CWD: Sewer Skewers ~ Eleven

Days later, Nacho was hard at work deep frying taco shells when the door to his kitchen was thrown open. The sudden interruption caused a knife to blink into his hand, spun around, and whipped at the intruder in an instant. He palmed another and dropped into a fighting stance before finally taking in the consequences of his actions.

Reuben glanced down at the knife sticking out of his gut as the smell of rotting cheese filled the room. He calmly pulled it out and tossed it back without a word. The cook let out a long sigh of relief. If that had been anyone else, they’d have been seriously injured at minimum before their Health Regen kicked in. “Sign says knock before entering.”

“Right.” Reuben felt the hole in his shirt, wincing at his freshly cheesy scent. “Got it. No judgment. Ah… you good now?”

“Yup.”

“Great. C’mon, all.” Reuben lost most of his characteristic enthusiasm when he realized that there was no apology incoming, but it came back in full swing as a bunch of guys, including the Bills, carried a ‘Cow Poke’ into Nacho’s kitchen. It wasn’t even the whole monster, just the back quarter, but it took five of them to lug around the already partially tenderized hunk of meat. “Brie almost beat this guy into juice before we managed to pull it away from her. Where can we put it? Also, we were hoping for steak burritos.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” Nacho dove into the meat; any faster, and it would have been a flying tackle. His big apron, which was covered in grease and flour, now had the dubious honor of adding Putrid Mana-filled blood to the mix. “I went with the ‘Jimmy Cholesterol’ recipes, which offers bean burritos but refuses to steer toward steak burritos. It’s complicated, but the easiest explanation is that the food is too healthy to count for the current recipe.”

“I thought you got the Guillermo Cuisine cookbook?” Reuben was definitely disappointed, though he did chuckle. “You said ‘steer toward steak burritos’. Took me a moment.”

“Nacho, where can we put this?” Old Bill erupted when it looked like their banter wouldn’t be ending anytime soon. “It’s heavy!”

“I literally didn’t even realize you were still holding it.” Nacho stepped away and cleaned his knives with a flourish, waving for them to clear the counter. He launched himself back at the meat as soon as they slammed the monstrous cow leg down. To the cook’s great delight, they’d also already chopped off the spiked hoof and peeled back the hide. “There’s a ton of protein on that leg. That bone is mega hacked up, though… how many of you were using axes?”

Old Bill took off his Royals cap to wipe the sweat off his brow, exposing plenty of blood splatter that didn’t come exclusively from monsters. “Five of us, but we were getting nowhere until Brie whipped over and took him down. Only two question marks in the System View, so we’re looking at a low-to-mid Tier one. Too much for us, but she managed… decently.”

“Look man, I’m a Healer for a reason,” Reuben interjected, noting that Nacho was too far in the zone with slicing to pay much attention. “My gal keeps me outta distress, and I keep her Health topped off when monster cows are in a bad moo~ood.”

“Beasts like that are only too much for us until we get that spear.” Scrubz joined the conversation with a scathing tone. “Who gets the spear?”

Nacho ignored them in favor of working while they chatted. There was only so much time remaining before the big hunk of bone-in steak fully converted into liquid Putrid Mana. He grabbed the Cry knife and distractedly muttered, “Frankly, I don’t want us to bother going after it. It’s just a weapon. Only one person can use it. Why bother putting lots of our lives at risk to get it?”

“Dadgum, Nacho. You’re scary with that blade. You sure you’re just a cook?” Scrubz’s eyes hungrily watched the meat as it was professionally stripped away, missing the pause in slicing that his question caused. “Why wouldn’t we go after it? I’d like it; who wouldn’t? Sure, I’d have to probably buy a spear skill, but it would be worth the expense.”

While he wasn’t sure what class Scrubz was, let alone what weapons he preferred, Nacho wasn’t about to make any decisions that would cause an argument in his kitchen. He left Reuben in charge of mediating with a pointed glance, and the Healer stepped in with exquisite timing. “Let’s go on the quest first. You’ll be with us when we delve into the UnderFun, don’t worry. We’ll need your dungeon-finding skills.”

“There is no good reason to go, and I’m not going to send our best people away from here unless you can come up with a better reason than ‘shiny stick that pokes real good’,” Nacho insisted with a bit more heat than he typically used in conversation.

“Sure, Nacho. Sure, sure.” The goofy cheese-scented man was using a tried-and-true technique: buttering people up with compliments when he didn’t want to fight with them. “As for you, Scrub-z buddy… cool. Glad we’re on the same page.”

Nacho shook his head in annoyance and studied what remained of the Cow Poke. The limb had come from a massive cow with a razor-sharp spear for a face—kind of like a unicorn cow, if a cow didn’t have a mouth. Even with this haunch alone, he could process a hundred pounds of meat if he hurried, thanks to his knives. The real problem was the fact that even if his knives could cut it up, the meat was too high level for him to process the Putrid Mana out.

