{Edited} The Tiger's Bourbon - Chapter 7 (Patreon)

EDITED - August 7th, 2026

Chapter 7: What Not To Do With A Frying Pan

‘Mistakes have been made.’ An explosion of dirt had Axel diving into an elegant roll before continuing to run for his life.

A hasty duck saved his head as the air was sliced apart by razor-sharp claws that were only mostly blocked by his barrier floating behind his back as an enraged feline yowl rang out behind him.

He smacked aside a tail seeking to trip him with his frying pan and kept running. “Will you give it a rest already?!”

~ 7.8 minutes earlier ~

‘The Inner Area seems a lot more peaceful.’ Axel breathed deep and smiled. ‘Don’t even see a single mosquito.’

He whistled happily and walked forward, thinking happy thoughts about the fruit he was hunting until a shake of the ground had him stumble slightly. “Is that an earthquake?”

The shaking earth didn’t only seem a surprise to himself, as the branches almost directly above Axel shook roughly, and a large feline fell from its stalking position with a chirp of surprise.

It landed almost gently on its feet, practically a foot away from Axel’s face, leaving him staring into the dilated slit eyes of a giant turquoise-furred tiger at least four meters tall and six meters long with teeth like a Sabertooth that was as equally confused by the current face-off as Axel was.

“…”

“…”

Axel smacked it in the nose with his frying pan.

“…”

“…”

His mind pictured a big red [-1] floating off the beast's head as its eyes narrowed.

Coughing into a fist, Axel calmly explained the misunderstanding. “That’s how people say hello in my culture.”

~ Back to the present ~

In hindsight, Axel realized he shouldn’t have hit it with his frying pan.

But in his defense, it was already a built-in automatic response to surprises after his first few fights, and he kinda liked smacking things with his frying pan.

Another swipe on his barrier almost knocked him off his feet. “I said ‘My bad’! Go bother someone else!”

Axel followed the code of apology, but the beast’s roar seemed to say it didn’t accept that answer.

The tiger was gaining on him, yet Axel felt surprisingly calm.

He turned, vanishing his barrier right before the claw would sink into it, causing the tiger to overextend its face right into swinging range of his frying pan.

A dull gong rang out, and Axel got a first-row seat to his trusty cast iron frying pan being dented inward from hitting one of the tiger’s teeth.

It reared back in a roar of shock rather than pain while Axel was left gripping a throbbing wrist that felt all of the reverberations from his strike.

‘My pan.’ Axel felt heartache.

Both members of the current chase had a moment to match gazes, once more left in a weird position.

“…”

“…”

Axel resummoned his barrier and took off running without another word as the tiger continued its chase, both concluding to forget that moment ever happened. 

Cradling his sore wrist, Axel decided it wasn’t the Dao but his intrusive thoughts that won that fight. ‘Still need a plan here.’

He ran between the trees with little care for where he was going, only to catch sight of something white out of the corner of his eye. 'YES!'

He changed course with zero hesitation while the tiger was far too focused on him to pay attention to its surroundings.

They soon crossed the fifty-meter range, and Axel picked up on the faint sound of buzzing.

At forty meters, he saw them coming out of holes in the tree in the dozens.

At thirty meters, he summoned a ball of water to his hand and made it explode in a cloud of mist before abruptly using his barrier to slingshot himself in a different direction.

The tiger only snapped out of its focus when it ran headfirst into the vapor. Still, it was too late, as in the next moment Axel heard the satisfying sound of the bug ballista hitting flesh.

“Ha-Ha!” Axel raised his dented frying pan in a salute. “This is the day you will always remember as the day you almost- HOLY SHIT, THEY’RE COMING MY WAY!”

The only way to describe the following scene was as if a drunk soldier with an impenetrable cafeteria tray was running from an M2 Browning 50-Cal machine gun manned by the French.

In other words, they mostly missed.

But the insect bullets that did hit were slamming into his barrier without pause, with each blast hitting a different area of the barrier, throwing off his balance just a bit more each time and causing him to stumble blindly in a giant dust cloud kicked up by the barrage.

Only the forethought to reach out and grab his kitchen knife gave Axel the dexterity boost to stay on his feet, but even then he was on a tightrope with each second feeling like an eternity.

Notification dings were appearing one after another in his ears, but the sound was practically drowned out by the armada of insect shells.

And this time it wasn't as simple as letting them run into his barrier, for they were landing all around him, shooting shrapnel of shell pieces and daikon shards in giant dirt clouds that flew into his sides.

“Fuck. OW! Shit. I’m not gonna die to this! I won’t die to fucking daikons!” In his desperation, Axel generated water beneath his feet and did his best to imagine a waterjet, his mana pouring into the act before an explosion of water thrust him up at an angle, flying ass over kettle out of the beetles' firing range.

The sky became the ground, and the ground became the sky in a dizzying cycle, but Axel breached the fifty-meter danger zone.

