Volume 5 Chapter 2.1

「……I think this might need a little revision, maybe？」

Rufeus Academy’s cafeteria, one week after the workshop members had begun attending the academy. Haruna was muttering with an earnest face in front of several plates of food.

The reason for it taking a week was simple. The instant ramen factory construction was completed earlier than anticipated, so the members had joined Hiroshi, who had joined Mio in hurriedly trying to make the accommodations to set the factory in that location. With that being said, the most Haruna and Mio had made were promoted growth fermentation barrels for soy sauce and miso, while all the important accommodations were made by Hiroshi.

「This costing 30 tirols is absolutely expensive.」

Haruna spat in a moaning tone as she glared at the lunch set and the various kinds of individual dishes in front of her.

The lunch set consisted of hard, bad quality rye bread that you would almost never see in Farlane, not even at the lowest grade dining halls, a stew that you could barely eat with the absolute minimal amount of seasoning, and a rather bland soup. The food was all small in amount and unless you were a really light eater, you probably wouldn’t be full even with two servings of everything there.

Teres and the others complained about the bad taste and price of the cafeteria, so it made a lot of sense for them to prepare their own lunches. At first it seemed more like they had a discriminating palate because of Haruna and the others, but no, it made a lot of sense to complain about this food.

There weren’t many diners in the academy’s vicinity, and all the shops you could reach within lunch break were minimum 70 tirols per meal, which might explain the students who ate there on a fairly regular basis. However, from Haruna’s perspective, it was far more preferable to eat that amount at those stores than to have to eat two meals here.

「……Either way, we still gotta finish everything here……」

Haruna had heard the food was bad and the amount was scarce, so she had ordered four other dishes without much thought in addition to the lunch set. These were all around double the market price, or perhaps more than double (although the market price was just one tirol), yet lacked the proper amount. Haruna continued to prepare herself for the worst as she desperately shoveled the food in through her mouth, insisting to herself that even if none of the foods were good, this was the chef’s fault and not the food’s fault.

The vexing thing about all of this was probably that even if you ignored the serving size, the food was still supposed to be cheaper than it was. This establishment was most certainly taking advantage of the students.

（Or maybe the residents of Rufeus actually find this stuff tasty……）

Haruna’s heart was almost breaking from how bad the stuff was as she considered this factor. This type of food with barely any taste but no flavor brought out from its ingredients reminded Haruna of her mother’s other hometown and some of its food.

Then again, you could kind of tell from the expressions on most people’s faces that the food here was considered bad even by Rufeus’s standards. They just didn’t appear to be enjoying it. The majority either continued to eat silently and expressionlessly like some sort of ascetic monk or ate their food as they read articles, as if to say they had no interest in the food itself. It was clear that no one thought of this as a meal, more like simple nutrition to replenish the body.

「Ah～、I can’t do it anymore. Sorry, but I’m just gonna break the rules here–」

Haruna experienced a setback halfway through eating, stealthily taking out soy sauce, salt, pepper, curry powder, and wasabi paste before adjusting the flavor without getting found out.

One male student who was secretly looking over at Haruna seemed very fascinated by what she was putting on her food, but seemed to not have the courage to talk to a stranger, simply observing and then leaving without saying a word.

「……Mhm. I’d say this is now pretty edible？」

Adjusting the flavor of the food on the table to a suitable degree, Haruna finished eating as she hid the evidence. The flavor didn’t seep all the way through in some places, or maybe despite the stew being tough to chew, the flavor enhancers didn’t properly stay in the food, or the tabletop condiments didn’t quite do the trick overall, but it was still better than doing nothing.

「But I’ll be muddleheaded if I keep eating this kind of food. The cafeteria here needs reform！」

Managing to somehow finish eating, Haruna renewed her resolve. This happened every time, but the starting point was always the same.

「This needs a lil reform……」

Rufeus Academy’s school store. Looking at all the goods lined up there, Hiroshi muttered with narrowed eyebrows.

That being said, there was more than plenty of stationary here for school. The paper sold here wasn’t even parchment, but was on par with developed countries on Earth, basically normal paper for us. There were even lined paper varieties to make it easier to enter letters, so the only complaint one might have is that the paper’s size was either mostly A3 or B5 and nothing else.

Then again, this was just regarding stationary. All the everyday goods that tended to be essential for student life made you want to narrow your eyebrows in regards to both quantity and quality, and then there was a poor excuse for a selection of food, which consisted of yesterday’s unsold rye bread. They might as well not even leave the bread there at this rate.

Now, it is a solid argument that school stores really only need stationary to be sufficient. However, this location seemed to feel that was inconvenient, which is probably why it started dealing in other items as well. In that case, it may as well stop being so half-assed and bring in the kind of variety that convenience stores have.

「Gotta at least make sure they have unclassified healin’ potions lined up here.」

As insurance for emergencies, every household everywhere had unclassified potions, the only exceptions in the long list of fairly frequently regulated potions, which were like slightly high value bandaids that you might find at general stores if they had permission to sell them. Unexpectedly enough, Rufeus Academy’s school store wasn’t selling them despite being the nucleus of the country of the sages. It wasn’t like there wasn’t demand, but it seemed like the academy was basically saying to just use the doctor’s office.

Another problem at hand was that even though there were plenty of courses and laboratories that underwent fieldwork outside town, the school store didn’t sell even the most basic of necessary items for that. Most of these items wouldn’t even bulk up that much, let alone rot, so the store could very well have cooperated with an adventurer association to ensure you could buy them, but the store appeared to be leaving this problem unattended due to inconvenience.

And the thing Hiroshi was most dissatisfied with…

「But if yer gonna sell bread at the school store, ya gotta at least sell sandwiches ‘n yakisoba bread, like c’mon mate.」

…was this.