Waiting until the Minotaur and the other guards had finished carrying and moving all the clunky luggage from the carriage into the room, Jasmine quickly arranged for people to clean up the three rooms briefly so that there would be a place to lie down and rest tonight.
After that, she immediately led the large Minotaur, the agile Goblin, along with a trustworthy Human guard to go outside.
They still had not eaten lunch, and everyone's stomachs were rumbling. The food reserves brought along the road had been consumed completely clean, so Jasmine needed to go out to find and buy some food to replenish energy for everyone.
When Jasmine walked downstairs, the old innkeeper was nodding and dozing off at the reception counter just as before. The guards walking back and forth heavily to the backyard to get water to clean the rooms caused noisy commotion, but even that could not wake him from his sleepiness.
Jasmine had originally intended to take advantage of the opportunity to ask the other party a bit more about the current situation of the town of Ankera, but seeing this scene, she decisively gave up. It would be better to personally take a walk around to slowly explore; that would be more effective.
After Jasmine walked out of the door of the inn, she did not hurriedly walk to the flashy shops on the two sides of the main road immediately. On the contrary, she turned her steps to walk towards the depths of this small alley.
Just now, when passing by, her keen and sensitive nose had smelled the scent of grilled bread, fragrant and wafting in the wind. She guessed that there was certainly a bakery nearby.
The houses standing close together in the small alley were uneven in quality. The majority were dilapidated wooden houses similar to the inn she was staying in, but the deeper she walked inside, the more the scenery became shabby and tattered. Gradually, one could see the silhouettes of ramshackle cottages made of mud walls and tattered grass huts.
Furthermore, the sanitary environment of the surroundings was much worse than the main road area; in the middle of the walkway, one could clearly see household waste and various types of dirty water stagnating in the puddles.
Fortunately, the bakery that Jasmine wanted to find was located not too far from the small inn. Jasmine did not need to walk deep into the range of the cottage slum area at the very back of the small alley.
The bakery appearing before her eyes had a very narrow and modest frontage, and the signboard was also faded and dim.
However, Jasmine had not yet approached the door when she smelled the rich, intense, and seductive scent of wheat wafting out, stimulating her sense of taste.
The Minotaur's stomach was even less willing to admit defeat, letting out a few "gurgle gurgle" sounds that were loud and full of embarrassment.
The Goblin and the Human guard walking by her side also could not help but swallow a mouthful of saliva with a gulp, their eyes looking with longing desire and craving, staring intently toward the door of the bakery as if looking at a treasure.
A bakery that could open in a poor small alley like this usually only specialized in making cheap types of black bread.
Moreover, to reduce costs and sell at a cheap price to the poor people, inside some types of black bread, they even mixed in sawdust or gritty sand.
When Jasmine walked in, the owner of the bakery—a man covered in flour—was busily bustling about inside the hot, sweltering oven.
They had to take advantage of the time to make a new batch of black bread before dinner to be in time to sell to the laborers getting off work.
At this moment, it was past the peak hour for lunch, and the front of the bakery was completely empty without customers, so the appearance of Jasmine's group was still very prominent and distinct.
They had just stood still in the shop when the owner, who had been busy, immediately hurriedly wiped his hands on his apron and ran out to welcome them.
The bakery owner was an observant person; just looking at Jasmine's style of dress and aura, he knew immediately that the person in front of him was a noble lord.
Only a noble lord would like to wear that type of elaborate, magnificent, and clean clothing in this dusty place.
Although in his heart he was not clear why a high and noble lord would visit his shabby bakery, the owner still bowed his body low, displaying respect and fear to the fullest extent.
"What kind of bread do you sell here?" Jasmine cast her eyes to observe the environment of the bakery for a turn first.
This frontage, although small and narrow, looked to be considered neat and clean, and there was no scene of flies buzzing chaotically everywhere and landing on the food.
Jasmine's requirements for these common shops had been lowered to a very low level; as long as she did not see with her own eyes a hygiene problem so terrible that it caused nausea and was unbearable, she could reluctantly accept buying food there.
"Our shop is small; we only specialize in selling black bread, respected Lord." The shop owner rubbed his hands and answered with some apprehension, sweat oozing from his forehead, afraid that the difficult noble lord in front of him would be angry because there was no white bread, and then vent her anger by smashing his bakery.
Such unlucky things had also happened to him in the past. In the end, the shop owner had to swallow the bitterness and close the old bakery on the big street, drifting to a hidden, inconspicuous small alley in the town of Ankera to dare to open the shop again to make a living.
Normal, powerless craftsmen like the shop owner would not dare to offend the powerful noble class a thousand times over.
"How do you sell it?" Jasmine asked briefly.
The shop owner was stunned for a moment, clearly not expecting that a noble would ask about the price in such detail, but he reacted very quickly and answered respectfully: "One Odd Coin for a large loaf, my Lord."
Thinking for a bit, the shop owner secretly glanced at Jasmine's facial expression, hesitatingly adding: "As for the type of black bread mixed with sawdust for the poor, it is 0.5 Odd Coins a loaf."
The latter sentence was spoken in a voice that was small and mumbling, as if afraid of dirtying Jasmine's ears, but she still heard it clearly.
She, although currently her finances did not have an abundance of much money, would also not be stingy to the point of letting her people eat bread mixed with sawdust that harmed the stomach.
The guards had faithfully followed her throughout the long journey filled with danger and had also suffered not a little hardship and hunger; no matter what, she had to let them eat a decent, full meal.
Jasmine thought and calculated for a bit, then decided: "Get me thirty loaves of the delicious black bread, the kind not mixed with sawdust."
This was truly a rare big business deal for the shop owner, but they momentarily could not bring out so much good quality black bread right away. After all, the frequent customers of this bakery were mainly the poor freelance people around here; they only dared to spend money to buy the cheapest type of black bread mixed with sawdust to keep themselves alive.