"Give it to me!"

A lean boy yelled, his face twisted in desperation as he dragged a small hunk of meat back and forth with a girl just as thin as he was.

She refused to let go, then yelled, "I traded my clothes for it!"

The boy didn't let up. "Shut up! Those weren't your clothes! I saw you steal them, you bitch!"

He held on to the meat and kicked her hard in the stomach, causing her to groan in pain and crash on her back onto the ground.

While the girl clutched her stomach coughing and crying, the boy quickly tore into the meat with his teeth, swallowing huge chunks of it before anyone else could try to snatch it away.

Many people watched the scene, but nobody moved to help. Instead, many were eyeing the boy and the meat in his hand as he quickly scrambled away, disappearing into the shadows of the crowded camp.

"Damn… is it really this bad?" Dion muttered, turning his gaze away from the scene and back to us.

Celeste sighed, then spoke in voice that was barely a whisper. "At this point, it's hard to even tell that we're supposed to be nobles."

"True…" Ino replied softly as she led us, weaving through the crowd on the ground. "It's a good thing we used the route of the mountain rabbits while coming here."

"Yeah." Evelyn, who had her arm around Celeste, nodded in agreement. She lowered her voice so that only we would hear. "Not only do we have enough meat for sustenance, but we also have a good amount to trade." She turned to me and winked. "It would have really sucked if we didn't have Cedric's ability to store things."

I looked away from her to the cadets on the ground.

…Unlike us who looked, well-fed to say the least, the hundreds of cadets on the ashen ground looked the exact opposite.

They looked hollowed out with gaunt faces, and most sat in a daze, staring blankly into their dying fires with sunken eyes.

Their clothes were tattered and stained with the same gray soot that covered the earth, making them look less like elite nobles and more like a desperate crowd of refugees.

Their scrawny and gaunt appearance was not really a surprise to us; after all, getting food, especially in Grade One territory, was really difficult.

It was not that there were not a lot of creatures here. In fact, there were actually piles of them, especially in the immediate territories around the Puppeteer's Grove.

The reason for the widespread starvation was that many of the creatures here were not edible. The grey kraits for instance, were poisonous while creatures like the goblins were so foul and rancid that even if a person managed to kill one, they wouldn't be able to eat it.

To get actual food, the Cadets needed to properly plan hunts, after which they would travel to a territory that had creatures that were at least edible.

This was why it was necessary to be a part of a large party of strong cadets. If the party survived the hunt, and survived the dangerous journey back to the grove, they would be able to have enough meat to last a couple of days.

Besides going on hunts, there were other ways to get meat, and that was through the cadets who acted as merchants.

Many cadets had weak bonds with exclusive skills that were not suited for combat and bonded abilities that were borderline useless. Because of this, most had trouble joining influential parties. There were even those who, after joining smaller parties, still couldn't go on hunts, so their only way to get food was to trade items with the cadet merchants.

Some of the items they traded came from stealing. Most had to kill to even get their hands on something valuable, while some, after running out of things to trade, even traded their bodies.

It was a really grim situation.

Currently, my party members and I were heading to one of those merchants, but we weren't going to trade for food. We were going to trade food for items.

As we kept weaving through the sea of cadets on the ash-covered ground, many kept looking at us to see if we had anything of value on us.

It was a bit unsettling.

We ignored them and walked on to where the tents began.

From here, the atmosphere was a bit different. The cadets here were not as desperate and hungry looking as the others behind. Party members were huddled in their tents with some even having small fires going outside their tents.

We walked on to a particular section where we could see cadets gathering in front of different tents, and then we joined a queue.

It didn't take long for the queue to clear, after which we were greeted by the cadet merchant.

She was a beautiful black-skinned girl with purple eyes and her hair tied in braids. She was dressed in a simple purple dress and across her shoulder was a small haversack. She had to be from a different bastion than us, seeing as none of us recognized her.

She looked us over, gave a beautiful smile and said, "Hi, I haven't seen you guys before."

Dion quickly stepped forward and ran a hand through his hair, showing off his looks as best as he could while also subtly flexing his jawline. Then he cleared his throat and tried to make his voice sound a bit deeper as he spoke. "Yeah. But don't worry dear, you'll be seeing more of me from now on."

It was silent after he spoke.

…I wasn't the only one who cringed.

Everyone did.

Even the cadet merchant's expression changed to one of pure second-hand embarrassment. She stared at him for a moment, her smile turning into a flat, unimpressed line.

"Right," she said, leaning back. "Well, unless you're here to trade that jawline, state your business."

Dion suddenly coughed violently in embarrassment and looked away.

'Oh gosh… you were right Julius, this guy will die single.'

I winced and turned to the merchant, then spoke on his behalf. "Lots of alcohol, please."

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