Blizzard Zero · the ship's dining hall.
By order of Captain Zhao Chen, all 100 female beast-folk crew of the ship had turned out.
"What's everyone standing around for? Sit, sit down." Zhao Chen looked at the crewwomen standing in their neat rows and waved for them to be seated.
Somewhat ill at ease, the crewwomen slowly sat.
"Charlotte, help me hand this food out." Zhao Chen opened up all the meal-boxes Deputy Captain Charlotte had carried in.
In an instant, a mouthwatering fragrance spread out through the whole dining hall.
A beast-folk's sense of smell, one should know, far surpassed a human's — and so the crewwomen were drawn all the more to the aroma.
Even Charlotte stared, blank, at those fragrance-wafting boxes for several seconds.
"Don't just stand there staring — get to it, quick. Or it'll all go cold, and then it's no good." Zhao Chen urged her on.
He took up the role of "canteen auntie" himself, dividing the food from the boxes evenly into 100 portions, then having Charlotte carry the laden trays out to the crew.
In truth, if it were only the dishes, split a hundred ways, then what reached each person came to basically a single mouthful.
But besides those, there was a great basinful of white, gleaming food.
Rice!
At the sight of that white, gleaming rice, no small number of the beast-folk crewwomen gulped hard.
"These… all of this gets handed out?" Charlotte hadn't yet grasped just what medicine Zhao Chen was selling in this gourd of his.
"What of it? This is everyone's lunch today," Zhao Chen said offhand.
Lunch?
These delicacies whose very smell set the mouth watering?
At Captain Zhao Chen's words, Charlotte and the hundred crewwomen present were all dumbfounded, looking in disbelief at this captain they'd gradually grown used to.
"What's everyone frozen for — serve it up, quick, they're all waiting." Zhao Chen urged on the still-dazed Charlotte.
Only then did Charlotte set to work, carrying the portions of food out before the crewwomen.
In no time 30-odd portions had been handed out.
Zhao Chen looked up in a spare moment — and found that not one of the crewwomen who'd been given food had made a move to eat. Some were already staring at the food before them and drooling, but they still hadn't touched it, sitting bolt upright.
"What are you all sitting frozen for — eat. Those who've been served, eat first; those who haven't, wait just a little longer. No need to rush; there's a share for everyone," Zhao Chen said.
Seeing that still no one moved, Zhao Chen put on a show of anger. "That's an order!"
At this, the crewwomen who'd been served at last began to eat — restrained at first, in small, careful bites.
But before long the thrill on their taste buds left them past all keeping composure, past all staying calm. Their sense of taste, tormented for years on end by artificial food, was like a person adrift in the desert who has at last drunk down a mouthful of water.
One after another they fell to eating like mad, some grabbing the food straight with their hands.
A single portion was gone in under three minutes, and they were left licking their plates and their utensils, still hungry for more.
Watching these beast-eared girls, one after another, licking their plates clean, Zhao Chen found it endearing — and, at the same time, felt a pang of sorrow.
No few of them were younger than he was; some were not even grown.
Though, of course, that was by Zhao Chen's own way of reckoning. Among the beast-folk there was no notion of minor and adult; so long as one could fight, one was already an adult.
And so a beast-folk of 12 or 13 would generally be thrown into fighting and labor, male or female alike.
Only by fighting and laboring could one earn a single day's ration.
Before long all 100 portions had been handed out.
The last portion, Zhao Chen carried to Charlotte himself. "Here, give it a taste — it's really quite good. The fruit especially!"
Charlotte looked at the rich spread of food on the tray — and at the little crescent-cut slice of apple, and the finger-sized little berries.
She looked at Zhao Chen. "Then what about you…"
"I've already eaten — I'm quite stuffed. Don't believe me? Look at this belly." Zhao Chen, all dignity forgotten, patted his round, swollen belly.
Charlotte let out a snort of a laugh, lowered her head, and began to eat.
After a few bites, Zhao Chen noticed Charlotte's head bowing lower and lower, until her whole face was nearly level with the tray.
At first Zhao Chen couldn't tell what the matter was.
But then he caught sight, through the strands of her white hair, of the corner of her eye — and the trace of something crystalline there.
He understood, then, what it was Charlotte was hiding.
"Sob… sob, sob…"
Just then Zhao Chen heard the sound of weeping rise from within the dining hall.
There were crewwomen eating and crying at once, the food going into their mouths together with their tears.
Perhaps they wept because the food was too good — or perhaps because that goodness had called back to them their own past suffering, called back the brothers and sisters of their homeland, who spent their every strength on nothing more than staying alive.
For the first time, they knew that food was not merely a thing to fill the belly — but an enjoyment as fine as this.
"Everyone, keep eating while I make an announcement." Zhao Chen spoke up all at once, startling every crewwoman in the hall.
Some who were still eating stopped what they were doing.
"It's all right — the rest of you keep eating; just listen to me, that's all." Zhao Chen motioned for the crewwomen to go on eating, but they went on watching him all the same.
There was nothing to be done; Zhao Chen looked to Charlotte, who had likewise stopped eating to watch him.
Charlotte understood his meaning, and took the lead in resuming her meal — though her movements now were plainly slower.
"What I want to speak of is the matter of everyone's welfare and treatment. We agreed before: you work for me three years, and I grant you your freedom, yes? But there are certain particulars the two of us haven't yet made clear. The matter of the crew's welfare, for one." Zhao Chen looked to Charlotte. "In your former fleet, what was the meal standard for the crew?"
Charlotte gave a start, then said, "A meal standard of 0.01 star coins a day."
The corner of Zhao Chen's mouth twitched faintly. 0.01 star coins?
That was, basically, the price of one single most-basic portion of artificial food a day. One!
Which was to say — back then, they'd been on a one-meal-a-day arrangement.
"So I've done some figuring: we'll be phasing out artificial food. From here on, our food will be made up entirely of natural food. There's no managing anything as lavish as today's, of course. But three filling meals a day — that much I can guarantee. The meal standard we're setting is 0.3 star coins per person per day, not to exceed 10 star coins in a single month. As for what specifically to eat, I'll discuss it with the logistics department in charge of meals later on." Zhao Chen announced the matter light as anything.
But every person present was dumbfounded.
After a long, long moment, a beast-folk crewwoman of just 15 said, in a small voice choked with tears, "So that… means… every meal… I can… have rice?"