CWD: GA ~ Twenty-Eight

In the dazzling light of the new day, Nacho took in the camp’s surroundings. There was no sign of monsters, and the fire was going well, so he summoned his pot and crossed the stream to a Puckered Granny apple tree.

The firm apples were bright green with stark black stripes, which would deepen and start to rot as they absorbed the Putrid Mana of the Starter World. As they grew in power, the rot would sprout an eye or two, then a mouth, then teeth, ending with insectile legs, which resulted in them snapping free of their stems and scurrying through the forest as packs of carnivorous fruit.

These fruits were definitely Tier zero, probably level one, since the Starter World was still in the early stage. These weren’t the only monster apples that Nacho had seen during his three years in the Juxtaposition; he’d heard rumors of the Kai-juicy Fruit, a hideous building-sized apple tearing across the world and creating havoc. Just another example of a Calamity-class monster that had started out as something minor.

Nacho filled the pot with apples and carried it back to their camp. After selecting an apple, he held it up and concentrated. He was attempting to use his Ingredient Processing skill to drain the Putrid Mana out of the apple as he started chopping, and it worked perfectly. That was a good start.

He took a quick look at the bonus recipe for a sweet apple oatmeal in his newly purchased cookbook. He needed sugar, an apple, and some oatmeal. He had two out of the three, but when he tried to access the Store, the System barked at him.

Nice try, monster-turd! You are in Active Cooking. You cannot shop during Active Cooking.

“Well, now, that was rude. Is it the chopping?” Nacho got up and backed away from the fruit. “Or did that happen because I was processing the apple?”

He even put away his knives. He whistled as though he wasn’t trying to do anything but stand there and whistle, even as his nerves started to fray. Every second he waited, there was a chance those monster apples would turn into disgusting jelly.

Finally, the System grudgingly let him out of Active Cooking.

Nacho immediately bought some sugar from the Store, which materialized in a bright yellow round container with red letters on the front. Apparently, this was ‘Juxtaposition Sugar’. He’d used their last credit, and he truly hoped it was worth it. He got a pot of hot water boiling, prepared his oatmeal and sugar, and then found a nearby log to use as a cutting board.

The System detected what he was doing, and he was back in Active Cooking once more. He held his breath as he sank the Cry knife into the apple and cut the next apple, feeling a strange moment of disorientation as the blade reached the bottom of the fruit. Instead of two halves, he somehow got four halves as its special ability activated. Nacho blindly reached for another apple, placed it on the log, and had nearly pressed his knife to it when it wiggled slightly. He blinked and stared down at his impromptu cutting board, finding a pair of sad green eyes looking up at him. “Dog! Plant dog, thing! What in the… are you following me?”

There was no answer, other than the fact that the strange green dog lifted slightly toward the knife, evidently trying to get itself sliced like the apples had been. Nacho pulled his blade back and pushed the strange animal-plant hybrid off his impromptu cutting board. “Stop that! I didn’t intend to cut you up, I was trying to grab an apple.”

There was a tiny tail wag now that he was paying attention to it, and he inspected the creature more thoroughly. It had grown larger, now easily the size of a proper banana, though it still looked like a tiny puppy. His desire for it to leave wavered and he opened his mouth to name it, when the dog leaned forward and bit into one of the apples. Instantly, the entire fruit turned black and rotten, and the animal slurped it down greedily. It looked back up at Nacho, panting like any dog would and sending the stench of Putrid Mana rolling across the human’s face. “Gah! Get out of here!”

The verdant canine froze in place, then dropped its head and slowly slunk away, only looking back one single, sad time. Nacho was going to throw something at the stray to make it run, but if his previous experiences with it were any indication… the creature would take the hit and try to get itself eaten or something. “It’s gotta be a trap. As soon as I let it in, it’ll attack, but if I try to kill or eat it, I just know something bad will happen.”

Shaking his head and forcing the pup from his mind, he got back to his apples. Having had a little practice, he processed the Putrid Mana out of the apple at the cost of a percentage of his consumable bars at the same time as slicing the fruit. The black rot disappeared with a much smaller struggle than fresh meat had required, and he earned two credits for his efforts.

