Too Stubborn to Die

Chop N’ Swap [ Uncommon ] Ogre chefs have a knack for substitution, and you’re no exception. When activated, the user can substitute Common and Uncommon ingredients without ruining their recipes, not that they are likely to be anything more than a random mixture of mush anyway.

Cooking Psychosis [ Rare ] Since when do scientists deserve a monopoly on madness? At least, you believe in equal opportunities when it comes to madness. When activated, the user is in a psychotic trance, improving their chances of unlocking new recipes and cooking more potent dishes.

Soul Chef [ Epic ] Soul food is about more than just catfish and collard greens to you. Passively provides the user with a chance to infuse food they cook with spiritual energy, and thus, turning the dishes into ones that provide soul-strengthening qualities.

Spirit Tongue [ Epic ] [ Set: 3 of 4 ] Your tongue transcends the mortal realm, literally. Any food it touches also takes on a portion of the supernatural. When activated, the user’s cooking enters a midway state between the mortal and spirit plane. But unlike other spiritual appendages, the spirit tongue comes with spiritually enhanced taste buds that are perfect for balancing spiritual dishes.

Goblin Mass Cultivator [ Legendary ] Goblins like to feed, but you’re more than just something to be fed. So very much more. A Special Skill, the Goblin Mass Cultivator can be placed in either a Passive or Active slot. Every now and again, when a goblin tribe runs low on population, they select a special someone to become a Mass Cultivator, usually one of the tribe’s cooks. A Mass Cultivator has a simple job. Cook and consume. Grow bigger and bigger. And once they have accumulated enough mass, they evolve into a brood mother that can birth hundreds of goblins a month.

Aaron stood in blank-faced shock for a long moment after reading the options. “What the actual fuck. Goblin Mass Cultivator? What kind of sick Skill is that? Blood fucking hell.”

It was easily the most disturbing Skill purchase he had seen yet. Of course, he had zero intention of purchasing the Skill. But still, he was taken aback by even receiving the option. And the only reason he could imagine being offered the option was because of the goblins feeding him while he was awakening his core. Which made him think. The System was starting to feel more than a little invasive. Could the System offer him anything he did in Skill form? What about when he had time to enjoy recreational activities again? Were they going to be offered as Skills next time he got another point?

He looked around as if being watched, and a shiver traced his spine. But it wasn’t like there was anything he could do about it, and now wasn’t the time to get caught on such a thought. Although he did momentarily wonder who was spying on him.

“Focus. There are Skills to purchase.”

He had half a mind to call Sooty, but already had an idea what he wanted, and goblin girls didn’t chase themselves.

Firstly, Chop N’ Swap and Cooking Psychosis were out as usual for being low-level rarity, and just generally sounding mid.

Soul Chef, on the other hand, was immediately tempting. Aaron wasn’t sure how high the chance of randomly creating Soul Strengthening food was, but he cooked a lot, which would no doubt increase the chances of it happening. After all, he needed to. Even if there was only a very small chance of it happening, he’d probably end up creating a few dishes whenever he sat down to restock his scabbard, which was seriously tempting.

But was that enough of a reason to purchase the Skill? No. It wasn’t. Not with another Skill from his set available. Heck, he didn’t even know how strong those soul-strengthening dishes would be. If they were just weak Uncommons, they wouldn’t be worth much anyway. And besides, he had a long, long way to go before needing to stock up on soul-strengthening food again, as their only real purpose was race evolution. And while they might be valuable, building wealth wasn’t as important as building strength.

Glancing over the options again, Aaron selected Spirit Tongue and went through the prompts.

No additional Profession [ Active ] Skill slots available.

Discard [ Active ] Profession Skill: Y/N?

Most of his Profession Skills were rather useful, making choosing something to discard rather difficult. There was one skill, though, that he never really used a whole lot. Perfect Measurements. It wasn’t even that it was a bad Skill. In fact, it even had combat potential… possibly. But in truth, he had rarely found much need to know something’s or someone’s weight.

His cooking was too unstable and all over the place to really care that much about perfect measurements, even after integrating Yendal’s style. Besides, Perfect Measurements was almost an affront to her anyway. Yendal was the kind of person to gauge the perfect measurement by eye, not rely on some Skill to do it for her. And while he had at first thought that the Skill might come in handy outside of the kitchen, he hadn’t really found himself using it.

“I guess you gotta go.”

Confirming the prompt, he discarded the Skill and filled up the slot with Spirit Tongue. And the moment he did, he got a little excited. Not just because he had a new Skill though.

He only needed one more Skill in his set to complete it, and he was excited to see what would happen when he did. What extra bonuses would he get? What would he be able to fill the freed slots with?

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Those were questions he would have to wait to answer, but he was looking forward to getting a chance to cook now.

But for now, he was done. His dishes were ready, stored away, and he had no worthy ingredients leftover for more cooking. Not that he would have sat down and done more anyway. He had more important things to do.

However, before he left, he placed all free points into Fortitude. His Fortitude was already high, and he had wanted to help his Dexterity catch up. But with so many enemies, he thought that having some extra durability would be helpful. Also, since it would provide additional Stamina, which meant more energy, and with his core, he could just convert it to whatever he needed.

Perhaps more Fortitude wasn’t exactly what Yendal had in mind when she scolded him, but he needed to deal with the ants first before worrying about that.

