While I was thinking this, someone came near me, I sat back and saw that Yuki came in front of me. Looking at me with concern in her eyes, she said, "It is already too late in the night; you need to rest. Martial arts training is not just about training and practice; a person also needs resources like special food and medicine to progress. It takes a long time to progress. So, rest now, any further training than this will only do harm to your body, first adapt yourself to training, okay."
Looking at her, I felt like a senior was giving advice to a junior. So I also nodded like an obedient junior and followed her back to the hut, where all the children already slept, so I found a place to sleep on the floor. Thinking back on Yuki's words, maybe she is thinking that I have not made any progress and wanted to console me, not to push myself.
I wonder what her reaction will be once she finds out that I have already progressed to the adept stage of this technique. I decided that tomorrow I will ask her about the stages of a technique.
I woke the next morning, recovered from the tiredness of last night. Waking up, I saw Yuki, who was awake, and soon, other children also woke up. After waking up, I would have taken a bath, but in my current situation, a bath is a luxury, and my hut only had a makeshift toilet, so I would heat up water, then wipe my body with a cloth dipped in hot water.
After doing that and getting freshened up, I baked sweet potatoes for the children to eat, but taking out the potatoes, I realized that the stock of sweet potatoes is depleting. So after giving everyone a sweet potato to eat, I took out a cloth hidden beneath a brick in the wall. This cloth contains the savings of that old man and some of my savings.
Taking out the cloth, I opened it, and a sound of coins striking each other sounded, as this contains every coin I saved till now.
Opening it, I counted the coins; there were a total of 390 copper coins and 3 silver coins. Most of it was the savings of that old man; even after getting sick, he used his money to seek medical help, as he told me that he was already too old to live.
Thanks to that, now I have almost 700 copper coins or 7 silver coins, which could have been able to feed me for 3 years, but now I have another ten mouths to feed, so taking out 10 copper coins, I walked out of the hut, telling Yuki that I am going to a job.
Following the same route as yesterday, I reached the bakery, as I need to be punctual in my job, and today I am going to talk about a salary raise.
So, I reached the bakery, where my boss, the old lady who till now had not told me her name, is sitting on the counter. She nodded after seeing me and without saying anything, got up from the counter, as it is now my time to do the job.
But I stopped her before she could go to the kitchen. I hesitantly asked, "Boss, you told me that today you are going to talk about a salary raise."
Hearing this, she stopped and looked back at me. Now with a frown in her eyes, she asked, "Why did you need so much money? As far as I know, you live alone."
I contemplated a bit about whether to tell her the truth or not, but ultimately I decided to tell her a half truth, "Boss, I recently found my sister and little brother, so we need more money, and my sister is also sick with some disease, so I need more money to afford her treatment."
Now with sigh, she looked at me and took a seat in a nearby chair, then said, "Look, Ryuk, you need to understand something first, nothing in this world can be given for free, at least to my knowledge. You know, there are people more fit for this job than you, but I took you just because that old man was a friend of mine. But now you are asking for more money, tell me what you can do for me to raise your salary. Prove your worth, and I will raise your salary."
I gulped after hearing her serious tone, but then, maintaining my composure, I said, "Boss, I had some idea about some dishes which we can make to increase sales of our bakery, currently we only sell cookies, bread, hot drinks and some cakes, but once we add the dishes I suggest then we can certainly get more money."
Hearing this, she again frowned, but said, "Ok, I'll give you a chance. Come with me to the kitchen and make the dishes you are talking about, and if it does not work, you may get a salary reduction for a week."
Her last statement made me a bit nervous, but still, I have already decided it. So, getting inside the kitchen along with her, I first made a dough using some flour and yeast. Then, mash the tomatoes in a mixer to make tomato ketchup.
Then, boiled milk was mixed with circa at the optimum temperature to make cheese. Lastly, cut some vegetables, after that I put all of this in the dough, put it in the oven, making a classic pizza with cheese and some vegetables on it.
After it had baked, I took it out and presented it to the old lady. She already looked a bit hungry after smelling the pizza, so I told her to take a bite as I cut the pizza pieces for her. Eating it, she had a shine in her eyes; this is the first time I have seen her so happy.
Eating pizza, she immediately said, "Good, this dish is easy to make and uses low-priced ingredients, this is gonna take the market with a swing. Tell me, Ryuk, what is the name of this dish?"
I smiled and said, "Boss, it is called Pizza."
As I expected, this world doesn't have a variety of dishes like my previous world, and even if it does, then it may not be that widespread. So, my idea can make me easy money. After eating the whole pizza, the boss smiled and said, "Ryuk, from now on, you are going to make this pizza and also teach me. From today, your salary is 38 copper coins. If we get enough sales from your dish, then it can be increased further."
I smiled and thanked, "Thank you, boss."
She smiled and said, "You can call me Rose, Grandma Rose."
My boss, now Grandma Rose, seems more open to me than before, so for the rest of the day I made pizzas along with her and sold them, our first day's sale is nothing but impressive as people are liking this new dish. Maybe I should also try to make more fast food, like burgers
Thinking this, I went back towards my hut, which is now my home. Before going back, I bought some rations with 10 copper coins I took out in the morning, and also a surprise, as I asked Grandma Rose to take some pizza home, as they are already leftovers. So now I have 6 pizzas with me, I hope the children will like them.
Reaching home, Yuki welcomed me at the gate. While children were inside, they kept silent as I told them, but still, small sounds of a quarrel sounded from inside. Now back at home, night had fallen, and I was late because of buying rations, so I did not make any food but opened pizza boxes and gave the children something to eat. First, they looked at the pizza as they saw something like this for the first time, and even Yuki felt the same.
But after eating a single pizza, they liked it so much that soon the pizzas got finished, as I also joined them. Now, all of them are sleeping while putting their hands on their stomachs as they have eaten too much pizza.
I smiled seeing this and got back to my daily routine. After telling Yuki to take care, I went out towards the same tree and trained like yesterday.
But different from yesterday, I did not see much progress in my martial arts, so I asked the system about it.
"YOUR MAJESTY, IT IS BECAUSE OF TWO FACTORS: FIRST IS YOUR APTITUDE, YOUR CURRENT BODY HAS A BARE MINIMUM TALENT FOR MARTIAL ARTS, AND OTHER THINGS ARE SEALED.
SECOND IS THAT ONCE YOU PROGRESS FURTHER IN MARTIAL ARTS, THE SPEED OF PROGRESS SLOWS DOWN."
Reading this, I sighed and asked the system to show me my status before I went back to sleep.
Name: Ryuk Ashborn,{Rajeev}
Age: 11 years
Talent: Immortal Pupils(sealed), Law of Life stone fragment(sealed)
Possession: Beacon of Truth(level-1), Fragment of fallen kingdom
Bloodline: None
Martial arts: Basic kick and boxing technique{Adept} (112/200)
Realm: None
System Level: Zero(upgrade to unlock full abilities)
System Quest: One quest available
Title: Emperor of Humanity???, Martial Pill
Seeing my progress, I think it would take another day of training before I could reach the next stage. So I went back to my hut and slept, thinking about the future and the next day.