Chapter 311: Are You Guys Scamming me?!

She gestured with her hands.

"And it just becomes really tasty and smells good after that. And then we can just add the chopped potatoes to that, right? And if we just add a little bit of salt to this mix, it would honestly do great. But even without salt, it should technically be okay I think."

Adrian smiled.

"Don’t worry about the salt issue because I will use my own supply."

Claire, Serena, and Aria all sort of simultaneously let out a massive sigh of relief. Because they knew Adrian well enough to know that he definitely wasn’t the type of guy to just make something special just for the four of them while ignoring the army. He was someone who would stubbornly eat whatever the common soldiers were eating.

Aria suddenly looked up at Adrian in confusion.

"Papa, why isn’t there any meat in there? Isn’t meat cheaper than vegetables?"

And she wasn’t exactly wrong about that. In this world, meat was in fact much cheaper than most vegetables.

Beef was the cheapest and pork was slightly more expensive, but common people could easily afford alternating between them. And it didn’t exactly feel like a massive financial loss to buy meat. They were pretty similar in standard market price.

But the significantly more expensive meats, surprisingly enough, was actually chicken meat. Because people just didn’t exactly know how to efficiently mass-produce and farm chickens. On Earth, they had their own incredibly inhumane, highly optimized methods of farming them by the thousands.

So in this world, the cheapest form of protein was literally just beef. Second right after that was none other than pork. And slightly more expensive, which wasn’t really a close gap, was mutton, and then finally came chicken.

Adrian nodded at Aria.

"Yeah, that is entirely true. Meat should logically be much more affordable, so I don’t really understand why they don’t have any of it. At the very least they should have some dried meat like thick jerky."

He frowned and looked at Claire.

"Why don’t you go and ask the nobles where the meat is and if they actually brought any or not?"

Then he looked at Serena.

"You go with her too."

The two of them nodded firmly, and they immediately headed over to the large, lavish command tent where the nobles were eating.

Adrian just quietly watched as they stood outside the tent and briefly talked to the guards and headed inside. And not long after, they quickly headed back to the kitchen.

And once they finally did get back, Claire spoke with a serious look on her face.

"They said that there has been a massive, widespread unknown disease that recently killed a lot of cows and even the pigs across the entire continent."

Serena nodded.

"There are a few left. Like the mutton... the goats, and the sheep weren’t affected and it’s the same with the chickens. The nobles have collectively decided to not use them for the army because those are pretty expensive, and they think it’s just not financially worth it. Especially now, since the prices of these meats has gone up."

Adrian was silent for a long, tense moment before he thought to himself while he frowned.

He thought back to the novel’s original timeline.

’Wait. The massive famine should have started a few years after this point in the story. Why the hell is it happening so soon?’

His frown just deepened as he looked down at the ground below and let out a soft, tired sigh. ’I don’t even know what is going on anymore.’

Adrian thought about it for a while.

’How did... how the hell did I not know about this widespread animal plague? My territory is literally just buying all of this stuff from these nobles. So are they scamming me by sneaking infected cattle into Oresfall?’

He immediately looked up at Claire with a serious expression.

"No one told me about this plague. And I honestly don’t know if we are secretly being sold infected animals by these nobles and I do not want my citizens to be infected by this disease too. Has anyone told you anything about this plague before today? Because no one has told me, not even Cassius."

Claire frowned and shook her head slowly.

"My lord, most of the Oresfall citizens buy their meat directly from your shop. I mean, the discounted restaurant. While you only serve one meal a day to the citizens for free, the restaurant is still open for the rest of the day. So they just pay for the cheap food and safely buy from there instead of outside merchants."

She gestured with her hand.

"That is also the reason why we expanded when we originally started off with just one restaurant. Cassius had no choice but to expand it to ten locations. The kitchens are much, much bigger, and I think he employed a lot more people just to run it. And even with ten full restaurants, it’s incredibly crowded most of the time, especially during peak meal hours."

Adrian just stared at her.

"Wait. But that doesn’t make any sense because those kitchens literally use the animals that are coming from other towns. So the core issue is still there."

Claire blinked.

"That... is entirely true," she said slowly, as the realization dawned on her.

Adrian frowned deeper.

"So even you don’t actually know."

Feeling incredibly worried about his territory’s food supply, he walked over to the lavish command tent himself this time instead of casually sending the others to ask.

And without asking for any permission or knocking on the tent post, he just barged in.

He looked at everyone inside the tent, because these greedy guys were the exact ones who literally sold all of this supposed infected meat to his people and if they did, he wanted answers.

He glared at them.

"Have you guys been secretly selling infected farm animals to my territory behind my back?"