ARIFURETA: Cooking to be the Strongest?

Plink, plop. Plink, plop.

Water droplets echoed in the vast, subterranean darkness. On a certain puddle, something bobbed gently—something that had just fallen a few hours ago.

"Urgh, I'm still alive?"

Shin, who'd lost consciousness during the terrifying plummet, slowly came to. He seemed to be floating in a large water puddle. Talk about luck, he thought. He pushed himself up; the water wasn't too deep, only reaching his waist.

He moved to a nearby patch of dry land and rested there, his body aching. Shin looked up, but the hole he'd dropped through was swallowed by impenetrable darkness. He must have fallen incredibly deep into the Orcus Labyrinth.

"Looks like Hajime made it to the others," Shin murmured, a wave of profound relief washing over him. He was glad he was the only one down here, glad he'd spared his friend from this plunge.

"Tch, should've broken a limb or two on that trash," Shin muttered, a fresh surge of regret burning through him. He knew, with chilling certainty, that the rogue fireball had come from Hiyama, that rotten trash.

"Sigh, guess finding my way up should be my current problem now," Shin said, letting out a long sigh as he rested, steeling himself before moving again.

Shin tried to shake off the lingering numbness from the fall. He pushed himself up, his muscles protesting. He looked around, straining his eyes in the oppressive gloom. The only light was a faint, almost imperceptible glow in the distance, casting long, distorted shadows across the cavern.

He took a cautious step forward, his boots squelching in the mud. The silence here was different from the levels above—deeper, heavier, broken only by the incessant drip of water. His instincts, usually so sharp, felt dulled by the impact, but a prickle of unease started to spread through him. This place felt ancient, oppressive.

As he walked, a faint, almost ethereal whispering began to drift through the air.

It's time.

Full mitigation is now complete, ready for the next phase.

Hoh, it's about time?

Eh~ we've decided to do this.

The others seemed to have woken up.

"Voices?" Shin questioned, looking around frantically, but no one but him was there. At first, Shin dismissed it as his mind playing tricks, a residual effect of the fall.

But the whispers grew, intertwining, forming a cacophony of hushed, unintelligible voices that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. They tugged at the edges of his consciousness, a chilling symphony in the dark.

Eating one of his damp ration cookies did nothing to calm his nerves or quiet the persistent murmurs.

"Shut up…" Shin thought, growing increasingly irritated by those voices, as if they were dictating something to him.

Shin was on edge now, relying on his instincts to navigate the barely lit cavern. His senses screamed warnings about the surrounding dangers, far greater than anything on the 20th floor.

The unsettling voices did not help, numbing his concentration and making his precarious situation even worse.

********

"Finally, those voices stopped," Shin mumbled to himself.

The whispers calmed a bit after an hour, allowing Shin to silently and cautiously navigate the cavern. With the current situation and his instincts firing warnings of danger everywhere, Shin prioritized looking for a hiding spot.

"Tch, that way was also no good," Shin mumbled as the direction he wanted to go seemed to contain even greater dangers, or so his instinct warned him. Then, he stumbled upon a peculiar hole in the wall.

He found a hole in the wall where he barely fit, leading to a small cave within. Sensing no immediate danger inside, he decided to use it as his current base.

From the inside, the place seemed to glow a bit brighter. Though Shin couldn't stand upright in the small cave, it was comfortable enough for him to sit. Shin covered the entrance with a large rock, sealing himself inside.

Inside, there was a large, glowing stone, emitting a pale aquamarine light. On it, a small puddle of glowing water shimmered. Shin, parched with thirst, drank some of the water from the puddle. To his surprise, the water restored a significant amount of his stamina, and the numbing feeling from the fall completely vanished.

Shin looked again at the stone, remembering its details from back when he and Hajime were reading in the library.

It was a Holy Crystal, a crystallization of magic built up and compressed over time, or even millennia.

"Then that small puddle must be Ambrosia, haha~" he mused, a wry smile touching his lips.

Heh, talk about luck and bad luck, Shin thought, laughing mockingly at his bizarre fortune. Luck, for still being alive after that fall and finding this miraculous crystal. And bad luck, for having fallen so incredibly deep and being surrounded by dangers at every corner.

With the immediate tension of danger outside eased and his body significantly recovered, Shin removed his damp clothes to dry them out.

He then checked his pouch of ration cookies. Seems like there's not much left, he noted. Around five were damp and crumbling, and only four were still intact.

"Seems like I have no choice but to hunt and eat magic beasts later," he sighed, a pragmatic glint in his eye. "The only good thing is, no one can stop me from doing it anymore."

With these grim plans settled, Shin decided to rest his mind on the cold rock surface. Then, he drifted into a deep slumber.

***********

The third day in the deep floors found Shin still confined to the corners of his hidden cavern. His previous days had been spent in meticulous observation, studying the magic beasts that passed by his temporary base.

He'd seen black wolves that crackled with lightning, agile and predatory. Then, a white rabbit, deceptively innocent-looking, that easily outmaneuvered and dismantled those very wolves. Shin assessed their strength: the wolves were tough, but doable if he were forced to hunt. The rabbit, however, was a significant challenge, though still doable with extreme caution.

