Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Episode 3. Dungeon Chef

[Would you like to awaken?]

Even while the words floated before him, the bull’s hoof did not stop.

The enormous shadow descended right in front of his eyes.

His breath caught.

There was no time to think, no room to hesitate.

The answer burst from Jinho’s mouth like a scream.

“Yes!”

That was the moment.

Whatever had been crushing his body released all at once.

Air rushed into his lungs. The pressure crushing his ribs disappeared, and his blurred vision became clear in an instant. His body, which had been unable to hold itself up without leaning against the wall, suddenly felt light as a feather. Strength returned all the way to the fingertips gripping the kitchen knife.

Bang!

The bull’s hoof slammed into the floor.

It struck the exact spot where Jinho had been moments ago. The concrete caved in, and shattered fragments flew in every direction.

Jinho rolled to the side, planted his palm on the floor, and stood. His breathing was ragged, but strangely, his mind was perfectly clear. He was still in pain. His shoulder, his side, and the spot on his back that had struck the wall all hurt.

But what changed the situation came next. Words appeared again at the edge of his vision.

[Awakening has been completed.]

[From this moment onward, you are a ‘Dungeon Chef.’]

[From this moment onward, you can no longer receive experience from combat kills.]

[Initial Adaptation Assistance has been activated.]

[Below Job Level 5, guidance will be provided during cooking and dismantling.]

[This assistance will end once job adaptation is complete.]

[Today’s Menu has arrived.]

[Today’s Menu: Minolac Yukhoe]

[Time Remaining: 10:32:18]

Jinho’s eyes trembled.

Dungeon Chef?

What the hell did that mean in a situation like this...?

[Skill ‘Appraisal Lv.1’ has been activated.]

As the notifications overlapped, the bull raised its head again.

Crack.

Its hoof pulled free from the concrete. Cracks spread outward from the hoof through the fractured floor. The bull turned its body. Its red eyes fixed on Jinho again.

But this time, it was different.

Until moments ago, it had simply been a huge, terrifying monster. Its massive body filling his vision, its horns, its hooves, its hot breath. That had been all he could see. But not anymore.

He could see it.

The place where the bull’s foreleg joined its chest.

The thick layers of muscle connecting its shoulder to its neck.

The grain that tightened and loosened whenever it moved.

The direction of the tendons running beneath its hide.

As though he were looking at an enormous slab of meat laid out on a cutting board.

Jinho swallowed.

It was strange.

‘Why am I not scared?’

Normally, he should have been too terrified to do anything, yet what came to mind first were things like which parts were tough and where openings appeared when it moved.

‘Have I finally lost my mind...’

Even he found it absurd.

Just then, the bull pawed the floor again.

Thud.

It charged without hesitation. The floor shattered beneath its hooves.

Jinho moved too.

His body moved first.

Instead of fleeing sideways, he moved diagonally inward. It was an angle that was neither directly in front of the bull nor completely outside its path.

It was a movement he could never have imagined himself making just moments ago.

The bull’s horn swept right past him.

The wind struck his face.

It missed by no more than a sheet of paper.

Jinho immediately lowered his body. At the edge of his lowered vision, he saw the inside of the bull’s foreleg. Thick muscles overlapped there, and beneath them, a tough cord-like tendon was stretched taut and exposed.

There.

Without hesitation, Jinho drove in the kitchen knife.

Stab!

The blade cut through flesh.

It went in deeper than he expected. He had thought the bull’s hide would be tough, but he could tell with absolute clarity where the knife needed to enter. The blade pierced the hide, worked between the muscles, and slid through a gap with less resistance.

The bull let out a monstrous roar.

ROAAAAAR-!!

Jinho did not let go of the kitchen knife. His wrist hurt as though it were about to snap, but he pushed it in farther. Something tough and hard brushed against the blade. Not bone, and not flesh either. Something like a tightly stretched cord.

‘Here!’

He gritted his teeth and twisted the handle.

Snap.

The sensation of something tearing traveled up through his grip.

In the very next moment, the bull’s body lurched violently.

Its foreleg collapsed.

The creature tried to hold itself up, but its balance was already broken. Its enormous body tilted to one side before crashing into the floor.

BOOM!!!!!

A sound like the entire room turning upside down rang out. Dust exploded from the ceiling. The children screamed again, and the teacher pulled them into her arms and pressed closer to the wall.

Jinho dropped one knee to the floor and barely managed to steady himself.

It was not over.

