"What?"
Mr. White thought Ethan was joking.
But Ethan smiled faintly and said, "I can give it a try. If I'm lucky, I should be able to turn the estate into a town today."
"Lord Ethan, you're not joking, are you?", Doubt and disbelief filled Mr. White's eyes, "The fastest lord I've ever seen still needed at least several years to turn an estate into a town."
"Leaving aside how much land a town needs to expand to, just the streets and population alone can't be completed overnight."
"How about..."
"Lord Ethan, shouldn't we focus on something more realistic?"
Mr. White dismissed Ethan's idea of turning the estate into a town.
Just as Ethan was about to explain...
"My Lord, we've finished preparing the food and drinks you asked the kitchen to make."
Cook Four and the others entered one after another carrying trays of food.
Ethan had arranged this in advance. On the way over, the logistics officer had mentioned that Mr. White wanted to buy some food for the dwarves.
After hearing that, Ethan instructed someone to notify the kitchen to prepare some of the food the residents normally ate.
After all, they were guests. It wouldn't be right to neglect them.
"It... it smells so good!"
As dish after dish was brought in, every dwarf's eyes went wide.
Cook Four alone carried over a huge basin of goblin meat dumplings.
There was also breadfruit from the treants.
Spicy lava octopus legs.
Grilled Cockroach Immortal skewers, and more. There was already an incredible variety of food.
Some of the dishes were things even the dwarven chief had never seen before.
He pointed in shock at the ear-shaped food in Cook Four's hands and asked, "Wh-what is this? It's so white, yet it smells so good."
"This is a delicacy from my hometown called dumplings."
Ethan invited everyone to take their seats, then picked up a dumpling and placed it into the dwarven chief's bowl.
"Chief, give it a try. But be careful, it's hot."
"It's fine. We dwarves work in fire all the time. People even call us dancers upon the flames. Why would we care about food being a little hot?", the chief said proudly.
He took a bite of the dumpling, and the hot broth sealed inside burst into his mouth, scalding him so badly that he immediately gasped.
"Hiss! It's so hot! Where did all this boiling water come from? But... hiss... how can this thing called a dumpling taste so good?"
Gulp!
Drip... Drip...
The moment the dwarven chief bit into the first dumpling, its aroma could no longer be contained, instantly filling the entire dining hall.
More than twenty dwarves swallowed hard.
Some were even worse off, drool continuously dripping from the corners of their mouths, yet they didn't even think to wipe it away. They just stared constantly at the dumplings.
Their souls were practically being lured away.
"Chief... gulp... is... is it good?"
"Hiss! It's super... super... super delicious!"
The chief didn't even have time to answer them properly. He stuffed one dumpling after another into his mouth until his cheeks looked ready to burst.
Even so, he kept cramming more in while desperately swallowing them.
It was as if he feared... that if he ate too slowly, there wouldn't be any left.
"Chief, don't rush. Take your time," Ethan said, taking out a bottle of treant fruit wine and pouring him a cup, "If you like the dumplings, I'll have the kitchen make more later. There are plenty. No need to hurry."
"Oh, okay... okay!"
Although the chief agreed with his words, neither his hands nor his mouth slowed down.
He managed to stuff in several more dumplings before his mouth was completely full.
Only then did he reluctantly stop.
Smack! Smack!
The chief ate with complete enjoyment, as though he wasn't eating dumplings at all, but the greatest delicacy in the world.
Since he'd eaten far too many, he nearly choked when swallowing the last mouthful.
He hurriedly grabbed the cup of wine Ethan had poured and drained it in one gulp.
The instant the fruit wine entered his mouth, his eyes widened.
"Th-this is... treant... fruit wine!"
"Treant fruit wine?"
"I want some so badly!"
"I want a sip too!"
The dwarves already loved fine alcohol.
Now that they'd heard it was fruit wine made by the treants, the race most famous for brewing, they drooled even harder.
After finishing the wine and swallowing half a basin of dumplings, the dwarven chief finally let out a long sigh.
"That was so delicious! So delicious I could cry!"
As he spoke, he really did wipe away a tear.
Taking the opportunity, the other dwarves hurriedly asked, "Chief, you still haven't told us what that ear-shaped thing tastes like! It smells amazing!"
"It's called a dumpling, not an ear-shaped thing," the chief said, somehow producing a thick blade of grass and picking his teeth with it, "These dumplings are unbelievably delicious. They're absolutely the best thing I've ever eaten in my life."
"The outside is wrapped in a light, refreshing skin that's smooth and delicate."
"But the moment you bite into it!"
Pop!
"Inside is fragrant meat filling that bursts with juice, packed with rich broth. It's unbelievably tender."
"This is the first time I've ever known meat could be eaten like this."
"My heavens, it's so delicious!"
"There's... meat... inside those dumplings?", The dwarves all stared with wide eyes in disbelief, "Why not just eat the meat directly? Why wrap it up like that? What a waste!"
In the dwarves' world, most of their food came from grass cakes, various fruits, and different kinds of roots and tubers.
Occasionally, when they worked for customers, they would get a little meat as payment.
Usually it was cheap insects or the meat of wild beasts that didn't taste very good.
Even so, that alone was enough to make the dwarves extremely excited.
But today... they had finally met what a truly generous lord was like.
Not only had he served them a delicacy called dumplings, he had also brought out treant fruit wine, grilled meat skewers, and even octopus skewers.
So, everything the guard at the gate had said earlier was true.
They really did eat meat regularly here, and it even seemed to be quite common.
"Go ahead and eat," Ethan waved his hand, "Eat as much as you like. There's plenty of food. No need to rush, and no need to fight over it."
Even though Ethan had said there was plenty of food, his words carried no weight with the dwarves, who had long since been starving for it.
The moment they heard they could eat, they all jumped to their feet and scrambled for the food.