Gourmet Gaming

After forcing the hungry players to log out one after the other, only one person was left. Hilton, the person that had led the members of Ares Guild to chase Rovan and Minhyuk. He was still digging around the soil and eating dirt.

Chomp, chew, gulp!

Hilton had truly lost control of his character. He thought, ‘Waaaaaa. I want to move my body but I can’t control it!’

Hilton watched in despair as Minhyuk slowly approached him. The thought of the artifacts and gold that would drop from him once he was forced to log out was causing him further anguish. He prayed hard, ‘Please, just don’t drop that...!’

Then…

“I’m hungryyyyyyyyy! Ugh! Mi…Minhyuk... Please tie me up and take me in front of him...!” Rovan said quickly. He was just barely able to hold on to some semblance of reason. Minhyuk quickly untied Rovan from the tree before tying his body again and lifting him up to bring him in front of Hilton.

Rovan was quite furious with Hilton and the Ares Guild. They tried to PK him and declared war against his guild. That was why Rovan wanted to humiliate Hilton as much as possible. He slowly crawled forward and said, “Ugh! I’m hu…hungryyyyy...”

Then, Rovan bowed and whispered in Hilton’s ear, “Legend Guild, number one!” 

‘Th…this f*cking bastard!’ Hilton thought. He knew that Rovan was definitely mocking him! Saying that Legend Guild was number one meant that they were above Ares Guild. 

Then, Rovan panted roughly in his ears. It sounded like he could barely contain his hunger anymore as he called out hoarsely, “Pant, pant, pant, pant... I’m hungry. I’m going to eat you.”

‘Th…this crazy bastard. Stop blowing in my ears!’ Hilton thought. However, Rovan’s following words made him tremble.

“Your ears look like… dumplings.”

Lick!

Rovan licked Hilton’s ears. Hilton’s body trembled more violently as if he had reached some sort of untimely peak! Then, Rovan, unable to bear his hunger anymore, opened his mouth and bit down on Hilton’s ear.

Chomp!

“Keuaaaack!”

“Yikes! That’s not something you should eat, Rovan!”

“Chew, chew. Dumplings are delicious!”

“Hmm...”

Minhyuk immediately grabbed his frying pan and slammed it on Hilton’s head after noticing that Rovan had gone crazy with hunger.

Clang!

Minhyuk looked around after he rescued the poor Hilton from Rovan’s grasp. The gold and artifacts that dropped from the players that he forced to log out were scattered everywhere.

“I’m hungryyyyy! My dumplingggg!” Rovan roared, rolling around on the ground and making a fuss. Minhyuk was left with no choice but to tie him back to a tree so he could collect all of the dropped gold and artifacts.

[You have acquired 1.372 million gold.]

[You have acquired Akas’ Gloves.]

[You have acquired 2.131 million gold.]

[You have acquired Ifrit’s Tear Armor.]

[You have acquired 9.451 million gold.]

[...acquired Baromil’s Sword.]

Items obtained from PK were not distributed by the automatic party distribution system. The notifications poured in non-stop. Even though they were low-leveled players, their items were quite expensive and valuable. All of them were equipped with rare artifacts, at times, Minhyuk even saw some unique items among the pile. They even gave him plenty of gold. Eventually, Minhyuk stood in front of Hilton.

[You have acquired 9.261 million gold.]

[You have acquired Oz’s Helmet.]

After he finished collecting all of the dropped gold and items, Minhyuk checked the total amount of gold that he collected. He was able to collect 930 million gold from all of the players that he forced to log out. Furthermore, once he sold off all of the artifacts he got from here, he would be able to get at least three billion gold in total. He thought, ‘Wow. I can probably sell these and be able to buy delicious food and medicine!’

Minhyuk chuckled at the thought of buying more delicious food. Then, he began checking for useful artifacts. The first thing that he excluded were weapons, none of these weapons were comparable to Ellie’s Sword, nor his frying pan. As he looked around, the helmet that was dropped by Hilton caught his attention.

