The air in the central plaza tasted of sweat and panic.
"Log out! Why won't it let me log out?!" "The UI is bugged! System! SYSTEM!"
The screams were a jagged mess. Around the fountain, thousands of players, now in their real bodies, were experiencing a collective breakdown. The "Death Game" realisation was sinking in like a cold shower.
Liam stood still. His 6'6" frame was a breakwater in the storm of frantic players. He ignored the sky and his menu, focusing on a vendor's stall, toppled in panic. Potatoes spilled into the dirt.
"Liam... what are we going to do?" Ellie's voice was small. She was the prodigy, but her hands were shaking. "If we die here... we die for real."
Liam didn't look at her. His red eyes were scanning the environment, but not for an exit. He was analysing.
If logout is disabled, no one will be able to eat. The NPC food is disgusting, Liam thought. It's like a death timer.
He'd spent nine hours playing the fool, watching how players operated. They relied on speed, flashy skills, and gear, forgetting the most basic survival rule: Energy.
"Ellie," Liam's voice was deep, a resonant baritone that cut through her panic. "Step back. I need space to work."
"Work? Liam, the world is ending! We need to find a safe zone, we need to…"
Clang.
She choked on her words. Liam had reached into his inventory and slammed a heavy, obsidian-black portable stove onto the cobblestones. With a fluid, practised motion, he pulled out a professional-grade stockpot.
"Other chefs use the 'Auto-Cook' feature," Liam said, voice calm, almost clinical. He pulled herbs and a sealed container of [Chicken] from his inventory. "They press a button, the system makes bland, grey paste that restores 5% of their food needs. It tastes like cardboard. In a world you can't leave, morale matters. I'm about to break the market."
He ignored the stares. He ignored the chaos.
Liam fired the stove. The flame was a brilliant, celestial blue, a gift from the Ring of Hestia.
As the chicken hit the pot, a scent began to bloom.
It wasn't the usual "Game Food" smell. It was rich, savoury, and aggressively real. It smelled like home, or what he thought home was. like a grandmother's kitchen, like a five-star roast. It was a scent that didn't belong in a digital nightmare.
Nearby players stopped screaming. They turned, sniffing the air, their stomachs growling in unison.
"What is that?" someone whispered. "Is that... real food?"
"Who in their right mind could be cooking in this shit?" someone muttered.
Liam focused on the [Chicken Soup] recipe. He added aromatics; his large, scarred hands moved with graceful precision. He wasn't 'Little Liam' anymore—he was the Vanguard of the hearth.
[System Notification: Perfect Synergy Detected!]
[Goddess Hestia is watching your cooking with great interest!]
The pot began to glow. A golden steam swirled above it.
"Ellie. Eat."
Liam ladled a bowl and handed it to her. She took it automatically, her eyes wide. The moment the spoon touched her lips, her entire body stiffened.
"Oh my god," she whispered. Her eyes watered. It wasn't just delicious; it was an explosion of flavour that made every other 'delicacy' in the game taste like trash.
[System Notification: You have consumed 'Legendary Chicken Soup' (Modified)]
[Buff Applied: +500% Melee Resistance for 12 Hours.]
(Note: Ellie gets the 100x multiplier of the base 5%).
"Five... five hundred per cent?" Ellie gasped, her stats screen flickering. "Liam, this is... I feel like I'm made of iron."
Liam didn't answer. He took the last portion for himself, his mind already considering the potential power that came with eating his own cooking now.
He didn't just eat it; he consumed it.
The [Absorption] talent flared in his chest.
[System Notification: User 'Little Liam' has consumed 'Legendary Chicken Soup'.]
[10,000x Buff Factor Activated.]
[Buff Applied: +50,000% Melee Resistance for 24 Hours.]
Liam felt it. His skin didn't change, but he sensed his own density shifting—a strange heaviness settling within, as though his bones were made of something unbreakable. The atmosphere around him seemed to warp. At 50,000% resistance, a Level 150 boss could hit him with a skyscraper, and it would feel like a pillow. The knowledge sent a rush of exhilaration through him—he was untouchable now.
"Hey! You!"
The peace of the meal was broken. A group of five men pushed through the crowd. They wore heavy plate armour and carried blood-stained maces. Their leader was a scarred man with a "Player Killer" (PK) red skull hovering over his name. It seemed the bad eggs had come out of hiding already, taking advantage of the chaos.
