Chapter 60: Human Life Is the Cheapest Resource This World Has to Offer

Catching the scouts didn’t take long. Titus was too fast on his feet, catching each one and killing them on the spot with a single punch, not even bothering to look back before walking off, leaving the bodies behind for the maids to collect later, the way they were apparently used to doing.

What struck Magna as strange wasn’t the killing itself, but the fact that such ordinary, powerless people had been sent on a mission that basically guaranteed their deaths.

And according to Celeste, this wasn’t even unusual. It happened regularly.

"Don’t they value human life at all? Sending people to die like this?" He asked with a frown.

It wasn’t that he particularly cared whether these strangers lived or died.

It just seemed like a waste to him, like all those lives could have been put to better use elsewhere.

But apparently, he was wrong about that.

"Well, they’re the cheapest resource this world has to offer." Celeste answered with a sigh.

"They could send a Witch or a Shadow to do the job instead, but that would be far too expensive. It’s just not worth it."

"Expensive? Why?" As long as they didn’t die, there was nothing being lost by sending someone valuable.

Except, clearly, there was.

’’Every spell cast by a Witch or her Shadow consumes the Witch’s mana reserves. Natural recovery is slow, so we rely on special foods amd potions to restore it faster. I’m sure you can understand how expensive those can be. ’’

Magna ended up getting two answers out of one single question.

One told him just how costly Witches actually were to maintain. The other gave him a much clearer picture, that the mana-rich foods he’d been hoping to find were definitely more expensive than he had assumed.

—

After saying goodbye to Celeste, Magna kept walking toward the kitchen, his mind spinning with thoughts.

One thought in particular kept nagging at him, that this place might not actually be any safer than the goblin cave he used to live in.

If he ever ended up caught in the middle of a fight between a Witch and her Shadow, with his current abilities, there was no doubt in his mind he would be dead before he even realized what was happening.

’Status.’

He thought, and his stats appeared in front of him again, written in glowing blue text.

Strength: 9

Agility: 16

Reaction: 16

Stamina: 21

’I wonder how much these can go up through training.’

He had never had any interest in tiring, boring training before. But now that he had started feeling genuinely unsafe, he realized he couldn’t just rely on Gaia’s options alone anymore.

’I can try some push-ups and sit-ups to test it out,’ he decided, though he had to deal with his growling stomach first.

He reached a large room with its door left open and stepped inside the kitchen.

A maid, dozing lightly in a chair, snapped awake the moment she noticed someone had walked in. "Young Lord."

She was currently alone, as all the others on the night shift were currently outside gathering the dead bodies.

"Hello." Magna greeted her with a smile, his eyes already scanning the room.

It looked much like any other hotel kitchen, just with a slightly less modern touch, wide countertops, big wooden cabinets, and crates stacked with fresh fruit and produce.

The maid offered to prepare whatever meal he wanted right away, assuming that was why he had come all the way here himself.

Magna turned her down. "Can you just show me the ingredients? Vegetables, fruits, meats. I want to taste all of them."

Since he wasn’t asking for a cooked, finished meal, just raw ingredients to taste, the maid looked a little confused, but she agreed right away.

Soon, all kinds of ingredients, including raw meat and fish, were laid out in front of him on the counter.

Then Magna started tasting them one by one, feeling the warm energy inside him rise ever so slightly with each bite, blue text confirming exactly how much each ingredient gave him by saying their names.

What he was doing wasn’t sampling for flavor or quality. He was actually calculating exactly how much energy each ingredient provided.

He even bit straight into raw meat, duck, beef, lamb, fish, chicken, all of them identical to their Earth counterparts, taking one bite of everything as he compared them all against each other.

By the end, he had built a mental list, ranking the ingredients that gave him the most energy.

Pointing at them one by one, he said. "Can you make me a meal using this, this, this..."

The maid quickly jotted down everything he pointed to, even though the ingredients were a strange mix, some fruits, some vegetables, some meats, all thrown together without any obvious pattern.

Once Magna finished listing them, he added. "From now on, I want all my meals made only from these ingredients, breakfast included. If you ever come across something new I haven’t tried yet, please let me know."

Eating only the highest energy ingredients was the strategy he had just come up with, so he wouldn’t be wasting stomach space on low-energy food anymore.

"Understood." The maid said, then started putting together a dish however she saw fit. Since there was no actual recipe for a combination like this, she had to improvise.

While she cooked, Magna watched closely, trying to learn how everything worked, which ingredient needed what kind of handling, in case he ever had to cook for himself down the line.

Having lived most of his life alone, cooking his own meals had always been a normal part of his routine whenever he wasn’t ordering takeout, and something he genuinely enjoyed, so watching her didn’t bore him at all.

At one point, seeing she was working alone, he even offered to help speed things along.

The maid politely tried to decline, but he had already picked up a knife and started cutting vegetables before she could stop him.

"Is this thick enough?" He asked, slicing away like a professional chef, the sound of his blade echoing through the whole kitchen.

The maid could only watch, mouth slightly open, completely caught off guard.

She hadn’t expected their new young lord to be this skilled at something like this at all.