CHAPTER 5: The beginning of the end part 2

“There is no way I’m eating a filthy rat!” Hiroko protest against the idea.

“Even when we might not have a choice, is it safe to eat?” Junpei says looking at the dead rat on my hat.

“Yeah if I cook it I think. Anything I make gets purified.” I tell him and he still looks unsure.

“Ok, everyone. Lets trust Yasu. We need food and his is the only option. Unless you guys have a better idea?” Junpei asked and no one said anything. I see Hiroko glaring at me like it’s my fault for bringing it up.

“Sorry?” I told her and she gave me a scoff before storming off to sit at the foot of the statue.

How is this my fault? Bring me better ingredients to grill if you're complaining so damn much. I say in my mind.

They have no choice but to eat the rat if they want to fight and get out of here. I need to make sure they don't go hungry if I want to get out of here since I can't fight at all.

“Ok Yasu, lets do it. Guys, after we eat, we can go out again. Please this time lets not try to accidentally kill each other?” He says jokingly and they all started chuckling.

“What? Really?” I asked Junpei about what he just said earlier.

“Yea. We almost killed each other.” Junpei tells me. “So, what do you need us to do?”

“I need you guys to help me collect more rats." I told him.

One rat won’t be enough for seven of us. The room I started in has a whole bunch of them but it’s hard to catch them by myself. I say in my mind.

“Sure that’s not a problem.” Junpei then turns back to everyone, “Guys! Let’s go rat hunting!”

Everyone screams in unison like they’re going to war. I guess finding a door out there have managed to bring up their spirits. They’re livelier than usual even though they're being forced to eat a rat. As I see them happily another issue just dawned my mind.

“Ah, one problem.” I tell to Junpei and everyone’s gazes’ turns towards me making me feel uncomfortable again.

“What is it?” He replied back with a worried look.

“Water. We have no water. We can’t drink the blood of these things.” I tell them holding up the rat. “Even if we can, I rather not. I don't want to catch a disease from this world.”

“There's a stream of water on the room I woke up from.” Hiroko says. She is still sitting on the foot of the statue. “If it's safe to drink, I don’t know. We need to boil it first just to be safe.”

“That great! Hiroko, since you don’t like the whole idea of the rat dinner, how about you are in charge of collecting water for us?” Junpei asked Hiroko and she nods in agreement. “I’ll come with you and help collect the water using my shield.”

Junpei seems to like Hiroko but it’s seems one-sided. The two of them heads out to collect the water while Riki, Sawada, and Rikimura-san comes with me to collect rats. Tobi volunteered to stay behind and skin the dead rat I caught earlier and gut it out. Seems like he has experience when it comes to skinning and gutting animals. Either way, it’s even better since I can’t hold a weapon except for this spatula and frying pan. I don’t think I can use the spatula to cut the rat open.

“Say Yasu.” Riki says trying to strike up a conversation. “Which High School did you go to? We're all high school student except Rikimura-san. It seems like we all came from different schools also.”

“I go to Seito Private High.” I reply back without looking at him as we walk through the dark hallway.

“Huh?!” Both Riki and Sawada say at the same time trying to catch up to me.

Crap, I shouldn't have mentioned that. I say in my mind. Whenever I mention my school, people go crazy with questions.

“Seito private high school?! The privileged prestigious private high school that only a selected few can attend?!” Riki says in surprise.

Privileged prestigious private high school? Wow that sounds really hard to get into. I say in my mind.

“I guess, Yeah.” I say in a low voice. I don't really like attention so I never mention my school unless they ask for it.

“Oh my god, how is it over there? Are the girls nice? Are you part of the manga club there? That place is where the top mangaka artist graduate from!” Riki asked me. Without being able to answer right away Sawada interrupted me with his own questions.

“How about the baseball team! Are you part of the baseball team?! Say, when we get back, can you put in a good word for me! I want to transfer there. All the people in the baseball team there go straight to MLB after graduating!" Sawada days.

It's true most of the well-known people in my country came from my school. I’ve even seen a few of them to visit as alumni. Celebrities, politicians. Conglomerate heirs, I see them on a daily basis that seeing them in the streets started to seem normal. But it's not like the school itself will turn you into a public icon. Those people worked their ass off to achieve that position in life. But most people think it's because of the school they led a good life and ignore the fact that they worked really hard to achieve them.