(Oz’s Helmet)

Class: Unique

Requirements: 240 STR, 120 AGI

Durability: 4,000 / 4,000

Defensive Power: 311

Special Abilities:

•STR +3, AGI +5

•Magical Defense +50

Description: This was the helmet worn by Oz, a warrior who guarded a king’s tomb in the past.

It was a pretty good-looking helmet but Hilton was not wearing the helmet. Perhaps it was because Hilton failed to meet the ‘requirements’ set by the helmet. The helmet provided additional magical defense. In addition, it even had high defensive power. Its defensive power was comparable to Sylph’s Leather Armor, the armor that Minhyuk had equipped right now. Normally, armors had the highest defensive capabilities, while things like helmet, boots and gloves could only exert about half of the defensive capabilities of an armor. However, this Oz’s Helmet had an extremely high defensive power.

Minhyuk quickly equipped the helmet. Oz’s helmet covered most of his face. Of course, with the exception of his eyes, nose and mouth. It also had two horns on it. He thought that it would have felt uncomfortable once he wore it, but it turned out that he still had good visibility and there was no trouble breathing. It even seemed like it would not affect eating. After he finished acquiring the items, Minhyuk once again untied Rovan from the tree, leaving only his hands and upper body bound.

“Sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff. I saw you hide all of the food from here earlier!” Rovan said as he approached Minhyuk and sniffed him all over. Minhyuk quickly slapped the back of his head as a sort of reproach.

Slap!

“No. Why are you burying your nose under someone’s armpits and smelling them?!”

“Ack! Something smells delicious...”

“My armpits?” Minhyuk asked, looking at Rovan strangely. He was wondering if he liked dishes that were cooked with vinegar.

***

Minhyuk pulled the fussy and hungry Rovan and moved forward. After walking for quite some time…

[You have overcome one of the trials of the Seven Deadly Sins.]

[You have gained 30 REP.]

[You have gained 500 million EXP.]

[You have entered the Hidden Field.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

[...leveled up.] 

Minhyuk heard a string of notifications as his level increased by thirteen. He thought, ‘Ellie’s Knife will probably be unsealed soon, right?’

Minhyuk needed to level up two more times before he could unseal the Secondary Level that was sealed in Ellie’s Kitchen Knife. It seemed like Rovan also gained some REP, even leveled up a lot, but most importantly, he had finally regained his senses. He said, “My nose is filled with the scent of vinegar…”

Minhyuk was left speechless as he untied Rovan. The now freed Rovan looked around curiously. He asked, “Why didn’t we get the notification about the double drop rate and EXP acquisition rate when we entered the Hidden Field?”

“Ah. You’re right.”

After overcoming the Trial of Sin, they immediately entered the Hidden Field, but there were no notifications about the double rate special privilege.

“What are the conditions for clearing the Hidden Quest?”

“Overcoming the curse and hunting all of the monsters in the field.”

Minhyuk nodded. This meant that the monsters that they would encounter soon would be stronger than the monsters earlier. Minhyuk and Rovan quietly held their breaths and walked further in the hidden field.

Thump!

Thump!

Both of them could hear the sound of something thumping heavily.

“It’s a toad!” Rovan said as he looked closely at the monster that leapt high in the sky. It was a giant toad. It was definitely a gigantic toad. Then, it spewed a bluish-green liquid out of its mouth.

“Puhaaaaa!”

Minhyuk and Rovan instinctively dodged. The liquid directly splashed on the ground and the stone where the both of them were just standing…

Melt!

…started to melt! The two of them looked at each other and quickly rushed to launch an attack at the giant poisonous toad.

[Step.]

[You can instantly travel a distance of one meter allowing you to quickly narrow or widen your distance from your target.]

The toad landed on the ground. Before it could open its mouth to spew out poison again, Minhyuk narrowed the distance between them and stabbed it with his sword.

