Leveling Up through Eating

Chapter 2.2 –  Game Start

Translator: ChubbyCheeks

A celebrity professional health trainer.

An A class dietitian [1].

And a national athletes and representatives’ rehabilitation trainer.

These three people were watching Minhyuk and his big build exercise in the pool.

Minhyuk’s father is the head of Ilhwa group that’s why he’s able to live a very rich life.

He moved frantically as if he’s smacking the water. There’s only one reason why he’s moving like that.

‘My knees will break if I run.’

Minhyuk has already exceeded the range of high obesity [2] and if he ran his body would definitely break.

Even if he exercised this hard, sweated like rain and burned lots of calories, his body would still remain fat.

“Ha… Ha… Ha…”

Oh Changwook, Minhyuk’s health trainer talked to him when he saw him breathing hard.

“Minhyuk-ah [3] shall we take a break?”

“No. ha… ha… I’ll do… ha… ha… a

a bit more.”

None of the three people laughed at Minhyuk’s disheveled and big figure. Because they have seen how desperate he was and how hard he tried just to lose some weight.

Splash

Whenever he tried to move, his belly would shake and his breath would always turn ragged. While the three people were looking at him, Minhyuk shared what he and Jinhwan talked about in the hospital.

*flashback*

‘When Minhyuk tried to play the game Versal, you ended up gaining 20kg of weight and suffered from a yo-yo effect.’

You will feel full in the game but you won’t taste the food which ended up triggering a more terrible yo-yo.

What should I eat? Ah! I really want to taste it.

The game triggered in them a larger desire to eat food instead of suppressing it. That’s why Minhyuk gained 20kg instead of losing weight.

It ended up endangering his life more.

‘So even if you could try the food in there, you might experience a different yo-yo effect. You might want to taste what you ate in the game in real life.’

Minhyuk knew that and he needed to choose.

‘You can choose whatever you want. But I just want to tell you…’

Jinhwan looked extremely bitter.

‘Do we still have any other choice?’

Jinhwan used ‘we’. This informed Minhyuk that he did his best but he has run out of confidence on other treatments. They have no more other choices to choose from.

In fact, the thing that they are scared of the most is what will happen if it goes wrong and the yo-yo effect turned out to be worse than before.

*end of flashback*

“Hoo.”

Oh Changwook and the other trainers helped pull out Minhyuk when he was done exercising in the pool. They put a towel on Minhyuk and helped him dry off. He felt extremely hungry.

‘This damn appetite…!’

He looked relatively fine even after exercising that much. However, the moment he stopped exercising his appetite instantly pops out.

For Minhyuk, it felt like someone kept on screaming in his head to just eat, eat and eat. It’s a terrible disease. And as always, food would be prepared and ready in the gym.

It was a big bowl filled with salad which was made up of cabbages, onions and the staple diet food, cherry tomatoes. And it goes without saying that the salad had no sauce.

Cherry tomatoes and a selected few protein supplements were the only food that Minhyuk could eat.

Crunch, crunch—

Minhyuk kept on putting food in his mouth just to satisfy even a bit of his insane hunger. But no matter how much he ate it seemed like his stomach would continue to feel empty.

He emptied the first plate then grabbed the second.

He emptied the second plate then grabbed the third.

He emptied the third plate then grabbed the fourth.

This act of eating and eating kept on repeating all the time and would only stop when he fell asleep or when he exercised.

If Minhyuk stopped eating, he would experience symptoms closely related to seizures. He would get anxious, his heart would start beating rapidly, and his breathing would get difficult.

In the past, Minhyuk went through one of the worst treatments. They locked him in a room alone without any food and what resulted was a horrible and traumatic experience. Minhyuk ate the tissue [4] in the room [5].

After he ate his fifth bowl of salad, he went and picked up a box of cherry tomatoes.

“Hyung [6], is Athens fun?”

“Athens?”

He heard that Oh Changwook is a mid-ranker in Athens.

“Yeah, it’s fun. There’s nothing more fun than Athens these days.”

“I’ll give it a try then.”

“Athens.”

Oh Changwook smiled a bit. In his observations, the way Minhyuk spent a day was always the same.

Work out, eat then sleep.

Work out, eat then sleep.

He did not even try to go out and play. So for Changwook, his only wish for Minhyuk was to live a life like other ordinary people.

“What? Are you going to break a new record again?”

“Hehe, as expected of a cool man like me. Maybe this is the touch of a ranker?”

“You’re after all a perfectionist, you will definitely be the best then stop playing it altogether. Is there still anything that you don’t have?”

“A slim and fit body.”

“……”

Changwook laughed his head off.

“Sometimes your jokes are not that funny.”

“Then shouldn’t you cry?”

“No, well…”

Changwook ended up mumbling his words.

“Laughing is really the bettrer choice.”

“Hup!”

Minhyuk stood up smiling.

“Right now, do you know where my fath…”

At that moment, his surroundings started to spin around.

He felt dizzy.

His heart was beating fast and he couldn’t breathe.

And then…

Thud. 

He fell down.

“M… Minhyuk-ah!!!”

“C-call the doctor!”

In an instant, the gym was in a mess.

***

Footnotes:

[1] Raw explicitly says diet manager but I used dietitian instead since it is better. Also, fyi, dietitians alters the patient’s nutrition and diet based on their medical condition and physical needs.

[2] There are two more classes exceeding high obesity or class 3 obesity.

[3] Koreans often add -ah or -yah after the name to indicate their closeness. Or if they are younger than them.

[4] Raw can either mean trash or tissue… But I think tissue paper is more appropriate since they probably won’t have any trash in the room since it’s a treatment room right?

[5] This may sound disgusting, but if you look at the patient’s point of view this would make sense. Since they feel extreme hunger if they don’t eat then they would feel that they would die if they don’t eat. So in a room without food, what is the next best thing for you to fill your stomach?

[6] Hyung : lit. older brother, used by younger males to call a male friend or a male sibling older than themselves

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