“Uh, sure.” I say uncomfortably. I don’t really know how to handle people all together since I have very little experience with it. When it regards to interaction, I talked to myself more than anything. I tried to reply but couldn’t summarize the proper answer to give them. Just when I was in a pinch, Rikimura focused the attention elsewhere.

“Guys, we’re here. The door is closed. Did you close it?” Rikimura asked.

“Y-yea, I didn’t want the rats to escape the room. So I trapped them in there.” I reply back. As we open the room, we see all the little buggers scamper around the floor trying to find a place to hide. We closed the door behind us and started collecting rats for dinner. We would catch them; snap their neck like I did before and then we store them in our dimensional bag. They didn't notice except me but these rats are really not turning into dust like the skeletons.

Is it because they don’t have HP and name? Are these rats’ different categories than the skeletons?I say in my mind.

For now, I let the questions I have go pass me and focus on collecting rats. After an hour we collected a few more than what we can handle. Even though Riki, Sawada, and Rikimura-san are combat type class, they still had a hard time trying to catch the little creatures. Now that I thought about it, it’s better to cook them now so when Junpei and the others go out to level up and clear the undead skeleton, they won’t have to come back to the safe room to just eat. We can store their dead body in the dimensional bag means we can store the cooked meat. This also helps me level up my cooking.

I do hope I level up. I say in my mind as I store the last remaining dead rat in my bag. Good thing about the dimensional bag, we don’t have to worry about how much we carry because it weights the same no matter how much we store in it. Does it maintain the quality of cooked food? That's another issue I don't know about. I'm still not quite sure how these bags work and it's making me more curious than ever.

On the way to the safe room, Riki and Sawada bombarded me with questions over and over about baseball and manga. As soon as we enter the safe room, we see Junpei and Hiroko boiling the water by using Junpei’s shield as a container. They created a makeshift stand using two swords impaled to the ground and using a stick of some sort that's tied between the hilts of the sword on each side. Using a string, they tied the handle of the shield and hanged it around the stick. And placed it in the middle. There are two more swords to hold the shield in place so it doesn’t tilt and dump all of its contents. Under the shield are the torches that had blue flame in it acting as a fire pit. As we approach them, Junpei notices us and greeted us with a smile that completely faded away as soon as Riki and Sawada activated their dimensional bag to dump out the dead rats.

“Hey—“ Junpei stopped mid-sentence, as he looks at all the rat we caught and killed fall out the bag gracefully.

Hiroko looked with disgust and started to gag. She ran out to one of the dark hallways and started vomiting. Tobi quickly was at our side holding the dagger that Yamada lent him earlier to cut open the rat I caught. He let out a whistle looking at the pile of rats we caught. We were too busy just stuffing them that looking at them now, it was too many rats.

“You guys caught a lot huh.” He says as he inspects each rat.

“Yea, we decided to catch more than normal so you guys can bring it when you level up." I say to him. Tobi then looked up at me and putting an expression in his face that’s shows gratitude. I did nod at him back in return.

“Junpei, if I can ask. Where did you get that stick and those strings?” I asked pointing at the stick that is part of the makeshift fire pit to where the shield is tied. I don't remember seeing it around here. They probably came from the undead skeletons but I just want to verify if I can use them.

“Ah that? I had that in my dimension back. It’s actually a mage staff. One of the undead skeletons dropped it. None of us can use it but I took it anyways since it’s the only staff that we ever found. Same for the strings. Now that I think of it, how come there is no mage class?” Junpei wonders. I guess I can’t use the stick. Now that he mentions it, If we had a mage class, it would be easier since most mages control elements like fire and water.

“True, even other class like necromancer or priest aren’t there to chose from the beginning.” Riki says.

“Remember what Luro said? What's applied to our world might not be the same here.” Hiroko interrupts as she walks back towards us trying not to stare at the rat corpses. “Even if it's common in video games to have those class, it doesn’t actually mean it will be here.”

“Hmm that’s true. Ah who cares.” Junpei then looks at me. “Yasu, I’m getting hungry. Even if its rat, I think I’m going to be able to eat it.”

“Sure ill get it ready. Tobi, can you skin the rest of them?” I ask him and he nods in agreement. Tobi took the one rat he skinned and I decided to cook that while he does the rest.

