16
Survival Day Sixteen: Do You Like Farming?
Wendy didn’t know that her skin-changing behavior had opened a new world for the newest member of the family.
She didn’t deliberately hide her actions in front of outsiders.
After all, what game player would hide from NPCs to prevent them from knowing? They would openly rummage through cabinets right in front of them, try to talk to every NPC, and even use elders as weapons.
After completing Corazon’s request, Wendy temporarily put the matter aside – even if she wanted to invite Law to become her companion, it would have to wait until after Law obtained a Devil Fruit.
Still, she would keep an eye on Law – whether he later obtained a Devil Fruit or triggered the plot by dying when the three-year period ended, both would be important parts of her gaming experience.
After Law joined, the Donquixote Family continued their usual activities, and Wendy’s daily life didn’t change much.
Although she could fight, she wasn’t a main combatant. Her damage output wasn’t particularly high, her own health was low making her fragile, and her highest damage dealer Abigail was an area-of-effect attacker who happened to be a ghost that weakened during the day and strengthened at night.
Moreover, when the weather turned bad, she needed various items to ensure her survival – both cold and heat would cause continuous health loss, and once her wetness reached a certain level, she would start to lose sanity. Nights would also cause sanity loss.
Fortunately, she could restore her sanity by approaching her sister’s bone ash jar, and daily activities allowed her to recover sanity through food.
Actually, she could normally pick flowers to restore sanity too – one flower could restore 5 points of Sanity. But while traveling with the Donquixote Family, the places they frequented were garbage dumps and ruins, where no flowers could be seen.
Because of this, when Doflamingo asked her what kind of place she liked to live in, she thought seriously and replied: [“A place with many flowers, comfortable temperature, dry and pleasant, preferably with year-round sunshine.”]
Doflamingo was momentarily stunned, then for some reason started laughing heartily. After finishing, he directly promised her: [“Soon enough, you’ll be able to live in such a place.”]
[“Really? Where is it?”]
[“Dressrosa.”] Doflamingo announced this name that he called their “future base,” with an attitude of certain arrogance, saying lightly: [“When the time comes, you can live directly in the Royal Palace.”]
[“Then would I count as a princess?”] Wendy fell into thought. She noticed that some of her unlocked skins looked like court dresses – she wondered if entering the royal palace would unlock them…
Doflamingo replied in good spirits: [“If you want to be, then you can be.”]
“Hmm… I hope we can soon live in that flower-filled place.” Recalling this conversation, Wendy murmured to herself.
She was currently holding an umbrella to shield herself from the sun to prevent overheating, while Baby 5 beside her diligently fanned her with a small fan.
The Donquixote Family’s main focus remained on developing underground trade and smuggling various goods. Currently, their primary task was to establish a trading network and expand their business scope and territory.
Wendy was quite satisfied with this development – because this way, her map would expand too.
The items they traded were generally smuggled goods, such as weapons and Devil Fruits.
Among them were backpacks made by Wendy, which were quite popular.
Although the materials for the backpacks were simple—requiring only a modest amount of straw and branches—Doflamingo strictly controlled their export.
He understood the principle of scarcity increasing value, and if such a miraculous item were to become too widespread, it could easily reveal Wendy’s uniqueness. Aside from the one backpack each family member used, he limited the sale to only ten units. Of these ten, only eight were sold, with the remaining two slated for auction.
Wendy didn’t bother with what he did; after all, they were companions. He provided her with supplies, and she made a few backpacks in return—it took her less than a minute.
While everyone else was out fighting, she was the one at home cooking—preparing meatballs, fried fish cutlets, and banana milkshakes, waiting for everyone to return.
A single serving of meatballs could restore 62.5 points of satiety;
A fried fish cutlet could restore 40 health points;
A cup of banana milkshake could restore 22 sanity.
It could be said that these dishes covered all three dimensions—satiety, energy, and vitality—and they tasted great too.
However, she had long grown tired of making them. Aside from her daily meals, she was unwilling to cook more except for post-battle replenishment like this. After all, everyone in this world had astonishing appetites, unlike her, who could go from starving to full with just two servings of meatballs.
The others were used to it, but Law, who had recently joined, was experiencing this for the first time. After tasting the food and discovering its miraculous effects, he was utterly amazed and couldn’t help but turn and ask, “Is that woman a chef?”
Sitting beside him were Baby 5 and Buffalo, as they were the only three children in the family.
Buffalo had previously witnessed Law attempting to assassinate Corazon, but later, Law easily won him over with ice cream.
At that moment, Buffalo stuffed a fried fish cutlet into his mouth, chewed vigorously, and replied, “You should address her as Miss Wendy! Otherwise, you’ll get beaten up!”