The leader sneered, his eyes darting between the pot and Liam. "That food... smells insane. Hand over the inventory, big man. We're the 'Augustavo' guild, and we're taking over this town."
Ellie stood up, her hand on her sword. "Back off. He's with me."
"Girl?" The player killer laughed. "You're fast, sweetie, but we've got numbers. And look at your boyfriend—he's just a cook, a level 13 civilian, he doesn't even have gear that fits him."
The leader stepped forward and swung a massive, spiked mace directly at Ellie to shove her aside.
Liam didn't move fast. He didn't have to.
He stepped in front of Ellie. He didn't even raise his arms. He simply let the mace hit him.
CLANG.
The sound was like a hammer hitting an indestructible anvil. The shockwave of the impact shattered the cobblestones under the player killers' feet, but Liam's chest didn't even move a millimetre.
The player killers' leader's eyes went wide. His arms vibrated from the recoil, his mace nearly flying out of his hands.
"My turn," Liam said. His voice was a low growl.
He didn't use a sword. He reached out with one hand, grabbed the player killer's face, and simply... pushed.
BOOM.
The PK leader was launched backward like he'd been hit by a freight train. He flew thirty feet, smashing through a stone wall and collapsing in a heap of broken armour.
The other four pkers froze. They looked at Liam. Then they looked at his level.
[LVL: 13]
"Level 13...?" one of them stammered, his voice trembling. "How can a Level 13 have that much physical defence? It's impossible!"
Liam looked down at his hands, then back at the remaining thugs. The red irises of his eyes glowed with the light of Hestia's favour.
"The game has changed," Liam said, his voice carrying across the entire plaza. "Skills don't matter. Levels don't matter. Only the one who feeds the hearth survives."
He took a step forward. The ground didn't just shake—it cracked. The sheer weight of his 'Resistance' stat made him a walking singularity.
"Now," Liam pointed his ladle at the remaining pkers. "You're going to pick up those potatoes you knocked over. And then you're going to pay me for the disruption."
"Pay you with what?!" one of them shouted, desperate.
Liam smiled. It wasn't the goofy smile from before. It was the smile of a man who realised he held every single card in the deck.
"Ingredients. I'm making dessert, and I'm fresh out of sugar."
The Augustavo goons didn't move. They couldn't. It was as if the air around Liam had become physically heavy, a crushing pressure born from a defence stat that shouldn't exist in a Level 13 character.
"Ingredients?" the second PKer stammered, voice quaking as his dagger shook in his grasp. "You just... You just killed our captain in one move. You're a monster!"
"I'm a chef," Liam replied, voice cold as stone. "And my kitchen is a disaster thanks to you."
He took a step forward. The cobblestones didn't just crack this time; they pulverised into dust. With 50,000% resistance, Liam wasn't just 'tough.' He was essentially a fixed point in the universe. Friction, gravity, and kinetic force seemed to treat him as an immovable object.
"The potatoes," Liam said simply. He didn't raise his voice, but the air vibrated with warning. "Pick. Them. Up."Terrified, the four hardened killers dropped to their knees. These were men who had spent the last hour robbing weaker players, feeling like gods in a lawless land. Now, they were scrambling in the dirt, frantically gathering spilled potatoes like panicked children under the shadow of a titan.
The surrounding crowd was dead silent. Even the people who were crying moments ago had stopped. They watched as the most feared PKers in the starting zone were humbled by a man with a ladle.
"Liam..." Ellie whispered, stepping up beside him. Her pink ears were twitching rapidly. She looked at the wall where the captain was buried under rubble. "His HP bar... it didn't just drop. It shattered. You dealt ten times his maximum health in 'Impact Damage' just by pushing him, and you literally killed him. Are you okay?"
"Augustavo isn't just a group of five, Liam," Ellie warned, her voice dropping. "They have a main force. Nearly a hundred players. Their leader, Caesar, is Level 18. If they find out—"
"Let them come," Liam interrupted. He didn't even look at her. He was busy inspecting a potato that one of the PKers had handed him, trembling.
"They'll just be bringing me more labour. This town needs a heart, Ellie. And a hearth needs a wall."
He turned his gaze to the four PKers.
"You four. You're no longer Augustavo. You're my kitchen staff. Your first job is to clear the rubble and set up a perimeter. If I
See if any of you try to leave the plaza, I'll find out if my 'Resistance' works on human bones as well as it does on maces."
They nodded frantically, terrified.