Leveling Up through Eating

PR: MattForgenti

65 The New Vassal

Corr looked more serious than ever. He looked somewhat surprised when he saw the empty tteok box but he looked at him as he spoke solemnly.

“Let me escort you.” 

Corr said this with an extremely serious expression! It seemed like Minhyuk had become a principal sinner. Alas. He was treated like a bad person even though he did something good. Minhyuk hung his head down.

‘Heuk…… But the tteoks were really delicious.’ 

He believed that he would be given severe punishments. What was worse was that even Corr, who was standing in front of him, was a very strong person. Minhyuk thought that it was punishments that were waiting for him in the Athenae Temple.

At that moment, Corr sent a pigeon over.

Flap, flap, flap.

***

Raphael, the number one in Korea’s Paladin Rankings, was on his way to Athenae Temple.

‘Today is the day that Rowena will pray in the Athenae Temple.’ 

This was the day when Rowena would make her public appearance. Plenty of users would flock at the temple just to see her face. And the number one Paladin, Raphael, was smitten with her. It was strange for users to have a crush on NPCs but he couldn’t help it since she was such a beautiful woman.

Just like he had expected, there were plenty of people flocking in the Athenae Temple.

“It’s the number one in the Paladin rankings, Raphael!” 

“Wow!” 

But even though Raphael was sitting in such a high position, he was still nervous whenever he entered the temple. He was also a member of the Athenae Religion but he surmised that Rowena only saw him as an ant on the sidewalk.

But that’s her charm!

Raphael had a dream. He dreamt that he would be able to brush his fingers against her palms one day.

Just like that, more than thousands of users gathered in the temple. Then, hundreds of Paladins and Athenean priests began to move. That was when Rowena appeared in front of him.

“Wow……!” 

“She’s really beautiful!” 

“It’s not only in Athenae! I believe she’s the most beautiful woman in the world!”

“Joy Co. Ltd. said that there would be no woman that is more beautiful than Rowena!” 

The users were all in awe and admiration as they watched her move forward.

Raphael turned back to where she came from. He saw a carriage parked in the direction where she came from. He could see a paladin and a sulky man, presumably a foreigner, coming out of the carriage.

“What’s this? Is he a principal sinner in Athenae Religion?” 

“Corr will not move unless he’s escorting Rowena or guarding against a great sinner in the Athenae Religion, right?” 

“That’s right. He’s probably a great sinner.” 

This was the thought that passed through the heads of countless users. But then, an extraordinary thing happened in front of them. All of the priests and paladins knelt down on one knee in unison. Their actions were uniformly done without the slightest bit of error at all.

“We greet Athenae Religion’s benefactor! Brother Minhyuk!” 

“……!” 

“……!” 

“……!” 

They couldn’t believe that the believers of the Athenae Religion who served the God of Athenae and were well known to be proud and strict would kneel down like this.

Then, they saw Rowena walking towards the mysterious user as she also knelt down on one knee. Then, she slowly bent down to give a chaste kiss on the back of his hand that she had grasped earlier before opening her soft and plump lips to talk.

“I, the Saintess Rowena, swear to respect and cherish the Athenae Religion’s benefactor, Minhyuk, forever.”

Then, she smiled softly as she slowly raised her head to look at him. The users felt extreme shock and jealousy when they saw her reddened cheeks.

“N, no way……!”

“M, my Rowena!!”

“That look is definitely……!”

“Who the hell is that punk!”

“I’ll kill you for sure!”

He was a thief who robbed all the people, regardless of their age, of their dream woman!

“……?”

And Minhyuk, the principal and great sinner, tilted his head in confusion.

‘What’s going on here?’

***

Three hours ago, the Papal Knight Voloch couldn’t help but be confused when he saw Minhyuk leave the Papal Office in anger. 

“Your expression doesn’t look good.”

“Yes. I feel very, very bad.”

“Why is that so?”

“My goodness! Saintess Rowena-nim should have given me the tteok dumpling soup but she did not even mention it to me! Ah! How could she do that?”

