It's Not Dog Food
O-tto kicked off her mukbang.
She cracked open the lunch box and held it up for her viewers.
"All right, take a look! Poison or not, you decide!"
Inside sat rice, kimchi, and beef.
"Ah… no! What chaebol heir?!"
The chat window ignited in seconds. O-tto waved both hands in frantic denial.
"My family runs a butcher shop! I just grilled the scrap cuts and brought them!"
"I have not gained weight! Anyway, just treat this like a mukbang and watch!"
O-tto snapped a pair of disposable wooden chopsticks apart.
Then a viewer tossed out fresh bait.
"You're watching other streams besides mine? Did you not get the memo — no mentioning other streamers?"
"First warning! No cheating on me."
Thank you for the 10,000-won donation from Anonymous Supporter!
"Yes! Thank you so much for the ten-thousand-won donation from our Anonymous Supporter! Now, where were we?"
"Quiet! Anyway, a single hunter meal kit costs as much as an omakase dinner! How am I supposed to afford that?!"
"For real! To make that kind of money you need weapons and armor matched to grade, and you have to memorize every single strategy guide cold."
"That's not even the end of it, okay? This is Korea! Zone out for one second and you're cut on the spot!"
The viewer wasn't wrong.
Koreans took it to another level — if that was even the right way to put it.
When the Tower first rose, the world had pinned high hopes on Korea.
But inside Korea itself, nothing much moved.
Star-tier hunters appeared, yet the results stayed stubbornly mediocre. Government support packages were all vapor — policies that grabbed at clouds and helped no one. Either way, it was the same story.
Even when the United States and China shoved their clears forward to claim world firsts, silence. Even when Europe rolled out new strategies, silence.
Plenty of people had been hopeful at first, but when no real results showed, Korea was gradually forgotten.
Then, out of nowhere, speedrunning exploded.
Foreigners speedran for the concept. Korea did not.
Hurry-hurry and ruthless efficiency were sunk into the marrow of a people raised on cost-performance. Korean raid parties cherry-picked only the floors other countries had already cleared at the cost of lives, vacuumed up every scrap of intel, then recruited members.
Always the same familiar flavor.
When they came up short on bodies they sometimes let outsiders in — but the screening was brutal.
"I told you to match the gear grade, didn't I? What are you doing bringing low-level junk?"
Then, somehow, the roster locked and they entered.
And the hunters became machines.
Overseas they climbed the Tower like they were shooting a movie, flashing human emotion left and right — "Nice one, Smith!""You too, Charlie!" — but in Korea, showboat and you got kicked.
Zone out here, or fail your assigned role, and you were cut.
If the raid leader called a pullback after reading the room and you stood there blank, you died. No matter how many people filled the party, they moved like machinery — every human a single component doing only the job assigned to its station.
Of course, the trash guilds were pure chaos. But if you wanted to earn more than a big-corp salary, you at least had to slot in among them without becoming a liability.
"Anyway, hunters struggle to eat too, okay?! You think clearing more than a corporate salary is easy?!"
"I don't want special treatment just because I'm a girl, okay? I want to be valued for my skill!"
Only then did O-tto check the chat. She turned her head — and sometime without her noticing, an NPC was right beside her… well, a seat over, with a little distance between them.
Sitting there, gazing off at the far mountains.
"Huh?"
The NPC seemed deliberately determined not to look at the lunch box, refusing to meet her eyes.
"…"
"…"
A silence settled. Hating the awkwardness, she spoke first.
"Have you eaten?"
"Yeah. I'm good. Go ahead and eat."
"Ah… okay."
Same person, right? She'd seen him in a video, but he definitely looked different from before — somehow harder, sharper.
The moment she went to scoop rice with her chopsticks, chat erupted again.
Why are these people losing it again?
"I already confirmed the NPC is here! I just finish eating and complete the mission, right?"
"You talking to me?"