“Ha! Take that, daikons!” He laughed triumphantly. ‘Now, how do I get down?’

He was high in the air and about to free-fall towards a pool of water that would most certainly feel like hitting concrete at 50mph from ten stories in the air. 'Wait! I know what to do.’

Dismissing his barrier, Axel quickly resummoned it directly beneath him and crouched on it like a surfboard.

The wind whistled in his ears as his descent began to slow rapidly before he found himself clinging to a floating barrier two feet wide and four feet long, a little over three stories above the water.

‘Huh, that actually worked.’ Axel flopped on the barrier and mentally patted himself on the back. ‘Of course it was going to work.’

During his hours-long jog, Axel occasionally experimented with his barrier to see what else he could do with it after kicking off the thing during his first fight with the Snake Frog.

At the time, he learned he could stand on it and command it to move, but that was only a foot off the ground, and unless he wanted to move a hair faster than a snail, it cost a good chunk of mana to speed it up.

But now he took a shot in the dark and confirmed that he could stop his momentum completely if he used it to resist gravity. ‘I knew this was the right skill to choose, barriers for the win.’

[Serving Tray reached level 5]

[Serving Tray reached level 6]

[Water Generation reached level 4]

‘Guess I didn’t get the kill on the tiger.’ Sitting a good thirty feet in the air, Axel looked down and whistled at the sight of the massive tiger being turned into bloody pulp by a barrage of Daikon Beetles. ‘Those little dudes seem the type to fight God for half a bagel.’

Panting, bleeding from dozens of shrapnel cuts, and thoroughly exhausted from all the running, Axel sat on the edge of his barrier with his feet swinging in the air and pulled out some Daikon horns and Emerald Candy to hydrate and recover some mana while watching the show.

The tiger did its best to fight back, but the aggressive insectoids didn’t quit until the beast went still. And even when it stopped fighting back, a few seemed to still take a shot regardless.

"Brutal." His voice came out in a whisper, yet a dozen of the bugs turned their gazes his way.

Axel’s hands flew up in a gesture of peace since he was well out of the fifty-meter range. Still, he noticed the bugs weren't looking at him directly, but rather at his hand, which held a half-eaten Daikon horn.

His eyes slowly went from his hand and back to the buzzing bugs staring unkindly at his hand before he dramatically pointed the half-eaten daikon forward.

“The tiger moved!”

The second they turned; Axel flipped them off and swan-dove.

He escaped into the water just as he heard the telltale whooshing of incoming shells.

‘Why do I keep antagonizing things willing to kill me?' He idly dodged the slowed insects, watching the fish rise to feast. 'Do I do this to everybody?’

Somewhere else in the Inner Area, Luke sneezed.

'Meh, probably not.' Axel shrugged and relaxed in the safety of the water, avoiding the fresh war happening in front of him as the insects’ natural predators prospered.

Down under, Axel could finally sigh in relief and float, feeling the true weariness of his body from the hours of activity. ‘A chef’s life really is a battlefield.’

He chuckled at how fitting that quote was until he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to match gazes with the slowly waking eyes of a Snake Frog clinging to a tree root.

“…”

“…”

Bubbles burst out around Axel’s body as his eyes narrowed into slits while the Snake Frog shivered at a demonic phantom image of a hissing feline that seemed to grow out of Axel’s form.

It turned tail without a moment of hesitation.

‘GET OVER HERE!’ Exhaustion was forgotten as Axel shot after it, utilizing his waterjet step to close the distance while simultaneously launching ropes of water at his foe, not unlike a certain Mortal Kombat character: 'Water Lock!'

He even named his attack in the sheer determination to lock down his target. He was rewarded as he gained a firm hold on the slippery reptile.

Yet this time, he wasn’t the only one after the particular prey, and Axel went unaware of a curious pair of baby blue eyes watching with interest as Axel manipulated the water as a weapon.

Axel’s teeth bared in a growl as he stared at his prey with manic eyes. ‘Your flesh is mine!’

He pulled both hands back like yanking on a firm rope, spun around, and performed a magnificent drop kick straight to the beast’s back, feeling its spine shatter under his blow just as his mana hit empty and his manipulations faded. ‘Finally I-’

His hand was a bare foot away from grabbing the money bag before a burst of heated water smacked into him from the side. He could only watch in despair as something else snatched his prize for the umpteenth time. ‘ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!’

Mana or not, Axel was fueled by pure spite as he grabbed the nearest tree root and pulled himself along like a demented water spider with his black hair spread wildly.

Feline pupils turned to regard Axel as he clawed his way up before widening in fear as the thief picked up speed toward the same type of hidden cove Axel had found the coconut fruits in earlier that day.

It shot another burst of heated water his way, something Axel realized was more a burst of steam than water, but Axel wasn’t going to be deterred this time and smashed straight through even as he felt his skin burn from the heat.

