After settling their luggage, the first problem they had to solve was their stomachs.

  The army accountant arrived, distributed their rations of grain and oil, and led them to a vacant kitchen. After taking them to some local farmers to scavenge a few vegetables, he hurried off.

  "Who's cooking?" Luis looked at his companions, completely lost.

  Silence. Except for Elena, everyone looked like a deer in headlights. Lucy came from a poor family, but her grandmother and mother handled the kitchen; she had never touched a stove. The others were city kids—they might have swept floors or washed dishes, but using a traditional clay wood-burning stove? Forget about it.

  "We'll eat together today," Elena said, not wanting the others to starve just because of Sienna. "We'll discuss the plan for the next meal after we eat."

  Elena knew everyone had brought their own mess tins. "Wash the amount of rice you want to eat and bring your tins to me to steam. Tomas and Luis, go fetch water and firewood. Sienna and Anita, you're on kitchen cleaning duty. Lucy and I will handle the pots and vegetables."

  Luis and the others let out a massive sigh of relief. Having someone willing to lead the cooking was a godsend. They scrambled to their tasks, eager to pull their weight.

  "Who's to say you won't skim off our rations if we hand them to you?" Sienna piped up, looking for a fight. She clearly hated the job assignment. "And why do the rest of us get the 'hard labor' while you two get the easy stuff?"

  Elena was busy wrestling two massive iron pots off the stove with Lucy. She didn't even get angry. She just looked at Sienna coldly. "You don't have to hand it over, and you don't have to work. If you think you're so capable, you do it. Otherwise, shut the hell up and stop talking crap."

  If she didn't want to eat, fine. No one was forcing her.

  Sienna ground her teeth, her face twisting. "...!"

  "Stop dawdling. The sooner we finish, the sooner we eat," Anita said, looking at Sienna like she was an idiot. Anita didn't wait for a response; she grabbed a fistful of straw from a nearby stack to use as a scrubber and headed for the pond.

  Sienna was fuming, but she had never even used a coal stove properly, let alone a clay one. She had no choice but to grit her teeth and follow Anita.

  The kitchen was small and had been abandoned for ages. It looked simple, but deep-cleaning it was a nightmare. Sienna thought a quick sweep of the stove would suffice, but Anita was relentless. She insisted on scrubbing the rafters, clearing spiderwebs from the walls, and hauling the cupboards outside to be hosed down. With the clean-freak Anita in charge, Elena wasn't worried about Sienna slacking off.

  Working together, the six of them soon had the kitchen sparkling. Elena measured her own rice, rinsed it with well water, and saved the starchy water from the third rinse. She lined up everyone's mess tins inside the massive steamer pot.

  One pot was for steaming rice, the other for stir-frying, and a third burner was set for boiling water. Elena had scrubbed the aluminum kettle clean and filled it to the brim.

  The lunch was simple: steamed white rice and stir-fried greens. Each new "farmer" was only allotted 150 grams of oil per month—barely enough to coat a pan. For this meal, Elena used her own private stash of oil, though she was extremely frugal with it.

  Everyone ate like they hadn't seen food in days—except Sienna.

  "This is just boiled grass!" Sienna spat out a mouthful, her face full of disgust. "There's nothing but salt. This is disgusting!"

  Elena didn't even look at her. "I used my own oil for this. You're eating my food and you have the nerve to complain? If it's so 'disgusting,' then don't eat. Perfect—I didn't want to cook for you tomorrow anyway. Figure it out yourself."

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  If the food hadn't already been portioned into individual tins, Sienna wouldn't have gotten another bite.

  Sienna shut up instantly. She shoveled a few more mouthfuls of rice, her eyes welling up with "wronged" tears. She looked at Elena. "...Why are you targeting me?"

  "You're the one who keeps picking fights, Sienna. Is there something wrong with your head?" Lucy snapped back.

  Elena ignored her entirely. She just told Lucy, "Don't waste your breath. She knows exactly what she's done."

  As for Luis and the others, they were literally eating Elena's food; they had zero ground to stand on to support Sienna. Besides, they thought the food tasted great—certainly better than anything they could have made.

  Seeing no one on her side, Sienna's eyes turned red for real. But she was starving. Despite her anger, she finished every last grain of rice and every bit of the greens.

  After the meal, Luis and Tomas approached Elena. They wanted to join a "meal pool" with her. They offered to hand over their oil rations and handle all the heavy lifting—water and firewood—if she would keep cooking. Anita followed right behind them, wanting in on the deal.

  "Fine. We'll eat together until the permanent housing is assigned," Elena agreed. "Same as today: you control your own rice portions, hand the oil over to me—I'll return what's left when we split—and we'll share the cost of vegetables."

  Sienna stood there with her head held high, likely waiting for Elena to invite her. But Elena didn't even glance her way. She treated Sienna like she was invisible.

  After cleaning the kitchen, they headed back to the office. Instead of napping, Luis and the others pulled out stationery to write home. Elena hadn't planned on writing, but after thinking it over, she decided to send one.

  Her first draft was a single sentence: Arrived safely. Don't worry.

  She had nothing to say to her parents or her eldest sister. Even without the bitterness of her past life, she had never been the type to complain. But lying on the hard wooden bed, Elena couldn't sleep. Her mind was racing. She realized she couldn't let her family back home assume she was having an easy time.

  She sat up, tore up the first letter, and started over.

  This time, she poured on the misery. She wrote about how much she missed them, how grueling the journey was, and how she had almost died during a bombing. She described the terrifying sounds of artillery and the bleak, ruined environment. She sounded pathetic, concluding with a plea for some living expenses.

  Maybe 300 Pesos a month, she thought. That could buy 30kg of grain or 45 eggs—enough to survive. But Elena knew they wouldn't send a cent.

  It didn't matter. She needed to make sure her sister, Octavia, knew exactly what she had "dodged," and she wanted her mother to feel relieved that her precious son wasn't the one suffering out here. At the very least, it would kill any unrealistic expectations they had of her.

  She would never be like her past self—skimping on food and water just to send money home so they could upgrade their thatched roof to tiles or buy Octavia pretty clothes. In her last life, they had spent her hard-earned money and then complained in letters that "other kids sent more home."

  If you love 'other kids' so much, go be their parents! Elena fumed silently.

  Sienna, sitting across from her, kept trying to peek at the letter, but Elena covered it every time.

  "Tch..." Sienna rolled her eyes.

  Once the letters were sealed, Elena lay back down. The wooden bed was uncomfortable, but she fell asleep almost instantly. She was exhausted.

  More importantly, she knew this was their last bit of rest. Tomorrow, the real work began: harvesting rice.