Leveling Up Through Eating

PR: MattForgenti

Rovan looked at him and told him calmly.

“The Shrieking Hills was named as such because a loud shriek can be heard throughout the whole area. You should know that it has been a month ever since the Shrieking Hills opened, right?”

“Yes. I know that.”

Minhyuk had investigated and studied this place seriously and thoroughly since he wanted to know what he could eat in here.

“Athenae did not announce it but there are rumors going around that the shriek came from an epic-class named monster.”

“Oho. Is that so?”

Minhyuk did not see that when he checked for the information about the Shrieking Hills. That was only natural since this information was something that Rovan obtained from the Legend Guild. The Legend Guild had a member with the legendary class ‘Informant’ and that user had all the information he knew, including the ones that he was not aware of. However, the only reason why Rovan was willing to share this information with Minhyuk was because it was just a ‘rumor’. But even though this information was just considered to be a rumor, Rovan was still confident about it. It was because he was about 95% sure about the contents of the information that he received.

“The reason why I came here after the Shrieking Hills has opened for a month was because the boss monster is most likely to appear a month after the field has opened.”

His analysis and judgment were quite precise.

Hunting named monsters, especially epic-class monsters would most likely drop epic artifacts. In fact, epic monsters were monsters that rarely appear among all the monster ranks.

Meanwhile, Minhyuk was thinking about something that was entirely different.

‘I want to try and eat it……!’

This thought crossed his mind since his Eccentric Meal skill would only allow him to eat named monsters.

“I, I can see monsters over there. There are a lot of users too.”

There were quite a lot of users gathered somewhere near them and it seemed like there were also quite a lot of monsters over at that area.

“Don’t be nervous.”

“Yep.”

As they looked around, they could hear whispers coming from the surrounding users.

“Isn’t that the user from before? The one with the frying pan?”

“What? Did the two of them come here? Didn’t they know that the monsters in the Shrieking Hills are much stronger than ordinary mob?”

They had no choice but to whisper and talk about them. After all, Rovan was wearing a bright red sword on his waist while Minhyuk looked like an ordinary chef with a frying pan on his back and a sword on his waist. In other words, their combo looked like a user that could probably fight monsters and a user who was completely useless. In addition, they were the only party with two people. Most of the parties that would come in the Shrieking Hills would form a four-person party.

“Are the other users really that talkative?”

Rovan grinned as he looked at the front.

A monster that was called the mini troll was standing right in front of them. The mini troll was 150cm tall and was carrying an axe that was much smaller compared to the axe that a troll usually carried. Compared to the regular trolls, the strength of mini trolls were much smaller. But they were considered to be nastier monsters compared to regular monsters. This was because they could use magic.

“I’ll show you how to do it first.”

Rovan stepped forward to demonstrate how to hunt these monsters to Minhyuk.

“Gwoooooo!”

The mini troll roared loudly.

There was only one thing that the mini trolls had in common with the regular trolls. It was their extreme regenerative powers. This was the reason why the ordinary users felt like they were much stronger monsters compared to ordinary mobs.

Dash!

Rovan stomped on the ground as he used a skill to deal with the monster.

[Rampage.]

[Your HP has dropped by 20% while your attack power has increased by 30%.]

Fwoooooooom!

“Oh……”

Minhyuk watched Rovan swing his large sword without breaking a sweat as he fought with the mini troll.

Slash!

“Keuack!”

The mini troll shrieked as its shoulders got pierced by Rovan’s sword. Then, it tried to hack Rovan’s neck with his left hand that was holding the axe. Rovan swiftly dodged the incoming axe and pulled his sword out of its shoulders.

Spurt!

“Gwaaaack!”

The mini troll roared as flames started to engulf its body.

Craaaackle━

[Fire Armor.]

[Damage will continuously be inflicted depending on your distance.]

Perhaps that ability was one of the magic that the mini trolls could cast.

Fwoooooosh!

Stab!

However, Rovan easily stepped back and stabbed the mini troll in its throat. After cleanly finishing off the mini troll, Rovan took care of the drops.

[Party: You have acquired 613 gold.]

[Party: Rovan-nim has acquired the mini troll’s toenail (1).]

“Well then, that’s how you hunt them. It’s better to kill them before they can regenerate. You can try hunting it once and if you don’t like it then you can just leave it to me. I’ll start hunting for the both of us after that. Well, that’s why it’s called a bus after all. Hoho.”

Rovan grinned at Minhyuk as if to reassure him.

“If it’s not a bother, I would like to hunt with you.”

“Ah, yes. That’s fine.”