With only two daggers left in his meager arsenal, Shin decided his best bet was to scavenge the rabbit's kills after it departed. Directly targeting the rabbit now would be suicide. But before the rabbit could leave, Shin felt an oppressive aura, his instincts screaming a maximum danger warning. He immediately retreated deeper into his hidden hole, covering the entrance. Through a narrow gap, he watched the ensuing event.

The seemingly invincible white rabbit was effortlessly dispatched by a new intruder: a colossal white bear. With a single, devastating claw swipe, the bear unleashed invisible air blades that cleanly cleaved the rabbit in two.

Shin's assessment was grim: this bear was far, far out of his current league. Unable to risk retrieving the wolf carcasses the rabbit had left behind, Shin passed another day without a single meal.

"Tch, it's been four days!" Shin gritted his teeth, irritation flaring. "That damn bear still won't leave this area!" His hunger gnawed at him, making it impossible to remain calm any longer.

The monstrous bear seemed to be relentlessly patrolling the very section of the cavern where Shin's current hideout was located. Shin, on the other hand, hadn't had a decent meal in seven days. His ration cookies were completely gone, leaving only the small puddle of Ambrosia to sustain himself.

While the Ambrosia restored his strength and quenched his thirst, it offered no solace for his gnawing hunger. Shin was close to snapping, nearing his breaking point.

And those insidious voices, still periodically whispering in his ears, only served to grate on his nerves further.

Then, he suddenly snapped. Not caring about anything anymore, he'd rather die eating something than starve to death on an empty stomach. With hunger fueling his determination, he decided to venture out, if only to find a single morsel to eat.

**********

Shin prepared his meager gear, then carefully moved the rock that blocked the entrance to his cave. He peered out, looking around. Miraculously, the dreaded bear wasn't patrolling his immediate area this time.

Then, around the corner, he spotted a white rabbit, similar to the one he'd observed on previous days. Shin didn't hesitate, ignoring the frantic warnings his instincts fired. Driven by a primal urge to eat, he silently approached the rabbit.

Like a shadow, Shin moved silently and efficiently, conserving as much energy as possible while completely masking his presence. He stalked his prey, closing the distance with practiced stealth.

When he reached an optimal range to attack, Shin picked up a small rock and threw it, not at the rabbit, but in the opposite direction. The sound startled the rabbit, which instantly jumped away, bolting towards where the noise originated.

But instead of landing on a familiar patch of rock, it landed squarely in Shin's waiting embrace.

The last thing the rabbit saw was not the eye of a weak human, but the cold, calculating gaze of a predator expertly catching its prey.

"Ba~ka~" Shin whispered to his prey, a chilling satisfaction in his tone.

Shin knew that even the strongest living creature couldn't escape death when critically hit in two places: the brain and the heart.

As the white rabbit frantically tried to break free from his iron grip, Shin swiftly plunged his first dagger into its head, through its eye.

Then, without a moment's pause, he drove his second dagger into its chest, piercing directly into its heart.

The rabbit thrashed strongly, desperately struggling to escape, but Shin held on with unyielding strength until it finally stilled, drawing its last breath.

With the rabbit's last breath drawn, Shin's instinct hurriedly warned him of an incoming danger.

"Tch, that bear sure has a strong nose," Shin mused, knowing the incoming intruder.

Shin wasted no time. He grabbed his freshly killed meal and moved swiftly towards his hideout. The bear, following the trace of blood and sensing its prey moving away, hastened its arrival. But before it arrived, Shin was no longer there. All that remained was a puddle of blood from his recent kill.

*******

In Shin's cave, the momentary silence was utterly shattered.

The only sound now was the ruthless tearing of meat, the primal gnashing of his teeth as he devoured the prey he had hunted. He made no other noise, no sound, just focused intently on filling his ravenous stomach.

"Puke it, it tastes so bad!!" his voice screamed within his mind.

"Eat it, you've endured hunger for too long!!" his body roared back.

"Puke it!!"

"Eat it!!"

Every instinct as a cook screamed at him to vomit, to recoil from the undesirable taste and texture of the raw meat, but he forced it down.

His entire being—his self, his very soul—told him to stop this primitive, savage act. Yet, his physical body, his stomach finally being filled after a long time, demanded him to eat more.

Shin focused on eating. With no fire to cook it, he had no other choice. After draining at least its blood, Shin skinned the rabbit, then consumed every piece of flesh and every organ, except for the head, driven solely by the desperate need to quell his hunger.

Finishing his meal, Shin let out a sigh of satisfaction. With his stomach finally full, clarity returned to his mind.

Shin then reflected on his act, acknowledging that he was becoming more savage day by day. But he had no choice. 

With his meager tools and current situation, he would do anything to survive and return to his friends.

Then, he felt a slight disturbance while eating the meat, as if it was trying to modify his body but was being suppressed by something.

He considered that it might be the Ambrosia, but crossed that out since he hadn't drunk it during this savage, primal partaking of the meal.

Suddenly, a shiver ran through his body, and his mind and the voices began forcing him into a slumber.

He tried to resist, but he couldn't fight the overwhelming tide. "What... what's happening to me?" he murmured, his eyes struggling to stay open.

"Those damn voices again!"

"Not now... I can't..." Then, Shin lost consciousness.