Chapter 16: A New Food Vendor on Green Line Street

Chapter 16: A New Food Vendor on Green Line Street

Ah! I wanted to bang my head against the wall! But no! Doing so will destroy my walls so I can't!

I know that it was very hard for the people of this world to learn martial arts but I underestimate the hardness of it.

Prince Yui, I tipped my hat off to you for successfully cultivating that group of bloodthirsty knights!

The kids from the orphan were all here at the dojo that I made a week ago. It has already been more than a month since I came back from the north. And now, I was in the process of training the kids for their future.

They are all currently getting their fundamentals basic down right now, the hard way- since they couldn't do this the easier way.

Running, stretching, warm up, core training, balance training, and conditioning their bodies for the coming practice and hell training that I am going to make them go over.

Since they only have a year or so, there was no way that the kids here would be able to get all the fundamental basic down on time. So, I cheated a bit and gave them some potion to help them.

And yet, they are still taking a much longer time than I had anticipated. Ah! Why are they so slow?!

Since my goal was to make sure that these kids don't die when the dungeon was fully formed and open, I really don't have the time to make them go thru the true hell train that I, myself, had gone through in one of the previous worlds that I went thru. Yet, at the same time, my pride as a teacher and mentor won't allow them to slack off either.

So, currently, I am teaching them the 5 animals Chinese Martial Arts from the Earth. The Xing Yi Quan. Only, with magic involved.

Why? Because this world has mana so I wanted to see what kind of effects it would have on this world.

Why else? The last time that I had actually helped trained people, it was with magic and wasn't martial arts. So, I was pretty curious to see what kind of effect it would have in worlds like this world if I taught martial arts to its people.

Still, these kids are still just kids. Since the majority of them don't know how to read or write, I, at first, have to hire a couple of teachers to teach them how to read, write, and do basic math.

While that was happening, I had that girl- what was her name again?- Ah, right, Alicia, to help me with my food vendor stall. I called it a food stall, but truly, it was like a mini-store that's portable and expendable.

There's three stone stoves, three fire-stoves using wood, two large glass counters, three small glass counters on the front, two on the sides, and a showcase glass that had the more expensive food inside. In the front of the counter, there's space for 12 tables, which could host up to 6 people per table.

On those counters, they display nine set of a 7-Choice-of-Full-Course. Ranging from the appetizers, salade, fishes dish, meat dishes, soup, drink, and dessert. These full-course dishes are the most expensive food on this vendor. They are displayed in a wooden bento box set, the Jyubako three level bento box set and the Hinoki lunch bento drawer kind. Those bentos were made by the kids using carpentering skills and woodworking skills. For now, those two different sets are the only ones that they can create.

I recalled that my oldest brother likes to use bento made from bent-wood. So, I always use the same kind for my stores in any of the world that I been through. Experiences told me that they are famous and very pleased toward a lot of the customer's taste.

On the sides counters, there's an option of three to four selections of food: Side dish, main course, soup and or dessert.

On top of the counters, there's dessert displaying desserts for sale.

However, what the specialist of this vendor was the (drum roll please?) [Sushi! Sashimi! Maki!]

The Fishes! The Ice Elemental Fishes from the Northern Mountain Range.

Why? Because I want sushi! Both to eat and sells.

This vendor will be opening Every weekday of the Week from 9 in the morning till 12 mid-day. Then from 3 in the afternoon to 7 in the evening. This way, on Dahlia Day(Monday) and Lilies Day(Tuesday), it would be the Days off for everyone. Aside from the food that even noble didn't get to eat, there's also low price food that commoners love. The cheapest set of meals cost only 10 suits or 10 small copper coins, about 3 hours of working wages for most of the commoners.

Alicia will be the waitress who takes orders, while Sunny and Green(Greenwood) take care of the drinks. Sahara and the twin, Avis & Celia, will take care of being a waitress for the customers. And Adeline will be the one who will clean the tables off while Monna will take the plates and dishes away.