‘Get.’ He yanked himself closer with cracking fingernails. ‘Back.’ He reached forward as they approached the waterline. 'Here.' His muscles pulled taut. 'WITH.' The thief leaped out of the water with Axel directly behind it like a shadowed phantom. “MY CATCH!”

His hand closed around the thief's tail as he went tumbling onto the wooden interior of the alcove, getting both himself and his target tangled in fruit vines.

“Got you.” Axel groaned out and pulled the tail, rearing back his frying pan to attack his foe before pausing as a single soft sound reached his ears.

“Meow.”

His hand paused inches from a face that even Axel, in all his rage-fueled battle lust, couldn't help but freeze at.

Bright baby blue eyes stared innocently into Axel’s stormy dark blue ones.

“A kitten?”

It suddenly held its paws to its nose, and Axel idly picked up a pungent scent covering the two of them.

“What is…” His eyes widened as he looked down and saw what was in the vines they got tangled up in. “Sakeyashi fruit?!”

0000

Just as Axel was getting acquainted with his little thief, an IGO helicopter was landing in the Emerald Lagoon starting town.

Yet it wasn’t the passenger who stepped out, but the pilot.

Dressed in a full-body black suit with dark sunglasses, hair slicked back without a single thread out of place, a pale-skinned man over six feet tall with a no-nonsense appearance marched over to the awaiting soldiers. 

“Vice-Chief Johannes, Sir!” The soldiers on duty saluted him as he waved them down and pushed his way through to the communications building.

Each and every soldier they passed stood straight as he passed, respect in their eyes as the suited man walked through.

“Report.” When the man spoke, all IGO employees were to answer.

Vice-Chief Johannes, below the President and Vice-President of the IGO, the committee, and the various Bureau Department heads, was the top agent. He only took direct orders from the committee while dealing with important Gourmet Hunters, organizational management, and changes in environmental hazards.

“Sir! The tremors have increased in intensity again." The soldier swallowed. "Reports have come in that the Hipposhark, Capture Level 9, was the next to fall.” 

Johannes’s face hardened at the news. “Damn. We were hoping for an aquatic ruler this time.”

The two soldiers following behind exchanged an uncomfortable look. “Sir, can’t we call in Heavenly King Toriko to deal with this?”

“Yeah, he caused this mess.” The other offered.

Johannes shot them a look over his shoulder that silenced their complaints. “The Heavenly King was hired to take down the Emerald Crystal Serpent causing problems of its own." He would not declare blame on one of IGO's favored hunters, justified or not. “Be glad we only have to deal with the aftermath of the top of the food chain being removed and not that monster.”

Neither of the soldiers had anything to say to that and marched in nervous silence.

Yet it was Johannes who was internally worried as he moved. ‘Despite Toriko taking down the previous alpha predator, he confirmed that it was heavily injured before he even arrived.’ His sunglasses flashed ominously. “Which is probably why it was rampaging in the first place. This area is vital for Gourmet City’s economy; I can only hope whatever wandering predator appeared had already moved on.”

The Emerald Lagoon was accessible from an incredibly large area, and its unique magnetic properties made it impossible to monitor electronically from the interior. Any migrating predator could have swooped in and left with them none the wiser, leaving them to deal with the mess.

Johannes arrived at the center and pushed through the door to the command room.

“Vice-Chief.” A grizzled veteran hunter, turned IGO member, smoking a cigar, met him at the back of a room full of technicians. "They send you out on every errand these days?"

“Captain.” Johannes met the man’s hand with a rough shake. "Only when things go pear-shaped, I'm afraid. I heard the Hipposhark went down."

“Yup. Real shame, I had money on that fat fucker.” The captain blew out some smoke with a shake of his head. “It’s come down to the final three candidates, and they are making a mess of things.”

The captain pointed to the monitors where reports were coming in. “We’ve got Central Area beasts fleeing to the edges, some even crossing to the Inner Area. The Daikon Beetle swarms have already mostly retreated to their Inner Area nests, making them twice as vicious and dangerous to approach as before. And the Inner Area beasts are all worked up. It’s a real mad house out there.” He glanced at Johannes. “It’s been building since the Heavenly King came through.”

“We expected a new fight for supremacy with the removal of the Emerald Crystal Serpent.” Johannes nodded. “But this has gone on longer than our estimations showed.”

“Bad luck is what it is.” The captain shrugged and pointed his cigar at the largest screen ahead, showing three different beasts. "We didn't expect so many top dogs to be around in the Central Area, biding their time for the Emerald Crystal Serpent to fall.”

A twelve-eyed, six-legged, giant frog.

[Soldier Frog, Capture Level 13]

A two-story-tall bipedal dragon-type beast with a pair of very small wings.

[Kuendon, Capture Level 12.]

A nearly two-story-tall bird-type beast with a round orange body and five long, thin necks. "And a wingless Gerold that must have wandered in from elsewhere.”

