Gourmet Gaming

Chapter 92: Odd Companion

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

“Yes.
I know that,” Minhyuk said.
He had investigated thoroughly, studying this place seriously, since he wanted to know what he could eat 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 asked.
He 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 Legend Guild.
The Legend Guild had a member with the legendary class ‘Informant’ and that player had all the information most players knew, on top of that, information that others were not privy to.

However, the only reason why Rovan was willing to share this information with Minhyuk was because it was just a ‘rumor’.
Still, even if the information was just considered to be a rumor, Rovan was confident about it.
He was about 95% sure of the contents of the information.

“I came to Shrieking Hills only after a month of opening because there’s a high probability that the boss monster will appear only after the field had opened for a month.”

Rovan’s 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.
He thought, ‘I want to try and eat it…!’ He could think like this since his Eccentric Food God skill allowed him to eat named monsters.
Then, he said, “Alright, I can see monsters over there.
There are a lot of players too.”

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

“Don’t be nervous.”

“Yep.”

As the two of them looked around, they could hear whispers coming from the surrounding players.

“Isn’t that the player 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 mobs?”

The other players whispered and talked 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.
Despite Minhyuk also carrying a sword on his waist, their combo looked like a player that could probably fight monsters and a player who was completely useless.
In addition, they were the only party with two people.
Most of the players that came to the Shrieking Hills would form a four-person party.

“Are the other players really that talkative?” Rovan asked with a grin.

A monster, Mini Troll to be exact, was standing right in front of them.
The Mini Troll was around 150 centimeters tall and was carrying an ax that was much smaller compared to the ax that Trolls usually carried.
Compared to the regular Trolls, the strength of Mini Trolls were much smaller.
However, 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 said as he stepped forward to demonstrate.

“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 players 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 will drop by 20% while your attack power will increase by 30%.]

Fwoom!

“Oh…” Minhyuk said as he watched Rovan fight and swing his large sword without breaking a sweat against the Mini Troll.

Slash!

“Keuack!” The Mini Troll shrieked, its shoulders pierced by Rovan’s sword.
Then, it tried to hack Rovan’s neck with the ax on its left hand but Rovan swiftly dodged the incoming ax and pulled his sword out of its shoulders.

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Spurt!

“Gwaaaack!” The Mini Troll roared as flames started to engulf its body.

Crackle━

[Fire Armor.]

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

This was probably one of the Mini Troll’s special abilities.

Fwoosh!

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 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, 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 spoke as he 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.”

Rovan wondered if this player in front of him grew courage after seeing his superb skills.
Maybe? To be honest, even a four-person party was having a hard time dealing with two Mini Trolls, but he wanted to try and hunt a Mini Troll alone? In Minhyuk’s case, he felt that he really needed to hunt.
He was aware that he could take more EXP when he joined the hunt instead of just standing still and waiting for the EXP from others.
After all, Minhyuk needed to level up quickly so he could start with his Food God’s Legacy Quest and eat plenty of duck meat!

Dash!

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 thought, preparing to run to rescue Minhyuk at a moment’s notice.
It would have been nice if his party member died the moment they entered the hunting grounds but while Rovan was narcissistic, he was not someone that lacked loyalty and compassion.
So he got ready to jump in and help the moment Minhyuk was in danger.

‘At his level, Player Minhyuk’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.
Once he added his personal magical defense and REP, Rovan could get as much as 84 in his magical defense.
Generally, players would not receive any damage from First Tier Magic and a reduced damage from Second Tier Magic if they had 100 points in their magical defense.
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.
When…

‘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.
He watched as Minhyuk pulled the frying pan off of his back.

“Hey! That player 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 ax.”

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The players were laughing loudly as they joked about what they thought would happen to Minhyuk.
Just then, Minhyuk, who decided to first test out the Mini Troll with a single hit, received the Mini Troll’s fire magic attack.

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 pancake from the Special Pancake 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.
On top of that, since he received a double effect on his magical defense, the total strength that his magical defense could exhibit was actually at 380.
Minhyuk lifted his frying pan and slammed it strongly on the Mini Troll’s head.

“Oh, look at that…”

The surrounding players could not take their eyes away.
The moment the pan slammed on the Mini Troll’s head…

Clang!

[You have dealt a critical strike.]

Bang!

With a bang, the Mini Troll was embedded deep in the ground.

“Gasp?!”

“Gasp!”

“…OMG?”

All of the surrounding players were completely shocked with what they witnessed.
And the person that was most shocked about this turn of events was none other than Rovan.
He thought, ‘W…what the hell?!’

The other players could see that the struggling Mini Troll had almost half of its head smashed in by the blow.

“Keuaaaah!” The Mini Troll roared furiously as it regenerated its head.
Then, 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 these stronger variants would have a power of 12.
The Mini Troll that Minhyuk was fighting seemed to be the strongest among all the Mini Trolls.

[Triple Magic Missile.]

[A small sphere that has the same damage as an attack made by a Mini Troll.]

The magic was clearly just a sloppy First Tier Magic, but it was already nasty enough for the players to know that this was being used by a monster.
What was worse was the fact that the monster could cast three of those magic spells simultaneously without casting.

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 and…

[Frying Pan Gigantification.]

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

…made it grow larger with 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!

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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!

Minhyuk’s frying pan deflected all of the magic missiles, sending them back to the Mini Troll.
The attacks brought the Mini Troll to the ground.
However, it was still breathing, albeit on its last breaths.
So, 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 has acquired the Mini Troll’s Toenail (1).]

“That was easy.”

“M… Minhyuk.
Aren’t you a chef?”

“Yes?”

“…”

Rovan was left speechless.
He had never seen such a strong chef.
He thought, ‘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 ax.
However, that was not the case at all.
What was even more surprising was the fact that the frying pan could deflect the Mini Troll’s magic and even caused a huge damage to the caster when it smashed it back.
This could only mean that the frying pan had a high attack power and Minhyuk’s stats were 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.
He said, “Ah.
Yes…”

“Ah.
But, where’s the magic duck?” Minhyuk asked.
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.

Since Minhyuk had the Eccentric Food God, he also wanted to try and eat the ‘named monster’ that existed here.
After all, it was now time for him to use his special ability.
In fact, Minhyuk ate a lot of chicken in the novice tutorial zone.
If the magic duck looked like regular ducks, then…

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

Minhyuk grinned widely.
He could not help but begin imagining different duck dishes.

“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 just gather all the monsters here.”

“Yes?”

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

“Ah, well…” 

In all honesty, Rovan would not even need to break a sweat even if there were five Mini Trolls surrounding him.
That was how strong he was.
However, he could not 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 ground.
Thankfully, 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 meter radius.]

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

Rovan suddenly heard a notification ring in his head.

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

Rovan looked at Minhyuk with a confused and bewildered expression.
He thought, ‘No, who the hell is he?! What kind of chef can use this buffing ability?!’

Minhyuk even had the aggro ability that was common for tankers.
However, Rovan was still an expert so he hastily grabbed his sword in preparation.

‘Generally, tankers at his level can only pull the aggro of at least 2 monsters, right?’ Rovan thought, no hoped.
But when he turned to look at the incoming monsters…

“…What the hell!?!”

…there were at least ten Mini Trolls that were running to where they were.

‘What kind of f*cking aggro ability is this?!’

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

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

“Yes…?”

Rovan recalled what he wanted Minhyuk to do as he ran after him.
To be honest, Rovan just wanted him to do miscellaneous chores.
Suddenly, Rovan had a very bad premonition.
For some reason, he felt like he would be the one doing those things.