter 4: Let’s Eat Gyoza

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This frontier territory was apparently closer to being a “city” than a “town.” There were more residents than I had expected. It seemed that those who had eased their hunger had gone and spread the word to other districts, because the line of people never ended. In the end, the food distribution went on until late at night.

“Fuwaa, it’s morning already, Kaito-nii-chan. What do we do? Should we sleep somewhere?”

“Yeah, let’s do that. Looks like the flow of people finally broke off.”

Etna and Pirika looked completely exhausted. So was I. In the end, I even bought LED lamps and kept handing out food through the night. It seemed the total buy-back amount reached about three million yen?

Considering that I also gave out extra for people to take home, getting by with just that much was still good. Everyone had probably taken home more than enough, so it wouldn’t be a sin to rest until at least noon.

“Where do we sleep? That ruin?”

“Don’t call it a ruin, it’s our house. …It just got a little dilapidated from the magic power rampage.”

So it had been a disaster big enough to make their house crumble. Maybe it had been an earthquake. The fact that Etna and Pirika survived was impressive. As for whether their parents hadn’t made it… I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

We moved to what was left of Etna’s house—the so-called ruin. Since part of the roof and wall had collapsed, we decided to make do with a camping tent for the time being. The two of them found the tent fascinating and squealed with excitement.

Once I confirmed that nothing could be seen from outside, Etna fidgeted her way over to me.

“Hey, so… Uum, Nii-chan…”

“…Yeah, yeah, I get it. You’re at that age, after all.”

What a lewd thirteen-year-old, seriously. Aren’t the roles of boys and girls reversed here? Anyway, I made sure to use protection.

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 It was past noon by the time I woke up. I knew from the angle of the sun… Or so Pirika told me. What a really reliable nine-year-old.

The reason she was so reliable was that in this country, the age of adulthood was fifteen. Around the age of ten, kids already started working as apprentices in shops or workshops.

So even if their parents had still been alive, it seemed Etna had been right at the point where she would soon live independently. And Pirika, for her part, was almost old enough to go work at a nearby store.

The labor situation in this other world was pretty extreme. Apparently, the concept of child labor didn’t even exist here.

“As for grooms, most are found through parents’ introductions or through connections at workplaces. Men basically do housework or work in kitchens, places away from the public eye.”

So men here were treated kind of like sheltered daughters in the old days. Basically, men were expected to magic powerge the home, or something like that. Which meant that a man like me, out and about in public, was actually pretty unusual.

Yeah, the gender roles here really are reversed.

“For now, let’s head to the main street. The women who didn’t take food home yesterday might be waiting, hungry.”

“Yeah, but before we go, I wanna clear away the rubble around here. Can you ‘purchase’ it for me first, Nii-chan?”

“Sure.” 

I said, and cleared away the nearest broken fragments and garbage from the ruined house. Even that earned me about six hundred thousand yen in buy-backs. Seriously, this cheat was absurd.

Guided by Etna and Pirika, I went back to the main street. As expected, there was already a crowd where we had been yesterday. They really had been waiting for me. 

Alright then, let’s hand out more food today.

“We’ve been waiting, Onii-san! Aren’t you going to distribute food today?”

“Of course I am. After all, just one meal yesterday won’t fix anything, right?”

“Yay!” 

The women’s voices cheered. It really was only women here. Most of them were slender—though well-endowed in the chest. Since this was a remote region, maybe they hadn’t been getting enough nutrition from the start.

After all, in Japan’s own history, the people weren’t freed from malnutrition until after the war.

“We gathered rubble too! With this, you’ll feed us, right?”

“Yeah, that helps. That’s right. I’m buying up things that contain ‘magic power.’”

When I revealed that, the crowd erupted with cheers. They seemed relieved to know the food wasn’t being made from rocks or wood as raw materials. I also explained that I could only buy things that contained magic power—so if they brought stuff without it, it wouldn’t work.

“So that means these thin boxes won’t work, right? That’s important… I have to remember it properly!”

“Exactly.”

As long as they brought things I could buy, I wouldn’t lose out. Cardboard boxes or the trash I generated myself weren’t valid. Though maybe if enough time passed, the ambient magic power in the air might seep in and make them usable.

“So it doesn’t have to be just building materials—grass, monsters, anything with magic power is fine?”

“That should be right. If there are monsters around, their purchase price would probably be even higher.”

As I answered, I thought to myself.

So there really are monsters in this world. Their corpses or hides must fetch a high price if they have magic power.

Anyway, today there were fewer people than yesterday. And since yesterday I had only given out carbohydrates, today I’d add meat and vegetables too.

“Alright, then today I’ll serve actual dishes. Is there any meat or vegetable you can’t eat?”

Apparently not. So I tossed rubble into the Purchase portal and operated the Internet Market. Most malls had food courts or restaurants, and this one, being “otherworld-optimized,” had the same. As a test, I ordered about five servings, and plastic plates on trays appeared.

“Kaito-nii-chan, what’s this?”

“It’s a dish called ‘gyoza.’ I ordered it from a ramen shop. They’re meat and vegetables wrapped in wheat dough and fried. Try it out, see if everyone can eat it.”

Everyone reached for the gyoza, which was served five pieces at a time on the plates. The taste seemed fine for them.

“This is amazing! The meat juice bursts right out!”

“It’s incredible! This is way better than the shop we used to have in town! Give us more!”

It was a huge hit. Gyoza never failed. I’d worried about the smell of garlic or chives, but that didn’t seem to be a problem.

At eight pieces for 400 yen, a hundred servings came to 40,000 yen. I decided to order it for takeout for easier distribution.

When I opened the cardboard box, it contained twenty-five paper cartons, each with four servings inside. I also bought plastic forks and handed them out together.

Fresh, piping hot, juicy gyoza—with wheat included—no one had a single complaint. The twenty-five cartons vanished almost instantly, so I placed an order for two hundred more servings. The fact that there was no consumption tax was a subtle bonus.

This Internet Market had to have been placed in this world to absorb magic power. Given the setup, it probably wasn’t an ordinary Japanese website either.

I don’t really get it. But as they say, “Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.” Maybe this thing is a product of some hyper-scientific world.

“Hey, could I have a bit more? This alone isn’t enough to fill me up.”

A particularly muscular woman asked me apologetically. So I ordered three hundred more servings.

“Eat as much as you want. Like yesterday, I’d appreciate it if you could bring rubble or help deliver to those who can’t make it here.”

“Of course! Leave it to me!”

Saying that, the muscular woman began opening carton after carton. Women of this other world really could eat a lot.

Well, no matter how much they ate, the price was just the rubble lying around. So I let them eat as much as they wanted.

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