The Cow Poke turned out to be a level fifteen monster, also known as Tier one, level five. Frankly, the fact that Brie could punch up levels so easily was still shocking to him, but that was not the issue at hand. The cook’s Ingredient Processing Skill was already maxed out at level nine. He wasn’t Tier one, and thus could only process monsters who were level eleven or lower.

To increase his Skill cap, he would have to raise his class to level ten. He had remained at level five since his last level-up, which meant an additional five levels would take eight thousand and one hundred Experience Points, also known as sixteen thousand, two hundred credits. Even if he could process a thousand credits out of the Cow Poke, that wouldn’t make it worth doing.

A million thoughts flashed through his mind, but only four stood out enough to matter. One: he didn’t want to miss out on processing the Cow Poke. Two: he’d had to turn away more and more Tier one monster meats due to his insufficient level. Three: the monsters in the area were getting stronger just as fast as he had remembered. If they didn’t start breaking through to Tier one soon, all of his Hunters were going to die. Four: if he was not a Tier one cook at that point, he wouldn’t be able to feed them… and the guild would rapidly begin spiraling into debt and cannibalism.

Nacho swallowed hard and made his choice. He reminded himself that pouring their resources into Brie made sense when they needed to prioritize combat, but he was better than anyone else when it came to the pure generation of credits. On a good day, between processing monsters and selling his meals, he was making a couple thousand credits between sunup and sundown. His contributions had already allowed his friends to advance their classes all the way to level nine.

For him to achieve level ten, it would take all of their remaining savings, and he’d have to tap into the guild coffers. Steeling his resolve, Nacho explained to Reuben and the Bills about his situation and the number of credits he needed.

Old Bill rubbed his chin. “Well, blast it, boy. It’d be a right shame to lose out on the Cow Poke’s meat, but that’s a ton of credits. You want to use guild money, and I’m not all for it.”

Nacho shrugged as if it didn’t really matter to him. “Every second we stand here talking this over, I’m not processing the meat. Wait too long, and we should just forget about it.”

The men began to clamor.

“That thing nearly killed me; I wanna eat it in revenge.”

“Shut your face, Bill. That thing is delicious, I know it.”

“I say we feast! Worry about credits later. That’s a problem for future us.”

The consensus was clear: they all wanted Nacho to upgrade his skill.

Reuben grinned, not even bothering to try to hide it from the stone-faced Bills. “Do it, boss. Besides, Brie got a big bonus for killing the cow.”

“Ain’t nothing compared to sixteen thousand credits, you tool,” Scrubz grumbled in a low tone. “That’s almost a row of houses, all so he can cook burritos?”

Nacho tried to take away some of the sting. “After this, I’ll buy the Tier one Cantina Cuisine cookbook. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be able to make things taste great instead of ‘I can force myself to eat it’.”

Old Bill closed his eyes, looking pained. “Just do it before that fight turns out to be a giant waste of time. We need you processing stuff we find, and I had my heart set on a steak burrito. I’ll… I’ll even throw in for that cookbook.”

There was a long moment of shocked silence before each of the other men offered to chip in some credits for the cause as well. Scrubz begrudgingly agreed after a tense pause, though blood trickled out of his mouth from biting his tongue as he transferred Nacho the credits.

“Okay, then.” Nacho motioned for the men to step outside. “Reuben and I can take it from here. Thanks for bringing in the Cow Poke. I’ll get to work on it.”

The other men left, but the Bills paused at the door, squinting at the two as if there was something nefarious going on. “When are we going to the UnderFun?”

“Guys. This needs to stop. I’m putting my foot down. There is no guild-run excursion that will be looking for this thing.” Seeing that they weren't moving, Nacho had to get them out of his kitchen, so he pushed a little harder. “If anything changes, I will let you know. Besides, even if we wanted to go, there’s no way that we could leave before the caravan returns with Abby and Kristie.”

They’d cleared out most of the food products and clothes from the Costco, and they’d finally started bringing in the weapons and armor from the Bonus Shelves. The non-magical items could be utilized by practically anyone as soon as they arrived and were especially necessary for the unexpected droves of people coming in who were still using crude clubs and stick spears. Shockingly, there were still people who didn’t really understand how the Juxtaposition worked. Some just needed to be pointed in the right direction, and giving them armor, swords, and shields was a good place to start.

“You guys need to go,” Nacho prompted nervously as he felt time running out. “I can’t work with this many people around. I get… nervous.”

“Exhibit one.” Reuben pulled his shirt taut, displaying the hole where Nacho's knife had gone right through it. “He's pretty serious about this.”