The four younger kids, Allen, Gutz, Jean, and Beth(all 9 years old) will be the ones to washes the dishes. Well, not exactly washing the dishes as much as just organizing it. Since there are already two large washing machines that I created specifically for washing dishes. All they have to do was a scrap of the excess food on the dishes and place them inside the washing machines. Within ten minutes, the dishes will finish washing and then they just have to dry them and place them into the carts for it, neatly.

The payment that I paid was from 250 suits to 300 suits per day for the kids, depending on how many people buy from the stall for the day. Yes, this was more than what most people in this world would pay but I don't care. Sometimes I even paid them 400 suits.

Of course, working with me have a lot of benefits too. Life insurance, medical care benefits, dental benefits, children birth benefit, vocation, and continuing education. All of these benefits came in a package of taxes from their payroll. About 10% of their payroll per week. As long as they are still working for me, that 10 % of taxes will be used for their benefits package deal. When they quit working for me, that tax money will be given back, although not all of it. Only 7% of the 10% that I had collected will be given back.

To make sure that the kids understand this clearly, I had a talk with the director of the orphanage and have every kid signed the documents with their blood.

By the way, aside from the 2 days per week of rest that the kids have, there are 2 weeks of paid vacation per years for them too. Of course, these are optional. I won't force the kids to take a vacation unless it was necessary.

In this city, Karnosh City, there are a lot of food vendors and stalls. Enough that this city has an alternative name: The Night Food City. The majority of the people who are out at night was because of all the foods here. The competition was harsh but the earning was also very high. As a result, the people who can stay in business in this city during the nights were all people who can make foods that are very worth it. Any food stall that doesn't dedicate all of their talents to these stall doesn't last long. For example, next to my vegetable and fruits stall, to the left, was a breakfast pancake-style breakfast stall that catered to the youngster who usually woke up very early. It opened from 4 am to 10 am, and yet- it has people lining up for the owner's pancake every day. It cost 1 suit for a piece of pancake- not the kind of pancake that you think about.

This kind of pancake was made using potato, wheat flour, carrots, and cabbages. It doesn't have a union at all. And yet, it was so fulfilling that there is a long line in front of the store every morning.

In comparison, to the right of my fruits and vegetable stall was a barbeque stall. Only, that stall had now left that space for a while now since the owner doesn't have a lot of variety of barbeque taste-making people got far too used to it so they don't want to eat it anymore.

The most populated streets for food stalls are Highland Street, Vital Street, Scented Street, Payree Street, Tranquility Street, Green Amber Street, and Green Line Street. Food stalls in those streets earned a profit of around 2000-3000 suits per week for popular business while the not popular one still earned at least 200 suits per week- barely making it if you included in the tax that you pay per month.

From horizontally and vertically, Highland Street and Vital Street was the midpoint intersection of the whole food-court within Karnosh City. However, Highland Street and Vital Street were for the richer and more larger stores that the richer nobles owned. Between each large streets were three smaller streets and alleys that have various kinds of houses for the commoners and those that could afford it. Alicia and a couple of the older orphans have a house right between my food stall and my fruits&vegetables stalls, making it easier for them to go to the stall and safer, too.

Scented Street was south of Highland Street and East of Vital Street. Payree Street was up north from Highland Street and Vital Street intersect. Above Payree Street, was Green Line Street, where the majority of the commoners' store located at. As for Green Amber Street, that's to the South of Highland and Vital Street while Tranquility Street to the East.

This whole area was right between the Commerce Guild and the Adventurer's Guild. The Commerce Guild was located at the intersect of Tranquility Street and Green Amber Street, to the Southeast of the midpoint of the market area. Whereas, the Adventurer's Guild was to the Southwest. Totally opposite of each other.

My house was to the west of the adventurer's guild. Away from Vital Street and the Commerce Guild.

