Beyond The Fallen Sky

"What meat is this again?".

"A mutant hyena meat.…why? does it taste bad?". (Natasha)

"...rather than just bad….it tasted a little bit gamey and rather tasteless.…".

"Sorry, Honey…I tried to save a little bit on our meal…. we don't have much food left…umm…here…you can have more…". (Natasha)

"No…no…it's alright…. I'm fine with just this…it's just…perhaps now that I am sober…I finally got my taste buds working again…Hahaha.".

"Really? that's. Great? I guess?". (Natasha)

Rather than got mad that I commented on the meal, she congratulates me on getting my taste buds back. I had to ease up on my straight forward approach a little bit from now on, Natasha is the kind that always blamed herself when it comes to me. Setting that issue aside, Mutant Hyena meat, is awful, it was an air-dried meat, that were done with a very little amount of salt, perhaps that is why it tasted so off. They used just a minuscule amount of salt when they prep the meat for drying, or rather, the butcher didn't do a good job when they cut the meat.

"...How much food that we have with us now? and what about the salt, pepper and other condiments? how much that we brought with us?".

"We got enough Mutant Hyena dried meat for a few days…the same goes with purple wheat, we got a few bags…we got 100 grams of salt…. other condiments…we don't have them…I can't afford them…they're too expensive…nowadays…50 grams of pepper cost 100 coins...". (Natasha)

"50 grams for 100 coins?!…. god, that IS expensive….".

"...Sorry…". (Natasha)

"No... I am not mad at you at all…. I just shocked at the price…".

Natasha was a bit taken aback with my reaction, and apologize. Well, she doesn't have to, the reaction was understandable from her side, after all that she had gone through.

"...the price has always been like that for the pepper, Honey…. there were times that the entire market just ran out of them….". (Natasha)

"I see…what about the other condiments? spices or sauces? how much do those priced at?".

"Other condiments? I never heard of it…. there is no one selling this. Spices…or Sauces…. the common flavoring that people around the world use these days…is just Salt and pepper. That was it…". (Natasha)

I am shocked, but I held it in and just smiled at her, stirred my bowl of Mutant Hyena stew in silence. This world goes backward in a lot of ways, the flavor of foods, the quality and the joy of eating just tasty foods just vanished with the nuclear blast. Nowadays the people just enjoyed bland food, seasoned with salt and pepper, what a sad world that I just stroll into. But at the same time, perhaps this can be an opportunity for me as well, unlike many in this world, I have Internet shopping in my side.

"...Nat, if we can get salt and pepper…. can we sell it?".

"...Technically we can….as long as we do not hike the price too high… we can sell salt freely at any settlement…salt is something that people would always want to buy…and a lot of towns will welcome salt trader openly…as for pepper…I heard that it was a bit harder…. boss Rosa said…to sell pepper. We need to get a special permission from a town first…sell that to the town warehouse first…and then we can sell them to the public…the town owner or council would set the price and the seller cannot play around with the price at all….". (Natasha)

"For pepper. It was a lot stricter, right?".

"Yes…after all, pepper is precious and delicious….so it attracts a lot of attention…people would fight to buy it….and worst…savages and even Mutants would try to rob anyone that wanted to sell pepper…". (Natasha)

Now that is an eye opener for me, people would kill for salt and pepper, it's not an exaggeration that maybe war can even break out, thanks to it, that fact is scary even for me.

"Honey…if you wanted to sell salt and pepper…it is best we just sell salt at first…. even that, we need to start at small amount, just so we do not attract any bad people coming after us…greed is endless in this world…and with just the 2 of us here…. we can't afford to make any mistake…". (Natasha)

For Natasha, it was clear that her husband is no longer the same as he was before, he has become much kinder, gentle and even much smarter. She does not question why he was speaking as if salt and pepper were so easy to get for him. Perhaps his confidence was connected to his mother inheritance, but no matter what, becoming a salt and pepper peddler, with just the 2 of them, is akin to inviting death to come. She had to dampened his goals for now, although it was scary to object him, it had to be done, after all, losing him, is not something that she can live with.

"I guess, so…. we should start small….and instead of start by selling salt upright…. we should sell other type of stuff as well…. we'll make the salt as our side product…right?".

"That would do…. just…don't sell pepper…and sell salt in a small amount and slowly…". (Natasha)

"Sure, I'll listen to you, Nat…".

To that Natasha widen her eyes a little bit, and then smiled widely, we continue our dinner lighted by my Power bank torch light, whilst talking about a lot of things. Thank to her wasteland survival wisdom, I learned a lot from her, and I also figured out that whatever views and expectation that I have about this apocalyptic world, I need to lower them even more. This world is barbaric, honorable, dangerous and lawless as heck, outside of any settlement, it was free for all world, kill or be killed, the never trust stranger rule in this world, meaning never ever trust anyone outside of your family and groups.

The night went on peacefully, for once perhaps we can finally enjoy our deep sleep in peace, thanks to the bunker door that can be locked from the inside. I worried less if the door can be open from the outside, as it can't, if the door were closed, it would look like an ordinary empty wall, that alone made it harder for anyone to find it in a short amount of time. For Natasha, as soon as her body land on the soft mattress, she was out almost instantly, as for me, I decided to stay awake a little bit.

"[I suggest we get the Bunker power up and running first, sir…. I already calculated the amount of electricity that we need to run it, and I also marked what sort of generator that we should buy for that purpose…]". (Alfred)

"Thank you for doing that, Alfred….so lay it on me…how much do we need to buy everything?".

"[10 thousand dollars, sir…That includes, the diesel power generator, ample food supplies, household items, new and more sterile mattresses for all the rooms, medical supplies, weapons and also vehicles…. for this price I have scour all the websites on earth and picked the best price for everything…]". (Alfred)

Alfred showed me his list of suggested starter items that we need, the generator, vehicles and weapons, were naturally a second handed items. This list is for the things that we need to get in order to get everything running as fast as we can with a cost as affordable as we can. If I wanted better and fancy things it had to wait until we got more funds.

"How much do we have now?".

"[ after selling the loot that Madam has provided earlier…. we have 7500 dollars in our account, Sir…]". (Alfred)

Outstanding, we got a lot of pre-war money and also gold earlier and soon we need to get more.

"Buy the second-hand pickup truck, the gas for it…a weapon maintenance kit along with water and food for 3 days…. I want to go out tomorrow and start scavenging again….".

"[Done, sir…since Star Gas Station has been designated as your property with proper address, all the order items will arrive at 7:50 am tomorrow morning, Sir…]". (Alfred)

"Good and thanks, Alfred…we need to have that generator up and running at least tomorrow or the day after…the faster that you were able to use that Automaton…the better…with this leg…. I am just a burden to everyone…".