My Food Stall Serves SSS-Grade Delicacies!-Chapter 235: How to Save a Child

Chapter 235: How to Save a Child
The interface bloomed in her vision, that familiar transparent overlay that only she could see. Her hands were still shaking, making the mental commands wobbly and imprecise, but the System responded anyway.
[SYSTEM ACTIVE]
User: Marron | Level: 23 | Class: Wandering Cook
She focused on the search function, her thoughts racing:
Spider venom treatment. Mountain reaper spider. Emergency antidote.
The System scrolled through options faster than she could track, then settled on several entries:
ANTI-VENOM PREPARATIONS (ADVANCED)
Requires: Specialized herbs, precise timing, extraction equipment
Difficulty: ★★★★★
Success Rate Without Enhanced Tools: 8%
VENOM PURGE TEA (EXPERT)
Requires: Rare mountain herbs, exact temperature control, perfect ratios
Difficulty: ★★★★☆
Success Rate Without Enhanced Tools: 12%
HONEY-CLAY POULTICE (INTERMEDIATE)
Requires: Purified honey, river clay, yarrow, heat treatment
Difficulty: ★★★☆☆
Success Rate Without Enhanced Tools: 47%
Marron’s breath caught. Forty-seven percent. Not great odds, but better than eight or twelve percent. And she had most of the ingredients already, or could get them quickly.
She focused on the honey-clay poultice entry, and more details appeared:
HONEY-CLAY POULTICE (INTERMEDIATE)
Process:
1. Mix purified honey with activated charcoal
2. Heat to exactly 140°F to activate antimicrobial properties
3. Combine with gray river clay (3:1 ratio honey to clay)
4. Add ground yarrow for inflammation
5. Apply to bite while warm, refresh every 2 hours
CRITICAL POINTS:
- Temperature must stay between 135-145°F or effectiveness drops dramatically
- Clay must be gray riverbank clay, not red or brown
- Poultice draws venom out but cannot neutralize it completely
- Patient needs immune support through careful diet during treatment
ESTIMATED TIME: 12-24 hours for full recovery
Success Rate Without Enhanced Tools: 47%
Then, below all that, a new line of text appeared—highlighted in gentle green, pulsing softly:
SYSTEM NOTE: This treatment’s effectiveness would increase to 89% if prepared with assistance from a wielder of the Verdant Mortar. The Champion of the Verdant Ring specializes in healing poultices and could provide guidance or direct assistance.
Marron stared at the words, something cold settling in her stomach.
The Champion.
She was three days’ travel away, minimum. Probably more, if Marron was pushing a resentful Food Cart that still weighed like stone. And that was assuming the Champion would even help—would even be findable, given how she’d vanished into the mountain’s upper reaches after their last meeting.
A child didn’t have three days. Maybe not even three hours, depending on how fast the venom spread.
But eighty-nine percent success rate versus forty-seven percent...
That was the difference between this boy probably dying and probably living.
Marron’s hands clenched into fists.
She could try on her own. Make the poultice with her current skill and hope forty-seven percent was enough. Hope the tools would cooperate just enough to help her maintain temperature. Hope she didn’t make any mistakes.
Or she could do something desperate.
Something that would mean swallowing her pride, admitting she needed help, reaching out to someone she barely knew and asking them to drop everything to save a stranger’s child.
The tools in her pack pulsed—not warm, not encouraging, but definitely paying attention.
They wanted to see what she would do. Whether she’d try to handle this alone out of stubbornness, or whether she’d recognize when a problem was bigger than her ego.
You’re testing me,
Marron thought toward them.
Still. Even now, with a child dying.
The tools didn’t respond. But she felt their weight shift slightly, as if settling in to watch.
Marron closed her eyes and thought about the boy. About his wonder at hearing about candy for the first time. About the way he’d asked if Mokko was a guard with such earnest curiosity. About his sister’s face when she’d run for help, pale with fear.
About his mother, kneeling beside him with a damp cloth, praying to gods she probably wasn’t sure existed.
Forty-seven percent meant more than half a chance he’d die while Marron stood over him with her mediocre skill and her angry tools and her desperate hope that she was good enough.
Eighty-nine percent meant he’d probably live.
The math was brutal. The choice was obvious.
Marron opened her eyes and closed the System.
Then she walked out of the guest hut, across the village square, and back into the sick boy’s house.
Everyone looked up as she entered—the mother, Mokko, Aldric. The boy remained unconscious, his breathing more labored than before.
