“I’ll sleep with the others.”

“Yeah, see if you can help them get settled in a bit.”

“I will!”

Raphtalia left to go sleep with her old friends. Filo was already half asleep and nodding off. Rishia was busy deciphering the manuscripts that she had received from Kizuna and the others. She had more stamina than you would have guessed.

I got to work compounding in preparation for the next part of my plans. I checked the levels of the slaves while I waited. It looked like they had all reached around level 15, on average. Their stats had increased across the board, too. Judging from my experience with Raphtalia’s growth, I’d want them to reach level 30 at the very least, and that included the ones that weren’t suited for battle, too.

After some time had passed, I heard a knock on the door.

“Umm . . .”

It was Raphtalia and . . . she had brought several young female slaves with her.

“What is it?”

“Well . . .”

Raphtalia seemed like she wanted to ask me to do something, but she was mumbling. Spit it out! Did she expect me to figure it out on my own or something?

“Did they wet the bed?”

“That’s not it. Go on, ask Mr. Naofumi yourself.”

“Umm . . . well . . .”

Their stomachs growled, and the slave girls hung their heads in shame.

“Ah, I get it. I should probably make enough to feed the other brats too, right?”

“Thank you.”

I headed out to the cooking area outside and started preparing a meal. Jeez. They had gotten hungry again quick. I cut up the monsters they had brought back from hunting and decided to make some simple skewers. Cutting the meat into small chunks was too much trouble, so I just roasted the prepped monsters whole. Once we got things going, we’d need to form a cooking crew as soon as possible, or I’d have no time for myself.

And so the next day arrived.

“Alright, listen up, everyone. I’m sure you enjoyed your midnight snack, but our food supplies are growing scarcer by the day. We need to make up for losses with hunting. In other words, I’ll be deciding what to cook based on what you bring back. Got it?”

“Yeah!”

They were almost too submissive. It weirded me out a little bit, but I guess it was fine if they were showing initiative.

“I’ll have dinner ready tonight, but the next meal isn’t guaranteed. You’ve been warned!”

“Okay!”

Last night was rough. They kept asking for more no matter how much I cooked, and they had been genuinely hungry as far as I could tell. I felt like I had been cooking nonstop since we got here. I wasn’t their mother after all! Once they had finished growing to a certain degree, I planned to train them to handle a variety of different tasks. I’d just have to hold out until then.