Chapter 138: Feeding
While I was treating Kaede, members of the Blue Comet kept showing up now and then.
My lovers and such came by saying things like, “I’m bored, so hang out with me,” but there were also kids who came because they were sick.
The Blue Comet are, after all, Striders. In other words, they’re outcasts outside the protection of the law, so they can’t easily visit doctors in the middle of the city.
That’s why they come to a suspicious, non-human doctor operating just outside the entertainment district like me, I suppose.
That being said, well, as expected for the season, most of their illnesses were just colds.
Give them nutritious food and let them sleep in a warm futon, and they’ll get better, they’ll get better.
In this era, in this world, Striders… basically, those who become warriors are tough.
No… that’s survival bias.
To be precise, it’s not that everyone who becomes a Strider is tough, but rather, those who survive as Striders are, paradoxically, tough.
Seriously, half of the fledgling Striders who showed up in droves this spring are probably dead by now, or they’ve lost heart and gone back to the countryside.
It’s a sad story, but in this world, the weak and foolish suffer thoroughly. How gentle modern Earth is, where even nausea-inducing scoundrels and vermin parasitizing society are granted certain rights just by virtue of being human.
So, the Striders who have survived are all tough kids.
Give them just a little medicine, and poof, they’re cured.
…Actually, maybe it’s better not to give them things like painkillers and fever reducers.
They act based on their own subjective feelings, so if I give them painkillers, they start saying, “I’m cured!” They all have that ‘it’s cheap as long as you don’t die’ attitude. Seriously, just stay in bed.
Given that, maybe it’s better not to give them medicine for symptomatic relief, just to keep them resting quietly…?
Besides, people in this world are fundamentally unused to medicine. Plenty of these kids are taking medicine for the first time in their lives when I give it to them!
Perhaps because of that, even small amounts of medicine work remarkably well.
Modern medicine seems applicable, but often it isn’t…
It’s really difficult, you know? Saving people.
Mealtime.
Feeding the goofballs from the Blue Comet who came to hang out, plus the inpatients.
Having to feed several dozen people turns out to be quite a task.
At this point, it’s basically a soup kitchen, which means the menu inevitably becomes a stew.
I baked bread in the kitchen oven, cooked rice and made rice balls, and prepared the stew in a pot.
Of course, if I just plopped a huge pot down in front of everyone, a battle for scraps would break out 100% of the time, so it’s strictly a stew-like soup served individually.
Quite a few people find the smell of soy sauce unpleasant, so instead of a soy sauce base, I made it mizutaki-style using chicken carcass broth.
I mixed in cabbage along with Chinese cabbage, then added carrots and onions. Let’s mince some celery and toss that in too.
A bay leaf and thyme for aroma, and maybe a little pepper, though it might irritate the throat. Crushed and minced garlic as well.
For the chicken, let’s use meatballs containing cartilage and bite-sized pieces of thigh meat to make it easy to eat.
Then parsnips and green onions. Olive oil for the oil.
No unnecessary ingredients! People won’t eat things they don’t recognize…
Striders will basically eat anything anytime because they’ll die if they don’t, but the poor folks from the Slums… It’s the same principle behind why Tekkadan couldn’t eat simmered fish.
…What about a side dish?
Baked white beans with cheese should be fine.
Lemon water for drinks.
I had Tris serve the patients, while I served my lovers.
Alright everyone, help yourselves…
“””””Seconds!!!!”””””
Yikes!
Don’t they know the meaning of restraint?!
This is why Striders are like this!
Well, I’ll serve them anyway.
…That’s right, maybe I can use this opportunity to get rid of the leftovers in the Refrigerator!
It’s huge, you know, our Refrigerator.
When deployed, it’s about twenty tatami mats in size.
Eh? Oh, yeah, it’s a Refrigerator (Magic Item).
It’s the type that stops time to extend the expiration date.
What am I refrigerating, you ask? Time itself! Gahahaha!
But that Refrigerator is always packed full of things I made on a whim or stuff I set aside thinking I’d eat it someday.
It might not be a bad idea to use this chance to let these hungry Striders eat their fill.
Let’s feed them various things…
For starters, I brought out some doner kebab I’d grilled but hadn’t finished, heating the block of meat and carving slices off it right in front of them.
“””””Uooooooh!!!!”””””
…I received cheers.
Even in another world… no, especially in another world where meat is a feast, it seems people enjoy watching a huge chunk of meat being grilled right before their eyes.
I stuffed the meat into bread with vegetables and drizzled yogurt sauce over it for them.
Incidentally, the meat is beef.
Besides that, I also served some stews I’d made in batches when I had time but hadn’t managed to finish.
This time, it’s chili con carne.
…Time is stopped inside the Refrigerator, so the expiration date is infinite, but… somehow, emotionally, I feel like I want to use up the older dishes.
As I was feeding everyone like that, drinking and having fun…
“This is terrible, Sensei! Rosalinde-sama is…!”