Did this user get amazed with my superb skills? Even a four-person party is having a hard time dealing with two mini trolls but he wants to try and hunt a mini troll alone?

In Minhyuk’s case, he felt that he really needed to hunt. He also knew that he could take more EXP when he joined the hunt instead of just standing still and waiting for the EXP from others.

I need to level up quickly so I can proceed with the Food God’s Legacy quest as well as eat plenty of duck meat, bang!

Minhyuk kicked the ground as he dashed to where the mini trolls were.

[Fire Armor.]

[Damage will continuously be inflicted depending on your distance.]

‘That’s too bad.’

Rovan had prepared himself to run to his rescue any time. It would have been nice if his party member died the moment they entered the hunting grounds but he was strangely kind, loyal and compassionate. So he was ready to jump in and help the moment he was in danger.

‘At his level, User Minhyuk-nim’s magical defense is definitely low. This will be the reason why he will suffer a lot of damage just by running to where the mini trolls are.’

On the contrary, Rovan’s ‘Valo’s Bloodstained Greatsword.’ had an attached +50 on his magical defense. And if he added his personal magical defense and reputation points, he could get as much as 84 in his magical defense. Generally, if you have 100 points in your magical defense then 1st class magic would not be able to inflict any damage while 2nd class magic would only inflict reduced damage to you. This was also the reason why the Fire Armor that that mini troll had casted did not inflict a large damage on him earlier.

Rovan was thinking about when Minhyuk would tap out.

‘That’s fast…… Huh……? S, so fast? Oh……? That’s really fast? OMG……? He’s really fast?!’

His eyes grew the size of the saucers as he saw Minhyuk pull the frying pan off of his back.

“Hey! That user is hunting!”

“Oh. Are we going to have a spoon killer after we have a frying pan killer? That frying pan will definitely be broken by the mini troll’s axe.”

The users were laughing loudly as they talked about what they think would happen to Minhyuk.

At that moment…

Minhyuk decided to first test out the mini troll with a single hit. Just as he was going to attack, the mini troll quickly attacked him with fire magic.

Shwaaa!

However, Minhyuk did not feel any heat at all. Mahava’s Double Ring gave him a +40 on his magical defense. In addition, he received a permanent increase of +30 when he ate the perilla leaf jeon from the special jeon dish set that he received not too long ago. There was also a +100 magical defense attached to his Hepas’ Legendary Frying Pan. And because his reputation was over 400, he also received an additional +20 on his magical defense. In total, he had about 190 in his magical defense. However, since he received a x2 effect on his magical defense the total power that his magical defense could exhibit was at 380.

Minhyuk lifted his frying pan and slammed it strongly on the mini troll’s head.

“Oh, look at that…...”

The surrounding users couldn’t take their eyes away.

​ The moment the pan slammed on the mini troll’s head…

Clang!

[You have dealt a fatal blow.]

Bang!

With a bang, the mini troll was embedded deep in the ground.

“Heok?!”

“Keok!”

“......OMG?”

All of the surrounding users were completely shocked with what they have witnessed. And the person that was most shocked about this turn of events was none other than Rovan.

‘W, what the hell?!’

When they looked at the mini troll that was trying to crawl out of the ground, they could see that almost half of its head had been smashed in.

“Keuaaaah!”

The mini troll furiously regenerated its head as its magic slowly rose from its body.

“......That mini troll looks a lot stronger compared to the others.”

There would always be stronger monsters that would appear among the ordinary monsters. In general, if the ordinary monsters had a power at 11, then they would have a power of 12. And that mini troll that Minhyuk was fighting seemed to be the strongest among all the mini trolls.

[Triple Magic Missile.]

[Three small spheres that has the same damage as an attack made by a mini troll.]

It was clearly a 1st class sloppy magic but it was nasty enough since a monster was using it. In addition, the monster could easily cast three magic spells like that without chanting anything.

Fwoom!

Fwoom!

Fwoom!

When Minhyuk saw the magic missile flying at him like baseballs pitched by a super pitcher, he held his frying pan tightly.

[Frying Pan Gigantification.]

[You can adjust the size of your frying pan depending on the mana that you will input.]

As soon as he input his mana, the frying pan suddenly became large enough to hide a human!

Minhyuk easily slapped the three flying spheres away with the frying pan on his hand.

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

[Magical Reflection.]

[You have returned the magical attack back to your enemy.]

[Magical Reflection.]

[You have returned the magical attack back to your enemy.]

Fwoom!

Bang!

“Graaaack!”

Fwoom!

Bang!

