Chapter 308: Military Gruel II

Adrian slammed the wooden bowl down onto one of the large stones that were sitting nearby.

He glared back at the soldiers.

"What exact ingredients did you add into this, and how exactly did you make this?"

The soldiers looked nervously at each other before all of their panicked gazes landed on one single guy, the unofficial leader of the kitchen squad.

He looked a little hesitant, but he still took a step forward before he started speaking.

"My lord... we just put in some cheap wheat flour, some chopped onions, some old potatoes, and a lot of water."

Adrian just stared at him, patiently waiting for more. He waited for him to list the spices or the meat, but the guy just stood there and didn’t say anything else.

There was a heavy, awkward silence around them for a few long seconds before Adrian broke it.

"Wait. That’s literally it?"

The guy nodded nervously.

"Yes, my lord. We toss in some animal fat first, fry the onions slightly, before we just add the other stuff and the water to boil."

Adrian just stared at him in sheer disbelief.

"What about salt? What about basic spices? What about the other flavors or meat?"

The soldier looked down at his boots.

"My lord... we are just common soldiers. We do not have the luxury of eating flavorful food. This is exactly what we eat usually even back at our homelands. Even though it’s not the exact same thing, we do occasionally eat plain rice, and we are provided some cheap, overly boiled meat once in a while by our lords. But all of it isn’t exactly flavorful. At home, we do have salt so we carry our own salt with us and that’s also the reason why we don’t add salt when cooking. The soldiers add the salt themselves to suit their own tastes."

He looked back up with sad eyes.

"This is what we are all used to."

Adrian took a deep breath and took a few steps back before he looked up at the sky. It was still mid-afternoon, which basically meant that at least the dinner tonight could be successfully saved if he took over now.

He looked back at the tired soldiers.

"Okay, fine, I understand. And when are you going to serve this batch?"

The soldiers quickly walked past him and peered out of the canvas tent area so that they could accurately look up at the position of the sun.

"Right now, my lord, in just a few minutes. All of this gruel is done and it’s perfectly cooked, so we just have to serve it to the soldiers."

Adrian nodded.

"Okay then. Take them out of here and set it up for the serving line. I’ll be using this entire kitchen area from now on."

The soldiers nodded eagerly, happy to be relieved of the duty.

Two soldiers grabbed each side of the heavy iron pots with thick, dirty cloths so that they wouldn’t burn their hands, and they moved them over to the serving area. They carefully placed the massive pots on a huge, flat stone slab, which was supported by multiple smooth, chiseled stones so that the top slab wouldn’t break under the weight.

As the thousands of resting soldiers saw the hot pots being placed on the stone slab, they immediately started to form a massive, orderly line. Each and every one of them held their own wooden bowls.

Adrian stood back and quietly noticed this efficient military discipline, and he nodded to himself.

He then looked at the kitchen tent itself. It looked pretty incredibly bland and was kinda small for his goals. There were just a few thin wooden sticks that kept the canvas roof up, and the roof itself was basically just made of a cheap, thin cloth. Luckily, it wasn’t the monsoon season or the cooks would be suffering right now.

Adrian looked up at the sagging cloth and the thin wooden poles before he put his hand on one of the main sticks and instantly sent all of that matter directly into his dungeon storage.

The tent instantly disppeared.

All of this material was pretty cheap, so he was sure that none of the nobles were going to ask him to compensate for the missing items. But even then, he still grabbed those cheap sticks from his dungeon inventory and carelessly tossed them out onto the ground along with the dirty cloth. He definitely didn’t need them inside his dungeon since he didn’t really have any plans on using them.

Then, along with the help of his Dungeon Link, he brought out multiple brand new, polished wooden sticks. These were double the thickness of the flimsy ones he had just tossed away and almost the exact same height.

With exactly eight thick poles, he pushed them deep down into the ground to the point where they were perfectly stable and completely unmoving.

He precisely placed them in a way where it had three sticks in a straight line, and three more sticks perfectly parallel to them forming a similar line. The last two sticks were placed securely on the adjacent sides in the middle to form a massive, stable rectangle frame.

Adrian then brought out a large and thick canvas cloth from his storage. He used his telekinesis to lift the massive sheet up into the air before he used his telekinesis again to tightly tie the cloth corners and sides directly to the wooden poles with thick ropes.

It didn’t take him too long to set the whole thing up.

And once he was finally done, he looked down at the original fireplaces on the ground.

These were basically just smal fire pits with large, uneven stones casually thrown around it so that they could place the pots on them and the open heat would just slowly heat it up. It was no different than the crude stoves that his own townsfolk used when he had first arrived at Oresfall.