Frontier Chef: My Cooking Skills Are Broken-Chapter 10: Handy Tip

Ezra woke up to water at his waist, his legs drifting in the shallows.

Something warm and wet slid up the side of his neck.

It circled his jaw, slow and patient, and the tip of it curled behind his ear and stayed there.

His eyes were still closed, body numb from thrashing under the river currents—most of which he was unconscious for.

The slippery thing was tasting him now the way he’d lick an ice cream tub. His brain was still half-asleep, judging by the saliva drooling out his lower lip. And the only person within a hundred miles of him was a girl who’d shoved her thumb in his mouth less than a day ago.

’She’s a little rough, but at least she’s got spirit.’

He didn’t open his eyes.

He raised his chin and invited the full experience.

’Guess I can forgive you just this once.’

The tongue pressed flat against his pulse. It was wider than a tongue should be. Worse yet, tongues shouldn’t be so slick. And there was a second one now, working up from his collarbone. A third, trailing up his thigh even.

Ezra sighed and forced his eyes open.

It wasn’t the girl after all.

The thing sitting on his chest had the body of an octopus and the mouth of a lamprey—a fat, translucent sack of grey flesh with six stubby arms suctioned to his ribs. Its round mouth peeled open against his throat. If it could smile, this was it.

It had been gaining ground since who the hell knows how long.

Ezra grabbed it by the sack and stood up in the shallows, the water barely touching his ankles.

The thing squirmed in response, arms coiling around his wrist. It started leaking purple ink all over his forearm and Ezra nearly vomited.

"You crossed the line." Ezra gagged.

He threw it down and stomped it.

Once for caressing his neck.

Twice for letting it slide up his inner thigh.

His heel went through on the third and the membrane burst like a deflating balloon. Whatever it had for blood caught the downstream current.

’Fuck, that doesn’t count as my first kiss, right?’

[ Bzzt ]

[ You have five new notifications, would you like to view? ]

’I just got molested by an octopus leech. Give me a moment.’

The golden text lingered for another moment, then finally bzzt’d away.

He stood there for a second, ankle-deep, grey slime between his toes. Dawn was coming in low and orange across the water. The river was wider here than anywhere he’d been—thirty feet bank to bank, lazy current, gravel bottom. Orange trees were rooted on both sides but shorter than the jungle canopy.

Ezra could see the sky, which he hadn’t seen since cooking crab dogs on the beach. The jungle was his entire world for 24 hours, and now the open air smothered his shriveled body.

Not like he could complain—there was enough of that already. Which brought him to his current situation. He looked down at the dead thing.

Most of it was paste now, but the head was still intact—mouth frozen open, ring of tiny teeth around the rim, still puckered up like Ezra was going to go tongue-for-tongue.

"Appraisal," Ezra said, gagging again at the little turds that pushed out from its underside. Sweet release of death, no less.

[ Riverbed Lamproctopus — ★ ]

> Ambush parasite. Latches to warm-blooded hosts during sleep.

> Edible after thorough rinsing, may contain unrelated diseases.

> Rubbery texture, high mineral content. Best consumed smoked or dried.

> Note: Host HP may be reduced during prolonged feeding.

’That’s a lot of fucking text. I’m not reading all that.

Besides, as long as it’s edible... it’s all fair game.’

He brought his foot up. The soles were battered in gray mush, glazed over the open cuts along the heel and meat where his toes connected.

’I did say fair game, but this crosses the line again. I’ll pass on breakfast.

More importantly—Appraisal works on dead things.

Might come in handy.’

[ Ping! ]

’Shit, time’s up.’

[ Event Summary ]

> x1 Gynoscylla (★★★★) Killed

> x1 Lamproctopus (★) Killed

> +825 Frontier Tokens

’I didn’t even kill the Gynoscylla.’

He waited for the clarification, if any, but the System already moved on.

[ Skill upgraded: Ember Arts Lv. 0 → Lv. 1 ]

[ Skill upgraded: Appraisal Lv. 0 → Lv. 4 ]

’Four levels from two appraisals? What, does danger pay triple? Or is that quadruple? Fuck if I know.’

More golden text stacked on top of each other.

[ You have leveled up: 3 ]

[ You have leveled up: 4 ]

> Stat allocation available. (9) unspent points.

[ Quest completed: Save the poor woman ]

> +1,500 Frontier Tokens

Ezra paused for a moment, eyes stuck on the last text.

"It was never about the scream, was it?" Ezra said, his hoarse voice bouncing off the rocks.

The System said nothing. The golden text hovered, indifferent. Fulfilling its purpose and nothing more.

"The entire time, you knew. You knew it’d be her that needed saving, that—"

Ezra kicked away a two-headed fish nibbling at his leg.