“That’s right, and Miss Wendy isn’t a chef,” Baby 5 added between bites. “Miss Wendy just makes miraculous dishes. But she doesn’t cook often, so you’re lucky this time.”
While the children were chatting, the senior officers who had been enjoying her meals for years ate quietly, feeling a sense of melancholy inside—Wendy… although her dishes were incredible, they were always the same three items…
“Although it’s delicious… I still miss the days when Wendy was exploring recipes,” Diamante sighed nostalgically, as if recalling the distant past. “Back then, there were so many delicious dishes…”
In the beginning, Wendy had also felt a sense of novelty and wanted to explore recipes. When ingredients were plentiful and she didn’t have to worry about waste, she enthusiastically experimented by randomly combining four different ingredients in the pot to cook.
That was the cooking principle of Starvation: put four ingredients into the pot, then open it with a clatter.
If the combination wasn’t part of a recipe, the result would be a vomit-like, damp, and sticky substance. But if it matched a recipe, various dishes would appear, some of which were incredibly delicious.
However, after exploring all the recipes, Wendy quickly lost interest. From then on, her dishes were limited to the same old three.
It wasn’t that the Starvation recipe book only contained these three dishes, but rather that these three offered the best value for effort, with simple ingredients and easy preparation.
“You still dare say that! If you hadn’t angered Miss Wendy and harmed her beloved bird, we’d at least have bacon and eggs or Polish dumplings to eat!” Jora, one of the veteran members of the Donquixote Family, still felt furious whenever she recalled the incident.
Law overheard this and turned his head to whisper in confusion, “What bird?”
Baby 5 quietly replied, “I’m not too clear either, but I heard Mr. Diamante accidentally fed Miss Wendy’s bird to death. After that, Miss Wendy stopped making egg-based dishes.”
Diamante, who caught their whispered conversation from the same table, felt wronged—it wasn’t intentional on his part!
Wendy used to frequently prepare bacon and eggs along with Polish dumplings, the latter being another cost-effective option that restored 40 health points. Both dishes required eggs as one of their ingredients.
However, eggs being fragile items were troublesome to transport, and since they were constantly on the move, they never stockpiled them in large quantities.
So Wendy caught a bird and placed it in her Birdcage—in Starvation, birds could be used to produce eggs. By feeding a bird one piece of meat, you could exchange it for an egg.
Then, the Donquixote Family members watched in astonishment as Wendy fed the bird 40 pieces of meat. Each time she stuffed a piece of meat, the bird would drop an egg. She exchanged all the eggs within just five minutes.
While she took the freshly laid eggs to prepare new dishes, a crowd gathered around, gazing at the bird as if it were a divine creature—how could an ordinary, commonplace bird suddenly become an egg-laying perpetual motion machine? How did it manage to eat so much meat? And some of that meat even had a purple tint, clearly poisonous!
Everyone was baffled but eventually concluded that Wendy must have known about this miraculous bird that traded meat for eggs. Then Diamante, unable to contain his curiosity, also brought meat to feed the bird…
And then the bird was fed to death.
The bird didn’t even consume a whole piece; it merely pecked at the meat Diamante offered and immediately dropped dead before his eyes.
What followed was Diamante being collectively beaten up by everyone.
But Wendy’s bird was still dead, and afterward, she never made egg-based dishes again. Everyone assumed Wendy was grieving the loss of her beloved pet bird, and since they had no right to make demands of her anyway, they didn’t dare bring it up.
As for Wendy herself…
Ah, the bird died? Whatever, that large Birdcage was taking up space anyway. Polish dumplings require three different ingredients—too much hassle. I don’t need frequent health recovery; meatballs are still the best.—Wendy thought.
Unaware that it was just a random ordinary bird Wendy had caught, everyone blamed Diamante and occasionally cast envious glances at the unique dishes beside their leader Doflamingo—only their boss had the privilege of requesting specific meals.
Wendy indeed only had patience for preparing what her companion wanted to eat, since all the ingredients were gathered by that companion.
Later, although Corazon secretly became her companion, he had to maintain his act of being mute and couldn’t request dishes. He also hadn’t experienced Wendy’s recipe-unlocking phase and didn’t know what to ask for.
Actually, dragon fruit pie still offers the best value for money… But dragon fruit can only be obtained through farming… Ah, Dof is perfect in every way except for forbidding me from farming. — Wendy thought regretfully as she swallowed the banana jelly in one gulp.
I wonder if her future companion candidate might be a farming genius…
Thinking this, Wendy cast an expectant gaze toward Law sitting at the far end.
Upon receiving her glance, Law bristled like a startled cat and looked back with wary eyes.
Wendy paid no attention to this reaction. Seizing the opportunity, she quietly pulled him aside and asked mysteriously, “Do you like farming?”
The previously tense Law: “…?”