“……”

Voloch was left speechless.

Saintess Rowena’s beauty was enough to make plenty of people feel full just by looking at her. But Minhyuk was angry that such a beautiful woman did not give him the tteok dumpling soup.

‘I, I think he’s really angry?’

He could tell by his labored breathing that he was trying to hold in his anger. He watched as the huffing Minhyuk called the carriage over.

“Do you really not want us to see you off?”

“To be honest, I want to be alone with this tteoks more than having your company.”

“……”

He’s so strange. But this strange man is also the man who pulled out the Saint's Sword.

Voloch watched the carriage disappear in the distance as he proceeded with his work as usual. Two hours later, Voloch, who was in the middle of his work, suddenly stopped.

‘Tteok dumpling soup……?’ 

That was the only reason why he suddenly stopped. His brows furrowed in thought.

‘But I don’t think it’s just tteok dumpling soup?’ 

To be exact, the Papal Office would make tteok dumpling soup with ‘joraengi tteok’. However, the word joraengi was missing from the words that he had heard earlier.

His brows furrowed further as he thought about the things that happened recently. In fact, something strange also happened a few days ago.

Pope Carunu had described God Athenae as ‘God’s Will’ but Voloch had never heard the pope use such an expression before. He would originally say ‘It’s His will’ and not ‘God’s will’.

‘Something’s strange.’ 

He also realized that the pope never went out of the prayer room these days. That was the moment when he realized that something was wrong. So he moved quickly towards the prayer room as he did something that he normally would never do. He peeped through a small gap in the door.

That was when he saw black magi escaping from Carunu’s body. The magi created a demonic figure that talked sinisterly in the prayer room.

Clatter!

“You bastard!!!” 

Voloch pulled out his sword. Voloch was named as the Pope’s Guardian, he was a powerhouse that had power that was beyond the power of a Lv610 character. But when he opened the door and entered the room, he saw the pope collapsing in a heap.

There was also the black magi that was formed in the shape of a skeleton with horns. This was none other than Verus.

“A disaster will descend upon you…… and…… you will be unable to stop it…… you already…… chased the disaster away. Keuhahaha!” 

“……!” 

Voloch’s eyes widened in horror as the black magi scattered through the air and disappeared.

Disaster? Chased away?

“The, the tteok, tteok……!!”

Carunu played a part in making the tteok that would be gifted to the Athenae believers and Carunu did not even know the ‘Co’ in cooking so it was quite strange for him to even try to touch the food in the kitchen. 

“We, we have to stop Minhyuk-nim!!!” 

But it was already two hours since he left the Papal Office so he would have already reached the Athenae Temple by now. And they would have already eaten the food by now. 

Voloch’s legs softened as he sank down to the ground.

‘G, Goddamnit……!’ 

At that time, Minhyuk was actually happily eating the delicious tteoks.

***

Rowena smiled softly as she looked at Minhyuk’s puzzled expression. They had received a letter sent by Knight Commander Voloch through a pigeon.

[Minhyuk-nim noticed the strange smell and taste of the tteoks beforehand and ate all of the tteoks to save our Athenae Religion. He saved us through a crisis just like the legend of the Saint's Sword that came down to save us and bring us to salvation.]

Rowena was surprised. She knew that he was a decent man.

He ate the tteoks because he wanted to?

She believed that such a thought was too much to accuse of someone like him.

Then?

She thought that he would have definitely caught wind of the disaster much faster than the rest of them. And he ate all of the tteoks before the aftermath hit and wreaked havoc in them. He also did not deliberately use warp to directly come back to Athenae Temple from the Papal Office.

Rowena opened her mouth.

“We heard from Sir Voloch, the Pope’s Guardian. You purposely took the tteoks and used a carriage instead of warping here.” 

“……?” 

Minhyuk was also confused.

‘But I told Voloch-nim that I wanted to savor the warmth of the tteoks that’s why I rode the carriage?’ 

