The Ultimate Complete Food

There were a few foods in the world known as "complete foods"—foods that contained every single nutrient a human needed to survive! Milk, eggs, and lava were among them.

"What kind of bullshit is that?!"

Of course, Cain wasn't buying it. No matter how hungry he was, he wasn't stupid enough to look at molten lava and think, Wow, that looks delicious!

"Cain. Do you know the difference between lava and a golem?"

"?"

"You can eat lava, but you can't eat a golem."

"..."

For the first time in a long while, Cain deeply regretted following Tae-hyun. Ah, I should have just lived a long, quiet, uneventful life!

But Tae-hyun was dead serious. He couldn't do anything with the golem's rocky hide due to his insufficient cooking skill, but lava was a different story.

"Let's eat!"

"Ugh, sob..."

At some point, Cain had grown incredibly quiet. I just want to go home!

Choi Sang-yun's whisper felt exceptionally sorrowful to Cain's ears.

Unlike Tae-hyun, Cain took a fair amount of damage. Fortunately, it was still within tolerable limits, thanks to his class skills, raw stats, and equipped gear!

"Perfect. Now we can conquer this dungeon!"

Tae-hyun pumped his fist in joy. As long as they had lava—this complete food that was readily available at any time—this dungeon was as good as cleared.

"..."

Cain made a solemn vow. If he ever wrote an autobiography, he would absolutely list this place as 'The Most Painful Dungeon of My Life'!

The monsters' levels are generally high, but I don't see any boss monster.

The true boss monster of this dungeon was hunger. There were absolutely no signs of the sub-bosses or boss monsters that typically populated other dungeons. The only things that appeared were monsters designed to block their path and drain their satiety!

Perhaps because the monsters themselves were starving, they clung to them with terrifying persistence. To them, Tae-hyun and Cain must have looked like a walking feast!

A level-up just for reaching the very bottom of the dungeon, without even fighting a boss! The reward was a testament to just how absurdly difficult this dungeon was, and how insidious the trap of hunger truly had been.

"Looks like there's no boss monster."

The lowest floor was completely empty, save for a single cauldron sitting quietly in the center. There wasn't a single trace of a monster.

Yeah. I can see it too.

That was undoubtedly a holy relic containing the authority of Archisus!

— Divine Foresight.

No traps. It's definitely safe...

Tae-hyun nodded, finishing his sweep of the surroundings. Always double-check a put-out fire! Always double-check a quiet Archisus! Archisus was a god capable of screwing over not just his enemies, but his allies as well.

Once he was absolutely sure there were no traps, Tae-hyun slowly stepped forward, maintaining an extremely cautious stance.

Tap.

...That sounds highly plausible.

Tae-hyun couldn't deny it. In any case, Akiersus's Cauldron was an excellent item. For a lord managing a territory like Tae-hyun, it was incredibly useful! Moreover, the chefs in his territory were still running free soup kitchens...

If I install it there, our operating costs will plummet.

The dishes might randomly change from time to time, but that was a minor risk he was willing to take!

A staggering turn of events where all his existing cooking skills vanished! Tae-hyun was shocked, but at the same time, he felt a spark of anticipation.

Just how amazing is this skill?

All his previous cooking skills had been wiped out and consolidated into Akiersus's Authority Cooking. Would its effects truly be powerful enough to make up for losing Abnormal, Divine, and Demonic cooking all at once?

The description is incredibly vague.

It was one of those skills he would have to test firsthand to truly understand. Please let it be good...

Tae-hyun pulled out a fragment of a golem's stone hide that he had pocketed on the way down. Seeing this, Cain began to tremble with pure dread.

Surely he wouldn't...!

But as the saying goes, the worst-case scenario always comes to pass. Tae-hyun actually began to cook the stone fragment.

Crunch! Crack!

Tae-hyun kneaded and slapped the golem's stone fragment as if he were working with soft rice cake dough! Anyone watching would have sworn he was a master confectioner preparing traditional rice cakes.

"??"

Why did a cooked dish have an expiration timer?

Is it because the divine authority only temporarily forces something inedible to become edible?

"Here. Eat up."

"No, wait, I'm not even hung—*Mmph!*"

As always, Cain was the perfect guinea pig to test out the effects.

"It's actually delicious?!"

Cain gasped in surprise at the sweet, chewy flavor of rice cake. To think a golem's stone fragment could taste like this!

But that pleasant taste vanished in an instant. A wave of bitter flavor, as if he had just chewed on highly concentrated mugwort, assaulted his taste buds.

"Pwah! Blech! Tui!"

"Hmm. So the flavor profile falls under the Abnormal Cooking category."

Tae-hyun calmly analyzed the results as he watched Cain's dramatic reaction.

It's definitely in the Abnormal Cooking family, but the flavor seems to fluctuate randomly!

Still, it's better than standard Abnormal Cooking.