"What’s your game plan?"

[ Bzzt ]

If anyone were to see Ezra now, they’d call him crazy for talking to the river.

"Fine," Ezra muttered to himself. "Do your fucking job, then. Show me what I can do with the Frontier Tokens."

The golden text flared to life.

[ As a Frontier Chef, you, the host, have access to your very own Frontier Market, a 24 hour rotating shop that sells ingredients and other miscellaneous items pertaining to your current accumulative strength ]

"So when—"

[ Furthermore, the Frontier Market is locked at the Level 5 threshold to ensure the host is worthy— ]

"Are you reading off a script!?"

[ No ]

"So you do fucking speak! And actually, I already did prove my worth. The crab dog, the battering ram ape shit, the fucking foreskin monster. I fucking proved it."

He held up his left arm.

It was perfectly fine.

Where bone had been showing and flesh dangled freely was a normal looking arm. Well, as normal as it got for Ezra’s new body. He willed the fingers to close, and they did. He expected a phantom limb of sorts, but it was his, in all the qualifying ways.

’The potion pushed my HP up, but the arm was still fucked when I passed out. Hours in the river and it just... healed on its own?’

He flexed the wrist.

’HP goes up fast. The body catches up slow. That’s the rule.’

[ Would you like to allocate your stat points? ]

Ezra squeezed his left hand tight, the nails biting into his palm. He’d sacrifice his left arm to outmaneuver an apex predator, four stars at that. And it worked.

That was the problem, though.

A limb for a tail, the math fucking sucked.

Ezra always hated math anyway.

"Show me everything."

[ Status ]

> Name: Ezra

> Class: Frontier Chef

> Element: Fire

> Level: 4

> HP: 124/210

> SP: 178/180

> Defense: 0

> Affinity: 0%

> Fire Attack: 12

> Water Attack: 0

> Ice Attack: 0

> Thunder Attack: 0

> Unspent stat points: (9)

[ Status Effects ]

> Sunburn (Minor) — HP regen slightly reduced

> Drenched (Constant) — Slowed movement

[ Wallet ]

> 2,775 Frontier Tokens

"This is nothing like what I know. Where’s endurance? Or intelligence? Dex... whatever the hell?"

At least HP and SP made sense—those bars had been hovering over his life since the beach. Defense was at zero, no surprise there. Hard to have armor stats when his armor was his bare ass.

The elemental attacks were all zeroes except fire, sitting at 12 like it had been putting in work without him.

The safe play was HP. Maybe Defense, but that was grayed out so it probably only counted for armor. Wait, even HP was grayed out.

"You fucking set me up, didn’t you?"

[ Bzzt ]

Regardless, SP was open. So was Affinity and the elemental attacks—all four of them. Nine points across six options, and the two that would actually keep him alive were locked behind his class.

’Three level-ups and my HP’s still at 210. Not even a courtesy bump?’

He looked at the grayed-out stats again. HP, Defense—both still locked behind his class.

’Right. I’m a cook. You want me to earn it the hard way.’

"Break it down for me. Fire Attack, Affinity. What do they do?"

[ Fire Attack: Increases base fire damage per point; as a Frontier Chef, your Fire Attack organically grows in tandem ]

[ Affinity: Percentage chance per point that an attack lands as a critical hit; critical hits deal bonus damage ]

"How much bonus?"

[ Variable ]

"Variable how?"

[ Dependent on host, technique, and conditions at time of impact ]

"That’s the vaguest shit you’ve ever told me and the bar was already at zero."

He could choose Fire Attack. More damage on every hit, no guesswork. But given that was his literal element, dumping all the points would just go to waste elsewhere.

In truth, Ezra hadn’t survived the Gynoscylla by hitting it twelve times. He’d survived by grabbing its cord once and burning through it before it killed him. One moment, all or nothing.

He didn’t need every hit to land harder. He needed the hit that mattered to land like it meant something.

"Affinity. All nine."

[ Allocate 9 points to Affinity? ]

"Go for it."

[ Ping! ]

[ Affinity: 0% → 9% ]

The change was subtler than he expected. No fire in his veins, no heat under his skin. Instead his hands twitched once, both of them, and the air between his fingers felt thinner, like the space between a blade and what it was about to cut.

Then it passed, and everything felt normal again.

He flexed his hands, both of them. The left one still worked. It wasn’t a hallucination after all.

Ezra dismissed the screen. The golden text dissolved and the river came back—the current, the gravel, the orange light off the water.

He’d been standing here too long. Ankle-deep, naked, arguing with floating text while the sun crept higher.

Ezra turned around.

Ten feet up the bank, lying on her back in the gravel, was the bird girl.

’Oh fuck. Her.’