PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

461 Chapter 461 A Garden Full Of Hidden Treasures (3)

While the girls tidied everything up, Desmond glanced at the document Cecilia was holding before leaving the room. It was no surprise that the content was unpleasant, in fact, it was surprising enough that Cecilia didn’t say anything about it.

Not knowing if it was a way to justify his actions, Desmond commented quietly. “It can’t be helped, the corpses have to be stacked if necessary.”

Showing an almost eerie timing, Claire’s voice came from the stairs. “So all this time there was an underground level below the restaurant.”

From the second set of footsteps coming from the stairs came Sasha’s sweet voice. “I’m sure Desmond just didn’t want to bore us with the details.”

“Do you always defend Desmond like that? Do you even know the kind of things that man does in secret?” It was Cecilia who answered this time.

Having reached the bottom of the stairs, the first to enter the hall of the underground floor was Claire, who answered Cecilia’s question simply. “Desmond does what he has always done, protect this family; that includes you, Cecilia.”

To the complete disbelief of Desmond, who was used to receiving criticism from Cecilia, the former priestess fell silent rather than respond to Claire’s comment. Sasha saw the surprise on Desmond’s face and said jokingly. “Look, it looks like Desmond just saw a unicorn.”

Desmond didn’t hesitate for a second to correct Sasha. “A unicorn wouldn’t be that surprising. Cecilia not following through on an argument is like watching Kyuru refuse a pot of honey.”

Cecilia, of course, was not silent about it. “I guess it was too much to ask that you be courteous for more than a minute, I bet it’s as hard as keeping your hands off women.”

.....

They say that even a blind cat can catch a mouse from time to time. Cecilia was just looking for a clever way to annoy Desmond, but the only person in the room who showed a reaction was Garden’s cook, Tania. Both Cecilia and Sasha might be too clueless to catch such a thing, but Claire wasn’t.

Blissfully unaware that Claire had made a mental note regarding Tania, in which she included all the girls in Garden in one fell swoop, Desmond invited everyone to sit at the table.

Although they were used to seeing Claire and Sasha eating at the restaurant, the Garden girls were still visibly nervous sitting at the same table. This was no longer just a facade that they kept up, this was probably the first completely real interaction between them.

Desmond noted the air of awkwardness around the table and since this had all started with him, it was his job to sort it out. “I guess it’s too late for introductions at this point since all of you have known each other for a long time. Therefore, let me simplify things. Claire, Sasha, I present to you the real Garden, a small elite unit that works for me from the shadows.”

Sasha was a kind person by nature, a kind of hermit who didn’t spend much time around many people. Still, she understood how complex Desmond’s world was as well as how ambitious and cautious he was, so the existence of Garden Although surprising, it was not unheard of.

Since everyone in the Astryd residence already had a notion of what Garden really was, something Desmond mentioned in the past; Claire wasn’t surprised either.

Claire was the one who knew Desmond best, to begin with, she had been suspicious of Garden’s true nature long before she knew what it really was.

What Claire and Sasha did not expect was that after they had made the introduction, all the Garden girls would stand up from their seats and bow to them with great courtesy and reverence.

“Nice to meet you, ladies.” x5

Only Revna who was back inside Desmond’s shadow didn’t bow and wave. Of the three, only Cecilia was used to this kind of treatment from her time as a Holy Priestess, so Claire and Sasha looked confused about how to react.

This was precisely one of the reasons Desmond hadn’t made this introduction earlier. Garden’s attitude and treatment of Desmond would raise anyone’s suspicions, let’s not even talk about Claire and Sasha who knew that Desmond was quite lucky with women.

Fighting that monster of Camila wasn’t nearly as unsettling as the look Desmond was getting from Claire at the moment. The poor hunter did not hesitate to betray Revna by telling the girl to come out of her shadow.

As soon as Revna stepped out of her shadow, she faced the accusing finger of her own Master. “Claire, dear, this is all Revna’s fault, she taught them to act like this.”

Revna was speechless. She had seen Desmond fight with a savage smile against beasts of enormous strength, he was a man who never feared anything or so Revna believed before today.

Poof* Unable to contain herself any longer, Claire burst out laughing. “Revna, you should have seen your face.”

The poor woman with zero social skills now had metaphorical question marks written all over her face. That only caused Claire to laugh longer, soon both Sasha and Cecilia were giggling a bit.