While Abnormal Cooking tasted consistently like hot garbage, Authority Cooking at least had some pleasant flavors hidden within the chaos.

The real question is the effect.

The buffs granted by eating the food were what truly mattered. Normal dishes gave mediocre buffs. Abnormal dishes gave outstanding buffs, even if they tasted absolutely horrific...

So, what would Archisus's Authority Cooking bring to the table?

"..."

Cain felt like he should be happy, but he couldn't bring himself to rejoice!

The bonuses of Archisus's Authority Cooking scaled dynamically based on how high the eater's Luck stat was, how close they were to Archisus, and what Archisus-related class they held.

Whoosh!

Cain's entire body was instantly enveloped in roaring flames! He checked his status window and gasped in sheer disbelief.

A massive reduction in skill cooldowns, a colossal boost to both physical and magical defense, enhanced HP regeneration, increased maximum HP, and the ability to imbue his weapons with the fire element...

This was a level of buffing that would normally require a high-ranking Archbishop of a major church to spend all their mana plastering him with spells! And he got all of this just from eating a single dish?

Granted, the duration was significantly shorter, but this was still utterly broken.

"Wait a minute. Why is it Sadiq's blessing, though?"

"That's not important."

Tae-hyun brushed it off as if it were a trivial detail. Cain found himself immediately accepting it. True. At this point, it wouldn't surprise me if he channeled the power of any god in existence!

Hmm. This will be perfect for buffing the players who joined the Archisus Church.

Tae-hyun was satisfied for now. Although all his previous cooking skills had been wiped out to force him into Authority Cooking, this outcome was far from a loss that would make him weep tears of blood.

His previous cooking skills and Akiersus's Authority Cooking each had their pros and cons.

His previous cooking skills provided equal benefits to everyone, even if they didn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠believe in the Archisus Church or had low Luck. Furthermore, they guaranteed consistent results without any random variables, and many of the buffs were permanent—such as permanent stat increases!

On the other hand, Akiersus's Authority Cooking came with several restrictions. To get the full benefits, the eater had to have high affinity with Archisus. Moreover, true to the god of luck and scams, the random element was incredibly strong, making it impossible to predict everything from the taste to the actual effects of the dish. The buffs were also temporary, short-duration boosts rather than permanent stat increases.

At first glance, it might have seemed like a downgrade, but the sheer power of the buffs completely overshadowed the drawbacks. Looking at Cain's buff, it was so ridiculously potent that the short duration was easily forgivable. He could literally pick up a random pebble from the side of the road, knead it a bit, and feed it to someone to turn them into a powerhouse!

The only disappointing part was the extremely short shelf life of the food.

With a timer this short, mass-producing them in advance is out of the question. I'll have to cook them on the spot and feed them immediately...

It seemed like it would pair beautifully with Akiersus's Cauldron. Tae-hyun was already imagining cooking in bulk. If he threw in a few scraps of fat, boiled a massive soup, and distributed it to a crowd...

The results will be spectacular!

"Alright. Let's head out. I need to test this on the giants too."

I'm saved! Cain rejoiced at Tae-hyun's words. The test subjects would now be the giants, not him. Did he feel sorry for them? Not even a little bit!

"I suppose you'd be happy."

Tae-hyun smiled as he looked at Cain. It made sense for Cain to be happy. After all, they had to eat to keep their satiety up on the way out, and now they had a powerful cooking method to sustain them. How could he not be thrilled?

"...Do I have to eat it on the way out too?"

"Either eat it or starve to death."

If a high-ranking player of Cain's caliber starved to death in a dungeon, he would be the laughingstock of the community forums for months. "Caining" would literally become a slang term for dying in the most foolish way possible!

"I-I'll eat it, okay...?"

- The Avatar has returned! The Avatar has returned!

- The Avatar is truly magnificent! He is like a man chosen by the gods!

"...Huh?"

Tae-hyun flinched as he scrolled through the system notifications. They'll do what?

- The Avatar of Archisus is a divine messenger sent by the gods to satisfy our hunger!

- Magnificent! Avatar! Give us food!

- We are still hungry!

Their attitude made it highly ambiguous whether they revered him as a holy avatar or simply viewed him as their personal chef! Tae-hyun felt a bit put off, but he reluctantly prepared to cook anyway.

...By picking up a random stone rolling around on the ground!

- The Avatar must have lost his mind.

- Did we anger him by asking for food?

- Oh no. That makes sense. Cooking is hard work.

- But... we are so hungry...

The giants whispered among themselves as they watched Tae-hyun. Surely he wasn't going to just feed them those rocks? No matter how starving a giant was, they didn't eat stones!

"It's done. Eat up."

- Avatar! This is too much! Who in their right mind would eat this!

- In our tribe, even the dogs wouldn't touch this!

"If he tells you to eat it, you eat it, you ungrateful bastards!"

Cain bellowed in sheer frustration. How dare they turn their noses up at something Kim Tae-hyun had gone through so much trouble to make!