A faint furrow naturally formed between Joo Do-gyeom’s brows.
There was only one possible explanation.
The thing planted inside his head.
‘The Heavenly Killer.’
Just as he reached that conclusion.
A hand suddenly shot out from a gap in the alley.
Without even looking at it, Joo Do-gyeom leaned back slightly and dodged.
“......!!”
The attacker stared at Joo Do-gyeom in shock.
Without a word, Joo Do-gyeom grabbed his extended elbow.
The flustered man shouted.
“What are you doing......?!”
Before he could finish.
CRRRACK—!
Along with the sound of breaking bones, his arm bent in a direction it was never meant to bend.
“Aaaaaagh—!”
A scream rang out.
“It hurts! Ah, it hurts! You fucking bastard—!”
Then came the curses.
It wasn’t even funny.
The man had tried to abduct and rob someone, yet the moment his arm was caught, he demanded to know what Joo Do-gyeom was doing and cursed at him.
But this was the average person living in the Red Zone during this era.
‘No.’
Perhaps it wasn’t limited to the Red Zone.
Even as that thought crossed his mind, Joo Do-gyeom continued moving calmly.
His gaze passed over the screaming man and turned toward another group emerging from the alley’s darkness.
One of them saw the man collapsed on the ground and spoke with a horrified expression.
“Y-you fucking bastard...... You did that to Jun-ho......!”
At the same time, his trembling hand pulled out a handgun concealed inside his clothes.
It was meaningless.
By then, Joo Do-gyeom had already used Lightning Flash Flight to arrive directly in front of him.
The problem was what happened at that moment.
An inexplicable ripple stirred somewhere inside Joo Do-gyeom.
‘The Heavenly Killer.’
The instant he recognized it.
He reached into the black bag, grabbed the tail of the Steel Fish that was still alive and breathing, and pulled it out.
As though drawing a sword from its sheath.
SWISH—!
FLAP, FLAP—!
The Steel Fish thrashed like it was dancing.
‘......’
“Uwaagh—!”
The one who screamed was the man holding the gun.
Even as he panicked, he placed his finger on the trigger.
He could think about it later.
‘Tch.’
Clicking his tongue inwardly, Joo Do-gyeom swung the Steel Fish in his hand with all his strength.
At that exact moment.
Joo Do-gyeom saw a red dot appear on the bastard’s temple.
It was fairly large.
He understood instinctively.
If he struck that spot, the robber before him would ‘certainly’ die.
There was no chance that Joo Do-gyeom felt any aversion to killing.
However, through sheer force of will, he changed the direction of the Steel Fish swinging toward the red dot.
THWACK—!
“Aagh—!”
The robber took a sword strike—no, a fish strike—to the eye and dropped his gun as he collapsed onto the ground.
The tip of Joo Do-gyeom’s foot struck the point of his chin.
“Ghk—!”
With a groan, the robber’s head snapped backward, and he lost consciousness.
At the same time, Joo Do-gyeom swung the fish in the opposite direction, toward another robber charging at him with a longsword.
The robber’s eyes filled with ridicule.
‘Crazy bastard. He’s swinging a fish at a sword?’
Even if it had come from a dungeon, it was still just a fish.
Moreover, he was a Hunter.
‘I’ll cut that Steel Fish in half with a single strike......!’
Then he would make Joo Do-gyeom pay dearly for injuring his companions.
The sword swung forward.
Just before the fish collided with it.
The fish suddenly changed direction.
From higher up to slightly lower.
Joo Do-gyeom’s eyes were following the red dot that had appeared on the sword.
‘I need to confirm it.’
Immediately afterward.
The confident robber’s eyes flew wide open.
His mind filled with questions.
‘......!???’
And with good reason.
‘M-my sword...... was cut by a fish?’
Wasn’t it normally the other way around?
‘This doesn’t make any sense, does it?’
He couldn’t voice his questions.
Having clearly confirmed the red dot’s identity, Joo Do-gyeom brought the Steel Fish straight down onto the crown of his head.
THUD—!
Three men fell in the blink of an eye.
Only then did the remaining robbers realize something had gone wrong and turn to flee.
Joo Do-gyeom pushed off the ground and charged after them.
Immediately afterward.
“Aaaaagh—!”
“S-someone, s-save me!”
“Don’t worry. I won’t kill you.”
Joo Do-gyeom’s answer followed the screams and desperate cries for help.
CRASH—! THUD—! THWACK—!
The alley filled with the sounds of violence.
