Making his clothes wasn’t exactly hard at this point, but it was annoying. It took time, fine motor control, and concentration that Chef very often couldn’t be fucked to give. But yesterday’s Chef went to sleep after burning his favorite outfit, the obnoxious cunt. So here he was, drying out thatch and tying furs together.

He had a big day ahead of him. Metaphorically speaking of course. The day would be the same number of hours as usual, making it the same physical size. But the spirit of the day was exciting.

Today was the day he’d operate the mill.

The father had given him a good explanation, and it seemed like the production would only be limited by grain acquisition and mill turning. He was confident in doing both of those things. Probably because he’d never done either, but that was beside the point at best. For Chef, it couldn’t be further from the point.

With his clothes finished in all their furry glory, Chef made sure his armor was on properly before starting with the pants. At that moment he heard the snapping of a twig and everything froze. Only one thing was moving on the entire hillside. No, only one monster.

The rabbit had returned.

It sat there, chewing on a corpse, menacingly. Its fur was voluminous and fluffy, speaking to a good diet and powerful frame. Its teeth were massive and pointed, ensuring any who looked upon it would know who was predator and who was prey.

And then there were the eyes. Those beady black holes that peered through the very fabric of reality and beyond. It was enough to strike fear into the hearts and minds of the bravest adventurer. But that didn’t apply to Chef, of course. After all, he was a goblin.

I think I’m going to shit myself.

If they would be afraid, then he could only be terrified. One arm was still pulling fur onto his leg, frozen in place with fear. Hunched over as he was, he could feel the perspiration building on him quickly.

Calm down, Chef. Just stand here and don’t move. Just like last time. It’ll eat its meal and leave.

What Chef failed to account for, likely because he’d never experienced it before, were the exact properties of his metal breastplate. It was strong, yes, which led to a certain degree of hardness. It also wasn’t exactly snug, leaving some room for movement around the chest area that had to be made up for with furs for now. But most importantly, there was a gut to it much like there was on Chef himself.

A protrusion that stuck out perfectly for falling sweat to land on.

A pinging noise rang throughout his hillside, proving that his home was an excellent location for singing practice. Sadly for him, the acoustics of his residence were the last thing on his mind at that moment.

Every creature in this world has been trained since birth to acknowledge and pay attention to specific sounds. Whether it be the sound of a potential predator or a mating call, hearing is something critical for all creatures with the capacity to do so. And in this world in particular, there is one sound universal to all animals and people, one sound that signified something momentous in their lives.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

The pinging of the system.

A sound that Chef just so happened to have been near-perfectly emulated by sweating bullets onto his bronze breastplate.

Beady eyes turned upwards to find his, and once more the world stopped. Both exploded into action at the same time.

Chef summoned one of his poison bombs from the breadbox, raising its temperature to the point where it glowed, and then threw it with all the strength and accuracy he could muster straight into the face of the leaping beast.

To call what the monster was doing “jumping” was a disservice to language itself. The creature flew through the air faster than the bomb, causing Chef to detonate it sooner than planned. Rise forced hot gas to expand within the heated clay, launching shrapnel in all directions. Despite their relative proximities, the heated clay bounced uselessly off of the beast’s fur while digging into Chef’s skin.

A surface wound only, and far from the most important thing at the moment.

The monster continued its flight, moving through the thick purple cloud at frightening speeds. Chef instinctively reached for his second bomb but he already knew it was too late. The monster was simply too fast; the bomb wouldn’t detonate before it reached him.

His life flashed before his eyes. Memories of strangling his brother and then eating him came unbidden to the forefront of his mind. A single tear found his face as he recalled killing most of his entire clan in one day.

He really had lived a good life. It was bound to end sooner or later.

Then, beady eyes closed as the creature’s movement through the air became less controlled, causing the rabbit to smash directly into a frozen Chef’s breastplate. It then fell to the ground unceremoniously. After a few moments, Chef began to move slightly, just to make sure this wasn’t some elaborate ploy. After that, he gave it a couple of soft kicks just to see if it moved.

His poison knocked it out. The fight was over. He didn’t die. He won.

Huh.

There was a slurry of emotions in his mind after this experience, not the least of which was surprise. But while Chef was by no means an expert in everything, poison was a tool he had been using almost since birth. The improvements from his training session and new techniques were something he hadn’t gotten to test. What’s more, he had actually done something pretty smart.

After baiting and poisoning creatures for the past few weeks, he realized that not every poison worked the same. Not surprisingly, a poison that was meant to kill outright was more easily resisted than one meant to incapacitate. And so, when Chef made his super poison, he made them to primarily knock out whoever inhaled in, secondarily cause hallucinations, and only thirdly to cause direct damage. A weaker creature without proper resistances and Health would likely die to even that, but something stronger, say a rabbit who’d been eating lots of poisoned creatures lately, would still be knocked out from it.

Kicking the monster one last time, Chef gave a weak shrug and unsheathed his knife. Heating the blade as much as he could, he stabbed into its neck.

*Ping*

Congratulations! You have killed something!

Congratulations! You have become Chef/Baker[73]!

…

Congratulations! You have become Chef/Baker[84]!

Congratulations! You have learned Summon Egg!

Difficulty didn’t matter for class levels, just kill participation. An enormous influx of levels was only to be expected when killing something so much higher leveled than him. He understood that much. Really, he did.

Huh.

Chef just didn’t know how to feel about it.