Lin Ye leaned close to the cook's ear and murmured something.
The cook's expression changed.
"This… this…"
He was deeply conflicted.
This has to be a joke, right? Surely this is a joke!
"Trust me," Lin Ye said.
"I— I understand. I trust Brother Zero. I'll make another serving. I just hope the Organizer's judges will enjoy it."
In the end, the cook player chose to believe in Lin Ye's method.
Trusting Lin Ye was never wrong. The Organizer's staff had a taste for exactly this kind of thing — they would absolutely love it.
"They'll definitely like it," Lin Ye said, patting him on the shoulder. "If something unexpected happens later, remember to grab the intestines and bring them with you."
He'd already thought this through. He reminded the group with that in mind.
Without a doubt, more monsters would be coming.
As for what kind, that was hard to say.
"Don't worry, we will. The moment something happens, we'll grab it and run with us first thing," the cook replied.
If this serving of Nine-turn Braised Intestines met with some accident, they genuinely wouldn't know how to make another dish.
It wasn't like they could pick the intestines up off the ground, give them a rinse, and serve them again!
He glanced toward the Organizer's side, at the staff members gathered together, and couldn't help but wonder.
"Hey, hey — what did Brother Zero tell you?"
"Come on, spill it!"
"Don't ask. If you ask, the answer is: I don't know," the cook flatly refused.
He couldn't say a word. If he did, his teammates would probably refuse to go along with it — so secrecy was essential.
"Hey, hey, hey — we're on the same team! You can't even tell us?"
"I can't. You don't trust me — but surely you trust Brother Zero, right?"
At this point, who dared not trust Zero?
Impossible. By now, practically every player was willing to trust Zero. Even those few who didn't have the best relationship with him were, in truth, willing to trust Lin Ye.
Because every analysis and judgment Lin Ye had made up to this point had been correct, without a single miss.
You could say that of the fifteen groups still standing today, ninety percent of the credit belonged to Zero.
Without Zero, there was absolutely no way they'd be where they were now.
"We trust him. Completely."
They trusted Lin Ye ten thousand percent. Since he'd said it, they suppressed their impulses and curiosity.
As long as the dish was successfully prepared and earned the corresponding score, that was all that mattered.
As for how many points it would earn — that remained to be seen.
...
Lin Ye finished wandering the area and returned.
"Perfect timing you're back — try this…"
"The second serving is done already?"
"More or less. It's snake meat. Give it a try."
"Sure."
Lin Ye took a bite.
The flesh was very tender, with a distinctive flavour.
He glanced at a notification that had come through from the Strange Game Character Panel — his Agility attribute had increased slightly.
His Superpower: Devour was taking effect.
Snake meat really was nourishing.
"Make more. I want seconds," he said.
Compared to cooking it himself, food made by a professional like Miss Erina Nakiri tasted infinitely better.
Free labour — absolutely not to be wasted.
"How much?" Erina asked.
Making a larger portion wasn't a problem. She had absolutely no objection.
"All of it."
Erina Nakiri: ???
That's way too much.
"I'll keep a tiny bit in reserve. Cook everything else," she said at last.
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it."
"Let's eat our fill this time — who knows if I'll ever get to eat something you made again."
Erina looked up at him. "A promise is a promise. I won't forget, and I will honour it."
She would fulfil her agreement to cook for Lin Ye three times. If necessary, five times or even ten was perfectly fine.
The extra times would simply count as repayment for everything Lin Ye had done for her.
"I'm just worried you'll forget."
"My memory is excellent, thank you very much," the golden-haired young girl said with complete confidence.
Though, of course, that memory was contingent on nothing disrupting it.
Both Lin Ye and Cold Frost knew: once this mission ended, Erina — a newcomer who had been pulled into this Strange Game — would receive an invitation from the game itself.
The vast majority of newcomers without confidence or strength would choose to refuse, returning to their ordinary everyday lives.
And Erina Nakiri — in the real world she was an Eldest Miss: beautiful, well-built, with every advantage imaginable. But inside the Strange Game, those advantages counted for nothing.
They would, in fact, invite trouble.
"Don't — don't say that."
Lin Ye immediately thought of a certain girl, and quickly added, "Honestly, it's fine either way. This agreement — it doesn't matter if you can't keep it. That's coming from me. If we ever meet again, I won't bring it up or hold it against you."
But that attitude only annoyed Erina.
She gave a huff. "I, Erina Nakiri, never forget a promise."
Lin Ye glanced at Cold Frost.
The girl with long black hair looked equally helpless. She silently resolved to find an opportunity later to speak with Erina and make clear the dangers of the invitation that comes after a mission ends — to convince her to decline.
Otherwise, this girl genuinely had no chance of surviving a single month.