The magic missile that bounced off of his frying pan, attacked the mini troll to the point of collapse. However, there was still a breath left on its body. Minhyuk, who approached the collapsed mini troll, lightly slammed it with his frying pan.

Clang!

[You have leveled up.]

[Party: You have acquired 713 gold.]

[Party: Minhyuk-nim has acquired the mini troll’s toenail (1).]

“That was easy.”

“M, Minhyuk-nim. Aren’t you a chef?”

“Yes?”

“......”

Rovan was left speechless. He had never seen such a strong chef.

‘Is he a combat chef? No, what in the world is that frying pan?!’

The average frying pan had a durability of 200/200 with an attack power of around 20 or so. That was why most of them thought that the frying pan would be easily broken by the mini troll’s axe. But that was not the case at all. What was even more surprising was the fact that the frying pan smashed the mini troll’s magic and even caused a huge damage to it when it smashed it. This could only mean that the frying pan had a high attack power and Minhyuk’s stat was extremely high.

“N, no. Why does your frying pan have such a strong attack power?”

Furthermore, Rovan only successfully hunted the mini troll after he used his skills while Minhyuk did not even use any skill at all.

Then, Minhyuk said…

“Can I join the hunt now?”

Rovan could never tell him ‘It’s dangerous, so please stay back.’ anymore.

“Aah. Yes……”

“Ah. But where’s the magic duck?”

In fact, the biggest reason why Minhyuk decided to come to the Shrieking Hills was this! He wanted to eat the magic duck!

They might be able to get duck meat from Kemil after they successfully hunted 200 monsters but Minhyuk still wanted to try and taste the magic duck. He heard that they have the same appearance as ordinary ducks and the only difference was that they use magic.  This was one of the reasons why magical defense was extremely important whenever someone would go hunting in the Shrieking Hills. In addition, because Minhyuk had the Eccentric Meal, he also wanted to try and eat the ‘named monster’ that existed here.

However, now was the time to use his special ability. After all, didn’t Minhyuk eat a lot of chicken in the novice tutorial zone?

If the magic duck looks like regular ducks, then……

‘I can eat smoked ducks! Steamed ducks! And even duck meat bulgogi!’

Minhyuk grinned widely. He couldn’t stop himself from imagining those ducks.

“Uh. Uhm…… You just have to go further inside from here. But the Shrieking Hills is a unique field and you need to hunt at least 100 monsters in here before you could go further inside.”

“Is that so? Then we should quickly start hunting!”

“Quickly? I would love to do that but the monsters are dispersed too widely……”

“Then I’ll gather all the monsters here.”

“Yes?”

“We need to kill quite a lot of them right?”

“Ah, well……”

In all honesty, Rovan wouldn’t even need to break a sweat even if there were five mini trolls surrounding him. That was how strong he was. But he still couldn’t understand how Minhyuk, a chef, could gather monsters around them.

At that moment…

“Bbiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!”

A clear and loud sound similar to a bird’s cry came out of Minhyuk’s mouth and almost shook the heavens and the earth. The sound was clean and pure so it was not uncomfortable to hear.

[Gryphon’s Cry.]

[You have a 70~80% chance of attracting the attention of all the monsters within a 20-m radius.]

[Party members within a 10-m radius will have a 12~14% increase in all 5 of their basic stats.]

Rovan suddenly heard a notification ring in his head.

[You have received a 13% increase in all 5 of your basic stats.]

He looked at Minhyuk with a confused and bewildered expression.

‘No, who the hell is he?! What kind of chef can use this buffing ability?!’

He even has an aggro ability that is common for tankers?!

Rovan hastily grabbed his sword in preparation.

‘Generally, tankers at his level can only pull the aggro of at least 2 monsters, right?’

Rovan turned his head to face the incoming monsters with that thought running through his head. Then…

“......What the hell!?!”

There were at least ten mini trolls that were running to where they were.

‘What kind of fXcking aggro ability is this?!’

Minhyuk ran out with his hands holding on to his frying pan tightly to welcome the incoming mini trolls.

“Ah. Nim! Why are you running so fast?! You’ll get cornered by those monsters!”

“Yes…..?”

A thought suddenly flashed through Rovan’s mind as he ran after Minhyuk.

In all honesty, I just wanted to make him do miscellaneous chores.

However, right now he was having a bad premonition. He felt like he somehow would be the one doing those things.

***

TL’s corner!!!

Ahh. Duck meat. I suddenly want to eat duck meat. Kek. Rovan, Rovan, Rovan… Why do I also feel like you will be the one doing the chores too?

PR’s corner!

I think Rovan accidentally got on a bus…

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