“I’m almost Tier one,” Scrubz demanded obstinately, fully showcasing his lack of social awareness. “I should get some credits-”

Old Bill could take the not-so-subtle hints that Nacho and Reuben were tossing about and pulled Young Bill along with him. “Come on, Scrubz. Let’s get back out there. We’ll get you up to Tier one, don’t you worry. I’ll stay in town to make sure things run smoothly, since Mayor Dan and his wife need to be held accountable. Else they’re liable to do all sorts of crazy things.”

“Like giving away stuff for free,” Scrubz spat with a dark laugh. “We wouldn’t be giving people swords and honey-roasted peanuts as a signing bonus. They should pay.”

“They should pay,” Old Bill scowled, his voice starting to fade as they walked away. “If you give people things for free, they don’t appreciate it. Even now, I’m giving Nacho credits, but I’m going to get a steak burrito, and-”

Reuben shut the door that they had left open, cutting off the random complaints. “You need to get to work on that Cow Poke, or I’m never going to get a delicious burrito.”

Nacho stabilized himself in his kitchen, easing to the floor to get ahead of the incoming bodily changes. “Okay, Reuben, say goodbye to our life savings. Tier one, here I come.”

“That sounds unpleasant?” Reuben winced dramatically. “I hate seeing people hurt so much and being unable to do anything about it.”

“Pain in this case is literally weakness leaving the body. Deal with it.” Nacho rolled his eyes. “There’s a thousand credits in processing that Cow Poke haunch alone, as well as a huge amount of steak. We can have a cookout tonight. A big going-away feast for the Dragon Spear strike team.”

“‘Dragon Spear Strike Team.’ Has a nice ring to it. Hey, by hitting the next Tier, you’ll win the armor.” Reuben grinned as his eyes went distant, and he continued with a cheshire grin. “I'm glad it's one of us.”

“Yeah. I’m very curious to see what happens when I put it on.” Nacho rolled his neck muscles to get relaxed. “It could turn into cooking utensils. I have no idea if I can even use armor like that.”

Reuben looked infinitely uncomfortable. “I should get Brie. I shouldn’t be here alone. It’s unnerving. Maybe… let me just go and get her?”

“No. We don’t have time. I have to hurry and Tier up so I can salvage the Cow Poke.” Nacho hoped the change would be over fast enough to keep the meat. From his experiences in the Probability Vision, sometimes leveling went quickly, and sometimes it took a while. When he had Tiered up as an Assassin, it had been super fast. As a cook? Well… he’d just have to hope for the best.

Nacho accessed the guild coffers and found the money that the Bills and the other men had donated. He transferred the credits over, then opened the Store, where he bought the cookbook for four hundred credits, and finally bought all the Experience Points needed to make the jump to Tier one, level zero. “Grab me one of those old biscuits over there. I might need something to bite down on.”

“Not jerky?” Reuben quipped as he hurried to follow the instructions.

“Don’t have a recipe for jerky. The biscuit’ll do; those ones are at least three days old.”

Reuben knocked it on a counter. “Not hard enough to damage the stone, but close. Yep. That’ll work.”

The Healer tossed Nacho the hockey puck pastry, and the cook transferred the credits. Before the points had even finished vanishing from his account, his blood started burning.

He was dying, or at least that was what it felt like. Everything was pain; then mercifully, he blacked out as his brain was rewired to function at a higher level. When he came back around, he was falling, so he tried to regain control of his body—only managing to stagger blindly around. Reuben was there to catch him, thank goodness. “How… when did I stand up? Maybe… shouldn’t have left the oven open.”

“Did more than stand, twinkle toes.” Reuben told him with a strained tone. “You practically danced around the room.”

He tried to figure out why this leveling process hurt so badly—way worse than the last time—and decided that it was because he was not only adding five extra points to his stats, but he was also hitting Tier one and forever altering his reconfiguring body. Unable to remain open a second longer, his eyes rolled back into his head.

Nacho woke up on his sleeping mat, which had been pulled from his kitchen-shelf bunk bed. Reuben wasn’t in the room, and the cook wasn’t sure what was going on for a minute.

Then a System message appeared to remind him of the big change.

Congratulations, Player! You’ve hit Tier 1, Level 0. This is colloquially known as level 10! Congratulations, you are at the starting point of not being useless! As a word of warning, Tier 0 food and Tier 0 water will no longer do anything for your Hunger and Thirst Points. At least you’ve been smart enough to get to Level 10, and you now know the basics of how the Starter World and the fabulous Juxtaposition work. You’ll do fine.

Your body has been remodeled with Mana, and now you will be able to unconsciously block low amounts of damage. Pure damage mitigation working in your favor! This will extend to any clothes and armor you are wearing, within reason. Can’t ‘wear’ a house, right? People have tried. Doesn’t work.