"Hurry up and make the snake meat."
"..."
Erina obediently got to work.
Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh…
Clang, clang, clang…
The spatula moved ceaselessly through the iron wok.
Within minutes, an enticing aroma rose up — one that not even the lid could contain.
Lin Ye's appetite had been fully awakened.
Compared to eating things raw, he definitely preferred his food cooked.
After finishing this generous portion of snake meat, his Agility ought to go up another notch.
A welcome development.
"Here you go."
Once she'd plated it, Erina set a large bowl of snake meat in front of Lin Ye.
Cold Frost received a noticeably smaller bowl.
The contrast was stark.
Cold Frost had a nagging feeling she was being treated differently. I've been perfectly nice to Erina too, haven't I? Even if Lin Ye asked for more, this much of a gap seems excessive.
"You two start eating. I'll test the beef," Erina said.
Lin Ye and Cold Frost had both called it delicious, but Erina was not satisfied. There was still something off about the flavour — something that non-expert palates like theirs couldn't detect, but she absolutely could.
This braised snake in tomato sauce was, at best, marginally above passing grade. For Erina Nakiri, that was utterly unacceptable.
After washing the cookware, she turned her attention to the problem of which garnishes would best complement the beef.
Erina surveyed the neatly arranged ingredients, running her right hand slowly over them one by one, picking up and tasting small pieces of the ones that caught her instinct.
Meanwhile, Lin Ye ate his snake meat.
[Due to the influence of an unknown force, your body has been affected. Agility has increased by a certain amount.]
After finishing roughly half the bowl, Lin Ye's Agility finally ticked up.
This place is heaven for me.
"Nakiri."
"What is it?"
"Do me a favour — cook some of that bear meat when you get the chance."
Most of the black bear's meat was still there; only a few players had taken any — specifically those groups who didn't have enough meat of their own.
"You want to eat black bear meat too?"
"Yep."
Erina didn't refuse.
She'd just sampled the snake meat again — and the same flaw was still there.
Snake meat wasn't quite right. She'd try the beef first. If that didn't work out, she'd move on to the black bear.
Erina's eyes landed on the bear's paw.
Braised bear paw… that might actually work quite nicely.
Lin Ye kept a portion of his attention fixed on the Organizer's side. Changes in the Organizer's reaction were a reliable indicator of what was happening on the field.
At the one-hour mark, nothing happened.
That made Lin Ye think the next monster would arrive at the ninety-minute mark.
One wave per hour — the frequency was lower, but the difficulty would certainly be higher.
There was nothing to do but stay prepared and prevent any potential mishaps.
Fifteen minutes later, a bowl of fragrant black bear meat was placed in front of Lin Ye.
"Done. Give it a try," Erina said. "Time was limited, so it didn't cook long enough to fully absorb the flavour. But per your request, as long as it's cooked through, taste doesn't matter — I know."
"Thanks."
Black bear meat!
And not just any black bear — one from an instance world inside a Strange instance.
Lin Ye wondered what kind of attribute boost it would bring.
Constitution? Strength? Or Mental Power?
"Mmph…"
Lin Ye took a bite. The meat had a slight chewiness to it — extremely tough to get through.
A moment later, Erina reacted too, though she had steeled herself mentally beforehand and was fully prepared.
She focused on cooking her own ingredients and silently hoped Lin Ye would eat faster.
Cold Frost watched Lin Ye eating with evident relish and couldn't help asking, "How is it?"
"Pretty good. Very nourishing."
The attribute boost was Strength.
Finish this bowl, and his Strength stat would probably go up another point.
Excellent.
Lin Ye was in high spirits.
He knew very well how hard it was to raise attributes. The Strange Game was incredibly stingy when it came to handing out attribute points.
Training on your own could technically raise the relevant attributes, but the time and effort required to gain a single point was multiplied tenfold, a hundredfold.
His daily workout regimen wasn't enough to move the needle on its own — but the gains from Superpower: Devour were genuinely staggering.
If he could eat a wider variety of ingredients, all his attribute points would likely rise across the board. From his current spike in Mental Power, he could grow into a well-rounded powerhouse — a true all-stats fighter.
"Here, you should try some too."
Cold Frost tasted a piece. The flavour was genuinely not bad — but the meat was insufficiently tender and nearly impossible to chew. In terms of mouthfeel, she couldn't manage anything like Lin Ye's portion.
She couldn't figure out why he liked it so much.
Back in the Mountain Villa instance, she hadn't seen Lin Ye eat like this.
Is it a food instance thing? Is his appetite just especially keen here?
Cold Frost thought back over the various ingredients that had appeared — Lin Ye seemed enthusiastic about eating all kinds of meat. Octopus, Mad Red Beef, mutton, and now snake meat and black bear meat. Vegetables and fruit he ate far less of.
