What King didn't know was that Saitama had even taken the time to thoroughly clean the entire apartment. In the center of the spotless table, a simple induction cooker and a clean pot were already set up, exuding an aura of readiness.
King decided to stop thinking. After all, how could anyone who could be friends with a monster like Jack be normal?
When Jack and King carried the mountain-like bags of ingredients into the apartment, Saitama's eyes instantly widened.
"Wow—Jack! Did you clear out the supermarket?"
He looked at the beautifully packaged Wagyu beef, the sprawling king crabs, and all sorts of expensive ingredients he had only seen on TV, taking a deep breath. He slurped back all the uncooperative tears flowing from the corners of his mouth.
Jack smiled and said, "With so many people, we definitely need to prepare enough ingredients."
"That's true." Saitama nodded in agreement, then naturally placed his few boxes of discounted beef in the middle of the ingredients. "These are the discounted beef I snatched up—the last few boxes on sale today. Luckily, I ran fast, or else the old lady in front would have taken them all."
"Well done, Saitama." Jack nodded approvingly, then casually tore open a package of A5 Wagyu beef. "Perfect—let's start with your discounted meat to whet our appetites, then move on to the main course."
King: …
—What the heck kind of appetizer! Putting these two kinds of beef together is practically a public execution!
But Jack and Saitama clearly didn't care about these minor details. The next moment, a sudden realization dawned on King: no wonder these two men could get along and become friends. From a certain perspective, they were both the same kind of person.
The hot pot quickly started bubbling, and Saitama's light soup base—carefully simmered with kelp and radish—instantly sublimated after Jack threw in a packet of what looked like an expensive "secret rich broth concentrate." An indescribable, dominant, and rich complex aroma, mixed with the freshness of various ingredients, instantly filled the small apartment, making every pore of one's body open up.
"Let's eat!"
The three of them said in unison.
As a guest, King very reservedly picked up his chopsticks. He decided to start with the safest target—a piece of flavorful tofu that had been quietly absorbing the essence of the soup in a corner, cooked until it was plump and wobbly.
But just as his chopsticks reached mid-air, a sudden change occurred.
*WHOOSH—! *
*WHOOSH—! *
Two blurs—too fast for the naked eye to catch—like two black lightning bolts appearing out of nowhere, precisely swept through the bubbling pot on entirely different yet ultimately converging trajectories. The two pairs of chopsticks even made a faint crackling sound in mid-air due to friction with the air from their immense speed. A powerful gust of air exploded from the center of the hot pot, instantly disheveling King's carefully styled golden pompadour, making him feel as if he were in the eye of a typhoon.
By the time he finally managed to steady himself and come to his senses, the first batch of highly anticipated discounted marbled beef—a full plate of it—had vanished without a trace from the pot. Not to mention slices of meat—not even a single strand was left. At the other two ends of the table, Jack and Saitama's cheeks were bulging, and they were swallowing at an astonishing speed that surpassed the limits of human chewing, their faces beaming with satisfaction. Then, both of them simultaneously reached out, each grabbing a plate of premium Wagyu beef, and with a whoosh, unhesitatingly dumped it all into the boiling pot.
King: …
He froze in place, his hand still in that awkward posture of reaching for the tofu. He felt as if he wasn't sitting at a dining table, but had stumbled into a duel arena where only the strong were worthy of eating.
Is this… is this eating hot pot? This was clearly a peak showdown, centered around a thirty-centimeter-diameter pot, surpassing the limits of human dynamic vision and involving the level of causality!
Oh no—this is a high-level game.
He took a deep breath, his eyes becoming serious.
—I won't… not even get a piece of meat, will I?
King's disbelieving eyes stared intently at the slices of premium Wagyu beef in the pot, which were transforming from a beautiful pink to an enticing brown.
Now!
With lightning speed, he extended his chopsticks into the pot, aiming for the fattest piece of meat.
But King overestimated himself. No matter how hard he tried, there were always two pairs of chopsticks that would arrive first—in an unreasonable manner—from behind. Just as he was about to succeed, they would snatch the target away.
More than ten minutes passed. The empty plates in front of Jack and Saitama were already stacked high, while King's bowl still contained only a lonely bowl of white rice. Well—it was even a bit cold from sitting for too long.
King: …
His stomach rumbled with hunger, and for the first time in his life, he realized that fighting for hot pot was so exhausting. This was much more exercise than his daily training.
Cold sweat trickled down King's forehead, and he could only watch helplessly as the slices of meat, shrimp, and meatballs in the pot existed in an inconceivable quantum state—they immediately entered a superposition of raw, cooked, and eaten states after being put into the pot. When he, the observer, tried to intervene, the wave function instantly collapsed, leaving only the outcome of being eaten.
"King—why aren't you eating?" Saitama, his mouth full of meat while rapidly using his chopsticks to intercept Jack's targets, kindly asked indistinctly. "Are these dishes not to your liking?"
King: …
Jack smiled. King was his brother-in-arms, his beloved friend—a walking "Good Luck" buff tool. He naturally wouldn't watch King starve to death at the "Hot Pot Group" gathering.
The next moment, the serving chopsticks in Jack's hand danced in the air, leaving a blur. With a brilliant move of "fishing for the moon at the bottom of the sea," he forcefully snatched half of the freshly cooked mushrooms and a few half-raw cabbage leaves from Saitama's impenetrable chopstick net, placing them into King's long-empty bowl.
"Don't rush, King—have some vegetables first to line your stomach. Eating too much meat can be greasy."
"Damn it!" Saitama was furious at the sight, his eyes widening. "You snatched my favorite cabbage! Jack—are you declaring war on me?!"
"War? War! I'm ready anytime!" Jack showed no weakness, his chopsticks held horizontally, his aura surging.
A more brutal battle once again unfolded between the two non-humans, with the flames of war spreading from meat to vegetables and fungi. King, meanwhile, looked at the hard-won blanched vegetables in his bowl, his nose twinging, tears of emotion almost welling up. In his life, he had never found cabbage and mushrooms so delicious.
During this heart-stopping hot pot meal, he ultimately managed to fill his stomach only with Jack's occasional handouts. When he put down his chopsticks, looking at the mountain of empty plates on the table and the two monsters opposite him who seemed to still want more, he had only one thought—
He never wanted to eat hot pot with these two monsters again in his life.
Never.