Rowena continued to talk.

“You knew the moment you received it! You knew that it would bring forth a disaster so you rode in a carriage and drove further away from the Athenae Temple. You did this to save us, the Athenae Religion!” 

Rowena’s eyes brightened.

‘Th, that’s not it…… I just want to feel the warmth of the tteoks.’ 

“In addition! You tried to find ways to get rid of the disaster but you couldn’t find a way to get rid of the tteoks. That’s why you……” 

In the end, tears fell down from Rowena’s eyes.

“You sacrificed yourself. You ate all of the tteoks and got rid of its existence. We know that foreigners are living the life of the immortals since you’re blessed by God Athenae but it wouldn’t erase the pain that you will experience in the process of dying! Oh, how painful it was!”

Rowena squeezed her hands together to stop them from shaking and trembling.

Looking at the scene, Minhyuk thought that he shouldn’t mention the fact that he ate the tteoks just because he wanted to eat them.

“I succeeded in eradicating the tteoks. It was really a hard and painful process. But I really had no choice but to eat them all! It was inevitable!”

“Aaaaaaaaaah!”

“……!”

“……!”

“……!”

Rowena, the priests and the paladins were all captivated and enchanted by his achievements.

And the thought that flashed through Minhyuk’s head was……

Nice! I killed two birds with one stone! I ate all the tteoks and the Athenae Temple fell in love with me!

Meanwhile, tears fell down nonstop from Rowena’s happy and thrilled eyes.

***

Demon worshippers existed all over the world and they all believed in different existences. The demons had a system that divided the Demon Monarchs into three.

The first Demon Monarch was Verus.

The second Demon Monarch was Gorac.

The third Demon Monarch was Gremory.

And Carn was one of Verus’ worshippers. To be precise, he was once the fourth among the Strongest Men in the world. Then, he was called on by Verus and he became one of his worshippers.

Verus originally gave Carn his magi so that he could temporarily convert his magi into holy power. Using that power, he would move the Saint's Sword, meet with Verus and deliver the tteoks that were filled with curses and disasters to the Athenae Temple. But all of a sudden, everything went awry and had gone wrong just because of a foreigner. 

Just when he was trying to figure out a way to deal with him, he heard the voice of Demon Verus.

[I will pretend to be caught by the Athenae Religion. If I cannot use the tteoks and wine to curse and bring down the Athenae Religion to hell then I will temporarily lend you my strength. Perhaps, I can drive the Athenae Priests towards the Papal Office all by myself. At that time, you should go and kill Rowena.]

Along with his words, a parchment and a bottle filled with black liquid appeared in front of Carn. Then, he checked it right away.

[Verus’ Space Distortion Parchment.]

The space distortion parchment could create a boundary and block everyone from entering the space within a 10-m radius from the user. The duration of the parchment was one hour. 

After Carn checked the information about the bottle filled with black liquid, he couldn’t help but feel surprised.

‘If I drink this liquid……’ 

All of his stats would be affected by magi and would be temporarily increased by more than 30%. In other words, the previous fourth Strongest Man would become even stronger with just this bottle of liquid.

In the end, they had failed to make the Athenae Religion fall into hell with the tteoks.

Right now, Carn turned his head. He could see the priests, paladins and even Rowena acting polite towards the foreigner who was just a chef.

Rowena finally started her journey as she climbed the carriage together with the foreigner. The fancy carriage moved onwards as it was pulled by pure white horses.

He could see that even the commander of the paladins, who firmly supported Rowena, was within the 10-m range. To be honest, if the commander of the paladins, Corr, was removed then he would be able to easily kill Rowena. After all, except for the name Saintess and her buffing ability, Rowena was extremely weak. 

‘Now’s the time.’ 

Poof!

He quickly opened the cap of the bottle.

And……

Gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp—

He started to drink the contents of the bottle.

***

Food Discussion Corner

Joraengi tteok – rice cakes shaped like a cocoon or a ball.