Two credits from processing a single apple. A wide smile appeared on his face, and Nacho sliced into one of the halves, hoping for additional halves… but of course it didn’t work that way. Otherwise, he’d be able to cut an infinite amount of slices out of the apple. Instead, he got two quarters like a normal chef would.

A sudden spike of hunger hit him, and he felt his mouth water. He paused to question whether he’d ever actually eaten Puckered Granny apples before. He’d killed one, ah… a bushel of them, but had he tried the fruit? No. They’d all learned early on to only eat from the Store. Tentatively, Nacho lifted an apple slice and took a bite. The sourness hit him at once. It wasn’t sour-sweet, it was sour-salty. His first instinct was to spit out the fruit, but no tang of the Putrid Mana assaulted his taste buds—still it was far worse than eating a Sour Patch Kids gummy rolled in salt.

He swallowed, and cautiously waited for any nausea to hit him. When he continued to feel fine, he actually began looking forward to the next bite. It wasn’t pleasant, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was at least… interesting. He liked the disconnect of the salty when his head was telling him it was going to be sweet.

Better yet? He checked The Dinner Party’s credit pool, and they were already starting to make a return. He ate a full apple, and each bite was better than the last, now that he knew what to expect. The Hunger points he’d used to process the fruit were replenished, and a quick sip from a water bottle refilled his Thirst points. He was still down on Mana, and he couldn’t get out of Active Cooking to trigger his Mana Regen, so he just had to make the best of it.

“This is pretty easy.” Nacho repeated the process, eating apple slices and drinking water as he went, until he had a pile of perfectly clean bright green Puckered Granny apple halves laying on the stump in front of him. “Practice makes better.”

He’d processed a dozen of the fruit, for a total earning of twelve credits, which meant… he had enough to buy all the ingredients for breakfast! So long as he wasn’t going to buy syrup, of course. First, he needed to see how cheaply he could make the meal. Waste not, want not. He thought about adding the Puckered Granny apples to the pancakes, but he wasn’t sure if they would mess up the recipe or not.

While Brie and Reuben slept on, Nacho set a flat rock in the coals of the fire. Active Cooking had ended, so he was able to buy the remaining ingredients from the Store, including the melted butter, which came in a little yellow and red bowl. As always, all the ingredients came in Store containers: flour, baking powder, milk, and eggs.

He figured he’d mix everything up in his saucepan, so he poured the water he’d boiled into an empty water bottle to use for coffee once his friends woke up. Nacho didn’t have a whisk or anything similar, but he found a suitable stick. “Now that this is proven to be viable, I’ll have to splurge on better equipment. Is this why it seems like the Common Cook class is considered so powerful, and is so expensive? Sheesh… if I could raise plants and animals with a farmer, I could literally make my own credits.”

His current line of thought didn’t even include selling his cooking. Right now, his mind was filled with a life of peace, in which cooking would generate a ton of credits without ever risking his friend’s lives. He could just process ingredients all day, and the credits would flow in. “Cha-ching.”

There was one major issue that needed to be solved: his Storage Slots were full. He was going to need a cart or some kind of fancy backpack that could hold even more than the one he had brought along. Another issue was the sheer number of tools he needed. To start with, he didn’t have any kind of measuring cup, so he had to eyeball the ingredients. He thought he knew how much a cup of flour was, but how big was a teaspoon?

Was a normal spoon a teaspoon, or was that a tablespoon? He shrugged at the errant thought: it likely didn’t matter that much. He kept his grimoire cookbook open on another rock in his makeshift kitchen, dumped the ingredients into a bowl, and found that the System was there to aid him along. When he had originally gotten started as an Assassin, the System had offered a few helpful tips amid all the cheery nonsense, and he’d met wizards that talked about how the System got chatty with them while they created spells. Finally, it seemed like this function was coming into play for him.

Hey, Satiation Player, you’re still in Active Cooking, but we wanted to have a little chat. It looks like you’re trying to make the International Monster of Pancakes recipe. Is that true?

