Gourmet Gaming

Chapter 237: Battlefield’s Great Ruler

“…Wh…what?!!!”

“You don’t want to?!”

Eclei and Bach’s expressions wrinkled at Minhyuk’s words. Minhyuk just smiled and said, “Oh my~ You were the one that 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…!”

The both of them were really fuming with rage, but there was nothing to say. After all, they were the ones that told him to do that. In the end, Eclei burst out in anger and said, “From now on, we won’t accompany you!”

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

The two glared at them. 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, truth to be told, 50 people were too small a number to face those kinds of battles. What was worse was that the monsters in this place were all strengthened by demonic energy.

However, Eclei was also secretly worried. The Immortals’ Land was literally a huge land of war and the fact that they wanted to leave 50 people behind, especially ones that 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. However, Bach just said, “We haven’t used all of our powers yet, have we?”

They were commanders. However, they still had a lot of AOE buffs that they had not used yet, since they were worried about the long cooldown period, and the amount of MP that would be consumed.

Then, Bach continued, “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 had such a thing?! Why didn’t you tell me earlier?!”

“…You’re asking the obvious.”

Bach’s eyes sank heavily as he said, “We might both be from the same empire, but in the end, both of us are still rivals. I’m sure you have hidden something too.”

Eclei was left speechless. He could not refute Bach's words since the latter was right. In the end, this was a competition. The last person standing would be the one that would win the bet.

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

“…That’s pretty good.”

“Yes. We will use this map to get to Zone 3 where Prince Argon is being held captive. 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 it, 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 said, “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 players 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 would 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 said, regretting the fact that he only brought five knights that knew how to cook or do carpentry.

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

Terrible hunger! Cold wind! The ever-changing weather! Those were the biggest problems in the Immortals’ Land.

‘These things are far more problematic than the monsters…’?

What was worse was that they even heard a notification that they could not use the backpack that they brought along when they first came in. They must be self-sufficient in everything to survive every 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 the food, causing the knight to fall down on the floor.

“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, yet they had to continue their march to hunt monsters. However, the same was also true for the knights that could not eat the iron pig, no matter how hard they tried to grill it.

“We’re in trouble.”

Then, Bach came in. He said, “The knights are already complaining about 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. Currently, most of them were already shivering from both hunger and cold. The problem was that the ingredients that they could get here were so extreme that they would not be able to eliminate the risks involved if they did not have a chef with them.

Eclei and Bach had no choice but to trudge on like this together. They 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%.

Suddenly, a new problem soon arose.

[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 could not help but sigh. They would be able to eat to some extent once they got out of Zone 1, but it would still take them another day to do so.

Bach suddenly thought of something and said, “I wonder what that punk is doing now?”

It had been two days since they went their separate ways. During the day, they kept their eyes on the Rice Supplement company with the help of the map. However, they did not stray far from where they were. The two of them giggled, thinking that Minhyuk was trying desperately not to die. However, at the same time, they were unable to confirm his overall contribution ranking, since they were busy trying to advance.

“Shall we take a look?” Eclei asked as he 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 progress percentage they had achieved for each item.

Eclei could not help but jump up to his feet when he checked the window.

“Wh…what the hell!!!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Ba, Bach. Go and check out the 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 said. No other words came out of his mouth.

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

There was a variety of factors that one needed to take into account to increase the percentage of the commanding ability. The commanding ability in itself, the troops’ satisfaction and growth, the commander’s treatment of his troops and so on.

The two of them were able to raise their commanding ability through their great ability to command, as well as their troops’ growth. However, with all their effort, 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?!!!”

That was not the end of their shock.

“…E…Eclei!!!”

“Yes?”

Eclei turned around, wondering if something else happened again. Bach said, “…Rice Supplement’s enemy kill percentage is increasing rapidly!”

“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%. However, Minhyuk’s percentage was rising continuously. It was previously at 23%, then it became 24%, then 25%, 26%, 27%, 28%… The speed of increase was incredibly fast.

‘Wh…what the hell is happening…!’?

***

Two days ago.

“N…no…!”

“What are we going to do…?!”

The Rice Supplement troops 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, we would be restricted from doing a lot of things. In our case, they would keep on watching and threatening us…”

“…”

“They would probably attack us too.”

“…!”

Bendiaz’s eyes widened in shock.

‘He gave this a much deeper thought than I did.’?

That was right. After all, they were already 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 Collodis 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 the Immortals’ Land was unexplored and largely a mystery, there were still some pieces of information about it circulating around. 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 enough. Sir Bendiaz, please don’t argue with me from now on. Here, take the spoils.”

Minhyuk placed the artifacts that he had gotten from the encounter earlier in front of Bendiaz. 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 who followed my orders!!!” Minhyuk said, grinning widely.

Foreigners were usually known to be greedy. Therefore, when he gave them the spoils, the knights were very excited and happy.

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

‘My goodness! This is too precious!’?

[You have received Coruman’s favor.]

[You have received Acass’ favor.]

[You have gained 1 CHA.]

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

“Oink!”

Beanie appeared in front of them.

However, Minhyuk was left speechless when he saw Beanie’s appearance. He knew that Beanie could also watch what he was doing from the summoning room. To his shock, 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 Beanie some pocket money so it could buy some delicious food for itself. Beanie would often go out by itself and go shopping in the village alone.

‘I guess he bought it back then.’

Beanie looked like it was saying ‘This instructor of yours is not a bad person!’?while being dressed like the guerilla instructor. With its paws behind him, it then slapped the baton in its palms as it slowly looked at the knights. It was so engrossed in its act that it even stood upright with a serious expression on its face.

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

“Wh…what is he saying?”

One of the knights turned to Minhyuk for answers.

“‘This Instructor Beanie is not such a bad pig, so I will feed you well!’ That was what he said.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

Not long after, one of the knights could not help but mutter, “Cu…cute…”