Chapter 146 - 146. Main Ingredients Are Ready (1/2)

It was yet an unhurried day for the interns as I walked in the kitchen and they seemed intent to finish up the menu for lunch and made some final touches.

Even the rice was decorated with sprigs of parsley and the colour of the rice was slightly reddish-orange due to the tomato extract that the rice was steamed in.

I checked on the baked chicken with pineapple and it looked just right. I told them that something is missing and then I made a quick batch of curry gravy with some potatoes in it.

After preparing the light gravy, everything seemed to be running just fine and I made sure the interns took the recipe down for the light gravy as it would be prepared for lunch the next day.

When we were about to have our lunch, our children came back unexpectedly and were welcomed to join us for lunch. The 4 children had narrated how the 2 days had gone and how each 4 of them had paired up and completed two quests so far.

”Daddy...how come the quests there are quite terrible compared to the North and Central? At least we knew we would be up against those trolls that you had mentioned to stay away from and to collect a certain gem for the Quest Master.”

Kayla started to complain right when she had begun stuffing her face with the tomato steamed rice and baked pineapple chicken with a generous spread of light curry gravy.

”That's the beauty of it, Kayla. An Adventurer would not only be gathering resources, saving a kitten from a tree or hunting for a certain mythical creature to bring its eyebrows back for the quest master.”

”What did you do for your quest?” I inquired as I was also interested in finding out how they all fared on these two battle quests.

Adam who had paired with Kayla narrated how the quest had taken place as he first described meeting a quest master that hired a few mercenaries but had turned against him.

....

”Forgive me, champion. Please, help me out.”

”I've been betrayed, betrayed by my own foolishness. I knew I shouldn't have hired mercenaries, instead of fighting the enemy they joined them.”

”Hero, teach them a lesson in honour and make sure they remember it. Curse those ugly creatures. It'll be dangerous, but I'm willing to come along if you need me to.”

”We're counting on you to deal with those creatures. Try to take down as many of them as possible, the less of a threat they pose the better.”

”It pains me to say I won't be able to reward you with a lot, but I'll do my best to make it worth your while. I'm looking forward to your return, hero. Good luck.”

....

Adam told us how he and Kayla had tracked those mercenaries in the Southern Plains and had to battle several beasts along the way such as desert wargs, mutated beetles and scorpions before they discovered the hideout.

”It was a bunch of blue coloured yeti and we had no idea how to defeat those monsters as they were huddled close to one another. Even we tried to distract them by throwing a rock at them, they took little notice and one got irritated by the stone that it got into a scratching frenzy.” Kayla told the story to us on how difficult they were to kite a single monster from that group.

”Daddy, we remember the time you told us that we need to ask 'Pretty Please' to them so I walked up to one of them and kicked its butt while saying, 'Could I kill one of you at one time, please?' and you know what, Daddy? It worked...!!!”

”One of them started to chase me around and once we both got tired of playing tag, it was Kayla's turn and she was shrieking around while being chased.”

”Those blue coloured yetis got so worked up by Kayla's shrieking that all of them started to chase us around and we started to shoot our crossbows blindly. Those yetis were slow lumbering creatures but we had managed to kill all 5 of them and brought back its toenail as proof that we had killed all the mercenaries. The quest master gave us a vial of good luck potion and that's it.”

”However, we both managed to Level up and we are now Level 8. I grouped up with the others and they too had levelled up the same while the members were 2 levels behind us.” Adam concluded as he took another serving of tomato rice and discovered that it goes well with the light curry gravy and tomatoes.

Even without the naked pineapple chicken, the rice and gravy alone would just do fine.

”We would be leaving right after this, Daddy. Thank you for a wonderful lunch. It makes me feel lazy already. Hah hah... All those running the 5 km daily and going through the obstacles did improve our agility in those Plains.”

Kayla exclaimed as she had finished her meal and was sitting around with a packet of snack in her hand. I was half wondering how this child could munch right after her hearty meal.

Both Adam and Kayla soon bounded off for the direction of Southern District and I've decided to follow up on Pointus' and Joan's progress for the materials that I had wanted. At the mean time, I discussed with Patricia on the upcoming projects.

”It would be better if the day operations take over the new products while the second shift would resume its normal processes.”