When Kit woke Snowball had already left for the day. He was a little disappointed that he missed out on a morning cuddle. He dressed himself then headed into the kitchen, to his surprise the dining area was bustling with his friends. He had thought that they would have all taken advantage of sleeping in when they didn’t need to go to the restaurant for morning service.

Pretzel bounced over to Kit as soon as he entered. “Kit, what is the reward for today? What are the rules for winning the prize?”

“Good morning to you too Pretzel.” A chuckle left his lips at the boy’s enthusiasm.

“Ahh, sorry Kit, good morning.” Pretzel didn’t seem phased that Kit didn’t answer his question right away. He was still standing in the same spot eagerly waiting for Kit to respond.

He glanced at the full table to see that the rest of his employees also had their eyes glued to him. He hadn’t long woken and hadn’t thought about what to offer as a reward for the most meat chunks cut today.

He decided to be honest and tell the group, murmurers arouse as they discussed what Kit could offer as a prize. Kit picked up a piece of toast off the stack on the table and started to nibble as he waited to see if any of them would come up with a decent idea.

When no consensus was made Crackers spoke up. “Kit can the winner pick what they be wanting?” Crackers had an intense gaze after she asked the question. A hum of agreement swept the table at Crackers suggestion.

He tentatively answered. “That will depend on whether I can give it to you or not. What would you like if you win Crackers.” The intensity of her stare had him curious.

“I be wanting to help you when you be tryin’ to create your next stats creation.” Crackers intense stare turned into fervent eyes.

Kit nodded his head to Crackers suggestion. “That would be an acceptable prize.”

A loud thump drew everyone’s attention. “Cupcake!” The big man was hitting his chest, the mans eyes locked with Kit’s. The intensity of the gaze caused Kit to momentarily falter. When Crackers stared at him like this, he was not afraid. But this large man looked like he would pulverise him in an instant if he refused.

Kit understood what Cupcake meant with his one word and gaze. “Ok you can have that as a reward too Cupcake.”

Mud’s hand shot up in the air. “I want an extra day off.” Kit nodded to Mud, that was also acceptable.

Dove spoke next for himself and Cadbury. “We want to accompany you when you next head out to collect ingredients.” Kit happy about the enthusiasm of his staff to come up with their own ideas, so far everything raised was in his ability to accommodate.

Pretzel piped up next. “I want to start to learn how to cook!” Kit was surprised by Pretzel’s request. He looked seriously at the boy. If this was what Pretzel wanted even if he didn’t win Kit would be happy to teach the boy how to cook. Kit didn’t tell Pretzel this he just nodded in acceptance.

Kit swung his gaze around the rest of the group. “Anyone else have a request?”

Charlotte, Chamomile, Bree and Bundt shook their heads. “Then if you win, we can negotiate the prize after we have completed the task how does that sound?”

All four chorused their agreement. As Kit was about to move a voice sounded from the kitchen. “Hey what about us?” Twix and Mars were eating toast at the kitchen bench. Kit hadn’t even noticed them sitting off to the side of the dining area.

“What do you want?” Kit raised an inquiring brow.

Twix pursed his lips in thought. “I don’t know, I just didn’t want you to forget that we were here. We can negotiate as well after the task is finished.”

With the rewards decided, Kit tucked into his breakfast and thought about where he should take the others to undertake the task of cutting the meat. He would need an area large enough to take out the meat safely.

North and south of Spartan Fire headed straight into a forest, east was to the mountains. That only left the empty field west of the village. With his destination decided he took the group to the large fields just outside of the village.

The walk only took 15 minutes from the boarding house. He surveyed the area to make sure that there was no one standing in the field then removed a piece of trampling thickhead meat from his pouch.

Kit’s jaw dropped as he stared at the size of the meat in front of him. No wonder he hadn’t been able to take the meat out at the town hall. This chunk of meat was the size of a fire truck! Delight filled his heart staring at the high grade meat in front of him.

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He couldn’t wait to start experimenting with it! When Kit finally tore his gaze away from the glorious meat, he saw a familiar figure walking towards the group. Green hair swayed as the figure came closer. “Kit, why did you not wait for me!” Snickers was pouting as she spoke.

Kit automatically ran up to Snickers and apologised. How could he have forgotten his restaurant manager! He quickly filled her in on the task he wanted to complete today.

“I will keep a tally for you, I am useless at this type of thing.” Snickers waved a hand at the meat, indicating that she wouldn’t help dissect the meat. She then pulled a large umbrella and chair from her pouch and settled down to watch the show.

Kit hadn’t even thought about how to keep an accurate count of everyone’s efforts. He was glad Snickers had joined them. Now that he had a referee he turned to the others and started to explain what size pieces he wanted the meat cut into. He wanted the meat cut into portions that could be properly cut up in the kitchen.

