Chapter 90

“Why?”

“Is there no more?”

“There is some, but we should try other things too.”

“I feel like my combat sense just flared up too.”

Saying that, Sia stood up from her seat but momentarily faltered.

“Take the antidote.”

“Mm. Yes.”

At that, Sia took the antidote that had been placed right beside her.

“Ahh. That’s good.”

“……Is it tasty?”

“Well, you’ve had antidotes before, so you know. It just tastes like water. It’s just refreshing, so it feels nice.”

“……I should’ve bought some cola.”

Saying that, Jaeha began Butchery on the other monster’s carcass. Before long, he cut out a decent-sized piece of meat and handed it to Sia, who immediately started grilling it.

“Hmm…… This is Fire Boar meat, right?”

“Yeah.”

The heat was so intense that the meat cooked in no time, and she picked up a few pieces of the cooked meat and placed them on the small plate Jaeha was holding.

“Try it.”

“What about you?”

“……I need to make an antidote in a bit, so.”

“Doesn’t it hurt if you get poisoned?”

“But it’s delicious, you know……”

“……Is that so.”

At that, Jaeha gave a small smile and picked up a piece of meat to eat.

Munch munch.

“How is it?”

Sia asked Jaeha with sparkling eyes, and Jaeha nodded before speaking.

“It’s good.”

“……That’s it?”

“It’s just…… good.”

“You talk so well, so why can’t you express things like that?”

“……I don’t know.”

“You need to practice that. It’s a broadcast — you’re showing people, so what are you going to do if you can’t describe flavors properly?”

“That’s true.”

“Practice.”

Having said that, Sia dropped some of her own blood into the bottle that had held the antidote, then asked Undine to fill it with clean water. After that, she transmuted it into an antidote in an instant.

“Hehe.”

Watching Sia grin like an idiot, Jaeha looked at the remaining meat.

‘It’s true that if I’m going to do a mukbang, I need to describe flavors well.’

Nodding as he waited, Jaeha thought for a moment.

‘Should I practice while eating?’

After deliberating for about ten seconds, Jaeha nodded.

‘Why bother studying. I’ll just cover it with a skill. And I should get a butchering skill too.’

With that thought, Jaeha looked at Sia, who was blissfully eating the meat, and spoke.

“Let’s head back.”

“What~?! Let’s eat a bit more before going.”

“You need an antidote.”

“The poison hurts, but this taste is worth it.”

“Enough. Hurry up and follow.”

“Hiiing.”

At that, Sia eventually started cleaning up, and Jaeha put everything into his Inventory before leaving the dungeon.

* * *

“What are you going to do?”

“First, I’m going to get three skills.”

“Skills?”

“Yeah.”

“A skill that helps me describe flavors well, a butchering skill, and a skill that helps with cooking.”

“Butchering?”

“Yeah. With chicken, butchering isn’t that hard. There’s barely anything besides the breast, wings, and legs. It’s not like we’re running a restaurant anyway — I just need to butcher the legs, wings, and the rest. But beef or pork is different.”

“That’s true.”

“Each cut tastes different too…… So having a butchering skill would be nice. And I’d like to make it easier on myself.”

“That makes sense.”

Having said that, Jaeha lay down on the bed and spoke.

“Anyway, that’s the plan. You go take care of your stuff. I’m going to look for the skills. There are plenty of butchering videos and discussion videos out there. I’ll get them in no time.”

“Okay. I’ll do that.”

With that, he parted ways with Sia, and Jaeha immediately started searching for videos on his cell phone. Before long, he was able to obtain suitable skills.

[Eloquence]

[Rank: Hero]

[Allows the user to speak in a way that lets others perfectly understand their thoughts and experiences]

[Mechanism: Total Ability × 1]

[Proficiency: 40%]

[Butchering]

[Rank: Rare]

[Allows the user to fully understand the anatomy of animals and extract any desired part or section]

[Mechanism: Total Ability × 10]

[Proficiency: 100%]

“Hmm. Proficiency is at 40%.”

After thinking for a moment, Jaeha checked his skill points.

[Skill Points: 6300]

“6300, huh. I got 5000 last time, so 1300 was what I already had. That means my total views are around 1.3 billion.”

Nodding, Jaeha—since he had plenty of points—raised Silver Tongue’s proficiency to 100% without any hesitation. Then, as something came to mind, he started searching for videos.

[Recipe]

[Rank: Rare]

[A recipe that allows any ingredient to be cooked in the most delicious way possible]

[Mechanism: Total Ability × 20]

[Proficiency: 100%]

“Nice.”

With this, he could either cook himself, or just teach Sia the recipe and let her do the cooking. Sia’s popularity was fairly high on its own, so if she cooked, it would draw quite a crowd.

That was why he’d deliberately picked skills like this. Besides, Jaeha had lived on his own before, so it wasn’t like he couldn’t cook at all. At the very least, following a recipe wasn’t difficult for him.

Thinking it over, Jaeha stood up from his seat.

“Now I just need to remove the toxins from the meat.”

Of course, that was the most important issue of all.

* * *

It had been a while since Jaeha last visited the blacksmith shop. He walked to the back of it and found the tools he’d used to obtain Poison Art in the past, now covered in dust in one corner.

