Oakstone Tavern was owned by a guildmate by the name of Cecilia. In her first life, she was a genius junior chef at the young age of thirteen. She took part in a lot of competitions both at the local and national level. Her greatest achievement was fifth place in the whole United States. She had always known that she wanted to be a chef. Cecilia dreamed about opening her own restaurant. Unfortunately, the dream was to remain a dream.
Cecilia contracted an acute lung disease after a family holiday to the mountains. Initially, she only had cold symptoms that worsened with each passing day. It became so bad that she had difficulty breathing and could no longer leave her bed. After suffering for two weeks, she succumbed to her illness and died.
When Cecilia reincarnated into Afterlife Dream, she was quite dejected. She played some MMO when she was alive, but she was never serious about them. She would rather be reincarnated in a cooking game rather than an adventure-based game such as Afterlife Dream. When she discovered that it was possible to start a business in the game, she immediately showed her interest.
Cecilia minimized her spending and saved a lot of money over the months. Once she had enough, she bought a patch of land on Paradise Island and built a tavern. The tavern became her greatest happiness in Afterlife Dream. She was so satisfied with her current life that she did not even think about exiting the game anytime soon.
When she put a steaming bowl of spicy udon noodles with minced beef in front of me, I could not help but stare. I did not even dare to eat it. A bowl like this cost at least 300,000 gold! I checked my user interface and it told me that this dish could grant me cold protection for 30 minutes! I looked around the table and saw that my guildmates were eating their food without any constraint.
...
I knew that BlackPuma paid for dinner, but did they not feel that it was such a pity to waste such good food? I was tempted to just sneak the good food into my inventory for later use. HellWitch lifted her head and caught me in the act.
"..."
"..."
"Antares, these are empty dishes. You don't have to save them."
"... What? Empty dishes?"
Next to me, DragonTalon also did not understand. Thank God. I was not the stupidest person at the table.
HellWitch motioned to me with her chopsticks to put the bowl of udon into my inventory.
"Go ahead. Try it. Then check the item info."
I clicked at my inventory to store the bowl of udon noodles. Its icon appeared in my inventory, but there was an "EMPTY" text written across it like some warning. I clicked on the item info and did not see anything about cold protection.
HellWitch laughed at my surprised face.
"Antares, there are two kinds of food that people with high cooking skills can make : the full dishes and the empty dishes. The full dishes are the costly ones, made by using a full list of ingredients. The empty dishes were made by omitting the most expensive ingredients off the list, so they do not give any buff upon consumption."
Oh.
HellWitch leaned in and whispered, "BlackPuma is rich, but he would not be able to pay for fifty people's worth of full dishes without batting an eyelid, hahahaha."
Indeed. I looked around me and saw what BlackPuma ordered for each table. Sushi platters, grilled pork ribs, baked fish, pasta bowls, roasted potato with bacon, and huge plates with big steamed lobsters. I gulped. Had BlackPuma paid for all the foods, his gold pouch would for sure lose a certain amount of weight.
Although the dishes were classified as "empty", they were very delicious. Players did not feel hungry or thirsty within the game, so eating and drinking were unnecessary. Nevertheless, we all were once earth inhabitants. When friends hung out together, they habitually ordered food and drinks. My adoptive father used to say that a can of beer was enough to turn acquaintances into friends. When my adoptive mother caught him saying that to the children, she quickly added that it did not have to be a can of beer. A can of cola or juice could also do the magic.
Free dinners were always exquisite. At midnight, we all said good night to each other and went into our homes.
The next morning, I woke up with full spirit. I was ready for my very first Fire Golem raid.
A message from Livina popped up on my user interface screen.
"Antares, it is 9 AM. Please head over to the Fire Golem Lair in case you forgot about it (◍•ᴗ•◍)."
"Got it. Leaving for the Lair now."
"Okey-dokey!!!"
I checked my inventory one last time to make sure that I got everything I needed inside. And then I walked toward the train station to head for Lava County. On my way to the train station, I passed by a gachapon machine and stopped in my track.
The mighty, shining Gachapon machines stood at the center of every resting map. In the original game, players could spend real-life money to buy tickets and gambled their money away. Even I did that because I had nowhere else to spend my pocket money on. With no real money involved in the current Afterlife Dream, gachapon tickets became luxury items that only some players could get their hands on. Only these select individuals frequented the machines regularly. The other mortal beings only came after they got tickets from beginner boxes. Like me for example.
I held the three gachapon tickets in my hand and stared at the gachapon machine in front of me. I weighed my options. How likely was it to get something good with just three tickets? Based on my online gaming experience, the odds were higher if we had more tickets to use. Unfortunately, the three tickets might be all that I would ever get in Afterdream Life. I would sooner exit the game than get first to third rank in anything.
I sighed and tucked the three tickets back into my pocket. Maybe next time when I felt especially lucky.