Yes / No

Nacho chose ‘yes’, and the page flashed. The font for the ingredients turned red, and his heart leapt into his throat in excitement. “If this is what I think it is…!”

He threw in one and a half cups of flour… or as close to it as he could guesstimate, and the line for flour turned black! Every time he added enough of any one ingredient, the red font reverted to black. He was practically vibrating with excitement as he used his stick to mix the ingredients until his batter was thick and milky.

“Is it the right consistency? No idea, but this should be fun.” Setting his cast iron skillet on the flat rock surrounded by hot coals, he slowly poured canola oil in the pan, and it was soon bubbling and smoking. “That should be hot enough.”

As a last step, Nacho activated his other Skill, Cooking Magic, which should imbue the pancakes with the ability to increase one of their stats by five percent of the maximum value. That would only be half a point at this stage, but all signs pointed to the Juxtaposition rounding that up to a full point, so Brie would have an effective eleven Fitness instead of a ten.

Nacho accessed the Skill for the first time ever, and the System sent him a message:

Hey, Cook Boy! You’re not just cooking, you’re cooking with love. Give your favorite murder-machine mate motivation to be murdering. I’m sure you’ll be proud when your dear friends go on a killing rampage with a belly full of your Cooking Magic.

Nacho rolled his eyes but was surprised to find that his mixture had developed a certain glow. Every time he swept his stick around the saucepan, that glow grew fainter and fainter. He squinted closer and realized that a piece of his stick might’ve broken off. He’d have to keep an eye out for it.

Curious, he checked his Stat Sheet.

Body:

• Fitness: 10
• Metabolic efficiency: 10

Mind:

• Mental energy: 10
• Circuit: 10

Satiation:

• Hunger: 90
• Thirst: 90

Total Health Points: 30

Bonus Physical Damage: 5%

Health Regen: 9% Health Regen/minute

Total Mana Pool: 22.5/25

Bonus Spell Damage: 5%

Mana Pool Regen: 9% Mana Regen/minute

Again, he felt a distant hunger, but at ninety points out of one hundred, it was easy to ignore. He’d used ten percent of his Mana on his Cooking Magic, but he couldn't regenerate that until he was out of Active Cooking. Funnily enough, in combat, he’d frequently checked his Health Points and Mana. During Cooking, he’d have to keep his eye squarely on his Satiation stats. “The kitchen has literally become my battlefield. So strange.”

He poured enough batter to make a single pancake on his pan. The oil spat and hissed, but the whole thing didn’t immediately turn to goo, which Nacho took as a good sign. As the batter bubbled cheerily in the pan, Reuben rolled over and sat up, blinking owlishly and sniffing with interest. “Hey, that smells good. Are you cooking breakfast?”

“I am.” Nacho furrowed his brow as he considered the resulting sad disk of hardening batter. There was a new issue: how was he going to turn the pancake? It had to cook on both sides… right?

Brie rolled onto her side with her back facing the fire. “Food is fine, but who do I have to kill to get a cup of coffee?”

Reuben chuckled darkly. “In this world, that is a very valid question. More like what do you have to kill, and how many?”

“I can help with your coffee situation, Brie.” While Nacho’s pancake continued to cook on the same side, he poured a sachet of instant coffee into an empty bottle and added the hot water he’d reboiled. He set it next to Brie, who accepted the container to sip while still in her sleeping bag.

Reuben rubbed a hand over his head to calm his wild hair, failing spectacularly. “Wait a minute. We only had one credit left last night. Hey, Nacho, did you already kill something this morning?”

“No, for once, I’m seeing the benefits of this class. I found some Puckered Granny apples and processed them. Once I got that dog to leave my food alone, I went through twelve apples, earning two credits each.” Nacho grabbed another stick and worked on turning his flapjack by strategically poking it. It was cooking, really cooking, and not just turning into goop. He did need a recipe! This changed everything! He wrestled around with the pancake to turn it, but instead only managed to smear it across his pan. A distinct smell of something burning rose into the air, which was never a good sign.

