Leveling Up through Eating

67 Battlefield’s Great Ruler

“……Wh, what?!!!”

“You don’t want to?!”

Eclei and Bach’s expressions crumpled when Minhyuk spoke those words with a smile.

“Oh my~ You were the one who said that in the beginning. Support us from the rear, was what you said. We did a good job with the rear support and we even killed off a lot of mobs in contribution. So what seems to be the problem?”

“Eeeek……!”

They both wanted to get mad but there was nothing to say. After all, they were the ones who told him to do that. In the end, Eclei burst out in anger.

“From now on, we won’t accompany you!”

“Let’s see if you can do well in this Immortals’ Land with just your 50 knights!!!”

They finally had a good look on their faces. They were sure that Minhyuk and his troops would surely die once their company of 100 men left them behind.

Most areas in the Immortals’ Land could only be cleared through large-scale combats and 50 people was a bit too short for them to face those kinds of battles. What was worse was that the monsters in this place were all strengthened by magi.

But Eclei was also a bit worried. The Immortals’ Land was literally a huge land of war and the fact that they would leave behind the 50 people who were providing them with excellent rear support would mean that their battles would become less efficient.

“That would be a good arrangement.”

Eclei turned to look at Bach who suddenly spoke.

“We haven’t used all of our powers yet, haven’t we?”

They were commanders. However, they still had a lot of wide-area buffs that they haven’t used yet since they were worried about the long cooldown period and the amount of MP that would be used.

Then, Bach continued to speak.

“In fact, I also have this.”

He brought something out.

“……?!”

Eclei’s eyes narrowed sharply.

“You……”

Eclei looked at him disapprovingly. Bach just laughed wryly. The item that he had brought out was none other than the map of the Immortals’ Land.

“You have such a thing?! Why didn’t you tell me earlier?!”

“……You’re asking the obvious.”

Bach’s eyes sank heavily.

“We might both be from the same empire but in the end, both of us are still rivals. I’m sure Eclei-nim also has something to hide.”

Eclei was left speechless. He could not counter his words since he was right. In the end, this was a competition. And the last person standing would be the one who won the bet.

“Now that we have lost 50 from our troops. I think we should use this map. This map can show us where and what is in front of us and we’re going to prepare in advance. We also have the advantage of being able to use our topography.

“……That’s pretty good.”

“Yes. We will use this map to get to Zone 3 where Prince Argon is being held captive. And with the help of this map, we will be able to get there much faster than them.”

“Hehe. Then, we will determine who will win between the two of us in Zone 3.”

After all, even though they had not explicitly stated this, they both knew that they were keeping each other in check. In their own way, they expected that the two of them would play fair and square.

Then, Bach spoke.

“Ah. There’s one more thing that this map does well.”

“What’s that?”

“Whenever we get to each zone, it can show us the number of users and troops present in that zone.”

Then, Bach unfurled the map with his hands.

Shwaaaaa—

Black strings of light came out of the map. The light showed them the numbers on Minhyuk’s side.

[Number of Survivors: 50 Current Location: Point A-31.]

“That’s very nice. Then, that means that we can look at this map to see how far they’re left behind and when they’ll be wiped out!”

“That’s right. I think that man is an archer so I’m not sure how long he can hold on and how good his performance will be.”

***

Eclei and Bach were both confident in conquering the Immortals’ Land. They continued on for two days and two nights but ended up facing a huge problem.

[Your company is complaining of hunger.]

[Fatigue has accumulated.]

[Morale has declined among your men.]

[All of your troops’ abilities have decreased by 10%.]

Tremble, tremble, tremble—

In addition to that, they also had no choice but to tremble and shiver once night descended on them. All they could do was to dig a large hole and cover it with fallen leaves to keep them warm.

“Hunting is much easier than what I had expected but our main problem is the weather in the Immortals’ Land.”

Eclei regretted that he had only brought five knights who could cook or do carpentry.

One of the knights was grilling an iron pig. The iron pig was a pig with a body that was as solid as a stone. They had no choice but to do this.

