Chapter 87: Well-Fed
Amidst training, the morning passed quickly. By noon, the girls were exhausted and lay sprawled on the ground with their swords discarded.
"I... feel like I lost my arm..." a young girl complained.
"Just an arm? I can’t feel anything above my waist."
"Want me to check?" A girl teasingly replied, reaching out to grope the second woman’s breasts.
"Cut it out," a fourth voice interrupted. "It’s not like she has much to feel either way."
The girl’s face turned red as she shot up. Because of her tomboyish haircut, she had already had too many guys mistaking her for a man. She didn’t have to be reminded about her cutting board of a chest.
"You!!!"
While the girls toyed around, there were a few who had forgotten all about the promised reward. To them, Aiden felt like a demon who was working them to the bone.
However, before they could even tease about Aiden being merciless, Karina shot up from her chair. Her beast senses took the faintest bit of playful hostility towards Aiden, like some great villain had come to take his soul.
"I will not hear one bad word about Aiden!" she yelled.
Everyone looked at her like she had lost her mind. Who in their right mind would dare to do something like it? They had seen and heard what happened to Caleb, and no one wanted to be used as a reminder of it.
"Karina... no one said anything about the landlord?" Serina, the flat-chested girl, said, temporarily stopping the fight with her gifted best friend.
"Yeah," Mika, the curvy, blue-haired girl, chimed in. "Back at the camp, you never defended anyone as fiercely as the landlord. Could it be..."
"You... what nonsense are you spouting!" Karina stammered, her face turning beet red from ’heat’.
Although she denied the obvious, people already knew about her and Aiden being a couple. Some could say it was the worst-kept secret. Some even said Aiden had multiple women, like a harem.
Naturally, the women who liked to gossip could only imagine how much Aiden had in tank to not only keep Karina satisfied but also keep other women.
That naturally led to a tacit understanding between the women there. They wanted to act ’tough’ through the training to hopefully get an audience with Aiden. If they somehow won him over, wouldn’t their lifestyles get even better?
As for Karina, despite being a former leader, she wasn’t that good with her words. Now that the girls were hungrily asking her questions about her private life, she could only turn her head away and ignore them.
Just then, the smell of delicious food wafted over to the courtyard. Everyone immediately snapped towards the entrance to see Alisha carrying trays of fresh food out of the elevator.
It wasn’t the food from the vending machines, but properly cooked meals made in the recently opened cafeteria!
Well, although the cafeteria was open, its doors had remained closed because Alisha wanted to perfect her skills first. After all, cooking for six people and for over a hundred people wasn’t the same thing.
"Karina, a little help please... I overloaded the cart..." Alisha mumbled, helplessly tugging the food cart. Lily was trying to help, which added a certain cuteness to the scene.
The two women had already forgotten about their little competition and helped one another. Together, they brought the cart and other utensils into the courtyard, where the women kept staring at the food like starving wolves.
The smell hit everyone before the cart even stopped moving.
It wasn’t an extravagant meal consisting of meat. It was just a stew with a lot of things thrown into it. Some meat, but mostly veggies.
Other than the stew, there was a choice between steaming rich and crunchy tortillas. There were also smaller plates of roasted vegetables glazed with a sweet and sour sauce, and a large pot of clear broth sitting at the end of the cart with a ladle sticking out of it.
The girls looked at one another, then charged towards the cart like a bunch of goblins would after seeing a naked human. Those with tired legs even used their swords like walking sticks just to limp faster.
Upon seeing their excitement, Alisha immediately threw an apron on and, with a wooden ladle in hand, began serving the food. Knowing that Aiden was watching them from above, Karina also got to work handing out rice and tortillas.
One by one, they received their portions and found spots on the ground or on the wooden blocks. Mika was the first to take a bite. But before she could enjoy the warmth of the stew sliding down her throat, she coughed, spitting it all out on Serina.
"What are you doing—hmph!?"
Before she could say the words, Mika shoved a spoonful of stew into Serina’s mouth. Seconds later, even she choked up.
If someone saw them like it, they’d think the food tasted bad. But Alisha kept smiling and handing out more bowls. She knew it wasn’t the food that tasted bad, the girls were just surprised.
"My legs... they don’t hurt anymore," someone said.
"Mine too," another girl chimed in, rolling her shoulders. "The soreness is just gone!"
It wasn’t just the soreness that was gone. All of them got random buffs, as well as multiple screens popped up simultaneously before them.
+++
You have been afflicted with a status effect.
[Effect: Well Fed]
> Exhaustion has been dispelled.
> Additional effect: Agility +2
> Duration: 3 hour(s)
+++
The buffs were different for everyone. Some got faster, some got stronger, some found their vision sharper or their breathing easier.
But one thing remained common. All of their exhaustion and soreness had disappeared with one spoon of the stew. The rest was just to fill up their stomachs.
Alisha waited until the noise had settled down before gracefully stepping up to gather their attention.
"I’m glad everyone is enjoying it," she said. "But before we get too comfortable, I would like to remind everyone of something."
She continued, "Running the cafeteria properly isn’t cheap. The ingredients, the equipment, it all takes time to prepare meals at this scale, and none of it is for free."
"However, since you are training to protect the apartment, the landlord is personally covering all of it. Aiden arranged this specifically to support your training."
"Alisha is correct," Karina added. "So the best thing any of us can do is train hard and make sure that investment means something."
Aiden, who had been watching them from above, couldn’t help but smile. Alisha’s little speech wasn’t planned. Yet, thanks to that, the community affection and loyalty shot up to 23% and 36% respectively.
"Not bad," Aiden mumbled, walking off.
At the same time, Mika stared down at the stew in her bowl, then back at the sword on the ground. The next second, she wolfed down all the food and picked up the blade.
"I’m going back to train," she said and began swinging the sword again.
Seeing her, others also did the same and got back to training. Aiden had put so much faith in them, so how could they slack off?