“Ok, let me grill one first.” I say as I took a torch from the fire pit and placed my frying pan on top the flame. I place the rat meat Tobi skinned and deboned and waited for the pan to heat up. I start hearing a sizzling sound that indicates the mouse is being cooked as the pan heats up. What happened next was something I didn’t expect being a cooking class and all. The rat turned into a dark charcoal like it had been overcooked and burned to crisp in a split second.

“What the-.” I say as I look at the black thing on top of the pan.

“Whats going on?” Tobi ask me as he walks back with more rat meat in hand.

“I-I don’t know.” I reply back to him. They then sat around me and formed a circle around the second makeshift campfire we made for cooking. They all looked at me waiting for my next move. I guess they’re that hungry. Even Hiroko who was against the idea in the first place was sitting quietly waiting for food to be cooked. She is still not looking at the dead skinless rat pile.

Now think, Yasu think! Why doesn’t it work? I’m a cook so it should work right? I say in my mind.

“C-can you try this?” I hand the frying pan to Tobi and told him to cook one of the skinless rats. Same thing happened.

Now that’s normal for him since he is not a cook. But what about me? I’m a cook for fuck sakes. A cook that can't cook is just adding salt to my wounds. Think Yasu. Think.I say in my mind.

Wait. Maybe what I'm doing now is frying and not grilling. Grilling is putting the meat over fire and letting it cook. All I need is something to hold the meat so I can set it over the fire. But I have nothing to poke this thing with and set it over the fire.

Like he was reading my thoughts, Sawada hold out his dagger towards me, “You can try this.”

I grab the dagger but I forgot I can’t wield it and it falls on the floor like heavy cement.

“Oops, my bad, I forgot you couldn’t wield anything.” Sawada picked up his dagger and inspect it for any damages.

“Ah, I got an idea.” I say. I placed the uncooked rat on the spatula. Since the spatula has spaces in between, I was able to use it as a makeshift grill. The only issue is, the spatula is metal. It will conduct the heat and would probably burn my hand. I take out my apron and wrapped a part of it on my hand and held the spatula again.

“Ok, let me try this one more time.” I say and everyone watches patiently.

I placed the spatula and the uncooked rat meat on top of the fire. The spatula did get hot but I didn’t burn myself because of the apron I used as a makeshift oven mitts. After a couple of minutes I use the frying pan and placed the rat meat in it upside down. Using the spatula, I scooped it up again so the uncooked side is now facing the fire. The smell of meat being cooked have worked its way through our nose and everyone started salivating. The smell woke up the hunger in them and I can hear their stomach grumbling.

“I-Is it done yet?” Riki asked looking at the rat meat cooking in the fire like a lion looking at its prey.

“Almost.” I think it's because of my passive skill called chef's soul that’s giving me a chef's natural abilities that I can feel if the meat is about to be cooked or not. Now it makes me wonder, what are the chef's natural abilities in this world.

“Ok now it’s done.” I place the cooked rat meat down again on the frying pan. I told Sawada to cut it into seven pieces evenly in which, he did at lightning speed.

I guess he really is that hungry. I say in my mind.

Once the meat has cooled down enough to touch with our fingertips, I indicated for everyone to dig in. Everyone, when I mean everyone including Hiroko grabbed her own portion of the cooked rat meat.

“Ok Hiroko, you can do this. Think of it as chicken. Yea its only chicken.” Hiroko says to herself as she holds the cooked rat meat in front of her. She then closes her eyes and takes a small bite of the food in front of her. She paused and looked at the cooked rat mean she’s holding. Next thing I know she started gnawing on it like an animal. Upon seeing Hiroko devour the cooked carcass, everyone else follow suit.

“oh damn this is good!” Riki said while chewing at the same time. Everyone else was too busy filling up his or her stomach that the cooked rat meat have disappeared in under a minute.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe I just ate a rat. And it tasted so good.” Hiroko says as she has her head down and her hand on her forehead.

“Tobi started laughing making Hiroko look up to him, I was thinking she’d scream at him but she did the unexpected. She started laughing also. Then Sawada, Junpei, and Riki started laughing. I can see Rikimura-san with a smile in his face chuckling a bit. Even I started laughing and we were all laughing together.

Ah, so this is what it feels like to have a circle of friends. Doesn’t feel so bad. Not bad at all. I think, I can survive with these guys.I think in my mind. But something feels weird. We’re laughing a bit too much and I think it has nothing to do with our inner feelings. I guess these are not normal rats after all.

It has been a couple days. We can't really be sure but that's what we believe because our body still reacts to the time zone on our world. We get tired and yawn at certain times, which indicate nighttime, then when we all wake up almost at the same time. We can’t see the sun inside the dungeon so we only go by this and that’s how we survived thinking it's been a couple of days. I cooked all of the rat meat and we figured out that the meat doesn't get spoiled being stored in the dimensional bag. So we decided to catch the remaining rats and cook them all. I took half of mine and divided it more to them since I’m not out there fighting, I don’t need as much meat as they do.

As for our water, we switch to storing it in the worn out shield they got from killing a skeleton that was using it. They all noticed and told me that the skeleton will drop random items. Sometimes it’s the weapons they’re holding or sometimes it’s the armor. There are also cases where it just drops bones or other materials like strings. Running back and forth from the safe zone to the skeleton room takes too much energy for them. So I told them to leave a helmet near the door and ill transport back and forth water using my frying pan. I did this every thirty minutes to keep the water filled.

At night, we all gather by the fire pit near the statue and I tell them stories of Seito Private High. How I’m in the piano club and how violent our club president is to Daikichi because she loves him. I leave the part of me being the top student out. I'm already standing out as it is. They don’t need to know my position on the school. They might think I’m boasting. But, I’m more comfortable now talking to them as they are with me. I feel the way with them as I feel for Daikichi and Kana. Friends.

In the morning, we eat rat meat for breakfast. They have gotten used to it now and were laughing much less this time but nonetheless, we’re still laughing a bit at every bite. After breakfast, they go off and exterminate undead skeleton throughout the whole day while I go back and forth making sure they have water to drink. There’s nothing much I can do. There are so many limits on everything for me that I have to make do with what I can use. Junpei and the others have been in and out of the undead skeleton room now. They all hit level 5 and are able to manage two to three undead skeleton each person. The only issue is the undead skeletons are level one and they don’t provide much experience to level up beyond at that point.

Before, after killing five to six undead skeletons levels them up to level two. To level up to three, they had to kill fifteen undead skeletons each. To level up to four they had to kill 20. To level up to five their kill count went up to 40. There’s so many undead skeletons that killing one makes another one emerges from the ground like a plant. After a while, they’ll come back to eat lunch or dinner, then go back out till they get tired. It seems like sleep also recovers a bit of stamina but not as fast as food.

“Hey guys.” Sawada speaks during breakfast. “Yesterday, did you guys notice something weird?”

“Noticed what?” I asked him curious. I’ve watched them a couple of times fighting but, it sems like the skeletons are attracted to lower level since they all come at me even when I’m standing by the door. This prevented me from staying making me more curious on what goes on in there.

“The undead skeleton stopped spawning.” Junpei replies.

“Does this mean this is the last group?” Tobi asked as he gnawed on his rat meat.

“Please let it be the last group. I can’t take it anymore in this dungeon. I want to take a shower. I smell like one of you guys now.” Hiroko says as she smell her clothes.

“Hey who knows, maybe Hiroko is a guy!” Sawada says jokingly and they all start chuckling. Well, everyone except Rikimura-san and Hiroko.

“Ha-Ha, very funny. I’m not a guy, right Yasu?” She says looking at me.

Why is she asking me again? I say in my mind. Before I was caught off guard on how much she talks to me know. It’s like all her attention is aimed at me. I remember the first time we were here she would ignore me but now she talks to me more than Junpei, which worries me. It might make him hate me. I’m not stupid but I would just assume she see’s me as a friend now. I’m not complaining. She is pretty after all but somehow, her face looks familiar to me.

“Uh no. Unless you want to be.” I reply to her, joking around. Everyone starts laughing more and now Hiroko is turning red. She storms off the exit and yells at us.

“Whatever!” Hiroko screams as she goes off her room probably to wash her hands.

“Ok guys lets stop messing around.” Junpei says and they all finish eating breakfast while I slowly eat mine. Since I don't have much to do, I do thing as slow as I can. After eating they all head to Hiroko’s room and wash their hands. Then they all gear up and head out to exterminate more skeletons. Probably this is the last time they will go out. I hope they kill everything so we can get out of this place. Outside world has probably more animals for me to grill.

“Yasu, we’re heading out now. We’ll be back after we clear out the rest of the undead skeleton. Then, we will figure out a way out of here.” Junpei says looking at me.

“I’ll wait for you guys to come back. Stay safe.” I tell them and they all turned around and head out towards the skeleton room. We seem more like a team now rather than before where we felt stranger to each other. Riki and Sawada bombard me with questions about going to my school every now and then. Hiroko is a lot gentler with me now. She was surprised though when she found out I go to Seito Private High. She probably sees me in another light. Tobi taught me how to skin the rat even though I can’t hold a knife; he still showed me how to do it.

Junpei as usual, acts like a leader. Thinking of new ways to eliminate the undead skeletons while minimizing the risk of everyone being exposed to danger. Rikimura-san is the same as usual. He has leadership characteristics but he rather just laze around when he can and keep to small talk. As they leave the safe room, I myself get ready. I decided to store my spatula, frying pan, and my apron in my dimensional bag.

I called out my dimensional bag and it appeared in thin air and dropped in front of me. The apron doesn’t really provide much protection so it’s useless to wear it unless I’m cooking. I put it in the dimensional bag along with the spatula and the frying pan. I go to Hiroko’s starting room and wash my hands and face.

Today, there is only a couple of undead skeletons left. I would have gone with them but to be on the safe side I stayed behind until it is completely clear. If some dungeon boss appears, I’ll just be in their way.I say in my mind.

“Status Window.” I say into air.

Status Window

Name

Yasu

Class

BLADE

Level

2

Guild

Diamond District

Skills

Skill Level

Grill

2

Fry

1

Passive Skills

Passive skill description

Chef's Soul

Gives you a chef's natural abilities.

Purify

Whatever you cook is automatically purified making it safe to eat.

Midas Touch

All the food and beverages you create taste better.

Even though I leveled up, the only significant change I got was a boost in DPH and a new skill called ‘fry’.

"Show DPH." I whisper.

DPH

2

"Damn, it only increased by one." I whisper to myself. "Fry Skill Description!” I shouted out and a window popped up.

Skill Name:

Skill Level:

Skill Type:

Experience:

Fry

1

Cooking

0%

This skill will let you fry any form of fry-able food. MMmmm~ Fried Serpant King...

“Hmmm. So I guess I can use the frying pan now huh. Kind of sucks we ran out of rat to cook.” I whisper to myself. "Fried Serpant King? What kind of description is this?"

I head back inside the safe room and waited for them to come back. I sit back down in the foot of the statue and rest my back against the pedestal. I reminisce in my mind my time all together since this ordeal started.

I have been dragged to an unknown world to kill some evil god who got nothing better to do. But I found people I can rely on. Even though I am weak, I will try to protect them. I’ll improve my cooking so they don’t go hungry.

As I drown in my own thoughts, I was pulled back up to reality when I hear Junpei shout.

“YASU! WE CLEARED THE ROOM OF THE SKELETONS!!” I see Junpei and the rest of them running towards me.

“FINALLY!!” I scream back as I stood up and regroup with them.

“OK, so we opened the door through the other side and we checked, there is nothing there! I think our trial for this dungeon is to clear the room full of skeletons. Now, all that’s left is to leave this forsaken place and finally see sunlight! Once we rest, we will leave as soon as possible!” Junpei says with excitement.

“I was a bit worried, since we ran out of food.” I tell him. “Ok guys, rest. I still have left over rat meat so eat it if you need to. I don’t need it anyways.”

Even though I might get hungry later on, I decided to give it to them. They need it more than I do since they’re going doing all the hard work fighting the skeletons. Once I divide my portion up and only left a few for myself, we all sit down the makeshift fire pit one last time.

Once everyone has rested, Junpei stood up and spoke to everyone. “Ok everyone ready?”

We all reply with a nod and stood up to travel back towards the undead skeleton room. It’s now more illuminated that the last time I saw it. Torches were scattered everywhere illuminating certain dark areas. There are a lot of weapons and armors that are on the ground. Not one undead skeleton in sight.

“Why don’t you guys pick these up? We have a dimensional bag anyway.” I asked

“We all though of that, but I don’t think we can get enough money for it even if we sell it outside. The weapons Luro gave us are a lot stronger than these so it’s pretty much useless to us. Since you can’t use a weapon, it’s pretty much useless to you. So in general, all of these are useless.” Hiroko replies back

“Oh, ok.” I reply to her looking around the room.

Such a waste. I whisper in my mind.

“Say Yasu.” Hiroko suddenly says and I didn't notice she was walking beside me. “You went to Seito High School right? Do you know who is the top student there?”

“By top student you mean-” My voice trails off. I was getting nervous and kept on walking without looking at her.

“The student who has the higher rank throughout the whole school. That school is already a higher rank that most all of the high schools. To put it in much more simple terms, he is basically the smartest person through all of the high school combined.” Hiroko says.

Smartest person through all high school combined? Can’t be, I just studied hard while everyone else goofed off.I say in my mind.

“Do you know who he is? If you do, can you introduce me? I mean I wouldn’t mind being friends with him. I-I think I could be a friend with him. I mean as long as he doesn’t find me weird. We can study together if he wants. Studying with the smartest person throughout all the high school is a privilege itself. I mean-I-mean--”

She’s talking about me. I say in my mind.

“Calm down, calm down.” I interrupt her. Seeing her get flustered is kind of cute.

“So do you know him?” She asked as she looks at me. This is the first time I see her up close. Her eyes are quite nice. They’re hazel. Her facial feature isn’t bad either. She had a smooth white skin complimented with her rosy lips. Her eyes are slanted that shows her Japanese heritage but it is big enough to see her hazel eye color. Her light brown hair is tied up to a ponytail that shows her slender neck.

Crap, I feel hot.I whisper to myself as I feel a sweat is coming on. From then I was in trouble, I forgot how to properly breathe.

“I-uh—Y-yeah- I-I know him.” I reply to her averting my eyes away from hers. Trying to calm my self down but I feel like my face is getting hot.

“What really! So can you introduce me?!” Hiroko asked as she gets in front of me and grabs me by the shoulder.

Holy shit she’s strong. I say in my mind as I feel her grip like a titan.

“Y-y-yeah.”I reply trying to not show I’m in pain from her grip.

“Really?! Thank you! Thank you so much!” Hiroko kept saying as she hugged me tight jumping up and down. I wish this could go on forever. But her hug is stronger than her grip and I feel like I’m going to pass out. And besides, people are watching including a certain person who might not like what he’s seeing so I tried to separate from her.

“I-I-Its noting. We’re friends after all.” I say after breaking free and she replied to me with a smile. A certain smile that can make you feel the heat in the summer.

Ah, I feel hot. I say to myself as we walk to the door at the end of the room.As we reached the door from the other side, it is semi open. We go through the opening one by one and once we get to the other side, what greeted us is a cave like structure. On the roof of the cave are stalactites forming through. It has a bluish glow that illuminates the whole cave. It’s fascinating and scary at the same time. If a huge earthquake were to happen, these stalactites will pierce us from our heads.

“Whoa.” I say as we walk through the cave.

“We already checked this cave to the end and there is another door which is probably the exit.” Junpei tells me. “We couldn’t open the door though.”

“Why?” I asked curiously.

“The door has 14 hand prints on it. I’m guessing each one of us has to touch it to activate the door. The reason we couldn’t open it is because-“

“You guys needed my pair of hands.” I interrupted him.

“Exactly. We all needed to be here to open the door.” He tells me. My heart won’t stop beating fast.

What is it? Is it because were finally leaving the cave?No it can’t be. Wait, is it because of Hiroko? N-no, it can’t be. I can’t do this to Junpei, he protected and guided us all this time. What I should be doing now is helping him get Hiroko.I say in my mind. I feel anxious and excited all together. It’s such a mixed feeling I decided to ignore it. We reached the door with 14-hand print on it. It’s made of white marble also but this door doesn’t have any design except the hand marks. It seems like it was carved out of the door.

“Okay guys, place your hand on a pair of handprints!” Junpei shouts and we all put our hands over the 14 prints that are carved along the huge marble door. Then next thing I know the door lit up through the center and separated into two. It started opening from the sides and what awaited us inside was the reason of my heart beating so fast.

The true beginning of the end has started.