Looks like Lin Ye really loves meat.
Cold Frost decided that when they met offline, she'd treat him to the finest beef, the finest lamb — and even some of the rarer meats she could track down if needed.
The only question was whether Lin Ye would agree to meet in person and exchange real-world contact information.
In general, players wouldn't share contact details unless their relationship was close and built on mutual trust.
After all, players were very careful about keeping their identities hidden in the real world. Exposure was dangerous.
Once exposed, a player could easily become a target for those with ill intentions.
She knew of one case: two players exchanged real-world contact information, and one immediately sold the other's details. A certain faction used that information to track the player down, then coerced and bribed them into forced cooperation.
In the end, players still had family, friends, and social ties in the real world — it was nearly impossible to truly cut all those threads and ignore every threat.
Still, Cold Frost thought about Lin Ye's conduct across two instances and concluded: there was no way he would be that kind of player.
Someone willing to betray other players — how could they possibly also be willing to sacrifice their own interests to help both new and veteran players like he had done?
Lin Ye's nature was simply like that. So she could feel at ease. No need to worry about her real identity being exposed and the problems that might follow.
Besides, in the real world, her own background and standing were nothing to sneeze at.
Self-protection wouldn't be an issue.
Squeak, squeak, squeak…
Squeak, squeak, squeak…
Suddenly, a faint, continuous squeaking began to filter in from somewhere.
More and more players noticed it.
The time was exactly ninety minutes — the one-and-a-half-hour mark.
"Monsters incoming. Everyone get ready," Lin Ye called out.
He'd gathered everyone together forty-odd minutes ago and told them to prepare for the next wave, to avoid a chaotic scramble that would have people tripping over each other.
The players reacted with some degree of disarray still, but at least they knew what to do.
Lin Ye had also considered having all groups submit their completed dishes early.
But the Host Mask Man had made it clear: the full two hours of cooking time had to be observed. Even if all groups finished early, they still had to wait — and they would still face whatever monsters came.
Squeak, squeak, squeak…
The sound grew louder.
Lin Ye, Cold Frost, and the other veteran players readied themselves for combat. The newcomers stood by their stations, clutching kitchen implements as makeshift weapons.
"It's getting closer."
"But where is the monster?"
There's sound, but no monster!
"It's in the ground — rats. They're in the grass," Lin Ye said, activating his perspective skill to see through the low vegetation and catching sight of the creatures scurrying toward them.
A dense black mass.
How many were there? A hundred? A thousand?
"It's rats. A lot of them — at least a thousand. Everyone stay sharp. Anyone with area-of-effect attack capabilities, use them now. Don't let them get close."
"Newcomers, clean up any that break through."
Lin Ye took out the Snake Eye Orb.
He had no area-of-effect weapons or items suited for direct damage, but the Snake Eye Orb could serve a purpose here — it could suppress the movements of a large portion of the rats, buying other players more time to wipe them out.
He placed the Snake Eye Orb on his forehead.
"Let's see how far I can push this."
Using the Snake Eye Orb against this many individual targets was something Lin Ye had never done before.
He wanted to see what his current Mental Power — twenty-three points with the Strange object bonus factored in — was capable of.
Moments later, the rat swarm burst out of the low grass in a seething black tide, flooding across the exposed ground toward them.
A solid wall of dark bodies, so densely packed that quite a few players felt their stomachs drop. Many had trypophobia or a phobia of rodents specifically — this was simply too much.
Players gripped their cooking implements.
The male players held their ground, breathing steadily to keep their composure.
The female players were far worse off — faces gone pale. In everyday life, a single rat was enough to make them scream and back away. Facing an entire surging carpet of them now and managing not to scream and bolt was already their absolute limit.
Lin Ye activated the Strange object — the Snake Eye Orb.
An invisible force radiated outward like a shockwave.
Squeak, squeak, squeak…!
Squeak, squeak, squeak!
A chorus of frantic rat cries erupted.
One after another, rats went berserk — the coordinated charge shattered in an instant, and the horde scattered wildly, turning on each other and biting their own kind.
The sudden chaos left every player momentarily stunned.
Quickly, everyone understood who had done this.
"Brother Zero is incredible!"
"Brother Zero's a legend!"
"Brother Zero is way too cool."
Cheers and gratitude rang out. The newcomer players hadn't imagined Lin Ye could do something like this.
The veteran players glanced at the item on Lin Ye's forehead and suspected it was a Strange object.
Among them, veteran player Tanaka did a double take. He had seen that Strange object before.
So this LV4 player is affiliated with that organisation.
He averted his gaze and focused on the rats in front of him.