Terrible hunger! Cold wind! And the weather that would change by the minute! Those were the biggest problems in the Immortals’ Land.

‘I had heard that these were more problematic than dealing with monsters……’

What was worse was that they even heard a notification that they couldn’t use the backpack that they brought along when they first came in. They must be self-sufficient in everything to survive a day in the Immortals’ Land.

Eclei, who was overcome with hunger, hurriedly ate the meat that was brought to him by a knight.

“Keok!”

However, he spat it out right away.

[You ate the Iron Pig’s Meat filled with a fishy smell.]

[There is a high chance of getting food poisoning if you continue to eat it as it is.]

His mouth was filled with filth.

“H, how can you bring me something like this to eat!”

Punch!

In a fit of anger, Eclei punched the knight that brought his food to him. The knight fell down the floor from his punch.

“F, forgive me. The iron pig has a naturally stinky smell……”

“Hoo…… I’m going to die of this hunger.”

Eclei rubbed his face after the knight flew away with just one punch. He was unable to eat or sleep even though they continued their march to hunt monsters. However, the same was also true for the knights who couldn’t eat the iron pig no matter how hard they tried to grill it.

“We’re in trouble.”

Then, Bach came in.

“The knights are already complaining from their terrible hunger.”

“I know. Even all of their skills and abilities have been compromised.”

It was hard to soothe their hunger with just nuts and jerkies alone. What was worse was that the knights had already eaten all of those up because of their hunger. And most of them were already shivering from both their hunger and the cold. The problem was that the ingredients that they could get here were too extreme that they wouldn’t be able to eliminate the risks involved if they did not have a chef with them.

Eclei and Bach had no choice but to continue on together. The two of them had to continue their march. They thought hard about ways to increase the knights morale. Even though most of their knights were hungry, Eclei’s commanding ability, a part that was included in the Gods’ Bet, had already risen to 41%. Bach’s had also increased to 40%.

But here comes their problem.

[The Knights are suffering from both the cold and hunger.]

[Your commanding ability has decreased by 4%.]

The two of them were notified at the same time.

“This……! This could also drop?”

“Goddamn……!”

The two of them couldn’t help but sigh. They would be able to eat to some extent once they got outside of Zone 1 but it would still take them another day to do so.

Bach suddenly thought of something.

“I wonder what that punk is doing now?”

It had just been two days since they separated completely. During the day, they kept their eyes on Rice Supplement with the help of the map. But they did not go far from where they were. The two of them giggled thinking that he was trying not to die. But at the same time, they were unable to confirm his overall contribution ranking since they were pushing hard to continue forward.

“Shall we take a look?”

Eclei opened up the window.

Since this was a quest with a competitive structure, it was possible for them to see each other’s contributions including the % they had achieved for each item.

Eclei couldn’t help but jump up to his feet when he checked the window.

“Wh, what the hell!!!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Ba, Bach-nim. Go and check out Rice Supplement’s score!!!”

“……?”

Bach tilted his head in confusion as he opened Gods’ Bet’s ranking window.

[Iron Blood. 1. Achieved 37% enemy kills. 2. Achieved 36% commanding ability.]

[Reapers. 1. Achieved 41% enemy kills. 2. Achieved 35% commanding ability.]

[Rice Supplement. 1. Achieved 23% enemy kills. 2. Achieved 96% commanding ability.]

“……I, impossible.”

Bach couldn’t speak any more. He did not know what to say.

What is this supposed to mean? His commanding ability is at 96%?

There were a variety of factors that they needed to take into account to increase the % of the commanding ability. The commanding ability in and on itself, the troops’ satisfaction and growth, the commander’s treatment towards his troops and so forth.

The two of them were able to raise their commanding ability through their great ability to command as well as their troops’ growth. But they were only able to increase it to less than 50%. They were thinking that perhaps they needed to go through the entire Immortals’ Land for them to achieve anything higher.

But you’re telling me that he’s already at 96%?

“W, what did he do in just 3 days?!!!”

But that was not the end.

“……E, Eclei-nim!!!”

“Yes?”