[Capture Level 14]

The cigar in the captain’s mouth burned bright as he clenched his teeth on it. “The Purple Horn went down last week to the Kuendon, and the Hipposhark lost the match to Soldier Frog a few hours ago.” He blew out smoke and shook his head. “Distant reports are saying the three winners are converging on the central mangrove tree, but until a winner comes out, it’s going to be chaotic out there.”

Johannes took in the situation for a moment before issuing orders. “I want you to call back any unaffiliated hunters within a four-hour radius.”

“You sure about that?” The captain winced. “That’s not gonna win us any brownie points with the press.”

“I couldn’t give a Banana-Gator for what they think.” Johannes glared. “I was against letting hunters out until the situation settled as it was, but the committee overruled me. Call the hunters back or their lives are in their own hands.”

The captain nodded and sent for his men to sound the fog horns. The sound traveled well through the Outer Area and was the best alert they could issue to call everyone back.

Meanwhile, Johannes turned to others to keep issuing orders. “Call the southern walls guard station and have the defensive cannons armed. We need our hunters on standby in case the Central Area beasts push the Inner Area ones out.”

Alarms sounded as IGO personnel began to make calls, spreading the commands.

Johannes gripped the railing. “Until the situation settles with a new Alpha, I want everyone on their toes. Be ready to launch rescue and containment operations until sunrise.”

A sweating employee looked up at the Vice-Chief and asked in concern. “And what of the hunters in the Inner Area?”

“Unless they can retreat far enough, they’re on their own.” The light reflected off Johannes' grim look. “Hopefully, anyone out there will be smart enough to notice the tremors and abandon their hunt.”

0000

“Hey, did the ground shake just now?” Luke groggily sat up from his sleeping bag and asked.

A sleepy answer came from Sam a few feet away, curled up in her own bag. “It’s probably just Nathan sleep talking again.”

Luke heard the answer, didn’t think much of it, and grunted before going back to sleep.

Yet neither realized that with both of them sleeping, it meant Nathan was on watch.

And over by the fire, Nathan was far more interested in cleaning his spatula than worrying about the odd phenomena.

The three were only getting a few hours of sleep before heading out again, and Nathan wouldn’t stand for his weapon being unsanitary.

0000

Meanwhile, while his surroundings grew ever more chaotic, Axel and his new friend were in their own little world.

“It’s sho good!” Axel shoveled food into his mouth like a man possessed.

“Row!” His new friend, the blue-furred kitten, agreed with him in spirit as it devoured a slab of meat three times its size.

Most of the Snake Frog was roasting over the coals of a firepit, idly being turned by Axel as he cut off more of the meat.

"This thing has no right being this tasty." Axel wasn't crying as he chewed; it was the smoke in his eyes.

He didn't plan to eat all of it; hell, he didn't plan to eat most of it, but soon after arriving in the hidden grotto, negotiations broke down against him.

~ Sixty-two minutes earlier ~

“Meow.”

“Half?! I did all the work.”

“Row!”

"Oh sure, you catch it, so that makes it yours."

Nod.

“I was being sarcastic! I killed it! You stole it!”

“Meow!”

“How is it my problem that you’re hungry?”

“Row.”

“What does being fluffy have anything to do with this discussion?”

Baby blue stubbornly stared into stormy blue as the man and feline stated their points, sitting on either side of the Snake Frog's corpse.

The area around them was cleared of vines, with a massive stack of Sakeyashi fruit safely piled to one side, allowing the two to sit comfortably and discuss things like refined gentlemen. 

“Meow.” The little thief who stole Axel’s catch smacked a mighty five-inch paw on the hide of the corpse.

"You want everything besides the head now? Might as well take my firstborn while you're at it!” Axel smacked the other side of the corpse’s hide to make his point. “You can’t even eat that much; you’re like a foot tall.”

“Reow!”

“Yes, yes, you’re still a growing whatever you are.”

The two had been going around in circles after they came crashing in, and after Axel tenderly and carefully stocked up on his precious liquor fruits while assuredly not whispering 'my precious’, he got a headache from arguing with how tired his body was.

Especially after that last hit by the steam-bending kitten.

The simple fact that a kitten could make steam, wasn't immediately trying to kill him after being caught, and contributed to him finding his booze were all strong motivators for why Axel was willing to talk this out in the first place.

"Alright, final offer." Axel held up a hand to stop the retort he could sense coming, and the kitten plopped its behind down and listened. "I'm a chef. I . Make . Tasty.” He pointed at the corpse. “We both eat tasty. Deal?”

If he couldn’t sell the damn thing, he was going to roast and eat it.

And even then, how much could a kitten eat?

The feline tilted its head in thought before nodding imperiously. It pushed the corpse over to Axel's side, almost knocking him over from how fast it was moved.

“You’re a strong little bugger, aren’t you?” Axel regained his balance and blinked. “Wait, was all this arguing you just waiting for me to offer to cook it?”