While my food stall was up north between Green Line Street and Payree Street. Right at the intercross between Payree Street and Scented Street was where my fruit and vegetable stalls are at, while at Scented Street and Green Line Street, was where my new Food vendor is at. The distance between the two was only five minutes walking away- that is if you don't get stopped by traffics and horde of humans walking around.

Anyway, I have a feeling that this vendor was only named a vendor because it was movable. Hadn't it been for the mobility of the vendor store itself, then with the size of it, it would have been called a restaurant instead of a food stall vendor.

This stall will be open in another three days. Why not now?

Because I still have to teach the kids how to make the bento box set. And before that, I still need to go to my 'backyard' and cut down the trees needed for the bentos boxes.

All of the woods that I will be using aren't actually trees per sec.

They're bamboo. Only, for some odd reason, this world's bamboo is oddly... long and thick.

They grown in clumping of large groups and yet, spread through underground like running bamboo types. Luckily, the walls that were surrounding my house prevented them from spreading out further into the city. So, in a way, in this whole city, the only place that grows these kinds of bamboo was my own backyard.

There was four variety of bamboo that I found in my so-called backyard. One that looks like the Timor Black Bamboo that my older brother likes to use for making baskets. The other one look like the Bambusa nana that was found in Thailand. The third kind look like the Dendrocalamus Giganteus bamboo species. As for the last one, it looked like the silver stripe bamboo. Although their looks were exactly the same as what I listed above, their physical aspects were totally different.

Each knot of bamboo was about 36-42 inches long, the thickness was 8-10 inches thick, and its size was 12-16 inches in radius wise. So the hollow hole of the bamboo was only about 4-6 inches wide in radius wise. Each bamboo stalk would always have a total of 120 knots. No higher, no lower.

What caused me to be very surprised was that these species of bamboo wasn't edible when young- the Bamboo shoot, I mean. The bamboo shots wasn't edible. However, its flower was edible.

Yes, this species of bamboo bear flowers and fruits. Just like the normal bamboo found in Thailand and China.

The fruits were very small and red, so they were often used to dye fabrics. The flower looked like a Sakura blossom and it is widely used as flavors in dishes and desserts. The flowers have a slightly vanilla taste to it so it was no wonder. Asides from that, the flower of the bamboo was also used as perfume scented. It taste was slightly mango-ish with a pineapple-ly taste to it when it mature- just that it wasn't that sweet. It was kind of bland with a slight taste of mango and pineapple to it. Not sweet enough for kids to like them but not useless enough for birds to let it go.

This finding cause my long-slept scientist mind to awake with a thunder roar. I wanted to do a bunch of experiment with these variety of bamboo!!! But for now, I restrained myself.

Usually, bamboo was cylinder in shape. However, this species of bamboo was decagon in shape. So, you can imagine my excitement.

After that, I had some fun with these bamboos. Just- I didn't do all of the experiment that I had in mind. Yes- I restrained myself because I don't want to mutate these varieties of bamboo just yet.

I made all sorts of thing from it. From woven baskets to plates and dishes to containers for salts and sugars. All sort of thing. I even used them as water container to test if there was an agent or chemical reactions to the water. So far, I found out that using the bamboo as a water container was a great idea since the water had a slightly sweet taste to it. This results made me wanted to boil the bamboo with water inside them to see if there are any medicinal effects to it. The result of such an idea was; Nope. There are no medicinal effects to the water if boiled inside the bamboo but it does have a mango-pineapple taste to the water. I added more sugar or smashes sugarcane and boiled it inside the bamboo, and the results were that there was no difference between the taste of the water boiled with the sugarcane to a fruit smoothie.

This finding caused all the kids to wanted their own bamboo plants in the orphanage. Of course, I didn't let them. After all, these varieties of bamboo are clumping but they still spread through the underground. And that is not safe for this city if it spread around. Maybe when I finished mutated the roots of the bamboo to be strong enough to withhold the lands together, I might let the kids planted them near the orphanage.

Anyway, the most useful thing was that when I used it to create boxes, I had an inspiration and made some bentos boxes. That's how I found out that when using this kind of bamboo to make bentos, the food tastes better, fresher, and not as soggy even after a couple of long hours. Days even.