Stepping outside, Aaron immediately headed for the Bellagio. And the moment he got there, he informed Julius that he was ready and to gather everybody up.

Without pause, he was led down to one of the convention halls, and Julius called everybody up.

There was a decent number of them, and soon they were filling the first few rows of seats.

Aaron, Talia, and Zero all sat up front alongside Ryan. But there were many others in attendance that he recognized, and he turned to wave as Yuki and the other hunters he had worked with entered.

But that wasn’t all. Everyone from the monster lord hunt was also there, alongside twenty or so others, including Dorian, the ant expert. There were even a dozen goblins led by Treg, who entered late. This surprised Aaron as he hadn’t realized that they were joining in on the mission.

“Since when are the goblins joining us?”

“A lot has been happening in the last few days,” Talia replied. “We didn’t tell you because no one wanted to distract you while you were doing your thing. Suffice it to say, we did some testing to figure out the best candidates for this mission. Those goblin riders of yours are quite strong, mostly because of the wolves, but they themselves have also come a long way. And most of them have started to develop a skillset around their wolf mounts.”

“You don’t say. Oh, look, it’s Becky!” Aaron waved, but Becky just raised her nose at him, turned her head, and took a seat. “I didn’t know she was a part of our… faction.”

“She’s… well, complicated,” Talia admitted. “I’ve known her from fairly early in the Tutorial. She’s nice enough, in her own kind of way. Not really a true member of the United Front, but she probably hates ants more than anybody. She’s somewhat of a fur lover. If a beast doesn’t have fur, she tends not to be a fan, to say it lightly. She actually discovered the ant encroaching on the plains herself and came here looking for answers. When we told her we were building an army to deal with them, she volunteered to help.”

Aaron nodded at the details. Becky mightn’t have been a top ranker, but she was well and truly qualified to be called an elite, and he certainly wasn’t complaining about more elite fighters joining their little army. That and she had the cat, meaning they had two extra fighters.

A scratchy sound reverberated through the conference room as Julius tapped a microphone on stage, and Aaron turned to him. “Good evening, all of you. I thank you all for coming to our call on this important day. This is the first true opportunity for the United Front to show what it is capable of, and I am so very excited to share that with you all. We are threatened by a serious enemy. And we don’t say this lightly. Our scouts have watched as they killed powerful beasts and expanded their territories endlessly.”

“But that is only the beginning of our concerns. This enemy numbers in the thousands. They are a horde of ants, and they are deceptively well-organized. And if that wasn’t bad enough, we also have reason to believe that these ants can take on the powers of those they have slain by consuming their bodies. Providing yet another complication to dealing with them. But that isn’t why we have called you all here. As you all know, we have our top rankers here. Talia and Aaron are truly something else, something special. Not to mention Aaron’s pet wolf Zero, who is a D-grade powerhouse himself. Their power is nothing short of incredible. But these ants pose a unique threat. They have an army. And elites of their own.

“The job for most of you will be to keep that army busy. To thin their numbers as best you can so that Aaron and Talia can reach the queen and deal with her personally. To this end, we will be splitting you into squads, each with a leader.”

“We will start by driving their invading force from the plains, which they have already crossed and have marched several miles deep within. However, we believe that there are still under a thousand of the beasts within the plains, and most are rather weak. So pushing them back shouldn’t be too hard.”

“However! That is only the start of things, and our job is bound to get more difficult the further we push them back. This is why we need you all to remain cool-headed and organized. And we want you to stop and regroup once you reach the jungle. This is where we expect things to get more difficult, and you must be properly prepared before entering.”

“Once you reach the jungle, if resistance isn’t too great, Aaron and Talia will head straight to the nest and deal with the queen within. If that is not possible, then they will remain with the main force for as long as is necessary to clear a path. But the most important thing is that you remain aware of your squad leader and do not veer too far from them. They know the plan’s details intimately, and they are best equipped to lead you to completing it successfully. So, with that said, fight, kill, and please, keep an eye on your leader, it is essential to the success of this mission!”

When Julius got done speaking, everyone besides the trio—Aaron, Talia, and Zero—were split into groups, and gear like potions and other consumables were passed about as their squad leaders provided additional information.

Aaron felt a little bad about not contributing to the consumables, as he had spent a long time cooking. But Talia assured him it wasn’t necessary. The most important thing was that he had all the food he needed for the fight ahead.

Once the squads were done preparing, they wasted no time hitting the road, moving relatively slowly to keep formation. The plan was to keep the squads together, and charging off wasn’t going to help on that front, even if the force could move faster.

Aaron looked around, recognizing several squad leaders, like Ryan, Carlos from the beast hunt, and Treg, leading the goblins.

Most of the plan had been devised by Julius and Talia, who believed that numbers would help them deal with the army of ants. But that didn’t mean they were willing to accept casualties, at least not any more than were absolutely necessary. Which was why they had made squads.

If lower-level people charged recklessly into battle, it was going to turn into hell, with a lot of losses. However, the hope was that if they remained organized and stuck with their groups, they could help one another avoid many unnecessary deaths.

Which was good. Aaron was impressed, and if he didn’t have to worry about others, he would be able to focus better on his own task.

And it didn’t take long for them to notice the first ants scuttling along the plains.

They’re looking for something. Are they following our scent?

Aaron’s expression widened. There really was no choice. If they didn’t deal with these ants now, they would come for them.

“Alright, get ready, everyone! This is it. Time to push these beasts back off our land!”