Eclei turned around. He was looking at him as if he was wondering if something happened again. Then, Bach said to him……

“……Rice Supplement’s enemy kill % is increasing at a rapid pace!”

“What?”

Since this was a large-scale hunt, Eclei had calculated that they needed to kill at least 50 monsters to increase their enemy kill count by 1%. But his % was rising continuously. It was previously at 23%, then it became 24%, then 25%, 26%, 27%, 28%…… The speed was incredibly fast.

‘Wh, what the hell is happening……!’

***

Two days ago……

“N, no……!”

“What are we going to do……?!”

The Rice Supplement troop felt frustrated when they saw Iron Blood and Reapers moving away from them. They were wondering how they would get past the Immortals’ Land with just 50 people.

“That was too reckless. You should have taken a step back and accompanied them!”

Minhyuk shook his head when he heard Knight Bendiaz’s words.

“If we continued to stay with them then we would be restricted from doing a lot of things. In our case, they would keep on watching and threatening us……”

“……”

“They would have probably attacked us too.”

“……!”

Bendiaz’s eyes widened in shock.

‘He thought much deeper than I did.’

That was right. They were threatened for the first time and there was no law that restricted them from doing it a second time. When he thought about it deeply, this was also a way to determine whether Eivelis Empire was superior to Cordis Empire.

“Then, are we going to move on and start the monster subjugation right now?”

“No. We’ll first get enough food ingredients here.”

“Food ingredients?”

“Yes.”

Minhyuk grinned widely. He knew one piece of information about the Immortals’ Land. Even though Immortals’ Land was wrapped up under a veil, there were still some pieces of information about it circulating around. And he knew that there were plenty of well-known medicines and special ingredients in this place. The only problem was that they were all hidden from plain sight.

“How can we get food ingredients?”

“You’ll know soon. Sir Bendiaz, please don’t argue with me from now on. And here, take the spoils.”

Minhyuk placed the artifacts that he had gotten from the encounter earlier in front of him.

His father was the president and the CEO of a company. One of the many things that he had learned from him was this……

If you want to command the people under you, then you should learn how to share with everyone. He who monopolizes everything cannot be everyone’s beloved leader.

“Are you just going to give it to us like this?”

“It’s not just. You’re all great men that follow my orders!!!”

Minhyuk grinned at them.

Foreigners were all greedy! This was the reason why the knights were very excited and happy when he gave them his spoils.

‘Aaaaaaaaaaah……! I didn’t expect that he would distribute this to us……!’

‘My goodness! This is too precious!’

[Coruman’s favorability has increased.]

[Acass’ favorability has increased.]

[You have gained 1 charisma.]

Then, Minhyuk summoned his one and only method of finding those “very hard to find ingredients” that he mentioned to Bendiaz earlier.

“Oink!”

Kongie appeared in front of them.

However, Minhyuk was left speechless when he saw Kongie’s appearance. He knew that Kongie could also watch what he was doing from the summoning room. And this punk appeared in front of him while wearing a red cap and sunglasses with a baton in his hands.

“……Uhm.”

Once in a while, Minhyuk would give Kongie some pocket money so he could buy some delicious food for himself. Kongie would go out by himself and go shopping in the village alone.

I guess he bought it back then.

He looked like he was saying ‘Professor Von. I’m not a bad person!’ while being dressed like the guerilla instructor.

Kongie, whose hands were behind him, slapped the baton on his palms as he slowly looked at the knights. He was so engrossed in his act that he even stood upright with a serious expression on his face.

“Oink, oink, oink! Oink, oink!!! Oink, oink~ oink!”

“Wh, what is he saying?”

One of the knights turned to Minhyuk for answers.

“Von Kongie is not such a bad pig so I will feed you well! Was what he said.”

“……”

“……”

“……”

Not long after, one of the knights couldn’t help but say……

“Cu, cute……”

***

Notes

Professor Von… uhh, I think he’s the instructor in Real Man. The variety show. I’m not too sure since I haven’t watched that show. But he wears a red cap with sunglasses on. You can search 본 교관 to look at the pictures.