{Edited} The Tiger's Bourbon - Chapter 6 (Patreon)

EDITED - August 7th, 2026

Chapter 6: Dao Of The Frying Pan

A croak was Axel's only warning before the beast's tongue launched forward with the force equivalent of a cannonball, striking his barrier and pushing him back again. "Fucking hell.”

The frog hybrid didn't respond and instead reeled its tongue back at a third of the speed it shot out, but even that was fast enough to pull it back in the blink of an eye. 

A focused flick of Axel's hand raised a ball of water from the pool, shaping it into a crescent before it launched at the creature from the side.

Yet it managed to notice, slithering around the root it was perched on, dodging the slice as the water dug into the wood and dissipated.

'Slippery fucker.' Focusing with both hands, Axel used one to lift another ball of water to shape into a slice while he used the other with two-pointed fingers to imagine a tentacle that he launched at the creature, successfully wrapping around its tail. 'Try this.'

The water slice flew at it, yet feet away, the hybrid thrashed and escaped the weak bind to dodge, Axel’s inexperience in his water manipulation showing.

‘Fine.’ Reaching into his item box, Axel pulled out his frying pan and kitchen knife. ‘If I can’t hit you at range, I’ll just come up there and stab you.’

Crouching low to keep behind his barrier, Axel took off at a dash just as the hybrid's head faced back toward him.

A croak sounded out once more, and a preemptive sidestep had him watching the tongue fly past his side, the sheer force blowing his wet hair back. 'Not hard to dodge if you time it right.'

He didn't even try slicing the fleshy appendage with the speed it reeled in.

He reached the pool in a few steps and imagined water shooting out of his feet, yet Axel underestimated the force as he launched forward and realized he had overshot the beast just as he heard another croak. 'Fuck.'

Eyes widening, Axel realized his barrier wasn't in the right spot and had no time to think.

With an action that surprised himself, he kicked off the barrier like a billiard ball to change direction and dodge the cannon tongue by a hair's breadth, coming right at the creature's head before it had a chance to reel its tongue back in.

Acting on instinct more than thought, Axel swung with his dominant hand, not realizing it was the one holding his frying pan until it had already swung. Yet he had nothing to worry about, as in the next moment, a soul-satisfying gong rang out, with the sight and feel of the hybrid's skull crunching inward.

“Wooo!" Axel gave a victory shout as dings rang in his ears, and he fell to the water with a splash, coming up a second later and pulling himself ashore before he collapsed on his back, panting heavily. "That was intense."

Unlike the beetles, Axel felt the danger of the hybrid, especially at the end.

He eyed his barrier floating a few feet away in interest. 'Didn't know I could do that.' He never dismissed the thing at the end of the fight, so it followed him. 'Probably should have kept it on while I was in the water anyway.’

His body shook with adrenaline, excitement, pain, and something he wasn't even aware was a thing until now. Looking down at the frying pan still in a white-knuckled grip, Axel felt like he had found love at first sight.

That gong was pure bliss. A strike with all his fucks given all at once. And it spoke a single truth to his heart, almost to the level of his passion for cooking. 'I want to hit more stuff with a frying pan.'

Axel had to wonder if it was what enlightenment felt like in those Chinese stories he had read occasionally during kitchen breaks. ‘The Dao of the Frying Pan? Dao of the Pan? Dao of Force? I’ll just go with Dao of Frying Pan.’

His amusing thoughts distracted him enough to work through the adrenaline to check out his system notifications.

[Serving Tray has reached level 4]

[Frying Pan Proficiency has reached level 4]

[Frying Pan Proficiency has reached level 5]

[Water Generation has reached level 3]

[Water Manipulation has reached level 4]

[Water Manipulation has reached level 5]

[Dimensional Chef has reached level 4.]

[Dimensional Chef has reached level 5. One SP rewarded.]

'See, even the system agrees it was enlightenment.' Axel chuckled tiredly and waved away the notifications. 'What the hell was that thing, anyway?'

Not bothering to get up, he pulled out his trusty book and looked through it. 'Hm, Snake Frog, is it? Name’s kinda on the nose there.' He kept reading, and his eyes widened in shock. 'It’s worth how much?!'