The bull was still alive.

The creature thrashed as it tried to roll itself over. One of its hind legs kicked through the air and narrowly missed Jinho’s shoulder. A single hit from that looked like it would tear his arm off.

And yet, despite that, he felt strangely calm. And that was not all.

The line of the ribs, the fold of its side, the place beneath its neck where its breath gathered, the direction where its heart should be...

“I can see everything.”

The problem was how to use what he saw.

Jinho pressed closer to the bull’s side and adjusted his grip on the knife.

His target was beneath the gap between the ribs.

Stab!

The blade sank in deeper. The bull’s body jolted.

Jinho did not pull it out immediately.

He twisted the knife and stabbed the same spot again.

Stab!

Crack-

When he drove the knife in with all his strength and twisted it, he felt it pierce through a tough membrane and sink deep inside.

GRRRAAAAAAGH-!!

Apparently the strike had worked, because the bull’s enormous body convulsed violently. It thrashed.

The more it struggled, the harder Jinho drove the knife into it with all his strength. Its legs clawed at the air two or three times before gradually slowing.

One long, low breath escaped it.

Then it stopped.

The room fell silent.

Jinho collapsed onto the spot.

“Haa..., ha...”

Only then did his breath burst out.

His heart pounded like mad. His hands trembled. All the pain he had failed to notice during the fight surged over him at once. His shoulder burned, and the place where his back had struck the wall was still numb. His side throbbed sharply every time he inhaled.

And yet, one part of his mind felt strangely empty and dazed.

He was alive.

Really.

Only moments ago, he had thought he would die beneath that hoof, yet now he was alive, and the enormous monster was no longer moving.

[Combat kill experience will not be converted into job experience.]

[Experience will be calculated based on ingredient acquisition, cooking actions, and tasting actions.]

System notifications popped up one after another. Belatedly, the children’s crying reached his ears.

The teacher, still holding the children in her arms, spoke in a trembling voice.

“A-are you... Are you okay?”

Jinho could not turn his head.

He tried to answer, but no sound came from his throat. Only rough breaths escaped. When he wiped his face with the back of his hand, blood and sweat smeared across it together. It was from the wounds the goblin had scratched into him. Only after seeing that did reality begin to return.

I survived.

A sigh of relief escaped him.

Now, what remained was...

Jinho’s gaze kept being drawn toward the bull’s corpse.

It was covered in blood.

It was enormous.

It was the monster that had been trying to trample him to death moments ago.

And yet, strangely, the first thing his eyes noticed was not the blood.

It was the meat.

‘Which cut would be the most tender?’

Strangely enough, the first thought that came to mind was what kind of meat he could salvage from the monster’s remains.

To think that this was what he was thinking while staring at a corpse still hot enough to seem alive. He could hardly believe his own thoughts.

He knew.

This was not a normal way to think.

That thing was a monster. A creature capable of killing people, a disaster that had smashed through the wall only moments ago.

And yet his eyes kept seeing it as an ingredient. Like meat hanging in a slaughterhouse. Worse, his mind was automatically assessing its quality and cuts.

Jinho was still confused when he grabbed the kitchen knife buried deep in the creature’s abdomen. A system window appeared.

[Would you like to dismantle it?]

[Your current skill levels are ‘Appraisal Lv.1,’ ‘Purification Lv.1,’ and ‘Dismantling Lv.1.’]

‘Dismantling?’

“...What?”

What was this now?

After hesitating briefly, he pulled out the knife and pressed YES. Cracks made of light began appearing across the bull’s body.

[Initial Adaptation Assistance - Dismantling Guide has been applied.]

It clearly meant he was supposed to cut along those lines.

Jinho knelt in front of the bull’s body. The knife tip split the hide. It looked as though it should be tough, but the places where the blade needed to enter opened surprisingly easily. He could feel the gaps between flesh and flesh, between muscle and membrane, as clearly as though he could grasp them with his hands.

It was a sensation he had never experienced before. And yet, theoretically, they were things he felt as though he had heard before. Words he had heard countless times in the kitchen flashed through his mind.

Remove the membrane properly.

Don’t leave any tendons behind.

Cut against the grain if you want it tender.

Back then, those words had sounded like nothing but nagging. Now, every one of them had transformed into sensations in his fingertips. Where to pull to peel away the membrane, where to cut to reduce the gamey smell, what to leave behind so it became an edible cut. The knife moved without hesitation.

The teacher spoke in a trembling voice.