"Move fast and finish them off," Lin Ye urged.
After that activation, he could already feel the mental drain and strain setting in.
His own Mental Power was high and his condition was good, but the sheer number of rats was pushing his limits.
"Zero…"
At some point Erina Nakiri had appeared at Lin Ye's side and was offering him fruit.
"Eat a little. It'll help."
"Thanks."
Lin Ye ate.
Superpower: Devour activated — though focused on recovering Constitution rather than Mental Power. Still, as his physical condition recovered, the mental fatigue eased noticeably.
Cold Frost, Tanaka, and the other veterans charged in and began the slaughter.
One veteran held a torch, stabbing it forward and setting several rats ablaze at once.
That has to be a Strange object too, Lin Ye thought.
No ordinary item could do that. Wherever that torch touched, fire spread instantly — rats caught flame in the blink of an eye. No regular tool had that kind of power.
Lin Ye surveyed the other players.
The veterans led the charge, cutting down rats en masse. By the time the horde recovered from their fear-induced frenzy, their numbers had already been reduced by a third.
Squeak, squeak, squeak…
As the frantic squealing continued, the rats launched a fresh coordinated charge.
Lin Ye immediately activated the Snake Eye Orb a second time.
Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak…!
Terrified screams erupted anew.
Lin Ye felt his vision swim slightly.
But he also clearly felt that the Snake Eye Orb was remarkably effective against rats — probably because snakes are natural predators of rats. The effect seemed to be amplified by some unseen factor, far more potent than it had been when used against the giant snake.
"Kill them!"
"Stomp them all to death!"
"They broke through — they're eating the ingredients!"
"What the hell! My braised meat — those rats are eating my braised meat!"
...
Chaos.
Several rats had slipped through and launched themselves at the food supplies, gnashing and gorging relentlessly.
The ingredients at many stations were devoured at an alarming rate.
A few newcomers gritted their teeth and charged in, lifting their feet and stomping down with everything they had.
Thud!
"Die!"
"All of you, just die!"
"I'll kill every last one of you rats!"
...
The soft give of flesh underfoot — players went from initial revulsion to grim, practical habit.
Female players, faced with rats appearing right beside them, let out screams. But under the intense shouting and demands of the male players, they finally mobilised and started attacking too.
In this moment, no male player had any inclination to be chivalrous or considerate — all anyone cared about was eliminating the rats that were gnawing through their ingredients and dishes as fast as possible.
Kill. Just kill. Wipe out every last one.
Compared to the black bear, these rats were far easier to deal with — provided there weren't too many at once.
The newcomers stared at the field of rat carcasses outside. If the veterans hadn't dealt with the vast majority of them, they simply wouldn't have been able to hold.
Thud…
Thud…
Heavy footsteps echoed.
At that, the surviving rats went noticeably quiet. They were still gnashing and squealing, but their movements became far more measured.
They quickly parted to both sides.
Moments later, an enormous rat appeared.
White-furred. Fleshy and grotesquely fat. It wobbled with every step.
Squeak…!
It bellowed, and a shrill sonic shockwave burst outward.
Crack, crack, crack…!
Multiple jars shattered.
Newcomers clapped their hands over their ears and dropped to a crouch, faces contorted in pain.
Thud, thud, thud…!
The enormous hamster lurched forward at speed, chunks of flesh jiggling through the air with each bound.
Lin Ye locked eyes with the hamster's crimson gaze.
The Snake Eye Orb activated once more.
At the same time, Lin Ye popped a piece of Dazzle Chewing Gum into his mouth to mitigate the Strange erosion from repeated use of the Strange object.
Squeak, squeak, squeak…!
The bloated hamster crashed to the ground with a thud, emitting a pitiful shriek.
But quickly, it recovered — and compared to the ordinary black rats, its recovery speed was remarkably fast.
Still, as it looked toward Lin Ye, a flicker of fear had crept into its eyes. It seemed the terror hallucinations inflicted by the Snake Eye Orb still had a considerable hold on it.
"I'll deal with it," Cold Frost said, stepping forward.
Compared to a swarm of a thousand-strong, dealing with this one large, apparently powerful hamster was far simpler.
Cold Frost took particular pleasure in cutting down Strange entities like this one — arrogant things that thought themselves strong.
An instant later, combat erupted.
Lin Ye looked at the hamster's plump body and found himself thinking about how best to prepare it.
Compared to those small, sewer-rat-looking things, this white hamster seemed far cleaner and more wholesome. The meat quality was probably better too.
"You're not actually going to…" Erina asked hesitantly.
"Yep."
"I… I refuse. Absolutely not."
She, Erina Nakiri, would not cook rat. Never. Not even if her life depended on it.
...
...
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