How can a retired savior be considered retired if his price drops to 40,000?

Chapter 379: Man is iron, food is steel, let’s eat first
During his brief (?) military career in the illusion, Fujimaru Ritsuka learned some practical experiences of questionable reliability: If you want to quickly confirm the current morale of a troop that is resting, a very simple and intuitive way is to conduct a surprise inspection of what they eat.

Although most of the Empire's troops can only provide some tasteless vital sign maintenance meals in the catering department; and although the characteristics of the Astartes specially customized by biological alchemy make them have ridiculously low requirements on the taste of food - it does not mean that the cold pots and cold stoves in the kitchen of the Phoenix Sons' temporary station cannot explain the problem. It is better to say that the problem is big.

If the kitchen of an Astartes Chapter was operating normally, the intelligence it might reveal would require a pair of eyes that could see through phenomena to the essence, as well as considerable experience and analytical skills to draw conclusions; but now this kitchen, which was completely non-functioning and empty, with only a few servants in a half-dead state of mind guarding it, represented something that anyone with eyes could probably understand.

Even when Fujimaru Ritsuka approached the kitchen area, which was supposed to be a restricted area for outsiders, the guards did not even react violently. Only a haggard young servant stood up and politely advised her to leave in a routine tone.

Even though Fujimaru Ritsuka's state and her attire showed that she was not a servant, she doubted whether he was aware of this from the dull eyes of the gentleman. He might stand in front of her and prevent her from going straight into the kitchen. This behavior was just an instinctive reaction after long-term training.

So she sighed and asked, "How long have you not eaten?"

Perhaps because Fujimaru Ritsuka's attitude was too natural, the servant who understood this question as "inspection of work" thought about it for a moment, and replied without any resistance: "Since the adults met with the original body more than half a month ago, no one has eaten. The dishes served have not been touched at all-"

"——I didn't ask about them. To put it bluntly, it's not a big deal for the Primaris Astartes to starve for a month or so. They won't die of starvation anyway. I just think of them as hard training." Fujimaru Ritsuka crossed his arms, his tone quite dissatisfied. "I mean, how long have you guys not eaten?"

"..."

This question made the servant stunned, and a blank expression appeared in his originally lifeless eyes. For two seconds, Fujimaru Ritsuka could see that he was trying his best to think about this question, but after two seconds, she was sure that he had been under too much mental shock and had no memory of "these little things" at all.

In the Empire, most positions have a tendency to be almost hereditary - the children of the Astra Militarum remain Astra Militarum, the children of clerks remain clerks, the children of naval officers are likely to join the navy, and the children of cooks will of course start their service as kitchen helpers when they are old enough. This is no exception in the Astartes.

For Fujimaru Ritsuka, she did not realize any advantages from this almost family-monopolized inheritance model. Since the program could run, she chose not to touch it. On the other hand, although she did not express any fierce opposition to this issue, she did feel that this inheritance method that could pass on ideas and attitudes from generation to generation almost like a stamp of thought, if placed in a profession that is strongly related to the service industry, is too suitable for training the kind of house elves in the "Harry Potter" series, right?

According to her own inference, "Dorn does not consider the Sons of Phoenix to be his offspring" may have had a great impact on the pilgrims who followed the chapter and the ordinary servants who were recruited. But for the core circle servants who can manage such an important position as the kitchen, their life goal must be centered on "serving the Astartes in the chapter", and it is unlikely that they will be disturbed so seriously by other things. Combined with the other party's previous words, it is estimated that the servants were hit hard by the fact that "they cooked but no one ate", so they started to whip themselves - when they got close to a normal social distance for talking, even Fujimaru Ritsuka, with his mediocre sense of smell, could easily smell the rusty smell of blood scabs from the other party.

“…Forget it,” Fujimaru Ritsuka gave up asking further questions and instead adopted another self-righteous and commanding attitude, and ordered, “Wake up everyone working in the kitchen and get yourself something to fill your stomach as soon as possible - preparing a banquet is a physical job, and if anyone messes up any dish because of an empty stomach, I will definitely not forgive him!”