Snake Frog had a capture level of 1 and was described as a true glass cannon. It was extremely weak in defense but highly specialized in its offensive tongue attack, which could splatter a grown man's head if hit above water. On the ground, it was slow as a snail, but using the wet roots of the mangrove trees, it became capable of moving in quick bursts to dodge even bullets.

All of that was interesting on its own, but he had already figured most of it out during his fight. No, what really interested him was the price of its meat. '100 grams goes for 3.6K yen. An adult Snake Frog weighs around 90kg…'

Axel's mind did the math in a flash. 'That's over 3 million yen for a single body. And that's not even counting the liver, which is said to be a delicacy.'

He sat up in a heartbeat and stared lovingly at the floating corpse with a disgusting, dented face, nearly shedding a tear in joy at the windfall that came his way. 'I forgive you.'

No longer did he see a simple Madame Umbridge upon looking at it; she was far too poor to be that worthy. No, he now saw Madame Umbridge holding the key to the Malfoy secret vault, a vault that would give him the money he needed to buy everything his heart desired.

Axel was on his feet in a heartbeat, his kitchen knife at the ready. "Come to Papa, it's time to level up my aquatic butchering skill-."

His words cut out as a massive pincer larger than his entire body reached out of the water like the claw from an arcade game, grabbing his hard-earned prize, and quickly retreated beneath the water.

It was gone in a blink, leaving Axel standing there in his mud and blood-covered shorts with a knife raised like a lunatic in a horror movie.

His frozen form slowly melted from the sheer wrath that began radiating off his form. "You . Did . Not . Just . Fucking . Do . That."

Vapor roiled off him with the fury of a raging storm. “GET BACK HERE YOU SON OF A BITCH!”

He dove straight in with an explosion of water without a single fuck given for the size of the creature that stole his prize.

Something was getting brutally murdered and eaten, and it wasn’t gonna be him. 

0000

‘Dick.’ Axel grumbled and pushed himself ashore, flipping off the pool of water behind him. ‘A little stab to its eye and the coward digs itself into the soil to hide. You were ten times my size, bitch.’

An hour had passed since his hunt began, and Axel was done with the specific pool. He had played tag with a giant fish that had lobster arms for that entire time as the thing ate his Snake Frog, and he was ready to consider it a lost cause when it quite literally stuck its head in the sand.

'At least I got some consolation prizes.' Axel opened his Item Box to examine its contents, thanking whatever gave him the skill that it still worked just fine underwater.

During his chase, plenty of smaller creatures got in the way and were taken out by either him with a frying pan boosted by water manipulation, much to his growing satisfaction, or by the charging tank of a fish running from him.

Beer Lobster. A brown-shelled fat lobster with meat said to have just the right amount of salty flavor to be a perfect match for a cold beer.

Striped Salmon. A forty-kilogram salmon with blue-striped pattern scales and a white underbelly. According to the book, one in a few hundred produced golden caviar, a type of caviar so delectable it went for twenty thousand yen for a measly ten grams. In contrast, the richest caviar back on Earth, Beluga, went for the equivalent of half that price for ten grams.

Boneless Mackerel Pike. A little fish barely two hundred grams in weight lacking any bones in its body, much like a mollusk.

Spring Onion Crab. A green-shelled crab with legs resembling spring onions, said to be overflowing with rich onion-flavored crab meat.

All of them had descriptions in the Beast Encyclopedia with warnings that while all had a capture level of about 1, the actual difficulty came from catching them without running into the more aggressive wildlife living in the ponds.

A fact that Axel ignored as he chased the more aggressive wildlife.

‘I’ll play with all of you a bit later.’ Axel practically whispered to his catches as he got dressed. ‘I want to get deeper in before I stop to try you all. Besides, I have something else to chew on while I walk.’

Sitting comfortably in his Item Box next to his stash of Daikon horns were around two dozen thumb-sized low-quality Emerald Candies.

Rather than sell them, Axel found them far more valuable as his mana batteries. 'I can always aim to collect a few mid-quality stones to sell if I really want to.'

The depths that Luke had mentioned the mid-quality Emerald Candies grew at didn't seem as daunting to Axel's mind after the last hour. 'That fat lobster fish bastard might have been aggravating, but it did give me plenty of ideas to improve my survivability underwater.'