"Meow." Its chin rose proudly, and Axel could only huff in amusement.

He scratched behind its furry blue ears, watching as the tiny devil purred innocently and pushed into his hand like it wasn’t a thief who just negotiated its way into a free meal.

The kitten was relatively normal-looking, but even if one ignored the aqua-colored fur and scales underneath, the tiny little bat wings growing on its back told a different story.

Axel hummed as he observed it. “You got a name?”

It peered up at him and shook its head.

“How about Lucifer?” It was the first name that came to Axel’s mind, and it felt strangely fitting. “You’re a guy, right?”

“Row.” He chirped happily and touched a paw to the finger Axel held out.

"Well then, nice to meet you, Lucifer.” Axel grinned and shook the paw. “The name’s Axel. Now let’s have ourselves a meal, eh?”

It was a fateful meeting between a chef and a cat, and the multiverse would never be the same.

~ Back to the present ~

The corpse was strung up and butchered for meat, with everything besides the meat and liver going into the water to feed the aquatic life.

Axel thought that, with it being a snake and frog mix, the meat would be gamey, but it was, in fact, far more like the highest-quality chicken meat he'd ever tasted. It was bursting with natural oils and juices that sang to his taste buds like an angel's harp.

He just couldn’t stop eating, the liquor going down easy with a rich, mellow sweetness like fruit juice, right up until the proof caught up with him.

And for as small as the kitten was, he was right there matching Axel’s pace.

They got so competitive in their feast that Axel drunkenly activated his class benefit.

[Autophagy Activated]

The more Axel ate, the more his body rapidly healed and ached in one.

His cuts stopped bleeding and began scabbing over. His bruises faded slightly. And the sting he’d felt on his skin ever since pushing through that heated water attack at the end of his chase became a distant memory.

All that mattered was eating more, with the only stops being to cook, add spices, and crack open Sakeyashi fruit to go with the meal until the ache crawling through him faded entirely.

It was no longer a simple meal, but a party between two starving beasts that went on until the liquor hit like a truck.

“Reo. Ro. Mer.” Lucifer gestured as wide as it could with its paws.

“Ha! That’s wild.” Axel hiccupped, half fruit cup in hand, while holding his massive food baby belly.

“Reow." Lucifer was perched on a root by his side, slurping from his own fruit cup as he told a fascinating story about a fat fish he caught in the past, his exclamations playing out on the shadows glowing on the inner tree wall.

“Those blue ones, right?” Axel hiccupped. “Humans call them Striped Salmon. I haven’t tried one yet.”

“Reo!?” Lucifer looked shocked.

“Damn it, you’re right. I need to cook one!” His food belly was disregarded for the sake of trying fresh seafood.

Axel's new friend nodded eagerly and pushed more wood into the fire, reigniting the flames before the smoke hit his face, and he sneezed a cloud of steam.

“Whoa, you’re pretty smart.” Axel laughed at the display and patted the odd feline’s head. “Making steam is pretty cool. Are you like a Pokemon or somethin?”

“Meow.” Lucifer denied.

“Right. Cat. Makes perfect sense.”

The feline nodded imperiously before the movement caused him to fall on his side dizzily. Still, Axel was already ignoring it to pull out Striped Salmon from his Item Box. "The Snake Frog isn't enough; this feast is just getting started, Lucifer!"

“Reow!” Lucifer cheered from the ground.

Things only got wilder from there as one dish was roasted after another, with Axel pulling out his trusty backup frying pan when he wanted to mix things up.

‘Only a fool would leave home without a backup frying pan.’ Axel ingrained that lesson in his soul.

When they ran out of new stuff to try, the two dove back down without a care for their intoxicated states to find more.

The food seemed to melt into their tired bodies like a liquid, empowering their cells and filling them with energy.

It was during this time that a drunken Axel learned a few things.

"Hahaha, I'm a fish now!" Axel laughed with an air bubble around his head, stepping on waterjets to follow Lucifer, steam jetting the cat around a tree root in swirls.

"Come on, buddy, fight!" Axel cheered on the panicking Lucifer, being chased by a small group of Onion Crabs. "It's ok if crabs don't like you, just cook them!" His cheer had the drunken feline turning on the crustaceans with an unholy gleam of steam.

“I’ve always wanted to try break dancing.” Axel pulled off a dozen sharp movements back-to-back, the water pressure sliding off his body as he played with water manipulation to Lucifer’s supportive cheers.

“Ow! That stings.” Axel winced for the fifteenth time as he discovered the risk of using waterjet propulsion while drunk, smashing into every corner of the pool.

And worse, he managed to irritate almost every large predator that lived in the pool with his movements, starting a free-for-all battle royale between five different giant eels, some kind of weird hippo with an apple for a head, and a friendly neighborhood squid with machine-gun ink bullets.