"Sorry. I was talking to the stream. You don't stream? Ah — right, you're an NPC, so…"
"Stream?"
"Low-tiers like me have to stream just to eat…"
"I thought only famous hunters streamed."
"Pretty much everyone does, I think? See the drone floating up there?"
The NPC tipped his head up at the drone, looking genuinely curious.
Well, between the drone and the streaming smart glasses — the AR ones — the startup costs do add up. And you had to keep one eye on chat, so streaming from a fight that already sat on the edge of your skill was rough.
"So every hunter streams. Huh."
"Yeah…"
"Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt your meal. I'll get going."
"No! After I finish — a photo! No, wait, right now! Could I get one picture?"
"Yeah? Then I'll wait."
"But eating alone feels weird…"
"It's fine. I'll wait."
O-tto went to pick up her chopsticks again. This time chat went nuclear.
"I said I checked! We already finished talking!"
Wondering what on earth they were on about, she checked the outgoing stream feed.
On screen, the NPC was staring her way with drool dripping off his chin.
O-tto whipped her head around.
— Whip.
But the NPC was only gazing at the far mountains. Same pose as before.
Weird.
She looked back at the screen — the NPC drooling at the lunch box. Turned her head — mountains. This time she checked the feed, pretended to turn away, then snapped her head back fast.
For a split second she caught the NPC's head mid-swivel.
I saw it… I definitely saw that head turn.
Apparently the NPC wanted the lunch box. And did he not know modern drones auto-tracked? AI subject targeting ran itself. Ah — right, he was an NPC, so of course he wouldn't know.
More to the point, if he'd just said he was hungry she would have given it to him. Did NPCs have pride too?
"Okay! I get it, I get it!"
O-tto held the lunch box out toward the NPC.
"Want this?"
"I'm not hungry."
"I packed it, but I don't really have an appetite… it'd be a waste to throw it out… I haven't even touched it."
"Ahem. Well, if it'd be a waste, I'll eat it."
The NPC took the lunch box and started eating with real enthusiasm, handling the utensils like a pro.
For an NPC, he sure knows how to use chopsticks.
Even while he ate, O-tto tossed out short scraps of conversation so the silence wouldn't turn awkward. A little time slipped by, and before long the NPC had finished.
O-tto took the empty lunch box back. She was still hungry, but the mission was a success, so maybe she should just be satisfied with that. She could end the stream early today and eat at home.
Her stomach, however, did not agree with that plan.
— Growl.
The sound arrived with zero sense of timing. The NPC's eyes went round.
"Hungry?"
"Ah… no… haha — suddenly got hungry. Maybe from watching you eat so well next to me? I feel like I could do a mukbang myself…"
Something appeared in the NPC's hand out of nowhere.
Herbal medicine?
"Eat this."
"Huh? What… is this?"
"Mm… food."
"Food?"
O-tto stared at the pill resting in the NPC's palm.
No way an NPC would hand me poison, right? Maybe it boosts stats or something?
Heart pounding, O-tto chewed the pill.
Huh? Pork? There's a faint gamey note — doesn't taste like farm-raised pig.
True butcher's daughter: sensitive to meat.
Doesn't feel like anything changed, though?
And then — suddenly her stomach filled as if she'd eaten a full meal, and vitality surged through her. On top of that, she felt like she could pull an all-nighter right now without blinking. Power flooded her body in a way no doping she'd ever tried came close to matching.
"Wh… what? Wh-what is this?"
"Mm… emergency rations. You like it?"
O-tto nodded.
Then, in a hand that had been empty a second before, a jar appeared — and he held it out to her.
"Thanks for the lunch. This is a gift."
"Huh?"
She popped the lid and eyeballed the count — roughly thirty.
"You're really giving me these?"
"Yeah. Eat them when you're in a pinch."
"Ah… okay! Thank you!"
And just like that, after handing over the strange pills, the NPC vanished somewhere into the distance.