Looking to the corner of his vision, he pulled up the blinking notifications.

[Item Box has reached level 3]

[Frying Pan Proficiency has reached level 6]

[Water Manipulation has reached level 6]

[Water Manipulation has reached level 7]

[Dimensional Chef has reached level 6.]

‘Seems I’m on the right path.’

While the current manipulation skill was relatively weak and mana-intensive above water, Axel quickly found that its actual worth lay underwater, where he could manipulate the world around him to a far higher degree for a much lower mana cost.

It wasn’t defensive quite yet, but that didn’t mean he didn’t figure out a few tools to add to his arsenal that he was eager to try out. ‘Luke said the Inner Area had pools up to two hundred meters deep.’

He had another goal added to his list now, and despite the growing list, all of his objectives were in the same direction.

‘Daikon Beetle horns, Snake Frog meat, mid-quality Emerald Candies, more seafood I haven’t found yet, and those elusive Sakeyashi fruits.’

His goals pointed due north, and Axel wasted no time in taking off at a jog with his trusty cast-iron frying pan in hand.

The path north grew denser with plant life as he progressed.

The trees grew taller, the water fell from greater heights, the thick cover of branches above rose higher and grew darker, with sunlight no longer shining through, and the pools grew broader and brighter.

The magical land gained a hint of danger with a growing dread that slowly sent chills down the back of the bravest hunters.

The screeches of creatures echoed louder, more ear-piercing, and more violent.

The croaks of amphibians rang from all around, creating a dizzying combination of sounds to distract and disorient the most alert mind.

Occasional species jumped up out of the water to feast on buzzing insects at random, causing the high-strung to twitch on every occasion.

As the world grew wilder and one journeyed deeper towards its center, it began to show its fangs, earning it the fierce reputation that only veteran gourmet hunters dared to challenge.

And then there was Axel.

"Fucking mosquitoes." He slapped at them with his frying pan.

While on the trail of his target, nothing could penetrate his thick skull to divert his focus. Nothing aside from danger or mosquitoes, anyway. "Why won't you die!"

He used every ounce of his understanding of the Dao of the Frying Pan, yet the vile creatures seemed immune to his holy power. 'It's like they study the Dao of being an asshole. Wait, why am I trying to hit them?'

Axel felt like an idiot as he made a mist rise from his skin and watched as the fuckers fell away from him with wet wings. ‘Ah, much better.’

He stopped to slap them all with his pan.

His journey north was more like the adventure of a fearless kitten. Axel knew he was a predator in the making, but his fangs and claws had yet to truly grow in, not that he let such a thing quench his spirit. 

And while the journey itself was eye-pleasing and energizing, Axel quickly grew bored with the jog. 'Maybe I can stir up something interesting in the pools?'

Picking up various stones, Axel made a game of tossing them at the pools he passed, seeing if he could wake up some ancient horror that would be worth some money.

Yet, much to his dissatisfaction, nothing came up to challenge him. 'I was hoping I could tempt another Snake Frog to a fight. Maybe I just need to get deeper. Yeah, let's get out of the Outer Area first.’

He picked up his pace and slowly noticed a few new additions to the environment.

Beautiful emerald-glowing fireflies began appearing in greater numbers, dancing through the air in neon patterns as they floated above the pools of luminous water.

The book said they weren't edible and were merely valued as decorations, so Axel didn't bother going after them; he only stopped to poke at them for fun, covering his hand in a thin layer of water and letting them crawl over his fingers like a kid at summer camp as he read they were flammable.

Dark spots, areas between the larger trees where no water fell, began appearing more frequently, and Axel easily noticed the dozens of bright red eyes hiding within its depths. ‘Nope.’

The book identified them as Swallowtail Bats, capture level 2 creatures with a thirst for blood that swarmed weak creatures and injected them with a type of Hemotoxic venom that didn't let blood clot.

Thankfully, they feared light, and a simple lighter he threw in his Item Box came in use when Axel covered it with a film of water to amplify the light, making them retreat in fearful screeches. 'No real interest in hunting it if it's not seafood.’