That's why I proceed to teach the kids how to make bent-wood/bamboo bento boxes using this variety of bamboo. Not only was this species of bamboo were very strong, but it was also extremely soft, too. In fact, it was so soft that people mainly use it to woven baskets for going shopping. So, it didn't use to make boxes like what I had done.

Of course, to make this easier, I bestowed the kids the skills to work with woods, [Woodworking].

To make bentos out of this kind of bamboo, it was both a challenge and a joy for creators like me. Especially when I haven't made anything like this in a while.

I went as far as to make a puppet out of this bamboo.

Even though the puppet wasn't strong, he was very flexible and nimble with his hands. He doesn't have much intelligent but he follows instruction very well. Enough that Prince Yui tries to make a puppet of his own- only to found out that he can't since Prince Yui doesn't have the skill or talents for Soul-Puppeteering. Prince Yui can create Paper-Puppet but he can't create real wood puppet like me,

The puppet was only a low-grade intelligent puppet but in this world, such a thing was a treasure.

So, I inscribed into the puppet the technique of a woodworker and magical sound technique. The woodworker allows for the puppet to use any wood within his level to make anything that he wants. As for the magical sound technique, since he was made out of wood, he couldn't talk. That's what the magical sound technique come in.

As an intelligent puppet, he has a Will of his own so he can communicate. Which the magical sound technique is used for. He can talk via and using this technique.

I named him Bammo, after his origin, the [Bammonobom Bamboo]. Bammo is 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighs only 100 pounds since he is made out of bamboo. His looks were exactly alike to a doll- or in this case, a Chinese male doll. His hair was in the shapes of the bamboo leaves so it was also green. If you asked me if he's good looking then sorry, I didn't make him according to my types. I made him according to the picture that Prince Yui gives me so I haven't got a clue if Bammo's good looking or not.

Anyway, moving on.

The next day, Alicia and the kids were all here with me at the stall- setting everything up. In the past two months since the kids started to train with me, those that don't choice martial arts as their goal don't have to live with me so they still live in the houses that they rented. Although, by the end of the week when it's their rest time, the majority of the kids went back to the orphanage instead of staying in the house that they rented.

Unfolding the chairs and tables, putting up the parasol shades, making sure that they knows where are what and what goes where.

Today was only for showing the kids on how to serve a customers. And teaching the kids on how my stall will runs. The ethics, the module, the rules, how to interacts professionally, how to have boundary between clients and themselves. How and when to not sell themselves shorts. Their interaction between themselves and their clients. In short, I was teaching them how to be a good maid and waitress.

After having them practice for a couple of hours, we went back to my house and have the kids practice putting the bamboo together into a bento box.

Teaching them how to stream the bamboo into soft-plastic-like texture, teaching how to accurately make the boxes, etc.etc.

The first day went by like that really fast. We take a break, eat lunch, had snacks, questioning and answering time, and lastly, introducing them to the bamboo puppet that I created yesterday. Bammo was very much to his originality personality: soft, kind, hard work and likes kids a lot.

I have to be careful to not pay too much attention to the puppet because Prince Yui was still staying with me and he gets jealous far too easy. But otherwise, everything went well enough.

When the official opening date came, I and the kids found hundreds of people already waiting in line in front of the stall.

... Well, this was all Prince Yui's fault!

All because he was staying with me that all kinds of noblemen and high classes people started to pay attention to my action! See? They're looking at me with their eyes twinkling now!

Even if my luck was extremely high, I had already limited myself using curses to make sure this kind of things doesn't happen!

I want an honest business, okay?!

Sigh... What can I do? I'm giving up with getting mad whenever Prince Yui did something like this.

Let's just open the stall and be done with it.

"Okay, kids, you all remember the training?"

All of the kids' expression was like they went through a war as they all nodded.

"Okay, then. Let's go."

"Yes!!!"

... You guys are too loud...