[Sword of Fury.]

[Additional 50% attack power for strong lunges and stabs. If a vital strike is successful, the additional attack power is 80%.]

Stab!

Baaaaang!

The stabbed toad rolled backwards. Without missing a beat, Rovan approached quickly and hacked at it with his sword.

Slash!

A notification popped out in front of Minhyuk.

[You have leveled up.]

“...?!”

Minhyuk had a strange look on his face when he saw the notification. Rovan turned his head to him when he saw Minhyuk stopped moving.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just leveled up.”

“Oh. Again? Was your EXP about to level up?”

“No. I had about 78% in my EXP bar before I leveled up...”

“...?”

Rovan turned to look at his EXP, and soon had an expression of disbelief. A moment ago, his EXP was at 66% at Level 125, but right now, his EXP was at 95%. He said, “W…what the hell...!”

They just hunted one monster, but his EXP rose to 95% in an instant? Rovan was confused. However, he still did not forget to pick up the items that the poisonous toad had dropped.

[Party: Rovan has acquired 123,000 gold.]

For gold drops, it would be automatically divided between Rovan and Minhyuk. In other words, one poisonous toad dropped 246,000 gold. They estimated that the poisonous toad was around Level 120. Generally, monsters at this level would only drop 2,000 gold or so. However, the drop rate right now was almost ten times that of the normal drop. This meant that the EXP and drop rate were extremely enormous!

“...Do you think we can bomb our way and level up like crazy?” Rovan asked as he trembled in excitement. They might not know about the exact increase in their EXP and drop rate, but what they were sure of, was that it was a much more lucrative reward compared to the regular hidden dungeons. He continued to say, “Ah. Come to think of it, I think we’re the first ones to have ever entered the Trial of Sins. There’s no information available about it at all.”

Minhyuk nodded in agreement.

“Ah. But I fought against those bastards earlier…” Rovan said sullenly, brows creasing in worry as he looked at his greatsword. The durability of his sword was almost gone. If the durability of his sword fell below 20%, the attack power and special abilities of his greatsword would be reduced as well.

“I’ll fix it for you.”

“...D…don’t tell me that you also learned blacksmithing?”

“Yep.”

“When did you learn it?”

“Less than a week ago.”

Rovan shook his head when he heard his words. He said, “It’s fine. My greatsword is an epic artifact. I can’t leave it to a novice blacksmith.” 

“I’m an intermediate blacksmith.” 

Rovan silently looked straight at Minhyuk. He was not surprised anymore. He just wordlessly handed his greatsword, Valo’s Bloodstained Greatsword. Minhyuk took out the anvil that he bought from Ron before he left the smithy. He invested the five skill points that he got from the Legendary Chocolate Paradise to his bandaging and blacksmithing skills. He allocated three on his bandaging skill and the remaining two to his blacksmithing skill. Currently, his bandaging skill was at intermediate Level 6 while his blacksmithing skill passed the threshold and became intermediate Level 2.

“Repair!” Minhyuk said as the places where he needed to hammer appeared once again in his vision. Then, Minhyuk began to beat the sword.

Clang, clang!

‘He said that he had learned it less than a week ago, but his posture looks so good?’

There were plenty of intermediate level blacksmiths. In fact, the blacksmith was the most famous job class among all of the non-combat classes. That was the reason why Rovan willingly handed over his sword. He thought that he could use Minhyuk’s help as an intermediate level blacksmith to raise the durability of his sword, even if it was for a bit. Rovan thought that it was enough for him to be able to endure through this field and get out of here safely before finding a better blacksmith to repair his greatsword. Not long after, Minhyuk finished repairing his greatsword.

[You have perfectly repaired Valo's Bloodstained Greatsword.]

[The artifact’s durability has greatly increased.]

[The artifact won’t rust easily.]

[The artifact’s attack power has increased.]

[You have gained 1 DEX.]