“Sylph.”

<Yeah!>

“Could you blow all this dust outside?”

<Okay, sure!>

All the dust around him vanished in an instant, and after tidying up the tools, Jaeha began to think.

‘First off, all the toxins that entered my body through the meat were the same kind.’

The toxicity was the same, and the type of poison was the same. Since Jaeha carried poison as his own energy, he’d memorized the poison energy that flowed into his body whenever he ate the meat.

So making an antidote was easy. However, since he needed to neutralize the poison rather than cure it—so the meat could actually be eaten—there were quite a few annoying steps involved.

“The sooner this is done, the sooner I can start the content.”

Thinking that, Jaeha began crafting the neutralizer. After about three days of hard work, he finally managed to complete it.

And since he obviously couldn’t broadcast while making the neutralizer, Jaeha had Sia film a video and upload it to the channel.

The video simply said he was taking a few days off due to some business, and even with such simple content, it racked up nearly 500 million views.

“Ughhh.”

“You’re done?”

Sia, who had been sitting on the sofa drinking tea, looked at Jaeha as he appeared and asked.

“Yeah.”

With that, Jaeha tossed her the small glass bottle he was holding.

“Is this it?”

“Yeah…….”

He sounded a bit drained, clearly quite exhausted.

“You said you were dying, but three days is pretty fast, isn’t it?”

“Well, I barely slept. Anyway, try it out. I can’t test it on anyone else, but you’ll be fine.”

“Okay.”

She was a homunculus, and her blood was made of elixir. So if she ever received a toxicity lethal enough to threaten her life, the Philosopher’s Stone would automatically react and turn the elixir circulating through her body into an antidote.

That meant there wasn’t much risk for her.
Chapter 11

“How do I use it?”

“Just sprinkle it on the meat. It’s an item, so check its effect.”

“Okay.”

With that, Sia immediately checked the item’s information.

[Neutralizer]

[Neutralizes the innate poison that monsters are born with]

“Let’s try it.”

Jaeha took out the meat he’d butchered earlier from his inventory and handed it to her. She took the meat and opened the lid of the glass bottle containing the neutralizer.

“How much should I put on?”

“One drop is enough.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. I tested it.”

She carefully dropped the neutralizer onto the meat. For a moment, the meat gave off a faint glow.

“Oh.”

She let out a small exclamation and immediately got up and headed to the kitchen. Before long, she started grilling the meat. While she was grilling it for a while, Seungho showed up.

“Huh? Smells good. Is dinner a steak tonight, missus?”

“Oh my. Perfect timing. I was just running a little experiment.”

“Experiment?”

At Sia’s words, Seungho looked at Jaeha.

“I made a neutralizer that removes the toxicity from monster meat.”

“For real?”

“Yeah. Since I made it anyway, I figured I’d test it out and grilled some meat. Want to try some?”

“Well, even if the poison isn’t fully neutralized, I’ve got Cure anyway. Sure, why not.”

And not long after, Sia brought out the finished dish. She’d sliced the meat thick and prepared it like a steak.

Of course, the meat Jaeha had handed over was Fire Boar meat—essentially a type of pork—so it was a bit different from an actual steak, but still.

“Whoa. Smells insane.”

At that, Jaeha quietly took in the aroma, then cut the meat with his knife, put it in his mouth, and began chewing.

*Munch munch.*

*Gulp.*

After the sound of him swallowing the meat came Seungho’s voice bursting out.

“Whoooa. This is crazy?”

“The juices are incredibly rich, and the meat itself is extremely tender. Pork normally has an inherent oiliness and a distinct gamey smell. But this has more than enough of that signature pork flavor—overflowing, even—yet it’s not greasy at all, and despite being grilled with just a basic seasoning, there’s no gamey taste whatsoever. It also pairs well with the steak sauce Sia made. The thing is, even though the sauce isn’t all that great on its own, the richly flavored juices from the meat blend with it and turn it into a perfect sauce by itself.”

“…….”

At Jaeha’s description of the taste, Seungho was dazed for a moment before speaking.

“I knew you were good with words, but I didn’t know you were that good.”

“Heh. Anyway, it’s really delicious.”

Nodding, Jaeha spoke to Sia.

“I’m pretty tired today, so let’s rest for now and start broadcasting tomorrow.”

*Munch munch.*

“Huh?”

Sia, who had a mouthful of meat she was chewing, looked up at Jaeha at his words.

“……Never mind. Just eat.”

At that, Sia smiled and went back to eating the meat.

* * *

Once the broadcast preparations were done, Jaeha turned on the stream right away. After turning it on, he did a bit of prep while waiting for people to join, and once he confirmed enough viewers had come in, Jaeha opened his mouth.

“Welcome, everyone.”

After greeting, Jaeha waited a moment before starting to talk.

“I had Sia film a video earlier. I mentioned it briefly then, but for those of you who looked up my ranking—I’m of course number one in Korea, but my world ranking dropped below 500. It’s true that I took a week off, but I worked hard for the remaining week, and it still fell a lot. So to bring my ranking back up, I’ve prepared some content.”