166. The Saiyan’s Shopping List
Chapter 166: The Saiyan's Shopping List
I woke up hungry.
Not the polite, rumbling-stomach kind of hungry. The kind of hungry that feels like my stomach was trying to digest my spine. I lay there for a minute, staring at the ceiling, remembering the three bowls of stew, two loaves of bread, and half a roasted chicken I’d put away last night after… everything.
It was gone. All of it. My body had burned through it like kindling.
Five weeks.
Five weeks in this godforsaken world with its thirty-two-hour days and triple gravity feel, and my appetite had gone from “I could eat” to “I will eat everything in this room, including the furniture, if you don’t bring me meat.”
I sat up. Gwen was gone. A note on the pillow, written in her neat, efficient script: Guild shift at dawn. Try not to start a war before lunch. – G
I smiled. Then my stomach growled loud enough to echo.
Right. Priorities.
The System notification was still there, burned into the back of my mind like a brand.
I shoved it aside. Today wasn’t about missions or knights or political suicide. Today was about preparation. About arming the weapon.
I was done being their pawn. Done being their variable. If Rostalio wanted to use me, fine. But they were going to get a version of me so sharp, so loaded, so ready that when this blew up in their faces, they’d remember who they’d handed the knife to.
I dressed in the simple, sturdy clothes that had become my uniform. No armor yet. That was stop one. I strapped on my empty scabbard, my only sword was still the unliftable Dux, sitting in the System’s metaphysical coat check. I needed something I could actually use today.
The pouch of coins from Laron’s advance payment felt heavy at my hip. Time to spend.
---
The streets of Torak in the early morning were a different beast. The long night was finally bleeding away, but the sun took its sweet time here. The light was a pale, persistent gray, like the sky couldn’t commit to being fully awake. The air was cool and smelled of baked bread, dung, and the ever-present metallic tang from the steam-works district.
My first stop wasn’t a glamorous one: *Garn’s Dry Goods & Travel Provisions.*
It was a narrow, cluttered shop wedged between a cobbler and a chandler, smelling of smoked meat, dried herbs, and dust. Garn himself was a human man built like a barrel, with forearms thick as my thighs and a permanent squint.
“Travel rations,” I said, leaning on the counter. “The kind that lasts. A lot of it.”
He looked me up and down, his eyes pausing on my empty scabbard. “How long a trip?”
“Long. Uncertain. Through possibly hostile territory where resupply isn’t an option.”
He grunted, turned, and started pulling burlap sacks from shelves. “Hardtack. Travel bread, lasts two weeks if kept dry. Salted pork. Dried fruits, apples and plums. Jerky. Beef, not that stringy wolf stuff.” He piled it on the counter. “This’ll feed one man for three weeks. Maybe four if you’re stingy.”
I looked at the pile. I thought about the void in my gut. I thought about Ki, about the constant, low-grade furnace it had turned my metabolism into.
“Double it,” I said.
He paused. “Double?”
“And add another sack of just the jerky.”
He stared. I stared back. My stomach chose that moment to let out a low, cavernous rumble that made a clay pot on a nearby shelf vibrate.
He blinked. “Right. Double it is.”
As he worked, he muttered about “hollow-leg adventurers” and “eating a man out of house and home.” I didn’t care. I was realizing something. Back on Earth, Goku and Vegeta were always shoveling down food. I’d thought it was a joke. A trope. It wasn’t. Ki wasn’t free. This energy, this power that let me punch through stone and survive things that should have killed me, it came from me. From my cells, my blood, my life force. And my body was screaming for fuel to make more of it.
I was a Saiyan in a world that didn’t have Senzu beans. I had to carry my own.
---
Next was Brom’s Iron & Steel, a louder, hotter stop. The smithy was already roaring, the clang of hammer on metal ringing through the morning.
Brom was a beastkin, a bull, with thick horns filed down and soot-stained fur on his massive arms. He didn’t talk much. Just nodded when I pointed at a display of simple, functional weapons.
“I need a sword I can use today. Not a showpiece. Something that cuts, doesn’t break, and doesn’t weigh me down.” I’d learned my lesson from the goblin iron trash.
He grunted, wiped his hands, and pulled a blade from a rack. It was a straightforward arming sword, about three feet of polished steel with a leather-wrapped hilt and a simple crossguard. No frills.
I took it, tested the balance. It was light. Too light after hefting Dux in my mind. But it was sharp. It would do. I also picked out two fighting daggers, their blades a dark, non-reflective metal.
“Armor?” Brom rasped.
I thought about it. The goblin leather was battered. The System had given me Greater Leather Armor in my Inventory, but I hadn’t equipped it yet. It felt like a strategic resource. I needed something for now.
“Leather. Reinforced. Mobility first.”
He fitted me with a tough, boiled leather chestpiece, bracers, and greaves. It wasn’t pretty, but it felt solid. As I strapped it on, I felt a pang. This was me gearing up for *their* war. But the anger was cold now. Focused. This wasn’t for them. This was for me. To ensure I was the one walking away.
---
My final major stop was Alchemist Hilda’s Emporium, a place that smelled of strange chemicals, burnt sugar, and magic. It was cluttered with glass tubes, glowing crystals, and jars of things that moved.
Hilda was an elderly woman with bright, bird-like eyes behind thick spectacles. “Potions? Or poisons?” she asked, her voice like rustling parchment.
“Healing. Low-grade. As many as I can afford.”
She cackled. “The cheap stuff? Burns going down. Tastes like regret and copper. But it’ll knit a cut or stabilize a fever.”
“How many for a gold?”
She counted out twenty-five, murky red vials. Lesser Healing Potions. The System’s Greater ones were my ace in the hole. These were for the scratches, the daily grind of violence.
I took them all.
---
By the time I was done, the sun was finally winning, casting long, weak shadows. I was laden down with a new pack full of food, a sword at my hip, daggers tucked away, armor creaking softly, and potions clinking in a padded pouch.
I stood in the middle of a market square, people flowing around me. I felt a surge of something that wasn’t quite confidence. It was colder. More final.
They wanted a weapon? They wanted a variable?
Fine.
I was done eating their scraps and following their maps. I had my own fuel, my own steel, my own medicine. The Okutake Clan wanted to play shadow games? The Duchess wanted to use me as a political blunt instrument?
Let them try.
I hefted my pack, feeling the weight of all that food, all that prepared violence. My stomach growled, a deep, approving sound.
First, I was going to find a street vendor and eat an entire grilled lamb leg. Then, I was going to find Freya and start this stupid, suicidal mission.
But on my terms. With a full stomach, and a sharp blade, and the cold, certain knowledge that when this kingdom finally broke, I would not be among the pieces scattered on the floor.
I was going to be the hammer.