Basically, he wanted the meat roughly cut into chunks the size of a large chopping board. He walked up to the meat and demonstrated how to cut the meat without damaging the flesh. When everyone nodded that they understood the task, swords flew from scarabs and kitchen knives started to attack the trampling thickhead flesh.

With them all working together they completed the task faster than Kit had thought possible. It only took them 1 hour to finish the first piece of meat. He quickly pulled the last piece of meat from his pouch and soon it was demolished under the sharp blades.

A grin spread across Kit’s face as he placed the last piece of cut meat into his pouch. The amount of Trampling thickhead portions he now had would keep him stocked up for a time. He didn’t think it would last him anywhere close to the next migration of trampling thickheads, this didn’t stop him from being very happy.

With this quality of meat, he was sure that he could get a stats creation out of it. Plus he had already made plans to coax the others into hunting a few more of the monsters at the next migration.

Mars walked over to him as he was fantasising about the results, he might get from using the meat. “Do you want to cut up my portion of the meat now or do it another time?” Confusion filled Kit for a moment, why did he have to give Mars some of this meat? Did he not get his own portion of meat as a reward?

Mars seemed to see that Kit didn’t understand what he was trying to say. “Grandpa, Twix and I kept our portion of trampling thickhead meat to give to you. We figured you might want to experiment with it.”

Kit was momentarily stunned, his friends gave up on receiving money for the sale of the trampling thick head meat just so he could use it in his cooking. Kit suddenly felt pressure to create something worthy of the sacrifice.

If he did manage to make a stats creation, then he would now have six more trampling thickhead giant slabs at his disposal! A gentle tug on his shirt caused him to turn his head. Snickers was standing next to him with a smile on her face. “Looks like I wasn’t the only one to think of this. Leonard and I also kept our share of the meat for you.”

He looked at his friends faces and not one of them looked concerned about giving away their reward from the monster run. A swelling of warmth flooded his chest. How did he manage to find friends like this in the game.

Mud bounded over right as he was starting to tear up from happiness. “Oh, the rest of us also kept our share of the trampling thickhead meat for you.” Mud pointed to the group of Kit’s employees not far away. “We figured anything to do with food should be kept for you.”

The simple answer sent Kit over the edge, tears dropped from his lashes. How could a game make him feel more loved than he did in real life. Kit wiped his wet cheeks and blushed, he couldn’t believe he lost it in front of all his friends.

Embarrassment made his cheeks turn pink. “I don’t know how to thank you all.” He really didn’t know what to do to thank his friends.

Mud came up with an idea for him. “Then how about you give us all the reward we agreed on this morning!” Kit looked at Mud’s eager expression and could only agree.

“Ok.” Kit could only choke out the simple answer. He felt like if he kept talking, he would cry again.

With the addition of the extra trampling thickhead meat in his possession, Kit decided to carve up two more of the giant slabs.

When they were finally done for the day Kit had over 4,000 smaller chunks in his pouch. He was glad that the meat stacked into piles of 1000 or else he would quickly lose most of his storage space.

He planned to transfer the meat to his new storage room. He had a feeling he would need to upgrade the room ASAP to store all his ingredients that he had collected from the Twisted tunnels of Spatlicaan wilderness.

It wasn’t feasible for him to keep all the restaurant’s stock inside his pouch. This had became apparent when he had died in the monster run and the restaurant had run our of stock temporarily.

The thought made him turn back to Snickers. “Do you know what is required to upgrade the storage room at the restaurant?” Hopefully it would be something he could achieve easily.

The smile Snickers had on her face froze. “This …” A sigh left Snickers lips, Kit felt like he was not going to like her answer. “You will need to upgrade the restaurant before you can upgrade the storage facility.”

Frosted peas! She was right he didn’t like the answer. He thought about the hidden blueprint that Snickers told him about, then he seriously weighed up weather he should wait to see if they could find it. There was no guarantee it could ever be found.

Kit felt himself swaying towards forgetting about the blueprint and just upgrading his existing restaurant. Storage was only going to become more of a problem the more he created new dishes. “Snickers if we have not found that hidden blueprint by the time the village upgrades, then I think we should go ahead with the restaurant promotion on the existing building.”

He couldn’t look Snickers in the eye after saying these words, he didn’t want to see her disappointed expression. “Oh I thought we would be doing that anyway.” Kit became confused at Snickers answer, did she not want him to use the hidden blueprint? Or had she already gotten some news about it while he was away?

His eyes shot towards the delicate elf to confirm she was not upset. “What about the hidden blueprint?”

“We can just demolish your restaurant when we find the hidden blueprint.” Snickers was looking at him like he was an idiot once again. He shook his head, how was he to know that was even possible!

Kit suddenly realised what they had actually been discussing. How far off was Spartan Fire from being promoted. He turned back to look at the village with sparkling eyes, by the looks of things it could not be far away.

“Hey Twix, is Spartan Fire almost ready for a promotion?”