The servant was stunned when he heard the clear order. He really didn't think he had seen this little girl who appeared in front of him inexplicably, but in the midst of not knowing what to do, hearing such a clear order did make him want to implement it. He hesitated for a while, wondering if he should ask a few more questions about the cause and effect, but at this time, Fujimaru, who had a lot of work experience, dispatched a kitchen the size of a large unit cafeteria, and it was naturally a drizzle. Ritsuka had already added the next task:
"Also, call the kitchen manager and the chef out. I need to check the food supply and discuss the menu!"

The servant, who was already suffering from depression and hunger, turned around and started to carry out the task in a daze under the double pressure of task instructions.
-
Compared to the deserted kitchen of the Phoenix Sons, the long banquet table in the flower hall of the Hera Fortress, which was used for small-scale private banquets, was much more lively. Due to the prominent status of the host and the matching financial resources, this long table, which could accommodate at least twenty Astartes for dining together, was piled high with carefully cooked delicacies from the mountains and seas from all over the 500 worlds of Ultramar. The cooking process, which was precisely controlled to the second, ensured that the quality of the dishes would not disappoint the precious ingredients themselves; the servants who shuttled around the table seemed to have precisely measured steps, which also ensured that these dishes that were supposed to satisfy the picky taste of the Primarch were in a state of maximum flavor and temperature that could be taken immediately when they were served on the table.

The people of the Empire needed a ceremony that was grand enough to let them know for sure that another loyal son of the Emperor, Rogal Dorn, had returned and walked side by side with Robert Guilliman, who had returned to the world earlier, with a consistent stance and no discord between the two. This was something that Guilliman and Dorn had tacitly agreed to, so after Guilliman went through a lot of complicated rituals and returned to the Hera Fortress, he had to work with his brother, whom he had not seen for thousands of years, to fight his way out of another pile of complicated rituals prepared for the propaganda department. Five hours later, they finally ended all this annoying but necessary thing, and allowed themselves to relax a little, like two blood brothers who had been separated for a long time, sitting down at the dining table and having a good chat.

"Unbelievable, I have never thought about this before." After leaving that occasion, even Robert Guilliman became somewhat speechless because of his relaxed mind. "How much of a hindrance will those disabled people in the Empire who cannot get a freely movable prosthesis encounter in their lives?"

When he said this, he was looking at the two servants wearing food-grade gloves beside Dorn across the table. Guilliman thought that after more than 10,000 years, the most significant change in his brother was not his face that had become too old under the ravages of time or the warp, but his hand that disappeared directly from the elbow. This made it impossible for Dorn to pick up the knife and fork with his own hands and enjoy these banquet-standard dishes with normal table manners.

This was a small mistake made by Guilliman in his arrangement: although he did know that one of the holy relics guarded by the Imperial Fists was the hand bone of their genetic father, before he saw Dorn with a real broken hand, his sensibility made it impossible for him to connect the hand bone with the fact that "Dorn had a broken hand", even though the causal relationship between the two events was so obvious that even a blind person could see it. This might also be a proof that "the Primarch is not a god", Guilliman thought with a smile, he really couldn't think of anything that could cause such a physical disability to his strongest brother, so he couldn't imagine what Rogal Dorn looked like with only one hand.

The two servants were Guilliman's immediate remedies for his wrong decision after he realized that something was wrong. Their task at the table was to take the table knife instead of the Primarch who only had one hand left, and cut the food into bite-sized pieces that were easy to take. In this way, Dorn could also eat normally with just a fork or spoon. Although it looked a bit strange on the screen, it was a family dinner after all, so there was no need to worry about so much. If the guests Guilliman entertained this time were more sensitive, he would not choose to do this, but would ask the kitchen to cut the ingredients directly after cooking and redesign the plating - in fact, if that was the case, he would not even say the exclamation just now. Either of these two things is likely to hurt the heart of a disabled person who is broken by being inferior to others. But Guilliman knew that Dorn would not think so.

In fact, Dorn did not feel that way. The Primarch calmly waited for the mortal servants to put the cut ingredients on his plate, and did not forget to look at them with gratitude. This calmness did not only come from the dullness of his character due to extreme pragmatism, but also from his strong confidence that "this state will not last long."