He stopped reading as soon as he saw that they were inedible.

His journey north was uneventful, and he was left to his suffering of having to run unmolested while munching on Emerald Candy to refill his mana pool and play with his barriers.

0000

Elsewhere in the Emerald Lagoon's inner area, a trio of experienced Gourmet Hunters were just beginning to settle down for the night around a campfire.

Thick camouflage tarps hid their campsite inside a hard-to-find crevice in one of the mangrove trees, the area around them sprayed with a scent known to deter wandering predators.

“Alright, team, let's get dug in.” Luke clapped his hands and directed his team. “Nathan, get on butchering those Swallowtail Bats. That spice is hard to come by and is worth nearly 10K yen a gram.”

The large chef saluted as Luke turned to their gunner.

“Sam, get the rest of those repellent candles set up. I don't want more Sea Fireflies getting close. Damn things burn through cloth and skin like acid when they get agitated. I'll work on prepping the few Boneless Mackerel Pikes we got lucky to catch."

"The pikes that SAM managed to catch, right Luke?" The sweet and pain-promising voice of his companion had Luke cringe. "It's not like either of you risked diving into that water to play tag with fish that Wouldn't . Stay . Still."

“Isn’t that what the net was for?” Luke weakly defended.

Sam damn near snapped said net. "You have to get close to use the net, Luke! And it kept getting tangled in the tree roots."

“Calm.” The gentle yet strongly heard voice of the behemoth chef reached the other two as Nathan gestured with a hand, not taking his eyes off his own work. “Appreciate effort, Sam.”

The gunner drooped with a sigh. "Right, sorry, guys. Being underwater is not my thing. Salt water makes my hair all frizzy and stings my eyes like a bitch."

Luke sent Nathan a thankful nod and addressed his partner. "Sorry, Sam, you know you're the best one of us to go down. Nathan sinks like a stone, and all my armor weighs me down too much to do any good. Better that we stand guard at the ready and pull on your rope if anything happens down there."

"Yeah, yeah." Sam rolled her eyes while using a towel to pat down her hair. "Send the sniper down under, wonderful. Next time, we're going back to the prairie or mountains where I can actually snipe something."

“You can still snipe stuff here, you know.” Luke offered.

"Oh really? Do you mean the giant Bush Tigers and Bat Snakes that inhabit the inner area and love ambushing unsuspecting prey?” Sam asked sarcastically, wiping off her sunglasses. “Or are you referring to the truck-sized dinosaurs that hunt prey in packs? You realize this is a rainforest lagoon, right?"

Sam's sarcasm struck Luke's points like a hammer to pinky fingers, and he could only wince with each strike. "Ok, fair point. But as long as we move slow, quiet, and aware, it's not that hard to spot them from afar before they notice us."

"True." Sam admitted with a grimace. "Still hard to make a meaningful hit. Why are we this deep in again? We could have just explored the Outer Area and stalked some pools till a Snake Frog showed its ugly head. A single shot from my baby, and we're set."

She stroked the barrel of her custom sniper rifle. A personal project of hers that combined with her keen eye, could snipe a slippery Snake Frog before it even knew what hit it.

“You know why.” Luke grunted as he tossed the fish guts outside into the water. “We were hired to do a job, and until we find the Cocovine fruit, we’re gonna be stuck running around.”

“I don’t recall those being in the Emerald Lagoon Capture List.”

“That’s cuz they’re not.” Luke pulled out a file with an IGO stamp and tossed it over. “Seems the Heavenly King Toriko came through a few weeks ago and discovered it in the area. Didn’t say where exactly but the file says he mentioned they were in the Inner Area.”

"Luke." Sam's smile was not kind. "What do you mean 'somewhere'? It would take us over a month to comb just one section." 

“I’m aware.”

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.” Luke chuckled. “The buyer is paying triple the market price.”

“…” Sam bit her cheek and sagged. “Fine. But I’m choosing the next job.”

“Fine by me.” Luke shrugged.

"Dinner’s ready." The steady voice of their chef rang out, and both hunters dropped their discussion.

Money or food solved most arguments in the world of Gourmet Hunting.

Gnawing on her fish, Sam noticed Luke lost in thought and elbowed her long-time friend. "What's on your mind? Still thinking about that newbie?"