***
There were seven of them in total.
After subduing the band of robbers, Joo Do-gyeom robbed them in turn.
He took everything that looked remotely valuable.
When he discovered that one of them was a Hunter, he beat the man awake and made him turn his Inventory inside out as well.
He was lucky.
Three lowest-grade Mana Stones were sitting inside the bastard’s Inventory.
Joo Do-gyeom didn’t know whether he had earned them himself or stolen them from someone else.
What mattered was that those three Mana Stones now belonged to Joo Do-gyeom.
Thanks to them, he had earned more than enough to cover the price of the Steel Fish he had ruined by swinging it around.
The trouble of traveling back and forth to Yongdun was a separate matter, but it didn’t concern him much.
There was no better place to sell the items he had taken from the robbers anyway.
And so, the next morning.
Sitting aboard the subway headed for Yongdun, Joo Do-gyeom slowly raised his right arm.
A day had passed, but the memory was still vivid.
The rolled-back eye of the Steel Fish he had held in his hand.
Naturally, it had been dead.
No matter how tough a dungeon fish was, it had cut through a sword(?) and beaten several people.
There was no way a mere trash fish like a Steel Fish could survive such violent treatment.
‘No. That’s not actually important.’
What mattered was that he had beaten people with a fish for the first time in his life.
No.
That wasn’t it either.
In the brief moment when he drew the fish.
Though it had lasted no longer than an instant.
‘My consciousness disappeared for a moment.’
His body’s instincts had moved him instead.
It had clearly been a manifestation of the madness.
In Jin Woo-seong’s case, he had said that the Heavenly Killer’s madness made it even harder to control his murderous intent.
That had also made it easy to trace his chaotic path.
But Joo Do-gyeom.
‘Why did mine......’
‘Why did my madness manifest by making me grab and swing a fish?’
‘......Am I going to become like this every time I see a fish?’
Or could the madness manifest in other ways as well?
Amid those questions.
Joo Do-gyeom calmly collected himself.
‘I can’t know that yet.’
He couldn’t draw a firm conclusion about the Heavenly Killer’s madness based on only one incident.
There was also a positive aspect.
The red points had been marks of death created by the Heavenly Killer.
Even while seeing them, Joo Do-gyeom had consciously changed where his attacks landed.
His body had naturally been trying to follow those marks of death, yet he had still redirected it.
Unlike Jin Woo-seong, his murderous intent hadn’t run rampant, nor had uncontrollable rage boiled within him.
‘The madness partially manifested, but the most dangerous aspect of it remained controllable.’
Right.
It was a somewhat ridiculous conclusion, but.
‘I’d rather swing a fish.’
That was the conclusion he reached.
***
There was one piece of knowledge the Chef of All Things Class had planted inside Joo Do-gyeom’s mind.
The sooner a living ingredient was cleaned and cooked, the better the food tasted.
Wasn’t that obvious?
It was.
But Joo Do-gyeom had never thought that way before.
Before his Regression, he had possessed little interest in food.
Because of that, he had never once cooked anything with his own hands.
But things were different now.
He turned on NewTube and learned how to prepare fish from a dungeon.
The kitchen knife he had brought from the Cannibal’s Mansion moved with considerable skill.
Following the basic formula for a braised dish, he placed the prepared fish into a pot and set it to simmer.
What mattered was the seasoning sauce.
More precisely, the Mana Stone that would transform into the seasoning sauce.
The Mana Stone was hard.
When Joo Do-gyeom poured soy sauce over it and applied heat, the Mana Stone melted like snow and transformed into a liquid that mixed with the soy sauce.
He dipped the tip of his finger into it and tasted it.
It was quite good.
No, it tasted even better than when he had practiced braising ordinary fish.
This was another Hunter ability.
Another mystery of Skills.
Although the ability transmitted knowledge into his mind, simply possessing the Skill could also cause strange phenomena like this.
Who in the world would have thought of melting a Mana Stone, transforming it into braising sauce, and eating it?
It was impossible in the first place.
But Joo Do-gyeom could do it.
Because he was the Chef of All Things.
The sweet yet salty scent of soy-braised food spread thickly throughout the cramped communal kitchen.
The fishy smell that should have come from the fish had instead been suppressed.
All that remained was an appetizing, savory aroma that made the mouth water.
Thanks to that, several people living in the rented rooms came out and watched Joo Do-gyeom from behind while licking their lips.
A man in his mid-thirties who lived in the next room approached Joo Do-gyeom and asked.