“You saw a dog?” Reuben awkwardly worked himself out of his sleeping bag, grinning with excitement. “Really? Also, a Puckered Granny? Gross. Toss me one.”

“It’s a puppy that was following us. I took care of it.” Nacho flung him a piece of fruit, still watching his burning pan helplessly. The thought of warning Reuben about the taste crossed his mind, but it was too late.

His friend yelped and started spitting out the sour, salty fruit. “Ugh. Is that what Putrid Mana tastes like?”

“Nope. What’s the matter? Don’t like some salt with your monster fruit tart?” Nacho managed to awkwardly scoop out the crumbled, half-burned pieces of pancake to the side of the pan. “First one is ready. Who wants some?”

“With coffee? Sure.” Brie crawled over and scooped up some of his nightmare breakfast food with her fingers. She blew on a piece, then took a bite without even hesitating. “You didn’t—mmph—kill the dog, did you?”

“Of course not.” Nacho grumbled at the direct stares both sent his way. “Fine, maybe the ‘of course’ isn’t super believable coming from me, but I really didn’t.”

“Good. That’s ‘how to tell if someone is the real villain’ one-oh-one. As for you, Brie, it's your daring side that really makes me like you so much. There’s actually a lot I admire about you, now that I think about it.” Reuben blinked rapidly at his wife-to-be, getting a snort and a grin for his efforts.

“I'm in total agreement. You’re pretty great, as a person and as a friend.” Nacho smiled warmly at his friend and gestured at his first-ever food creation. “Well?”

Brie’s eyes flashed blue, and she read off the menu. “Five percent of max bonus to any one skill. Let’s go with Fitness. Hey, I get an additional two Health Points for just one point of Fitness, and an extra point-five percent on my damage bonus. It’s not Earth-shattering, but it’s not bad since it rounds up.”

“But the taste?” Nacho prodded her expectantly.

“Let's not talk about the taste.”

“I see.” Nacho made another pancake, having the same problem with the turning and the burning. “Well, Reuben is up next, then.”

“You know, I think I can get behind this salty apple taste.” Reuben chased the burned food with a Puckered Granny. “It helps with the… charred… flavor.”

Brie munched another bite and screeched, pulling a rogue piece of stir stick out of her mouth. She held it up and glared at the cook. “What is this doing in here, Nacho?”

“Uh. I didn’t exactly have the right utensils. There was an accident, and a small stick may have been harmed in the making of this breakfast.” Bracing himself, he tried his own cooking. To say the pancake was bland was an insult to Store food. It was so bad that he started looking forward to the burned parts just so it would actually have some flavor. It didn’t just need syrup; it needed a complete culinary overhaul. In short, the tasteless Store pancakes were better. “That was a depressing thought.”

“Thinking about Store food?” Reuben nodded along knowingly. “I can tell. So was I.”

Brie ate two apples just to fill her gut—certainly not munching for pleasure. Nacho continued with the rest of the pancakes, and they forced themselves to eat a full meal of the tasteless charcoal-seasoned discs. He saved some, though he didn’t have much packaging to work with. Now they had battle food.

Also, their food situation was… better. They might get tired of his bad pancakes and the apples sponsored by Morton Salt, but as of right now, there was no more fear that they would starve to death. However unpleasant the food was, Nacho was feeling exceedingly cheerful as he put away pancakes for the road. Active Cooking finally ended when he ran out of batter and the last of his pathetic pancakes was completed. He ended up dumping the remaining flour into his saucepan and using the emptied container for the pancakes.

As they broke camp, Brie spoiled Nacho’s good mood. The blonde Berserker finished strapping her sleeping bag to her backpack, then stood up and fixed Nacho with a stare. “Nacho, I’ve been keeping my mouth shut, but I need to know… if people don’t have Putrid Mana in them… you can eat them, right?”

He managed to wrench his mouth closed after an instant, but he knew that she had seen his shock and revulsion. Wincing, Nacho finally nodded and took a deep breath. He knew that he needed to tell them the truth of this world, but it wasn’t something he had been looking forward to explaining. He’d put it off for as long as possible, for good reason.

Cannibalism always made for very distasteful conversation.