Chapter 23: The Kitchen!

He opened his eyes and saw a neat ceiling and a quaint interior of the room. This must be the Inn room, though the energy from before had become much more muted.

Well, he barely noticed much now. He just gripped his heart and felt it palpitating.

He was alive, he thought. He was alive, in many senses of the word.

At this point, he could no longer deny it: This place was real.

If the pain he had gone through wasn’t real, then he might as well die.

Speaking of pain…it was gone?

He raised his arm and looked at his body. The previous soreness was completely gone, and the shallow wounds—mostly from his reckless diving to the shallow streams—were gone, and the deeper ones (i.e. the monster wound on his thigh) were already scabbing.

“How long was I out?” he asked, very curious.

“About six hours, la,” the panda said, chilling on the bed while he—the innkeeper—was on the floor.

Granted, the floor had a carpet, so it was fine

Anyway, Finn quickly opened his status bar.

[Status]

Name: Finnick Altheus Solthar

Race: Human

Class: Innkeeper, Chef

Level: Dormant

Awakening Type: N/A

Affinity: Unknown

…

VITALS

HP: 72/100

Mana: 100/100

Stamina: 65/100

Wallet: 150 Gold

Hearth Points: 1650 Points

…

Skills:

Active: [Scent of Flavor] [ Ingredient Scan] [Dish Analysis]

Passive: [Blade Proficiency – Growth Type (Lv 1)] [Monster Instinct]

Condition: Hungry, -1 stamina per hour; Thirsty, -1 stamina per hour]

“Whoa,” he mumbled. What were his stat points before fainting? He remembered the stamina was already in 1 digit, and the HP was not too far away. “Would my customers gain so much in a few hours, too?”

“Of course not, at least if they were dormant. Don’t you read, la? Pretty sure I sent you the notification of innkeeper benefits.”

“Innkeeper benefits?” he mumbled, rummaging his brain for several moments before he remembered. “I’ll get 200% more than usual? That’s 3x the benefits, right?” Probably more, since the Inn itself granted extra regeneration rates, and his own benefits were stacked over that.

He might not have gone to elementary school, but he knew some ’real life’ math.

Then he looked at the other numbers and saw that he still had debuffs: Hunger and thirst.

growl

His hand moved from his chest to his growling stomach. He also puckered his mouth, feeling it was a bit dry indeed.

He pushed himself up, though he was still groggy so his movements were a bit lumbering as he headed out of the room.

He blinked when he saw the interior of the inn. It was wood and stone and had the occasional interior plant. Overall, the quality was sleek, like a modern cottage.

However, while interested in the interiors, he forgot all about that when he saw the kitchen!

The kitchen was technically not modern in appearance—made mostly of stone and marble—but it was modern in arrangement.

He got a wide counter space, cabinets with complete utensils and tools—different types of pans and pots, even—and an island that not only divided the kitchen from the dining room, but also added a working surface!

There was even a faucet! Immediately, he opened the faucet to get some water—

But nothing was coming out.

His lips pursed, confused. Was he supposed to dig for pipes or something?

While he was thinking of this, he heard the toddling sound that Pang made. “Didn’t you read the description? The utilities need a core to work. Utilities will not function unless you provide them.”

“What?”

His eyes twitched at the vague memory of the [Basic Building Shell] description. He didn’t know what a core was at the time, so he didn’t really pay attention.

In retrospect, he still didn’t know what a core was.

“Cores are something that should be found in a few monsters. I didn’t sense any from those outside, though.”

“I…see…” Well, no water and no electricity. No big deal. He wasn’t even expecting electricity here.

As for water, he can just…run to the stream or something. It wasn’t too far away.

The most important part was: He had a kitchen!

“Don’t spend too long in the kitchen; you could faint considering your stats,” Pang said, referring to his debuff.

“Ah, right,” he said, looking at his glorious new kitchen…with nothing to cook.

“You’d have to get the ingredients outside.”

As such, as reluctant as he was to not hug the clean-looking kitchen, he headed out to gather the ingredients first.

He headed to the complete collection of kitchen knives on the side. They were really complete, including a chef’s knife, a paring knife, a utility knife, a boning knife, and so on. He took the boning knife outside because it seemed like the best one for butchering.

Knife twirling on his hand (impressing Pang), Finn exited the inn and felt the warm and healing atmosphere immediately dissipating.

It was still there, but not too much anymore. This was understandable because the extra regeneration effects were found only in the building.

Anyway, he stared at the carcasses on the turf, and one was on the shrubs. Then he also looked at the skidmarks they made and remembered it was the Panda who did that.

He should be nicer to him, really.

Anyway, Finn kneeled down in front of the nearest monster, touching its skin. It wasn’t too hard yet, and it didn’t seem like rigor mortis had set in. Still—

“It’s been five hours, are they still safe to eat?”

“Pang doesn’t know, la,” the panda said. “But awakened monster meat should last a bit longer, but how long depends on the world.”

“If you’re not certain, you can just capture fresh ones.”

Finn looked around. There were no monsters, and frankly, he didn’t want to go into another fight so soon. Even if there were, his cracked weapon probably wouldn’t last another fight.

“If the number of monsters here is dense, more would’ve come in much earlier la.”

Ah, that made sense. Considering all the chaos and the blood, if there were monsters in the immediate vicinity, they’d have found them by now.

He reckoned it had to do with the dense sap trees, and also the fact that they were always upwind due to their position relative to the mountain. The scent could easily be carried elsewhere, away from them.

Anyway, if there were only a few monsters at a time, then he could just let the barrier do its job. Why waste its 10000 defense points? He was in debt for that.

Anyway, pushing that aside for now, he figured he should just butcher it and then study the meat later.

His eyes twitched when his boning knife couldn’t even make a slice.

Pang appeared out-of-nowhere. “Awakened monster body is no joke, after all, it has to be a graded weapon,” he said. “And the kitchen knife’s sharpness depends on its user, too. Pang wasn’t sure before, but it seems like your dormant status also affects it.”

Finn refused to give in and he took out his cracked sword instead.

He also targeted a front joint, which he knew was a weak spot. The skin here was also ripped away by another monster, so he figured it’d be fine.

Except it wasn’t.

The blade did get buried…by about an inch. And the moment he moved it—

Crack!

“…”

So…now what?

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