“Could I pay you for some and share the meal with you? It looks so delicious.”
“I’m sorry.”
Not a chance.
It might have been different if this were an ordinary braised dish, but it contained both a dungeon fish and a Mana Stone.
Joo Do-gyeom rejected him flatly.
The man smacked his lips in disappointment, frowned, and retreated.
Would he soon file a complaint with the owner of the rented rooms?
If so, Joo Do-gyeom would inevitably be kicked out.
What he was doing wasn’t exactly reasonable by ordinary standards.
‘I should quickly look for at least a studio apartment nearby.’
He had originally planned to move directly into the Blue Zone after leaving the rented room, but he had no choice now.
He would have to find somewhere, even if it was only a short-term rental.
While he was thinking about various matters, the Steel Fish Mana Stone braise finished cooking.
Joo Do-gyeom sensed the exact moment it was ready, placed it on a plate, and pushed a spoon through the skin.
CRUNCH—!
A crisp sound rang out.
‘Is it because its skin is naturally so tough? It sounds like fried food.’
In contrast, the flesh denting beneath the spoon glistened with clear oil and looked soft and tender.
Without hesitation, Joo Do-gyeom coated the flesh in a generous amount of the sauce made from soy sauce and Mana Stone, then placed it into his mouth.
At the same time.
“Mmm......!”
A sound of admiration escaped his lips without him realizing it.
There was no particular reason.
It was simply delicious.
This was only his personal opinion, but it tasted a little better—no, much better—than the food prepared for him by supposedly skilled chefs before his Regression.
The outside was crisp, the inside was moist, and the savory flavor lingering in his mouth was deep and rich.
It was a collaboration between soy sauce and fish.
When he placed it on top of white rice and ate it.
“Mmmmm......”
Sounds of satisfaction continued to escape him.
Inside his body, his Mana was steadily growing.
***
The next day.
Joo Do-gyeom was promptly kicked out of the rented room.
He had no lingering attachment to the place.
He rented a single-room apartment in one corner of the Red Zone for one month.
There, he cooked and ate Mana Stone braises several more times.
Since he would grow tired of eating only fish, he mixed in meat as well.
Through that, he discovered two major things.
First.
Unlike before his Regression, Joo Do-gyeom had become quite the gourmet.
Thinking back, he hadn’t cared about the taste of food in his previous life.
More precisely, he hadn’t been particularly interested in the act of eating itself.
But now, even without consciously trying to savor it, he could properly perceive every flavor.
This was probably another effect of the Chef of All Things Class.
Second.
This was somewhat unfortunate news.
There was a limit to the Mana-enhancing effect of Mana Stone Braising.
Lowest-grade Mana Stones had stopped increasing his Mana.
Simply put.
Increasing his Mana through Mana Stone Braising wasn’t an infinite process.
‘It wasn’t enough to raise my Rank, but my Mana had been increasing quite steadily. Since yesterday, though, it has definitely plateaued.’
It still increased by a tiny amount.
No more than a speck of sleep in the corner of an eye.
But at that point, braising and eating the Mana Stones was itself a loss.
Therefore, Joo Do-gyeom decided that he would stop eating dishes made with lowest-grade Mana Stones from that day onward.
It was disappointing, but it was a reality he had to accept.
No.
In truth, there was nothing to be disappointed about.
Bluntly speaking, was there any other Class that could allow someone to obtain this much Mana so easily outside a dungeon?
‘There wasn’t.’
Even after searching through the entirety of Joo Do-gyeom’s immense experience from before his Regression, he couldn’t recall one.
Moreover, the Chef of All Things Class had only just begun to reveal its potential.
‘If its name is truly literal, and it can cook all things...... everything......’
Its possibilities were limitless.
Joo Do-gyeom made his judgment.
‘It’s at least an S-Rank Class.’
The Class Rank he was referring to wasn’t determined by the System.
It was merely a ranking game that Hunters played among themselves in the Hunter community.
Naturally, Joo Do-gyeom’s judgment, backed by his Regression, was highly accurate.
And he judged the Chef of All Things to be at least an S-Rank Class.
The highlight of that Class, however, would be the dish he was about to prepare.
『Cannibal’s Mana Stone (Special)』
With the Special Mana Stone he had saved until last, he prepared a Korean-style braised fish dish in red chili paste.
Was it because he had accumulated experience in the meantime?
Or was it because he had used a rarer Mana Stone?
The dish tasted exceptionally good.
Just as that thought occurred to him.
A System message rang out inside his mind.