“W-what are you doing right now...?”

Jinho wanted to know too.

What exactly he was doing right now.

But he could not stop. His hands knew before he did. This was not simply dismantling. It was butchering. The process of turning something inedible into something edible. The sensation was so vivid that it actually sent chills down his spine.

A short while later.

A piece of red meat rested on Jinho’s palm. He had been unable to cut it perfectly along the visible lines, so it did not come out in the shape he was familiar with.

[Minolac Eye of Round (Grade D)]

- The Minolac has undergone a Dungeon Chef’s purification and has become an edible ingredient.

- Due to poor technique, the shape is uneven.

[You have successfully dismantled part of the Minolac!]

[You have acquired 1 F-Rank Mana Stone.]

[You have gained experience!]

[Level up!]

[The ‘Dismantling’ skill has leveled up!]

[The ‘Purification’ skill has leveled up!]

[You have acquired ‘Minolac Eye of Round.’ Would you like to cook it?]

The system windows slid upward one after another. As a bonus, all his wounds vanished after leveling up.

But Jinho was too overwhelmed to pay much attention. Something that had been part of the bull-like monster’s body only moments ago was now sitting in his palm.

Even stranger, it did not look unfamiliar at all. It simply looked like a piece of raw meat that had just been trimmed and placed on a cutting board.

What dish could he make with this?

There was no fire and no seasoning.

And yet his instincts had already reached a conclusion.

‘Yukhoe.’

Yukhoe eaten without seasoning.

But where was he supposed to slice it?

At that thought, he hastily pulled a black plastic bag from the delivery box and spread it out. It was not as though he intended to eat it. He was only going to try cutting it as a test.

At that moment, another system window appeared.

[Would you like to make Minolac Yukhoe?]

[Your current skill level is ‘Raw Slicing Lv.1.’]

[Initial Adaptation Assistance - Cooking Guide has been applied.]

At the same time, just like before, lines showing where he needed to cut appeared over the meat. What followed was the same as before.

And a short while later.

[You have successfully made ‘Minolac Yukhoe’!]

[Today’s Menu completed!]

[Inventory has been activated!]

[You have gained experience!]

[Level up!]

Notifications poured in one after another, and soon another translucent information window appeared.

[Minolac Yukhoe (Grade D)]

- Yukhoe made from Minolac eye of round. Very fresh.

- Due to the small amount of ingredients, it does not provide much benefit. (Upon consumption, Stamina +10)

Stamina +10.

Jinho stared at that sentence for quite some time, trying to understand what it meant, when someone called to him.

“Um...”

When he raised his head, the teacher was still staring at him with an expression of complete incomprehension. So were the children behind her.

Only then did Jinho come back to his senses.

“Ah.”

Right. The people.

He hurriedly stood up as though putting the yukhoe out of sight. His knees nearly gave out, but he somehow held himself up.

“It should..., it should be okay now. Probably.”

The sound of sirens could be heard in the distance, growing closer. He could not tell whether they belonged to an ambulance or a police car. It seemed the cleanup had finally begun.

Only then did Jinho look back and forth between the Minolac yukhoe in his hand and the kitchen knife. A plate of yukhoe in a situation like this gave off an almost surreal sense of incongruity.

He instinctively moved to throw it onto the floor, then stopped.

[Inventory has been activated.]

Because he remembered the notification he had seen earlier.

The moment he thought about it, a small window opened before his eyes. A single empty space. It was absurd, but strangely, he felt like he knew how to use it.

Jinho imagined pushing the yukhoe in his hand into the space. The yukhoe vanished from his hand.

After seeing that, the teacher cautiously asked.

“Um... What exactly are you? Are you a hunter?”

The question was so natural that it was almost funny.

A hunter?

Until moments ago, he had not been one.

Then what about now?

Jinho let out a short breath.

“I don’t know either.”

It was not a lie.

The sirens outside grew even closer. He could also hear the crackle of what sounded like radios. Then it was time to leave.

“W-wait, at least tell me your name...!”

She shouted after him, but he adjusted the bag on his back and went outside through the hole the Minolac had smashed through the wall. He intended to leave before things became troublesome.

‘I’ll read the other notifications when I get home.’

He thought as he indiscriminately tapped away the system windows appearing all around him. His mind was already filled with other concerns.

‘What am I going to do about these bloodstained clothes?’

Because of that, he did not see it.

[An item has been listed on the Exchange.]

[Awaiting sale...]

Those words.