Facing Revna’s defenseless face and the confusion in the rest of the Garden girls, Claire decided to have mercy and clarify. “You don’t need to be so surprised. Desmond warned us beforehand that you might do something like that, after all, Revna isn’t very subtle with her attitude on a day-to-day basis either, it’s impossible not to notice even if we don’t see her that often.”

Seeing that Claire’s friendly and cheerful demeanor hadn’t changed at all, all the girls in Garden breathed a silent sigh of relief. They couldn’t be blamed, Desmond was openly protective of Claire and Sasha, and it was normal for the girls in Garden to be worried about their master’s women liking them.

Since the introductions were made, Desmond gave Tania the go-ahead to explain the menu for the day. As a professional chef, Tania presented herself in an immaculate uniform as she gave an introduction to her dishes.

Bear stew with homemade cream, forest vegetable soup, peasant pie, fried rice with bear meat, the list went on and on. Not even mentioning the variety of dishes, the amount of food alone was enough to feed two soccer teams.

When she finished, Tania pulled out one last covered tray and placed it in front of Desmond before removing the lid from it. The sheer scent was enough to starve a person to death and even Desmond swallowed hard.

“To finish, this dish is Spring Bear Heart Steak, it is coated with honey that was applied multiple times while the meat was slow baking and I made a special flower sauce to go with it. Unfortunately, this dish is a bit...intense and the ingredients were scarce, so I’m afraid I only have Master’s portion.”

Although a little strange, neither Claire nor Sasha commented on it, the table was full of food, and they certainly weren’t going to fight over something silly like that. For his part, Desmond knew what Tania meant by the word intense, but he didn’t say anything about it.

The arcana was quite strange from Desmond’s perspective as it encompassed just too many things, from laws of physics and reality to incredibly abstract things like Tania’s culinary law. For that reason, Desmond was eager to try the effects, he hoped it would be a surprise for everyone, and that’s why he didn’t say anything about it to Claire or Sasha.

As soon as the go-ahead was given, everyone at the table began to eat, with Desmond being the only exception. It must be said that Desmond had a somewhat wry expression on his face as he realized that among everyone he knew, he was the only one who ate like a savage. However, that did not distract him from seeing what he was waiting for.

It was a few moments before all the eating people noticed it, but when they did his expressions were quite varied. It should be mentioned that the reason why the true potential of Tania’s ability had not been shown was due to the materials. Therefore, when the Garden girls started to go hunting in the forest from time to time, those effects began to show in some of the high-quality things they brought.

To say that the bear Revna had killed was of high quality was an understatement. In the first place, the bear was, in theory, as strong or stronger than Revna, adding to that, it was an Aura beast so its meat contained a large amount of energy. As if that wasn’t enough, the bear carcass’s only property was to contain an abnormal amount of nutrients and vitality.

Through Tania’s culinary skills and her arcane law, the resulting dishes were, for lack of better words, like bloody steroids. Claire, Sasha, Cecilia, and each of the Garden girls could clearly feel their bodies being flooded with a torrential tide of nutrients and vitality. Every muscle fiber, bone tissue, neural terminal, and organ within their bodies seemed to be receiving the most comfortable and gentle of massages as they gradually grew stronger.

Since both Sasha and Cecilia had already stepped into the two-star class and their bodies had received nourishment from various kinds of elixir, the effect was less obvious to them. However, Sasha was a genius of alchemy and medicine, only by feeling the effects within her body, she could get an idea of ??the effectiveness of the strengthening.

In Sasha’s judgment, these nutrients and vitality could be ingested in large amounts but would only be as effective on their first consumption and would become less effective unless the level and quality of the dishes changed. The strengthening could not be considered gigantic but it was not negligible at all, if one gave Tania the ingredients and the time she could likely form an army of supermen.

While Sasha was doing all kinds of analysis and projections in her head, Desmond decided to eat her part. Unlike the rest, Desmond’s dish had the most nutritious part of the bear and it was obvious that Tania had put even more effort into its preparation; the result was quite remarkable.

The effect was the same as the rest of the people at the table received, only five times stronger. For Desmond, the effects weren’t overwhelming. That was especially the case when he had consumed such a godly resource as the soul of twilight. Nevertheless, Desmond could still feel his muscle fibers trembling with delight; quite a pleasant feeling.