Chef woke up, stretched, and fell off his tree branch. He hit the ground hard and, by impulse groaned in pain. Then, confused, he realized it didn’t hurt that bad.

Right, numbers are bigger now.

That was going to take some getting used to.

Chef couldn’t exactly remember what time it was when he fell asleep, somewhere around five rumbles past dinner, but it was once again dawn. Not that he paid attention to the beautiful painting of the sky above, no, Chef was much too preoccupied by the very obviously dead giant on the forest floor before him. More specifically, it was a giant bear, and it lived up to that name. The thing was easily the size of one of the wagons the humans carted around behind… whatever those hooved things were. Hoovers?

Regardless, Chef had an important task before him, and no one was going to do it if he didn’t. Aside from the wolves and foxes and other bears presumably. But no, it had to be him.

He pulled out his kitchen knife, gave it a good ole sharpen just for good measure, and then walked up to the corpse, plunging the blade in as far as he could.

The bear groaned. Unusual for a corpse.

Then it began to stand on unsteady feet. Incredibly odd behavior for corpse.

It turned its face towards Chef, roaring loudly in defiance as he continued to saw through flesh and hide.

Really, this was the liveliest dead thing Chef had ever seen. But then it tried to attack him, forcing Chef to finally let go of the knife.

It looked at him angrily as it literally foamed at the mouth in rage, daring Chef to make a move. So, he did. He summoned two fires directly below its crotch and face, grinning as it once more howled in pain.

Then it began to waddle away, limping on the limb with the embedded knife.

“Hey! That’s stealing!”

The goblin yelled at the creature he had baited and then attacked. But Chef wasn’t about to let injustice prevail, chasing after it while nursing his aching head.

“Ok, two at once still hurts.”

Chef caught up easily thanks to how fast and strong and smart and handsome he was now that his numbers had gotten so large. He jumped up on the giant’s back, crawled up to its head, and began to reach down for the knife while hanging onto its neck. It went well, which is to say that he grabbed the knife before losing his grip of bloody fur and falling off. But he managed to remove the knife in the process!

Chef rolled on the ground behind the thing as it howled out another scream of pain while it fled, slowing even further as blood poured from the recently opened wound. Chef continued his pursuit, mouthwatering from the smell.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Eventually Chef caught back up and slashed at the bear’s hind legs, but the thick hide prevented any real damage. He activated his Knife skill as he kept trying to stab and slash at the beast, but the moving target combined with its robust nature made it an incredible waste of time. He knew what to do. Chef held his knife in his teeth and jumped on its back, again. Trees rushed past him as he climbed forward on the raging bear and, reaching the neck once again, began to stab in earnest.

The size of the beast was not to be underestimated, nor was the smallness of a goblin. So even though he was putting his all into each stab and pushing the blade into the monster up to the hilt each time, the creature itself just kept going, groaning in pain all the while. But Chef didn’t relent. It tried to shake him, but he held firm. It tried to run, but he didn’t let it. It tried to survive, but Chef saw to that as well.

After minutes of continuously stabbing the creature, it tried to roll onto him, forcing him to jump off without his knife. The bear was foaming at the mouth even more than before at this point. The beast, mind addled with rage and pain as it was, made a critical mistake when it rolled, lying flat on the hilt of the blade, pushing it in all the way. With a gurgle, the beast ceased its rolling as it collapsed to the forest floor. Chef calmly backed off and began to meditate back his lost stamina and mana, content to let the creature bleed out.

Why hadn’t the poison killed it? The dumb goop just put it to sleep and then made it turn into some panicking idiot rather than, you know, killing the fucker. Like poisons are supposed to. I even chanted the magic phrase “please goop, kill whoever eats you” while cooking it!

Chef was thoroughly confused as he sat there, glowing through his concerns while ignoring the gurgling of his latest victim. There was something off about this creature but he didn’t know what it was. Perhaps it wasn’t a bear? It was large and furry with four limbs which told him it was a bear, but it was bigger than most bears. An evolved bear perhaps? A great bear? Or maybe a super bear?

His stomach grumbled enough for him to pay heed to it even in the middle of his meditation, so Chef wandered over to a bush, grabbed a couple of hidden berries, and ate them before going back to what he had been doing before.

Perhaps it eats poisonous food all the time? That would make some sense at least, but it really doesn’t explain the most confusing parts. The weird glowing bear had been resistant to poison, but it didn’t develop strange new reactions. So why the weird behavior?

Chef didn’t understand at all why the creature behaved how it did. He also didn’t understand why it was now getting incredibly squiggly. Or why the sky was turning purple or the trees were moving or-

He went back to meditating, frightfully aware of the potency of the fistful of berries rapidly digested thanks to his high attributes. Reaching up absentmindedly with his hand, he discovered that he had begun to lightly foam at the mouth as well, confirming what the nice floating heads around him were saying.

Fortunately, meditation allowed for him to disconnect from the physical in a deep and meaningful way.

A grumbling noise echoed through the clearing, reverberating up Chef’s entire body, pulling him from his meditation and back into his hallucinogenic nightmare.

“Fear not, Chef! We’re here to help you create the ultimate food! First, go eat more berries!”

The floating heads offered they’re helpful advice as they rapidly changed shape and color while also alternating between languages and accents.

Well, Meditate usually did the job at least just not right now, apparently. Sadly for Chef, he had been neglecting his physical needs lately and they were coming back with a vengeance. It was shaping up to be an exceedingly unpleasant morning.