"That easy to read?" Luke rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, newbies always rush into danger and don't often get lucky enough to come out alive or in one piece. Axel seemed like a nice guy under his dull exterior; I just feel a pit in my stomach thinking about him dying out there, all alone."

"You big softie." Sam rolled her eyes and punched Luke's chest lightly. "He's a grown man, and despite his lack of supplies, he seemed in well enough shape to survive the edges of the Outer Area. Plus, he said he's a seafood chef, so he'll probably stick to the first pool he finds and hope to get lucky."

Luke nodded at her points but still hummed in thought. “He seemed pretty adamant about getting his hands on Sakeyashi fruit.”

A scoff escaped her. “Ha, he’ll probably see reason at the first sight of a Pincer Fish and call it a day.”

“I hope so.” Luke’s instincts said otherwise. “I really do.”

A grunt from their third member had Luke and Sam look into Nathan's surprisingly firm eyes. "Chef. Strong. Will succeed."

Luke and Sam matched uncertain gazes before ultimately shrugging.

"Whatever you say, big guy." Sam chuckled and tossed her empty fish stick in the campfire.

"Yeah. Best to focus on the job to keep my mind from wandering.” Luke agreed. “Hand me the file, Sam. I want to go over the rumors again to narrow down our search."

“You really think we’ll find the Cocovine that easily?” Sam passed it over with a skeptical tone. “No one even mentioned it before the Heavenly King came through. And the hunters are pretty thorough in this hunting area.”

“Who knows, one can’t use common sense when talking about the Heavenly Kings.” Luke spoke from long experience. “Those four aren’t human.”

Sam could only purse her lips in agreement. “Did Toriko say anything else about where to find it?”

“Mhm.” Luke pointed to the page. “All he said was to explore the trees.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Sam raised a brow. "The mangrove trees? What is there to explore?”  

Luke rubbed his chin. “They’re not underwater, are they? The report says it grows out of the water. Vines usually grow around branches."

"There's nothing in the branches besides predators.” Sam gripped her gun at the memory. “We checked."

“We’re going to have to check all options.” Luke gave her an apologetic look that had Sam throwing her arms up.

“I hate this job.”

“We know.” Luke chuckled.

Sam grumbled. “What do they even look like again?”

Luke held up a picture. “Oval-ish mahogany coconuts.”

0000

“What the hell are these things?”

Axel held up an oval-ish mahogany coconut in confusion.

“These things weren’t in the encyclopedia, were they?” Axel scratched his head.

He looked around the chamber he discovered inside a mangrove tree while chasing down a Snake Frog.

The thing fell for Axel's masterful temptation trick of a thrown stone, but for some reason, it fled in terror when Axel charged it with a bloodthirsty aura and a frying pan raised high.

The thing disappeared under the water and led Axel up into the center of the tree, into a grove only accessible from under the water.

When Axel came up for air, instead of finding his prey, he found a series of tunnels next to a bunch of hanging vines thick with mahogany-colored coconut-looking fruits.

'There's around a hundred of these things; should I take them all?' Axel looked between the fruit in his hand and the rest. 'Might as well. A fruit shake sounds like a nice addition to the menu.’

With a casual shrug, he plucked them like a farmer with an apple tree and tossed them lazily into his Item Box. 'Well, I'm not fitting into those tiny ass snake tunnels to get my Snake Frog, so better go back out.'

With a final middle finger to the tunnels, Axel left and continued his journey. He had been moving for close to two hours and finally came up on a sign that signaled the divide.

{WARNING: EMERALD LAGOON INNER AREA AHEAD. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.}

'Hm, it has that big IGO stamp.’ Axel pinched his chin and sized it up. ‘Nice of them to put up signs all the way out here, probably helps keep people cautious.'

With a nod of appreciation for the hard-working company, Axel proceeded forward with a complete lack of caution. 'Now, where the hell is my liquor fruit?'

A jaunty whistle followed his steps as he moved into a larger world with half a dozen eyes locking onto the fresh prey.

‘This area seems a lot more peaceful.’ Axel breathed deep and smiled. ‘Don’t even see a single mosquito.’

Chapter end.