Axel was drunkenly running for his life, swinging a frying pan wildly. At the same time, an unhelpful kitten clung to his head and egged him on further.

“Will you stop blowing steam at everything?!” Axel was ready to swing the kitten as a weapon from how it kept attacking everything they passed, almost making Axel sure there was some vengeful intent that had its own tale to tell.

In fact, Lucifer kept directing him toward Garlic Crabs. A type of crab known for expelling a scent that attracted predators to fight when startled so it could escape in the chaos.

It was a type of suicide ingredient to go after since, despite how weak they were, it turned the surrounding waters into a blood fest.

Lucifer not only grabbed them, but he shook them up like snow globes and threw them around like they were going out of style.

Axel even had to learn on the spot how to offset water pressure before the deeper waters crushed him like an egg, drunkenly using off-key imagination to shape a wedge around him for the pressure to flow.

And he was thankful for that trick for more than survival, because it gave him access to deeper ingredients like Lily Oysters, a type of high-class oyster that grew below a hundred and twenty meters.

Axel straight forwardly ignored the chaos above to dive down and grab as many as he could.

[Serving Tray reached level 7]

[Item Box reached level 4]

[Water Manipulation reached level 8]

[Water Manipulation reached level 9]

[Cooking reached level 3]

[Kitchen Knife Proficiency reached level 4]

[Frying Pan Proficiency reached level 7]

[Aquatic Butchering reached level 2]

[Aquatic Butchering reached level 3]

[Aquatic Butchering reached level 4]

[Dimensional Chef has reached level 7]

[Dimensional Chef has reached level 8]

By the time they came back, Axel’s Item Box was filled with goodies and the party continued.

“Oi, Lucifer, give me back my daikon!” Axel grabbed the stolen daikon, half-stuck in the cat’s teeth.

“Roew!” Lucifer resisted.

“Go get your own! I just peeled that one!”

“Ro!”

The grotto shook wildly, and the two tumbling occupants paused to look around.

“Buddy, did the world just shake or am I that drunk?” Axel looked at the cat.

“Reo.” Lucifer looked back.

The two shrugged and cracked open some more fruit.

“Want some more booze?”

A nod was his answer, and Axel poured a new cup.

The liquor was smooth as wine going down and overflowing with a sweet fruity flavor that was hard to get enough of. 

Yet even Axel, in all his drunken glory, knew he had to stay hydrated. “Uh…I think I’m out of daikons, Luc.” Axel scavenged in his Item Box to no avail. “I need some water.”

“Ro.” Lucifer pointed at the pool.

“I can’t drink that.” Axel loved water, but bacteria was scary shit. “I need fresh water.”

Lucifer tapped at Axel’s hand.

“Drink my own water?” Axel scrunched up his face. “That seems kinda gross. The water comes from inside me.” He wasn’t going to stop to ask where it came from. “I need more daikons.”

"Row?" His blue-furred friend rolled over in Axel’s lap with a questioning tone.

“Yeah, the white stick things full of water.” Axel explained as he rubbed the kittens head.

“Ro.” A nod showed the feline understood the mission at hand. He pointed a paw upward, and it was Axel’s turn to understand.

“Yeah, those bugs are spiteful little shits.” Axel wanted to flip them off again on principle. “At least a few dozen died to my barrier before I jumped in the water, so there’s gotta be a bunch of horns lying around.”

The logic seemed sound to his drunken mind.

“Meow.” Lucifer seemed to agree.

“Good. Enough time should have passed for things to calm down.” He brushed himself off and stood up. “You ready to go?”

“Reo.” He held up a paw before dunking it into his drinking bowl and slurping up the booze like a pro.

“Oh, smart, gotta fuel up.” Axel copied the gesture, with a tad more grace thanks to opposable thumbs.

The two hiccupped as one and stood tall on unsteady feet, stumbling over to the grotto’s water exit. “We gotta be quiet though.” Axel placed a finger to his cheek, missing his lips as he shushed. “Don’t spook the bugs, you hear?”

“Row.” Lucifer nodded and dove into the water with Axel right behind.

Water manipulation came naturally to him, allowing Axel to move like he was born to the element.

The two came up to the surface with the grace of stumbling ninjas, with Lucifer stuck to Axel’s head as the two rose slowly and looked around.

Nothing moved in their line of sight.

"I think the coast is clear." Axel whispered, and Lucifer agreed, yet the feline was far more subdued than normal and clung tightly to its perch.

Axel noticed and asked softly. “You don’t come up above the water often, Luc?”

“Ro.” Lucifer shook his head.

“Were you born in the water or something?” Axel asked curiously.

An uncertain chirp was his answer, but by then he reached the pool’s edge, getting a clear sight of the carnage left behind by his escape, and whatever other questions were forming in his head vanished.

The land was torn up like the sight of a WW2 battleground. And even as Axel watched, tree roots were inching toward the damaged area and filling in the holes at unnatural speeds. “Creepy tentacle roots.”

