Leveling Up through Eating

Chapter 4.1: Garlic Bread and Soup

Translator: ChubbyCheeks

2 Garlic Bread and Soup

‘Alright…!’

Minhyuk knew that he did a great job this time.

Jinhwan had personally tried the game and he knew that he could eat and taste 100 ramyeon in the game. According to his observations, even if the user decided to eat after his fullness reached 100% the character would not be affected at all.

Through the years of treatment, they had concluded that Minhyuk’s bulimia was a psychological illness. In other words, even if his body was full and satiated, his brain would continue to tell him that he was still hungry.

However, the concept of the game’s character fullness was a bit different from Minhyuk’s bulimia in a sense that the game did not necessarily force him to eat even though he was already full.

He quickly wolfed down the remaining bread from his original 10 loaves of bread right in front of Valen before solemnly walking back towards the training grounds. His expression was so solemn that if he wasn’t surrounded by scarecrows others would definitely think that he was going to raid the boss monster.

‘I have to eat that… Flour… bread!’

Slash!

The scarecrow was struck.

This was Minhyuk’s fourth set of 50 strikes. In total, he had already done 200 strikes in the total amount of time that he was logged in. He had also eaten a total of 32 loaves of bread. He had received an extra two loaves of bread because Valen had decided to give him extra rewards out of his goodwill. He had also heard a notification about this earlier.

To be honest, he was quite perplexed with this notification since all he did was swing his sword and eat his bread. However, his favorability with the NPC, Valen, had still increased.

I’m definitely a bit curious but it doesn’t matter since the bread still tastes delicious!

Just as he completed his fourth set of 50 strikes…

‘Huh?’

Minhyuk was taken aback. He quickly opened his stats window to check the notification.

His STR stat had really increased by 1.

All right! Let’s strike while the iron’s still hot.

Minhyuk decided to test his favorability and ask Instructor Valen about the notification.

“Instructor.”

“Oh, you finished another set of 50 strikes? You’re really diligent!”

Valen truly liked Minhyuk. He was hardworking and diligent and most of all, he did not complain about the bread.

“Well. Here you go, I’ll give you three more pieces this time.”

“Thank you very much!”

Minhyuk bowed at him. He bowed so low that his body was at a 90 degree angle!

“Instructor, I have a question.”

“Go on, you can ask me anything.”

“Why did my STR stat go up by 1?”

“Oho.”

With Valen’s reaction, Minhyuk believed that he knew the reason why.

“You will get special rewards if you keep on hitting the scarecrow but it’s not usually recommended.”

“Eh? How come?”

“If you go out of Ardo and kill monsters you’ll level up easily and get 5 bonus points per level. That’s why no one would do that just for 1 bonus point.”

“Aha, as expected of you instructor. You know as much as you are handsome [2].“

“This friend! You’re such a smooth talker!”

“Hahaha!”

He heard another notification about favorability increase.

Minhyuk was extremely grateful for Valen’s existence. He was someone who gave him food so he considered him as his life’s savior, his benefactor so doing this much flattery was nothing to him at all.

And I can even get more bread just for a bit of flattery!

Eating was his life’s sole happiness and it was also the reason why he had played this game. He was only playing this game for the sake of enjoyment but strangely enough he was still liked by others and was given additional rewards.

Munch, munch, munch—

Minhyuk quickly worked on his loaves of bread before standing up again.

“Bread! Bread! Crayon bread!”

He skipped happily as he sang a strange song while heading towards where the scarecrows were located.

Lee Minhwa was a new member of the Athenae’s Special User’s Management team. She was watching the monitors seriously when she suddenly exclaimed loudly.

“How did he do that… Huh, how can he get so much of that hard thing? Oh, I can’t believe he ate it in one go. You’ll be in big trouble.”

The way she was reacting was almost like she was watching an intense baseball game video.

Gulp.

She continued watching the monitor while her throat bobbed and drool slowly flowed down her chin. Then, at that moment……

“Lee Minhwa.”

“Ah. Yes, Team Leader Park!”

Lee Minhwa quickly wiped the drool off of her face as she stood up in a panic.

“What the hell are you watching? You’re making a weird noise.”

“Hiih… T-that…”

Team Leader Park Minggyu followed Lee Minhwa’s eyes and saw the scene on the monitor.

The monitor was projecting a male user tearing down on hard bread one after the other.

Team Leader Park frowned at the scene.

“You know that this is the department where you watch special users, right? We are not the department that watches mukbang [3] users.”

Park Minggyu was the team leader that was well known for his strictness and meticulousness.

“H-he is a special user.”

“What?”

“It’s unusual for players to get the reward for hitting the scarecrow 200 times, right?”

“That’s right.”

“That unusual user has hit the scarecrow 200 times in a row.”

“Is that so? Hmm… Did that user get something weird from Athenae’s forums?”

This information was something that was widely circulated and known among users. Everyone knew that there would be an increase in their abilities if they continued to hit the scarecrows. However, they had to hit a lot. After all, the more they hit, the greater the rewards that they would get. Users had deemed this way of leveling up as time consuming and inefficient so not much people would dare to do it.

“But this user is special.”

“Special? Huh, there are many users like that.”

“That’s not it, I get the feeling that he was hitting the scarecrow so he could get something to eat.”

“What are you saying… Who’s crazy enough to hit that scarecrow just to get hard bread?”

“Th- this person right here.”

Curious, Team Leader Park sat down on Lee Minhwa’s seat and watched the monitor closely. That was when he saw it. He saw the man smiling happily, with sweat raining down on him, as he happily ate his hard bread.

Guulp—

Team Leader Park and Minhwa both drooled at the same time.

“Eh? Why can’t I stop watching this?”

This is really strange.

It was like his spirit was being sucked in and he couldn’t stop himself from watching the man eat. He had no other thoughts in his mind except watching him eat.

“It seems like he’s really hitting the scarecrows because he wants to eat. I’ve never seen a user like this one before.”

“I know. Ah, won’t you be able to get a special reward if you hit the scarecrow for 20 times in two consecutive days?”

“Yeah. A title. But will he really eat that bread for 20 times right? That’s like at least a thousand sword strikes.”

“I… Is that so?”

Team Leader Park loosened his tie, leaned back comfortably and said to Minhwa.

“Minhwa-ssi”

“Yes, Team Leader?”

“Shall we eat some bread?”

He was subtly telling her that she should go and buy some for him.

[1] Favorability : Relates to the intimacy level or the relationship of the player with others; tbh it says intimacy level and idk it doesn’t sound right. Lol. Back

[2] idk how to phrase it but it means that amount of knowledge he has = his handsomeness. So if he knows a lot then he’s really handsome. He’s complimenting him subtly. You go Hyukkie!! Back

[3] Mukbang : lit. Mukja + bangsong or eating + broadcast. Back