Poison, Rumors, and a Chef's Disguise
Tae-hyun altered the mask and changed his appearance.
Into a face that looked simple and a little chubby.
Then he stripped off the cloak he had been wearing, stowed away his equipment and weapons, pulled out a shabby beginner's cloth outfit, and put it on. After that, he fastened a kitchen knife and a ladle to his waist.
In less than a minute, Tae-hyun had completely turned into someone else.
Anyone who saw it would have been stunned.
No matter who looked at him, he was obviously a low-level cook.
"Good. Let's go."
While Tae-hyun strode off with purpose, Cain noticed the huge crowd of people and got interested enough to line up.
"Is the food here really that good?"
"It's seriously delicious, and on top of that the effects are—urk!"
When Cain spoke from behind him, the player who had kindly answered jumped in shock and took a step back.
What kind of suspicious full-body armor looked like that?
He looked absurdly strong on the outside.
Th-that's gotta be a high-level player.
Thinking that, the player nodded quickly.
"Yeah?" Cain said. "Then I should eat too."
He obediently stayed in line.
Compared to the past, it was a dramatic change.
Back then, he would've shoved people aside and taken his place.
This arena, I need to show something too.
He couldn't live forever getting pushed around by Tae-hyun.
Someday, he had to break free.
Sure, he was wearing eye-catching gear—but he could use that to his advantage.
He just had to place well in the arena.
That bastard Kim Tae-hyun may have a dogshit personality, but you get plenty if you stick around him...
If he recovered his level, got back into the ranker race, then someday escape would be possible too.
A lot of people hated Cain, sure, but that had been true back in Red Zone's glory days too.
In the end, what mattered most was his own strength.
If you had power, it didn't matter how many people hated you—you could deal with all of them.
"Mm. Pretty good!"
Muttering that, Cain wolfed down the guild's food.
It had a strange savory depth to it, and an addictive aftertaste he couldn't quite place.
"Ah, seriously. I was finally hoping to make some money today—how is this fair?"
"Won't people come to us too once they run out of ingredients?"
"Hey. Go take a look. They've piled up ingredients like a mountain. They've got tons of cooks too. Even if they feed people nonstop until the arena starts, it'll still be more than enough."
The other cooks grumbled with gloomy expressions.
At first, a few customers had still come by and bought food from them, but now almost nobody did.
Lower prices and better buff effects.
People were willing to stand in line just to eat the guild's food.
As a result, the cook players who had come here aiming for the arena had all their customers stolen and were left in a daze.
"For real, what the hell. So just because they're a big guild, they can do whatever they want? No sense of fair play at all..."
"I wanna go over there and say something."
"Are you insane? You wanna get PK'd?"
"We're all cooks. They're not really gonna PK another cook, are they? I've got friends over there."
"They've probably got player friends too, so please don't do anything stupid."
While they were talking, someone appeared.
Just looking at him, he practically screamed, I'm a newbie cook.
"Ah. Another one."
"Aigoo... what an idiot. He probably won't even earn back the cost of his ingredients."
In a sense he was their competition, but the cooks didn't pay Tae-hyun much attention.
He looked even lower level than they were, and right now the real threat was the guild.
Rather than feeling wary, they looked at him with pity.
"Everyone!"
"...?"
"Are you really going to let this stand?"
The newbie cook who had suddenly appeared shouted loudly, and everyone turned to stare at him with question marks all over their faces.
What the hell is this guy saying?
"What are you talking about?"
"That Restaurant Guild over there is stealing all the customers, isn't it? If we let this continue, they'll take every last one of them. If they steal all our customers, all the ingredients we prepared today will go to waste. Then we'll take a loss, fall behind in the cook rankings, and those failures will pile up and pile up until eventually we'll fail at life too!"
"...?"
"I-I don't think it'll go that far..."
"Wrong! It's because you think so complacently that guilds like Restaurant Guild keep walking all over you! Do you know what Restaurant Guild said? They said, 'Those idiots aren't even fit to compete with us, but they've still got the nerve to show their faces here.' Do you know how furious that made me?"
"!!"
Of course, the Restaurant Guild members had never said any such thing.
They were busy enough already putting poison into the food.
But to the cooks, it sounded more than believable.
"Those...!"
"Aren't these bastards going too far?"
"Everyone! We have to act too. If we stay still, we'll just keep getting trampled by giant guilds like Restaurant Guild. We can't just sit here—we need to do something and teach them a lesson. We need to show them we can get angry too if they mess with us! Besides, this isn't even the first time Restaurant Guild has done something like this. They pulled the same thing at the Atali Royal Palace too! They bought up all the ingredients to shut out the competition! The reason you don't have customers right now is because of Restaurant Guild. The reason your lives are going nowhere, the reason you don't have lovers, the reason you can't get jobs—it's all because of Restaurant Guild!"
Nobody said the last part out loud, but somehow Tae-hyun's words carried a strange persuasiveness.
At first the cooks had been indifferent, but now their expressions grew more and more interested as they listened.
"But what can we even do?"
"Yeah. There's nothing we can do against Restaurant Guild."
"There is!"
"...?"
"Restaurant Guild is overwhelming people with numbers. They're luring them in with a massive guild roster."
Of course, Restaurant Guild's cooks were highly skilled too, but Tae-hyun skipped right past that part.
"So we just respond in kind."
"How?"
"We spread a false rumor that Restaurant Guild's food is poisoned!"
"......"
The atmosphere froze in an instant.
The cooks who had been listening to Tae-hyun let out sighs and shook their heads.