“Row.” Lucifer nodded.

Ignoring nature being scary, Axel searched for his prize, and his eyes lit up as he quickly spotted some reflecting light off their shiny white skins. "Look for the shiny, bud.”

“Reo.” Lucifer widened his eyes to search.

Like a farmer grazing his fields, Axel walked around the upturned earth with the grace of a newborn calf, picking up daikon horns wherever Lucifer directed him to. 'I've found a dozen, and I'm still out of the fifty-meter range. Stupid bugs. Stupid book not being accurate.’

Unfortunately, going around collecting horns also meant picking them from the smooshed gunk of dead insects, and Axel was far too intoxicated to have a steady stomach.

“I can’t. I can’t hold it. It’s too gross.” He bent over. “Uuhhhhh.”

If dying while smashing into Axel’s barrier wasn’t enough of a sad way to go for a particular beetle, now it could safely pass on to bug heaven knowing its corpse was drowned in vomit.

Sadly, the scent of Axel's vomit triggered Lucifer, who thankfully hopped off Axel's head and added his own mixture to the bug's friend, Steve.

Steve was known for having the shiniest shell of his age group. And now Steve was buried under a kitten’s vomit.

Lucifer, with his smaller body, was the first to recover and turn away from his mess, but that only meant he got a clear view of what had snuck up on the distracted duo. His pupils dilated as he tapped Axel’s leg. “Reo.”

“Uuu, I’m a bit…” Axel held his stomach. “Uuu…busy, bud.”

Lucifer picked up the pace and tapped his back urgently.

“Luc, not now.” Axel pushed him away.

The feline jumped up and smacked the back of Axel’s head.

“Dude, what?!” Axel turned in annoyance, only to stop and squint at what looked like a tree trunk right behind him. “When did we get close to the trees? Do tree trunks move now?”

He made some water and wiped his face before looking again, noticing it was, in fact, a giant clawed foot.

Axel’s gaze slowly went up from there. It kept going up, noticing the thick, scaled body, a swinging tail, and two short, stubby arms, before he reached a massive head full of grinning, razor-sharp teeth nearly three meters above his own head.

A thick glob of drool fell from its maw and landed a few feet away from the two frozen watchers with a loud plop.

While the group stared off, there were only two things that popped up into Axel’s mind.

The first was, obviously, a question. ‘Is that a fucking T-Rex with wings?’

The second was, sadly, a statement. ‘I still feel… Uuu.’

The second was followed by projectile vomit landing on the giant dino's foot that went on for a solid five seconds before Axel was done.

Lucifer looked at Axel in amazement.

“Ah~, so much better.” Axel wiped his mouth with a sleeve and blinked. “Wait, where am I?”

A tap to his head had him looking back up at a now far more irate-looking dinosaur. “Oh, right. T-Rex. Why does it look unhappy?”

A roar that blew both Axel and Lucifer back a dozen feet and would have splattered them with saliva if not for a hasty barrier was the only answer he received.

“Shit." Axel flipped back to his feet with surprising grace as the pissed-off T-rex roared. “We should probably run.”

"Ro!" Lucifer's voice came from the distance, already a dozen feet away from the pool.

“Not cool, Luc!” Axel took off after him, but sadly for the two, a second T-Rex walked into the clearing, blocking the way to the water. “Oh shit.”

Lucifer hissed and quickly retreated, running back to Axel and climbing up to his perch on his head.

Axel rolled his eyes. “Oh, now you come back.”

Lucifer sneezed a cloud of steam.

Twin roars from one very angry dino and its mate shook off a good chunk of Axel’s buzz. “And that’s our cue.”

Water pushed out from under his feet and launched him backward, the force propelling him into a run that made Axel recall his first entrance to the Inner Area. ‘Kinda feels nostalgic. If I wasn’t on the menu at least.’

“Reow!” Lucifer urged him to move faster.

“What are you complaining for? I’m the one running!” Axel grumbled as he ran between the trees.

“Ro!” The feline pointed at the charging beasts.

"It's the damn thing's own fault for sneaking up on me when I was puking." Axel defended.

“Reo!” Lucifer was looking behind them.

Axel winced. “Does it really look that angry?”

He turned to look over his shoulder and witnessed the angry dino smashing aside its larger mate to charge in a wrathful frenzy.

Axel realized he puked on the female. “She seems lovely.”

A tap to his head got him focusing back on keeping them alive.

Thankfully for the two, the heavy foliage and trees stopped the dinos from catching up too quickly, but unfortunately, it seemed the Emerald Lagoon was a bit chaotic at the moment.

“What the hell?” Axel ran in confusion.

Bush Tigers were roaring from trees they claimed.

Friday Monkeys were making a racket, all clumped up together by the hundreds in the branches and pelting anything that moved with stones.

