The Northern Forest was not merely a collection of trees; it was a cathedral of ancient timber and damp moss, where the sunlight struggled to reach the forest floor. But I wasn't looking at the canopy. I was looking at the gold.
Hidden in the sun-dappled clearings of the forest's edge, swaying in the breeze like the hair of a goddess, was wild Triticum aestivum. Common wheat. To the refugees, it was just tall grass. To the Consortium, it was a negligible resource compared to the copper mines. To me, it was the structural integrity of a nation.
"Arthur," Jasper rumbled, his nose twitching as he sniffed the humid air. "We've been walking for three days. The werewolves are restless. They don't understand why we are hunting grass instead of deer."
I knelt by a stalk, rubbing the grain between my thumb and forefinger. "Because, Jasper, a deer feeds a man for a day. Wheat builds a city for a century. You can't make a roux with venison blood, and you certainly can't build a society on meat alone. We need carbohydrates. We need energy. We need... gluten."
I stood up and signaled to my tireless retinue. "Sous-Chefs! Harvest protocol! I want the stalks cut at the base, bundled, and transported to the threshing floor. Precision, gentlemen. We aren't hacking weeds; we're collecting the future."
My twelve skeletal prep-cooks moved into the field. Their movements were a mechanical ballet—clacking bones and flashing obsidian sickles. They didn't tire, they didn't sweat, and they didn't complain about the pollen. Behind them, two Zombie Porters I had raised from the fallen mercenaries of the previous skirmish stood ready with large woven baskets.
"You're using the dead to farm," a voice whispered from the brush.
I didn't reach for my cleaver. My Wisdom (35) had already flagged the presence of a non-hostile observer. "I'm using the idle to provide for the hungry," I corrected. "Come out, little one. The station is open."
The bushes parted to reveal a group of Curiosity Goblins. They were smaller than the battle-hardened green-skins of the southern wastes, with oversized eyes and fingers stained with berry juice. They looked at my skeletons not with fear, but with the intense, analytical gaze of natural-born engineers.
"The bones move without strings," the lead goblin squeaked, pointing a tiny finger at Sous-Chef One. "No steam. No gears. Only the blue hum."
"It's called the Eternal Service," I said, offering a small piece of dried wolf-jerky from my pouch. "I provide the mana and the direction. They provide the labor. We're about to mill this wheat. Would you like to see the process? I suspect you have a knack for mechanics."
The goblins scurried forward, their fear replaced by an insatiable need to understand the "system."
While the skeletons harvested, I set my Parallel Processing to work on the next phase: The Mill. We were in the wilderness, which meant I had to engineer a solution with what I had.
"Jasper, clear that flat rock by the stream," I commanded. "Goblins, if you want to help, I need you to find two circular stones. One flat, one slightly domed. We're going to build a hand-turned mill."
For the next six hours, the forest clearing was transformed into an industrial kitchen. While the skeletons threshed the wheat by beating the stalks against a wooden log, the goblins and I fashioned a primitive Quern-stone.
"The secret to a good flour is friction and heat management," I explained to the wide-eyed goblins as I adjusted the central pivot of the stones. "Too fast, and you burn the germ. Too slow, and you get coarse grit. We want the 'Double-Zero' of the wild."
By sunset, we had our first bag of flour. It was slightly off-white, smelling of earth and sunshine.
"Now for the magic," I said.
I gathered the refugees around the central campfire. I took a portion of the flour and mixed it with water from the stream. No yeast—not yet. I was relying on the wild spores in the air to start the fermentation process for a future sourdough, but tonight, we were doing something more immediate.
I began to knead the dough.
"Watch my hands," I told the werewolves. "This is Gluten Development. We are aligning the proteins. We are taking something brittle and making it elastic. This is how you build a community. You take separate lives, you add the water of shared struggle, and you knead them until they can't be pulled apart."
My hands moved in a rhythmic, rolling motion. My Intelligence (150) calculated the exact hydration levels. I could feel the dough changing under my palms, becoming smooth, supple, and strong.
"What is it?" Amber asked, her eyes reflecting the orange glow of the fire.
"Tonight, we eat Hand-Pulled Pasta," I said. "A rustic European staple. No machines. Just technique and soul."
I took the dough and began to stretch it. I swung the long ropes of flour and water, folding them and pulling them again and again. To the refugees, it looked like a dance. To the Gilded Chain spies watching from the shadows of the trees, it must have looked like a ritual of dark power.
I tossed the long, thin strands into a boiling pot of water I had flavored with a few precious crystals of lake salt and the rendered fat from the wolf-roast.
Within minutes, the first bowls were ready.
"Pasta al Burro e Pepe," I announced, though the 'butter' was wolf-fat and the 'pepper' was crushed wild spice. "Eat. This is the energy of the earth, refined by the hands of the sovereign."
As the werewolves and goblins slurped the long, chewy noodles, a profound silence fell over the camp. It wasn't the silence of fear, but of satisfaction. The carbohydrates hit their systems, triggering a release of serotonin that no meat-only diet could provide.
[System Notification: Settlement Morale Increased to 85%]
[New Skill Unlocked: Dough Manipulation (Rank F)]
[Faction Relation: Curiosity Goblins — 'Intrigued']
"Arthur," Jasper said, wiping a bit of fat from his chin with the back of his hand. "If we have this... 'Gluten'... do we still need to hide?"
I looked into the dark depths of the forest, where I knew the Snow Girl was watching from the frost-line, and where the Consortium's scouts were likely reporting back to their masters.
"No, Jasper. We don't hide anymore," I said, my voice echoing with the authority of a man who had mastered the hearth. "Tomorrow, we build the first permanent oven of Nova Roma. And after that, we go to the Crystal Lake. Because if we're going to make pasta for a million people, we're going to need a lot more salt."
I looked at my skeletons, who were now standing guard in a perfect perimeter, their obsidian blades reflecting the starlight.
"The service never ends," I whispered. "And the menu is just getting started."