"It's very troublesome." Dorn answered calmly with an objective attitude similar to an academic report. "I never thought about it until I actually lost one of my hands."

Then he smiled, as if he had told a joke that pleased him greatly. Guilliman had no idea what the joke was, but the satisfaction of seeing his brother again was enough to make him smile as well.

"So," the Imperial Regent decided to satisfy his curiosity after making sure the topic was safe, "what happened to your hand?"

"To put it simply, it was a warp rift." Perhaps because he didn't want to give a military report at the dinner table, Dorn briefly described the process. "A small black hole-like warp rift opened up on the traitor's ship. The cabin was severely damaged, and the magnetic lock couldn't find a reliable place to fix it, so I was sucked in. At the last moment, I reached out and tried to grab something, but at that moment, the rift closed. The misaligned space directly tore off one of my hands."

"It was quite a dramatic accident." Because the incident itself had happened a long time ago, Guilliman chose not to express too much emotion, leaving only a hint of regret in his tone, "and it must have caused you a lot of trouble."

"Losing a hand has a serious impact on my work efficiency, but it's not a decisive blow to me." Dorn's attitude still seemed nonchalant. "It's like, I can still eat with only one hand now."

"——I fully believe this, but in that case, you will have to sacrifice your own manners in front of my servants." Before the two servants in charge of serving the food could react, Guilliman quickly took over the conversation and took away the key point of the conversation, "What arrangements do you have for this part that you are forced to miss?"

After hearing this question, Dorn sighed heavily: "I did think of several prosthetic configurations for myself, but I was stuck on the issue of material strength."

"Oh." Guilliman responded mechanically. With the support of the Primarch's brain power, his thoughts immediately returned to the hand bone engraved with the names of successive Chapter Masters, which was sealed in the Imperial Fists' stasis, and he felt extremely embarrassed for his brother.

Logically, Guilliman felt that this was more embarrassing and difficult to deal with than discovering that the room he had lived in was sealed in a stasis field and worshipped as a holy relic. At least his room could be put into use again after the stasis field was removed, but Dorn's hand bones...

Wait a minute. Guilliman realized something was wrong. His mind jumped to this matter because Dorn mentioned that his prosthesis was stuck on the problem of material strength. Indeed, with the effortless power output of the Primarch who could punch ceramite, tear apart adamantium with his hands, and overturn super-heavy tanks in one breath, there was almost no material that could match their bodies in size and withstand their more outrageous power than monsters, even in the Imperial materials science technology tree. In this way, they would naturally think of whether they could clean up the original one and use it as the skeleton of the prosthesis. But now, Dorn's hand bones are engraved with the names of the successive chapter masters of the Imperial Fists. No, what on earth did you use to engrave it?

Guilliman felt something was wrong, so he pulled his thoughts back from this wrong path and stopped himself from thinking further. He said, "Perhaps I should ask the Archmagos Belisarius Cawl first to see if there is anything in his inventory that can solve this problem. In addition, we can also send letters to the major forging worlds, or if you agree, directly bid to them. If that doesn't work, wait until I arrange most of the current things and hand them over, and then we will go back to the solar system together to ask Mars or my father if there is any solution - I guess you must want to go back, at least to see my father. Although his condition is not very good, he speaks more..."

Recalling some experiences that were not pleasant both physically and mentally, Guilliman sighed sadly when he said this. Fortunately, Dorn was not the type to dwell on these details. He poked the food on his plate with a fork and said calmly:
"Protecting Terra is the duty my father entrusted to me." His tone was calm, but unlike the relaxed calmness before, this sentence was obviously a deliberately controlled calmness. "And I have been absent for too long. Without a doubt, this is a great dereliction of duty."

Guilliman wanted to comfort him, at least to say "don't say that", but when the words came to his lips, what came out was: "Who isn't? We have all been gone for too long."

Thinking of the dilapidated state of the Empire, the originally relaxed atmosphere at the table quickly darkened. But soon, Guilliman's optimism, which had grown rapidly over the past year or so, rose again:

"But at least, now you are back, and so are we." Thinking of the loyal Primarchs who were gradually returning, the Imperial Regent felt that he could still persist in turning a few more circles around this messy millstone. "From now on, it's not too late."

(End of this chapter)