It began with a thought:
"I miss good food."
Not stew. Not black bread. Not bland porridge. I missed flavor. Crisp skin. Spice. Sizzle. Juice. And I had coin now a pile saved from months of labor, carefully hoarded in my creaky old room in colth bag hidden inside my bed.
I decided: every copper, every silver I would burn it all, time for some fun.
I purchased ingredients across the city spices, root vegetables, wheat, bones, salt, dried herbs, and the best meats I could afford. I spent hours negotiating with butchers, bakers, and market vendors.
-Chicken legs
-Beef cuts
-Bread rolls
-Animal fat
-Lard
-River onions
-Wild garlic
-Stinging pepper leaves
-Sweet red berries
-Foam herbs and sugar bark (for carbonated drinks)
I found a wide stone corner near the East Gate, where laborers and adventurers passed every hour. I set up:
A coal grill rigged from scrap iron, A flat slab for frying, A copper pot for boiling bones and fat into rich gravy, Clay jugs to mix my "fruit soda" from crushed berries and sweet herbs
I didn't charge.
I didn't care.
"Come one ,Comic all, to a free all you can eat," I said.
I began cooking and leveling. And I didn't stop.
- Fried Chicken Legs
Boiled briefly, dried, then fried in hot fat until golden. Crisped with pepper-leaf salt. Juicy, steaming, and smelled like heaven.
-Hamburgers on Fresh Bread
Ground beef spiced with wild onion, garlic, salt, and pepper leaves. Seared and smashed onto hot iron. Sandwiched between toasted rolls with melted goat cheese and pickled radish.
-Fruit Soda
Berries crushed, filtered, mixed with bark sugar and foam herbs in cold spring water. Bubbled naturally from fermentation and chilled with river ice bought from a passing merchant.
-Bone Gravy with Wild Herb Mash
Bones boiled with fat and herbs for hours until thick. Poured over crushed boiled potatoes mashed with sour cream and ash-leaf herbs.
The smell alone changed the street.
It started with one child.
Then three workers.
Then a dozen.
Then a hundred.
People stood in lines for hours. Children laughed as they tasted Real Food for the first time in their lives. Adventurers wiped tears away over crispy meat they couldn't believe was real.
Old men muttered, "This… this is food fit for kings."
Every time I handed out food, every time someone smiled or groaned with joy..
I felt it.
Pulse.
Pulse.
Pulse.
It was subtle but constant. Like a soft fire growing inside me.
By the end of two weeks exhausted, burned, blistered, and happy beyond belief, as i felt it hit for the last time which i couted in my mind.
"Cook Job level 15, finally maxed out, what a fun month."
I slumped on a bench, arms aching, hands raw from cooking but I laughed. I didn't know my karma number. I couldn't see my stats like a player. I know karma existed, I was sure of it form overlord. In this world, morality wasn't just metaphor, it was mechanical.
Slaying evil bandits raised it. Giving alot food for free to the poor? Raised it rapidly.
Karma was rising like a sunrise.
I imagined my invisible karma meter ticking up
from neutral…[0]
to at least good…[100]
I hope...
I'd need 500 karma for what I was aiming for. Not with just kills. But by service.
On the final day, a little girl tugged my sleeve. Dirt-smudged, bright eyes.
"Mister," she said, "will you be here tomorrow too?"
I knelt down and smiled.
"Someday. As right now i am out of money."
She handed me a flower.
"Here you go mister."
I took it and bowed, as i saw her leave, giggling to herself.
"Maybe i should open an orphanage, as i don't like to watch children suffer in the streets, but if i do that than need to rank up, to earn enough money for that"
[REN INFO CARD]
vermin killer: 8/15
Farmer:4/15
Carpentry:1/15
Blacksmith:1/10
Cleaner:10/15
Cook:15/15
Herbalist:5/15
Hunter:2/10
Tailor:1/15
Gardener:1/10
Assassin:2/10
Stone mason:5/15
Total Level: 55