The Farming Saint in the Starry Wasteland (Elizabeth Schofield) novel Chapter 494

Chapter 494 Keep Eating

+10 Free Coins

will. I’m counting on you.”

And so the table stayed alive and luminous, filled with the warm, overlapping sounds of laughter and conversation and the cheerful industry of a proper feast,

Shell after shell piled onto the plates, and bow after bowl of mac and cheese disappeared and was refilled.

Outside the windows, the afternoon light fell in long, honeyed shafts, and somewhere deep in the jungle, birdsong drifted through the air in lazy, winding ribbons, carried on a breeze that slipped through the open hatch smelling of green, living things.

Clara et herself sink back against her chair, one hand resting over her very full stomach, and released a long, slow, wholly contented breath.

It’d been so long since she’d eaten a meal this relaxed. So unbearably, achingly long.

Back in Black Panther Squad, mealtimes had been a scramble, everyone grabbing fast and eating faster, terrified that hesitation meant going without.

When missions ran hot, even liquid supplements fell by the wayside entirely.

But here, someone told her to eat more. Someone told her to slow down. Someone poured her ginger infusion without being asked, and someone else passed her food she hadn’t even reached for yet.

Something quiet and certain settled deep in her chest. This might be the place she’d spent her whole life looking for without ever knowing its name.

Ella emerged from the kitchen one final time, cradling another heaping bowl of steamed crab against her side.

“Last one! When it’s gone, it’s gone!”

Olivia let out a sound of pure, theatrical anguish.

“I’m completely full, and I still want more.”

Elizabeth smiled with fond amusement. “Then stop. Save room for tonight. We’re having another full spread after dinner anyway.”

Olivia stared at the gleaming, crimson-piled bowl with naked longing and swallowed with great effort.

“There’ll actually be more tonight?”

“As much as you want.” Elizabeth’s voice carried the easy, unbothered confidence of someone sitting on a stockpile. “We caught over three thousand of them. You couldn’t run out if you tried.”

Only then did Olivia set down her utensils with the peaceful, satisfied air of someone who’d made her peace with the world.

“Ma’am, I’m telling you right now, this farm of yours is going to rule the Kingdom one day.”

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “How do you figure?”

“Think about it. You’ve already got the produce. You’re about to have the meat, the eggs, the dairy. Once everything that people in the Kingdom eat and drink comes from you?” Olivia spread her hands like the conclusion was the most obvious thing in the world. “You’d be the uncontested ruler of it all.”

Elizabeth burst out laughing. “Hah! Well, thanks for that! And when that glorious day arrives, that makes all of you the ruler’s loyal

ظ

Chapter 494 Keep Eating

The whole table erupted into laughter, warm and resonant and completely unguarded.

The sound of it drifted out through the open hatch, curled between the trees, and dissolved into the sunlit jungle beyond.

Far across that same jungle, on the other side of a wall of ancient, indifferent greenery, a small clearing sat in a silence that felt like a different world entirely.

Bukowski leaned against the broad trunk of a tree, still sealed inside his mech armor, the plating caked in drying mud and crushed leaves.

His complexion was ashen and rigid, every muscle in his jaw locked so tight it looked like stone.

Nathaniel lay beside him in the dirt, both arms wrenched into grotesque, unnatural angles, consciousness long since fled from him. His face was the colorless white of old parchment, and his lips had gone bloodless.

The two remaining squad members crouched a short distance away in complete silence.

One was Jebediah Markington, somewhere in his early thirties, with an old scar carved from his brow all the way to his jaw.

The other was Dominique Cubestone, the youngest of the group at twenty-four, lean and tall, wearing a pair of wire-framed glasses that made him look like he’d wandered in from a library rather than a jungle.

Neither of them could bring themselves to look at Bukowski, and neither could bring themselves to look at Nathaniel either. They just crouched there, staring blankly at the mud beneath their boots.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify