novelraw Chapter 183: Sugar and Mana Combo isn’t a Good Idea
Chapter 183: Sugar and Mana Combo isn’t a Good Idea
He paid cash everything in Turkish money which with inflation, it was totally unreasonable or dumb depending on which side you are looking at.
He had to trink and load large amounts of paper money in bulks to pay for different things at different times. They followed the materials he got from the the small construction shop’s old computer which had a material list. Everything was so organized and neat that Eren couldn’t believe his eyes how this things actually worked.
They loaded everything to the truck and Eren didn’t show his immense strength even if he could do it in seconds.
So carrying the materials to the farm operation began.
It took three trips with truck to the hardware store. Two more trips to the general market for food supplies like; bulk rice, cooking oil, flour, eggs, meat from a questionable old butcher, all kinds of vegetables, sugar, salt. Enough to feed two hundred people for maybe three-four days if they stretched it.
The hardest part was finding fabric for the bedding. He needed thick, durable cloth that could be stuffed with wool or cotton to make floor mattresses. The general store had some but not enough. He ended up at a textile wholesaler on the edge of town who gave him a weird look when he asked for long meters of heavy-duty cotton canvas.
"You making tents?"
"Something like that."
The wholesaler quoted him a price and Eren paid without haggling because haggling would mean more conversation and more conversation meant more questions about why they needed these. Normally this durable cotton canvas would be used for construction and Eren trusted them to think the obvious thing.
He didn’t want locals to know there were people living in the farm before Elves’ Id situation got fixed.
On his last trip into town he stopped at the small convenience store and filled two bags with snacks. Chocolate bars, dried fruit, biscuit packages, a bag of those sesame-covered Turkish simit-breads that Rosa liked. He grabbed four bags of hard candy because the younger elves had discovered sugar on Earth and treated it like a addictive substance. Especially Mel was addicted to snacks and video games above everyone else and she was pushing others like Lyra to play with her.
Nimbo ate an entire pack of Haribo gummy bears in one sitting yesterday and or Rury ate a large package of chocolate and they bounced off the walls for half an hour with energy at night. Emily had to physically hold them down while Mel recorded the whole thing on the old laptop’s webcam and laughed until she cried.
Eren smiled at the memory and paid for the snacks again even if he knew elves body metabolism was different. Sugar and mana aligned bodies didn’t get along.
On the drive back he passed through a stretch of road with olive groves on both sides and the sea visible between the trees. The late afternoon light was golden and warm enough to make you want to drive slow with the window down.
A hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Six months of food expenses at maybe five to ten thousand a month for two hundred people. That’s thirty to sixty thousand dollars gone in six months just on eating. Electric and water installation is another hundred and twenty. That leaves ten thousand for everything else. Farming permits, building materials, tools, seeds, animal feed, clothing, medical supplies..
Eren knew they were going to run out of money before spring and gripped the steering wheel harder.
But that’s if I just sit here and spend.
Kalina had ideas about the farming situation. The fruit business could restart once they replant new magical fruit trees or plants from Evon. They had some saplings from the seed stock elves saved.
And if her crazy government-office plan actually works we will have new Id’s for the elves and then I can turn this place into a international phenomena.
He shook his head and turned onto the dirt road toward the property. The olive trees thinned and the cliff edge appeared ahead with the blue Aegean sea beyond it.
He had to deal with one problem at a time. Today was for material shopping and getting some lumber, arranging the beds or food. And tomorrow was the checking on Evon.
..
Selena had the kitchen organized by the time he got back. She’d taken charge of the cooking operation with a quiet authority that made people follow orders without realizing they were being given orders. She began doing that so sneakily that so many other kitchen stuff didn’t know when they got their permanent jobs from the last few days’ hassle.
Four elf women and two male were peeling vegetables at a makeshift outdoor station Selena set up near the farmhouse. Three others with white chef hats were tending a fire pit where a massive pot of something was already bubbling.
"Chef hats?" Eren didn’t even know where they got those from.
"Everyone is watching a Turkish soap opera about a poor but talented chef girl and love story is insane..." Selena started talking about so many random things which Eren was loved seeing. She came here with him yesterday and already loved this new life.
"You’re making stew honey?" Eren dropped the bags of groceries on the kitchen counter and Selena was already sorting through them before he finished putting them down. They hugged and kissed sneakily.
"No. Soup is the easiest choice for feeding everyone for today. Stew would require herbs I don’t know where we stuffed in the yesterday’s chaos. We need a proper kitchen area and a good storage." She held up a bag of dried oregano and frowned. "This smells like paper."
"No not pepper. That’s Earth oregano. It’s dried for easy commercially."
"It’s sad.I would love to see it’s fresh form." She put it in the pot anyway but Eren didn’t like her face like that and swore to get some fresh oregano next time he go to the town.
Eren watched her work for some time and noticed the way she directed the other women without raising her voice.
Back in Evon she’d run the village restaurant for over a decade. Almost twenty years of work and experience she got from the village in a place where hunters and craftsmen came to eat after long days and Selena made sure everyone left full and warm.
But in the elven village, she wasn’t alone. There were other cooks who would do the same thing from time to time, or elves would eat their own meals in their own houses.
Now all the cooks or experienced people were together but they had to feed everyone all together.
She was selected as the main chef for her connection with Eren or she was that good but they were already doing the same thing here just on a bigger scale with worse ingredients.
"I need a list from you." Eren leaned against the doorframe. "What do you need to feed this many people properly? Not survival rations but actual meals."