Swarms of Daikon Beetles were fighting off intruders in thunderous armadas.

Swallowtail bat flocks were risking the light to drain the blood from anything that came close enough to the dark zones.

And Axel even caught sight of what he recognized from the book as Bat Snakes, a large, capture-level 3 ambush predator reptile that flew and loved to play with its food.

In fact, he didn’t just catch sight of one, but the same beast caught sight of him and slithered over excitedly.

“Reo!” Lucifer warned in fear.

“I see the giant flying snake, Luc!”

And he wasn’t the only one who saw it, for the charging dinos were hot on the snake's tail, just as the flying snake was hot on Axel’s tail. Its expression of sadistic glee soon turned to fear as it looked behind and saw the approaching dinos.

And so began a three-layer chase through an absolutely chaotic Emerald lagoon. “This place was not like this a few hours ago!”

“Reow!” Lucifer blamed Axel.

“You wanted the daikons too!”  

“Row.” The kitten drooped sadly and shivered as it looked around.

“I have no idea where we are, let alone where we just came from.” Axel admitted.

A whine came from the kitten as it clamped harder to his head, and despite the chaos, Axel did feel sorry for dragging it away from its safe little hole. "Don't worry, bud, I'll get us out of this."

Lucifer looked behind them at the conga line that seemed to grow with predators as they moved along and back to Axel with a skeptical gaze.

“I’ve been through worse.” Axel huffed at the disbelief. “Way worse.”

“Ro?”

“Have you seen the mosquito swarms in the outer area? They were able to dodge my frying pan.”

Axel could feel the deadpan stare and chose to ignore it. “Just imagine all those things behind us are the bad guys who you got revenge on back in the water.”

Lucifer’s eyes narrowed at that, and he turned back with an unkind gaze as if seeing all the charging beasts as giant crabs.

Axel could feel the heat as the feline spewed steam behind them. Even if it didn’t travel far, it still had an effect of making the predators slow.

“Nice! Keep it up, Luc.”

“Meow.”

Lucifer plopped weakly on his head after the fourth time.

“You’re out already?!” Axel exclaimed.

“Ro.” Lucifer panted tiredly, the steam seemingly difficult for his young age.

A snapping maw cut off their argument as Axel had to expend mana and shoot both of them off in another waterjet, the action more expensive than performing it underwater. “We are not gonna die here! I have too much to cook for!”

“Reow.” Lucifer added.

“And eat.”

The chase wasn’t very long.

Axel’s remaining intoxication combined with the absolute anarchy of the environment soon tripped him up and sent him tumbling toward a massive mangrove tree pool.

He rolled with the action and got them closer to the water. “We can lose them down under!”

“Row!” Lucifer cheered at the idea.

By that point, the conga line had grown to over a dozen various predators all fighting over a prize that half of them didn’t even know existed. The sheer chaos just sent their instincts haywire.

Yet only one of the predators was angry and focused enough to follow Axel’s retreat below the water’s surface.

Axel and Lucifer had only just sighed in relief below the water before a fucking T-Rex dropped in the water behind them like a jack in the box.

The two screamed and hugged each other.

“Why am I so talented at pissing things off?!”

“RO!”

Lucifer’s rapidly tapping paw urged him on as the two fled from a giant land-based T-Rex who managed to use its wings to propel itself through the water.

‘This world is so awesomely stupid!’ Axel complained in his mind as he pushed them away.

Yet the chase only made it around a dozen meters before something else rose from the depths of the pool, and Axel’s retreating form froze solid at the sound of a massive crunch behind him.

The silence from Lucifer was telling as he felt the cat looking behind them.

When Axel was younger, he once wondered what a combination of a crocodile and a Megalodon would look like.

He slowly turned around.

‘Oh, so that’s what it would look like.’

At nearly nine meters long and four meters wide, the behemoth snapped the winged T-Rex in half before it turned to regard the tiny creatures within its domain.

From the neck up and tail down, it resembled a shark, yet where its body would be was a giant torso with four legs that resembled a crocodile.

Even still partly drunk, Axel could make out the trace of sadism in its eyes as the predator identified prey that meant nothing to it.

Its massive form hovered ever closer, ready to devour them, and both Axel and Lucifer could do nothing but float in sheer terror for the predator approaching.

Yet there was one final card to play.

One last action that Axel, even in his stupor, couldn’t resist.

An action that saved his life and doomed it all in one.

A heavy gong rang through the entire pool, and a moment of utter silence befell.

“…”

“…”

“…”

The mammoth beast's mouth closed with a confused clamp.

Lucifer stared forward with dull eyes.

And Axel looked at his hand holding a frying pan in bewilderment. ‘When did I pull that out?’

[Frying Pan Proficiency has reached level 8]

Chapter End.

Omake:

“The tiger moved!”

The second they turned, Axel swan dived. “Motherfuckaaaa’s.”

{Embracing the legendary spirit of the great Chow}