"Is Isaac not currently in the territory?" Jasmine had thought that no talented knight would agree to stay in this god-forsaken, impoverished place; after all, given the financial situation of the territory, she feared they couldn't even afford a knight's salary.
Now suddenly hearing that she still had a loyal knight, Jasmine was very happy and curious.
"Yes, Isaac has left the territory for a while."
"Where did he go? Is it something important?"
The old Butler hesitated for a moment, his eyes avoiding hers, before stammering a reply: "He... accepted a hire to protect a long-distance merchant caravan, but please rest assured, Isaac will likely return in a few days."
"Protecting a merchant caravan?" Why would her knight go do the dangerous work of a mercenary?
"My Lady, as you can see, our territory is very poor and has no money to pay salaries." The old Butler, seeing that Jasmine did not understand, had to offer a tactful and bitter reminder.
Jasmine opened her eyes slightly wide in surprise, an indescribable emotion rising in her heart: "You mean Isaac went to earn money to buy food to feed us?"
The old Butler bowed his head very low, tacitly acknowledging this painful truth.
Jasmine couldn't help but rub her forehead. Just how poor must a territory be for a knight—someone of noble status—to have to run outside and do manual labor to feed the people in the territory?
Isaac must be a responsible person who truly loved this territory to be willing to take the money he worked hard for, even risked his life to earn, to feed the people.
Although they had never met, Jasmine already felt a great deal of goodwill toward this knight named Isaac.
However, after learning about the pitifully small amount of food reserves currently in the castle, Jasmine no longer dared to be as generous as before in telling the old Butler to take out bread to share with the slaves.
But she also didn't want to watch the people who had just worked hard for her go hungry. After thinking for a moment, Jasmine told the Butler to take some soybeans out of the barrel.
"Soak some soybeans to stew with the pig bones later." Although she couldn't let everyone eat bread freely, slurping hot meat soup to fill their stomachs would still be acceptable.
They were lucky to hunt a big wild boar today, so everyone could taste a rare bit of meat.
Seeing that Jasmine did not insist on sharing the precious bread, the old Butler couldn't help but secretly breathe a sigh of relief.
Soybeans were inherently cheap food for slaves; cooking an extra meal of soybean soup wouldn't cost much. At most, he would tell the slaves to go into the forest and diligently pick some more wild fruits to bulk it up later.
It wasn't the freezing winter yet where food and clothing were scarce. Although wild fruits outdoors couldn't make one completely full, they wouldn't let people starve to death either; they just needed to hold out until Isaac brought money and food back.
The old Butler believed that Isaac would not let them down and that he would bring back enough food for the territory to hold out until the harvest season.
"What are these?" After reviewing the tragic food situation, Jasmine did not rush to leave. Instead, while the female chef hadn't finished processing the wild boar, she went to check the dusty miscellaneous items in the warehouse.
Jasmine was standing in front of an old, rotting wooden shelf. The shelf was piled high with odds and ends, but deep inside a dark corner were a few clear glass jars containing various colored powders.
It wasn't Jasmine's first time seeing glassware in this world. The grand cathedral in the Royal Capital used a lot of brilliant stained glass to decorate its windows, creating a shimmering, magical scene when the sun shone through.
Although glassware wasn't considered too rare in the Royal Capital, due to limitations in crafting technology, glass was still very expensive, usually only used by wealthy nobles who wanted to show off their status.
Jasmine had implicitly accepted the poverty of the Black Dragon Castle, so suddenly seeing expensive glassware in this dilapidated warehouse naturally surprised her.
"These are alchemy products, items left behind by the alchemist who served the previous Lord when he left." The old Butler carefully put the soybeans needed for lunch into a small cloth bag, then walked over, using a wrinkled finger to point at the bottom of a glass jar.
"There are labels here writing the name of each item."
Jasmine picked up a glass jar and blew off the dust, indeed seeing words written in black ink near the bottom of the jar.
"Pebble Beetle Shells, Sulfur, Cooked Gypsum..."
There weren't many glass jars, totaling only five or six lying around. Jasmine read through all the names, realizing she only understood what Sulfur and Cooked Gypsum were thanks to knowledge from her old world.
Among them, the Sulfur only had a tiny amount left, about the size of a fingernail, pale yellow, while the Cooked Gypsum had a full jar of fine white powder.
Because Sulfur's bright color was nearly like gold, it was always an important alchemical material, and its price was also extremely expensive. If there had been a large quantity, it would have been taken and sold for money long ago, not left here to gather dust.
The other things were likely ingredients unique to this magical world; Jasmine had never even heard their names, nor did she know what magical effects they had.
The thing that caught Jasmine's attention the most was that jar of white Cooked Gypsum. Although Jasmine wasn't clear what use this thing had in mysterious alchemy, she knew very well another practical use for it in cuisine: this thing could be used to coagulate tofu.
If their food reserves weren't substantial, wouldn't turning soybeans into soft tofu be equivalent to doubling the amount of food in terms of volume? Moreover, tofu was rich in nutrition and much easier to digest than soybeans cooked directly as whole grains.
The only problem now was, did the Cooked Gypsum used for this alchemy product contain impurities harmful to the human body?