She looked at him and wiped her hands on a cloth. "How long?"
"Indefinitely."
Selena’s eyes went thoughtful. "A regular supply of meat, grains and vegetables. Fresh bread which means flour and a working oven. If you can get all the machinasu- machines of Earth that works with bigger and larger stuff that would be perfect. Also all kinds of spices and dairy if possible. And someone needs to figure out what grows in this soil because I can’t cook indefinitely we can’t garden our own things."
"Kalina is working on the farming permits. Once we’re registered as an agricultural operation we can start planting. I don’t want to start doing it right now and pay insane amounts of fine later."
"I will never understand why you use paper permits, dried weird vegets or money.." She pointed at the dried oregano with pure contempt.
Eren smiled with her innocence. They were watching soap operas or documentaries all the time but Selena just started it yesterday evening with other pregnant girls.
He was waiting for her world view to shutter in a few days with more crazy stuff.
Then he wondered if anyone discover the almost porn like smoky movies. Or horror movies..
He didn’t know what really happened behind his back here.
That night Eren lay in the big bedroom on the second floor of the farmhouse.
The room had been expanded while he was away. Someone, probably the craftsmen following Emily’s instructions, had knocked out the wall between two of the upper bedrooms to create one large space. Three mattresses were pushed together on the floor and covered with blankets and sleeping bags and whatever soft fabric the elves had brought from Evon.
Emily was already asleep. She’d claimed the center position the way she always did with her belly carefully supported by a folded blanket and her katana within arm’s reach on the floor. Lyra was on her left side with her face half-buried in Emily’s hair. Selena had come up after finishing the kitchen cleanup and fit herself into the remaining space on the edge.
The other four concubines were on the adjacent mattress talking in hushed Elvish until Selena shushed them but Eren defended them with a lot of kisses and tickling.
Everyone knew and supported each other.
No hot sexy stuff could happen because of elven biology but Eren still kissed and left some deep marks on their bodies. Just everything was going in a hot steamy direction without penetration and Eren was almoıst naked, their door was opened and everyone froze.
"..."
Mel came in but didn’t say anything. Just walked in, picked a spot on the far mattress and lay down with her back to the room. Nobody commented on why Eren and everyone else except Emily was *almost naked and kissing each other.
It would be the first time in a long time that I’d have such an opportunity for group fun..
Shame.
Eren watched Mel from across the room. The way she tucked her knees up, the way her breathing was or her look in her natural sleep lying position. She was awake and she knew he was looking and they both pretended otherwise.
According to Rosa, her strange behaviors been happening for weeks now. She just.. would show up wherever Eren’s women were and sleeps wherever the group sleeps. Never asks or explains why she included herself in their group and nobody told her to leave.
Rosa came in last which was a normal thing for all of them. She was his girlfriend again and they made it official with a lot of kissing and sneaky night activities in the last two months.
She walked past the mattresses and past the sleeping elves and stopped at Eren’s side of the bed. Her eyes moved from Emily, to the space on the mattress, then to Eren.
He shifted his weight and made room without saying anything.
Rosa lay down next to him. She leaned over and kissed his cheek and her lips were soft and she smelled like that vanilla soap everyone had to use this days.. Then she whispered into his ear, "Good night boyfriend."
She’d never called him that with this much alluring voice before. Not even when they were dating. The word hit different here, now, in this room full of sleeping elf women and magic and a future that made no sense by any standard he’d grown up with.
"Good night." He said it back but his voice cracked slightly and he covered it with a cough that fooled nobody.
Rosa smiled against his shoulder and closed her eyes.
The room went quiet. Breathing and warmth and the distant sound of the sea through the open window.
He almost tried to lower his shorts and do Rosa from behind but then saw Emily and others sleeping so deep and didn’t want to ruin their night.
This was Lyra and Selena’s first night on Earth and they needed to feel safe. For once, he could be a gentleman and let everyone have their rest.
Eren stared at the ceiling with a lot of things in his mind.
Tomorrow he needed to cross to Evon, check the Totem and recharge the mana battery. Then scout the forest to see his plans to route to the fruit groves was doable.. Maybe figure out if the centaurs had moved since the dragon attack.
Assess whether the village was even standing anymore.
He thought about taking Rosa with him. He could carry her and escape in a state of emergancy and also he was in a high libido right now and couldn’t think straigth.
He almost tried to put his member after lowering her pajamas once again and stopped himself with a great effort.
He needed some relief and sex. A lot of long and arguably fun actions.
He was with Kalina last time but it wasn’t enough. She was too weak in body and he couldn’t use a percent of his power to fu*k her. But Rosa was different.
She was level 20 already with all her stats put on physical stats unlike Kalina and her mana situation.
Also they hadn’t been alone together for a long time.. like in months. Seven or eight months at least since the last time they..
Yeah. Tomorrow I’m taking Rosa and we are definitely fuc*ing .
Rosa looked so innocent in her fake sleep while she was brushing their bodies and her cute ass to his side. It was almost like a invitation which tested Eren’s temper and patience too much!
Stop it!
Emily shifted in her sleep and her hand found his arm and her fingers closed around his wrist without waking up.
Is she actually sleeping or messing with me?
He looked at his wife and other women, then at Rosa against his other side, then at Mel on the far mattress who definitely wasn’t sleeping.
This is my life now. And somehow I’m worried about money. Fuck all of it. I will figure other stuff one way or another. But having this women in my life is more important.
He closed his eyes and let the sound of the wind pull him into sleep.