And here I thought he had some amazing plan. Turns out he's just completely insane.
"Come on..."
"I thought you were gonna say something worthwhile."
"How is that supposed to make sense? Who'd believe that?"
That was the natural reaction.
Even if someone really had put poison in food, who would believe it?
The one saying it would just look crazy.
"Then we make it real!"
"......"
Now the cooks were looking at Tae-hyun like he was even more of a madman.
But Tae-hyun was serious.
"I've got a high-level thief friend. His stealth skill is no joke. I'll ask him to slip poison into the food."
"!!!!"
"After that, all you have to do is fan the flames! You know—say things like, 'The poison was hidden so well that cooks without the proper cooking skill couldn't detect it,' or, 'Restaurant Guild secretly poisoned the food after taking money from one of the big guilds competing in the arena'!"
"Y-you can spread rumors like that?"
Among the cooks, there was at least one person with a conscience.
Even though everything Tae-hyun had just said was true!
"Then are you all just going to sit here? Fine. If you won't do it, then I won't either. Whatever. The poison and all the dirty work—that's all me and my friend anyway..."
After saying everything he wanted, Tae-hyun suddenly changed his tone.
And just like that, the ones who felt regret were the cooks.
"W-wait a second!"
"It's not that we said no... we just said we'd think about it! Hang on. Come over here for a second. Let's talk this through properly."
Whisper whisper.
Even the cooks who had been looking at Tae-hyun like he was insane changed their attitude.
If poison really got slipped in, it suddenly seemed like it might actually work.
Tae-hyun was the one handling all the difficult parts. All they had to do was spread the rumor.
Pure profit for them.
"Can you really get poison in there?"
"Come on, why are you so doubtful when you're not the ones doing it? Anyway, you lot don't have to move until after the poisoning succeeds, so you've got nothing to lose."
"Th-that... is true."
"He's right."
The cooks nodded.
There wasn't much risk if they only acted after the fact was confirmed.
"Then... should we do it?"
"Maybe?"
The cooks glanced at one another, then one or two of them started speaking up.
They were only human. Of course they were greedy.
The one thing worrying them was what came afterward.
If Restaurant Guild found out, they wouldn't sit still.
They'd definitely try to get revenge somehow.
"By the way, what's your name?" one of the cooks asked Tae-hyun.
Tae-hyun snorted inwardly.
The reason for the sudden question was obvious.
Later, if Restaurant Guild demanded answers, they wanted to say, He did it! We didn't know anything! and wash their hands of the whole thing.
It didn't matter.
Tae-hyun knew that already.
"Yang Sung-gyu."
"Ah. Right. Yang Sung-gyu! We'll be counting on you!"
"Yeah! We're trusting you! Let's make Restaurant Guild choke on this!"
"Haha! Of course!"
Smiling, Tae-hyun thought to himself that if he had just a bit more mastery over it, he could've disguised himself perfectly as Yang Sung-gyu.
Changing appearances was one thing, but making yourself look exactly like a specific person was far trickier than most people realized.
When you didn't have time, you had no choice but to do it roughly.
"Then, everyone."
Tae-hyun held out his hand.
"...?"
"Money...? Wait, you're not about to ask for money, are you?"
This bastard... is he a scammer?
The cooks stared at Tae-hyun with that exact expression.
But he wasn't holding out his hand for money.
"Hand over the ingredients. I need them for the poison."
"You didn't already have poison?! What about that thief friend?"
"I have to make it first before I can give it to him."
Hearing that, the cooks looked at Tae-hyun like he was even crazier than before.
Which meant...
He'd actually learned poison-related cooking skills.
People really learn that skill?
He seriously must have nothing better to do.
The cooks whispered among themselves, but Tae-hyun ignored them and got to work crafting.
There were plenty of ingredients, so he could make exactly what he wanted.
You have successfully created Delicately Blended Perfect Paralysis Poison.
You have created an item difficult to make at your current skill level.
Your Poison Crafting skill has increased significantly.
Is he really a beginner?
Why are his movements so practiced?
Before long, Tae-hyun finished making the poison and stood up.
"Then I'll go do it. You make sure to spread the rumor well."
"Of course! Leave it to us!"
"If the poison really gets in there, we can say it with confidence!"
As soon as Tae-hyun disappeared, the cooks started talking among themselves.
"Do you think he can really do it?"
"Who knows... more importantly, what if Restaurant Guild later comes looking for the culprit?"
"Then we just say that Yang Sung-gyu guy did it. What else are we supposed to do? Say we did it?"
"True enough."
"Achoo!"
Yang Sung-gyu sneezed.
"Somebody talking about me or something?"
Even though it was before the arena started, Yang Sung-gyu didn't line up to buy food.
Instead, he pulled food out of his bag.
Food he'd bought with cash-shop money from a ranker cook player.
It was an item he'd prepared specifically for a day like this.
Thanks to the cook player's skill, the effects hadn't diminished over time.
Just as Yang Sung-gyu was getting ready to head in, he started hearing people shouting in the distance.
"...Poison! There's poison in it!"
"What are you talking about? There's no such thing!"
"Restaurant Guild poisoned the food!"
"They hid the poison with cooking skills! They must've taken money from a big guild!"
"What?! How could they do that?!"
Watching the growing uproar, Yang Sung-gyu clicked his tongue.
"Tsk tsk. That's why you should buy verified food. How can you trust cheap junk?"
With a shrug, Yang Sung-gyu headed into the arena.
Whatever those idiots outside did to each other was none of his business.