Let’s not forget your now-useless items! Take a quick look and see for yourself. As a Tier one awesome-person, you won’t be able to use any of the effects of your Tier 0 magical items without attempting to spend credits to upgrade them. Caution: there are risks!

Whoops, spoke too soon! We see you have the HungerCry Knives! These are special items that are guaranteed to upgrade to Tier 1 items. Would you like to upgrade them to Tier 1 for 400 credits?

Yes / No

“Well, that was new.” Nacho rose to his feet with a fluidity of body that he had previously achieved as an Assassin, but only when he had leveled all the way up to Tier two. He glanced around his kitchen and found that his eyes practically highlighted areas of interest, thanks to his massive increase in Fitness and Mental Energy. One such item was the haunch of Cow Poke meat lying in his big basin. “Reuben must’ve gotten help to move that much meat around. Or… abyss, it’s bone and goo, so maybe he just waited and mopped up the mess.”

He growled at the wasted opportunity, vowing to never get so far behind in levels and skills again. After spending all those credits, it was disappointing that he had missed out on such a haul right out of the gate. “Well, might as well make the best of the situation.”

Nacho inspected the upgrade menu option for the HungerCry Knives and asked for more information.

The HungerCry Knives are special objects for many reasons, but also because they can be upgraded! Not all magic items are as cool; in fact, most have a specific planned obsolescence each Tier. Now, here’s what your knives can do since you made them into fancy new Tier 1 versions!

• Yield increase of +50% on all ingredients cut.
• Chopping speed increased by 2x.
• These knives can cut through the Mana barrier of monsters a Tier higher than you. Hey look, you have a Mana barrier now, too! I guess that means we should say that you can cut ‘Entities’ a Tier above you.
• NEW! When you impressively chop food of a lower Tier, there is a chance that you can increase the rarity of the ingredient! As you know by now, eating food of a higher rarity allows for food-based buffs to stack! (Minimum Uncommon rarity for stacking to occur)

Now, here is where the real fun begins! Here is a list of advanced abilities you can choose to increase your knife-work mojo (You can choose only one):

Silent Cut (500 credits)—Chopping receives a 75% reduction in decibels generated. This is a good ability to have if you live in a small apartment and you like to chop up a nice midnight snack, but downstairs neighbor Earl is a super light sleeper and gets up at five for his yoga. Earl would love for you to buy this ability.

Bountiful Beauty (500 credits)—Improve your Increased Yield to 75%. That’s a 25% bonus! Wow!

Fast Whacker (500 credits)—Triple your chop time instead of doubling it! What else would we have meant?

Kitchen WarCry (1000 credits)—We altered these blades from the MurderSong to the HungerCry because you’re a Satiation Player. We also know that the kitchen isn’t a safe place. There’s literally fire in there. There are sharp knives everywhere, and we still haven’t forgotten what you did to Hogan and Whitney. Sometimes, when we close our eyes, we still have flashbacks. Along those lines, we want you to be protected… so we’re offering you this Tier 1 ability. Now you can fight like a samurai chef. With this skill, you’ll double your damage to living entities. Each knife delivers ten points of damage instead of only five.

Knife Blind (1000 credits)—Use your knives with such skill that there is a 33% chance you can literally blind your opponents. If you are actively butchering meat or chopping onions, there is a 66% chance of blinding your opponents for thirty seconds.

Garlic Crusher (1000 credits)—Always have garlic on hand. Use this ability to produce unlimited garlic by using the blade-press maneuver to peel your garlic. This maneuver involves cutting off the ends of a clove of garlic and then pressing down to loosen the skin. Do this on a single clove and continue to produce garlic until you can slay every vampire in the world.

Forever Sharp (2000 credits)—The HungerCry knives, given that they’re artifacts of unimaginably powerful quality, will never get dull. Not only that, but they are a good influence on the other blades in your kitchen. With the Forever Sharp ability, all other blades within the area of effect will be kept sharp through peer pressure alone—thanks to having the HungerCry knives nearby!

Nacho considered the list carefully. The Kitchen WarCry seemed to be the best option for him at present, but he wasn’t sure if it was the best option for long-term success. In fact, just bringing the knives up a tier had already given him important information. When he was a better cook, he could double, maybe even triple the bonuses he was able to give people. No wonder this class was the most expensive and rarest of them all. Besides, a cook wasn’t really supposed to be in battle, right?

Thankfully, the System gave him an option to select the upgrade on the HungerCry Knives later. Closing the menu, Nacho stood and placed his sleeping mat back on the top shelf.

He turned around and nearly jumped out of his skin, the knife in his hand practically leaping out and flashing through the unexpected person to stick in the wall behind them. That allowed him to calm down, though he was annoyed that he’d need to repair the wall later. Still, it was time to put his best foot forward.

His Patron had come to call.