"Take a break and prepare yourselves! We'll go inside after ten minutes! Savor this rest time because you might not have the time when we're inside!" a mounted soldier rode from the front towards the backline while shouting those words.
"What is that? It smells good" Tina's nose suddenly twitched as she smelled something good, then she quickly realized that the smell is coming from the food that Michael had taken out from his Inventory.
"Is...is that barbecue?" Emma said, looking at the skewered meat covered in irresistibly looking sauce on Michael's hands.
"Here" Michael said as he gave each one of them a skewered meat just like his.
"This is delicious! Whoa! It increased my Max Health and Mana Points by three hundred points for three hours!" Harrison exclaimed when he noticed a sharp increase in his health and mana, that he had even forgotten the taste of the food on his hand.
And at the same time, it also increased their characters satisfaction.
"Oh my, it's true! This is amazing!" Tina exclaimed with bulging eyes.
"Hmmph!" Rick just snorted, but his face is full of delight.
"This is very delicious, where did you get this? Did you buy it from somewhere?" Casey swallowed the last meat from her skewered meat and asked Michael, her eyes full of curiosity.
"I cooked it" Michael said.
"Huh?" Tina turned her head towards Michael, her action of her just about to bite through the meat paused as she looked at him, like she had just heard the most unbelievable thing in the world.
"You cooked it?" Tina swallowed the last meat and continued, "But your cooking sucks, everything that you had cook so far are all cuisine of darkness, so how could you cook something this delicious?"
Harrison and Rick looked at Tina, then at Michael, which they suddenly felt a shiver down their spine when they saw Michael's dark look, which looks like an Oni.
"What did you just say, you brat!?" Michael gripped Tina's head angrily, which made the latter scream in pain and tears.
"Ahhh! It hurts! Let me go, you bastard!"
Tina's screams attracted the attention of the users around them, and when they saw Michael abusing a beautiful maiden, their hearts full of justice was suddenly filled with desire to save the distressed maiden from the hands of the demon king!
"Hey you! Don't you have any shame!? Hurting such a beautiful maiden!?" one of the users yelled angrily as he pointed towards Michael.
"Uhh..!? Did you just say my cooking sucks!?" Michael turned towards the guy with a devilish grin on his face.
"Eh? I didn't -"
BAM!
The man didn't finish what he was about to say when Michael suddenly appeared behind him, and sent him to suplex city!
"The heck...you can also do that?" someone uttered among the stunned crowd.
After that short episode, everything went back to normal but the users clearly distanced themselves from Michael and his group.
Ten minutes later, the expedition force finally continued their journey as the troop slowly trickled inside the forest of despair.
"Hey, since when did you learn the Cooking Skill? I didn't know food actually provides buffs like that" Casey walked beside Michael and asked.
Michael turned his head at her, and from what he had learned so far, this cool looking beauty doesn't like to talk that much but she's someone who's always curious about things she doesn't know, especially knowledge about the game.
And like right now, Casey is holding a book related to the lore and history of this world, similar to the book Michael had read at the library back at Starlight City.
In actual fact, unbeknownst to the players, the game had been updating the game non stop while they're playing. Even though the changes are only minute that no one would notice the changes if they don't put their attention to the things around them, and the people who had probably noticed these small things are Michael and the other experts of the game.
And one of those changes that's easy to notice are the upward trend of the production classes, where there are already a lot of players, especially the users around forty years old and above who are taking the path of a production class instead of the combat class.
Like being a Blacksmith, a Cook, a Fisherman, an Alchemist and many more.
And during his time in Starlight City, Michael had taken the chance to learn some of the skills of the production classes, like the Cooking Skill, Blacksmithing, Alchemy and Fishing, it was because he slowly realized that he'd probably moving around more by himself, going to dangerous and far away places from civilization, and he won't be able to afford to waste the time of going back and forth in between places, so he figured that he'd instead learn those things and do all the maintenance for his journey.
"I also didn't know about it, I just learned about it when I ate at a food stall owned by a user, whose class is a Cook" Michael said.
"Really? So there are classes like Cooks huh?"
Casey said, while the others around them listened to their conversation as its something they've been curious about.
"There are" Michael agreed, as he did in fact saw a multiple users who are Cooks and at least a hundred of users whose main professions are from the production classes, while their second professions are probably from a combat class.
And just like Michael, his main profession is now the Herb Hunter while his Chaser class has been relegated as his second profession, and the result would be that he won't be able to advance on the path of an assassin anymore.
"So where can we learn them? If someone like you could already make good food, then just imagine what I could make for someone like me who's already a good enough to cook outside the game" Tina boasted.
"Me too, it must need money to learn it, right?' Emma asked, and even though she might not look like it. She's also a great cook who's following behind the footsteps of her mother, who's famous for being a great chef in the culinary world.
"It probably depends on the person you'd want to learn it from, but you can learn the Cooking Skill from any NPC Chef, but I'm not sure how much they'd ask for you. After all, I got mine for finishing a quest that the chef had requested from me"
"Enemy attack! Prepare yourselves!"
Michael had just said those words, when shouting and yelling along with the sounds of battle coming from the front troop echoed throughout inside the forest.
"An army of Kobolds, Goblins and High Orcs are attacking us! Stick together and don't get isolated, or you're dead!" a Soldier Captain yelled at them, as the NPC soldiers, particularly the infantry took a defensive formation among themselves, with their Hunters and Wizards in the middle of their formation.
"Come on! This are all walking EXP points!" Michael yelled at the others, and charged towards the incoming horde of monsters as he pulled out his huge bastard sword from behind him!
*****
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