"I can make a poultice," Marron said, her voice steadier than she felt. "It’ll help draw out the venom. But the success rate isn’t great. Maybe fifty-fifty."
The mother’s face crumpled. "Fifty—"
"Unless," Marron continued, "I can get help from someone more skilled. Someone who specializes in exactly this kind of treatment."
"Who?" Mokko asked.
"The Champion of the Verdant Ring."
Silence crashed through the room.
Aldric straightened from the wall. "The Champion? You know the Champion?"
"We’ve met."
"She doesn’t help outsiders," the mother said, her voice hollow with hopelessness. "Everyone knows that. She stays in the mountains. Doesn’t come down for—for people like us."
"She might come for me," Marron said, with more confidence than she felt. "But I need to contact her somehow. Need to send word."
"How?" Mokko asked. "We don’t even know where she is exactly. And by the time we found her—"
"I know." Marron’s mind raced. The Champion had said "I will come to you" when Marron proved worthy. But that was meant to be later, after Marron had healed what the mountains couldn’t reach, after she’d demonstrated that her hands would never let the world go barren.
This wasn’t proving worthiness. This was begging for help.
But maybe that was its own kind of proof.
Marron knelt beside her pack and opened it slowly. The four tools inside pulsed with attention—the Copper Pot, the Generous Ladle, the Precision Blade, all waiting to see what she’d do.
Her hand moved past them to something else. Something she’d almost forgotten about since leaving the Verdant Ring.
Three Root of Renewal plants, sprouted from the single flower that had divided itself on the competition platform. She’d tucked them carefully into a cloth-wrapped bundle, meaning to plant them somewhere appropriate.
But now...
She lifted one out. The golden stem had survived the journey, though it was slightly wilted. The leaves trembled at her touch. The small white bloom still glowed faintly with internal luminescence.
"What is that?" the mother whispered.
"A message," Marron said.
She didn’t know if this would work. Didn’t know if the Champion would sense it, or care, or respond.
But the Root of Renewal had been the mountain’s answer to Marron’s request to "grow again." It was a plant of life and healing and respect for living things.
If anything could carry an urgent plea for help, it would be this.
Marron stood and walked outside, the Root of Renewal cupped carefully in her palms. The morning sun was climbing higher, making everything sharp and bright. Too bright. Too normal for a day when a child was dying.
She knelt in the village square, in the packed dirt where her Food Cart usually stood, and began digging with her bare hands.
Mokko appeared beside her. "Mar? What are you doing?"
"Sending word." She dug deeper, until she hit cooler earth beneath the sun-baked surface. "I don’t know if it’ll work. But I have to try."
She placed the Root of Renewal in the hole, roots down, and carefully covered it with soil. Then she pressed both palms flat against the earth above it, the way she had on the competition platform.
And she whispered: "Please. A child is dying. I need help."
Nothing happened.
The earth was warm under her palms. The sun beat down on her back. The village continued its morning routines around her, people going about their business, unaware of the desperate plea being sent through dirt and roots to someone who might not even hear it.
Marron closed her eyes and tried again, putting everything she had into the words: "Champion. If you can hear this. If the mountain carries messages through its roots. A boy has been bitten by a mountain reaper spider. I can make a poultice, but my skill isn’t enough. Forty-seven percent chance of survival. With your help, eighty-nine percent. Please."
She paused, then added the only thing she could think of that might matter: "He’s eight years old. He asked what candy was yesterday. I want him to grow up and taste more sweet things. Please help me make sure he can."
Silence.
Just earth and sun and the faint sound of wind moving through the valley.
Marron stayed kneeling, palms pressed flat, waiting for something—anything—that might indicate her message had been received.
Behind her, she heard Aldric’s voice, cold with disapproval: "This is foolish. You’re wasting time with superstition when you should be attempting treatment with what you have."
"Let her try," Mokko said quietly.
"That child doesn’t have time for ’trying.’ He needs medicine, not prayers to mountain spirits that may not even exist."
"She is not a mountain spirit," Marron said, not opening her eyes. "I challenged her. Most of the cooks in your village witnessed this."
Saying ’witnessed me’ feels too much right now.
She didn’t even want to see Aldric--she had to concentrate.
"But the mountain does exist. And she listens."
"That’s not—"
The Root of Renewal pulsed.
Marron felt it through the earth, through her palms—a single, strong pulse of green life that radiated outward like a ripple in still water.
Then another pulse. Stronger.