Frontier Chef: My Cooking Skills Are Broken-Chapter 4: Two Lies

The Cartigon accepted the invitation.

It lowered its head and barreled forward, and this time Ezra bit his tongue hard to not dodge on instinct.

He planted his back foot and waited until the bark-plated skull was close enough to count the ridges, then stepped off the line and drove the spear into the gap between two plates on its neck.

The pincers sank deep. The Cartigon wailed, a sound that came from somewhere lower than its throat, and its momentum carried it past him with the spear still buried in the joint.

It staggered three steps before the front legs buckled.

Ezra yanked the spear back. Half the tip came out red, half came out dry.

’Not deep enough. But it’s enough to slow its blitz.’

The Cartigon was already turning, one front leg slower than the other but all four still planted.

Blood ran from the wound in its neck, dark and thick, but the bark plates had closed around the gash like fingers pinching a cut shut.

It charged again, less momentum but with all the intent to kill.

Ezra went for the underbelly this time. Dropped low, angled the spear upward as the Cartigon closed the distance, aiming for the softer hide between the front legs.

The spear tip skated across the plates on its chest and caught nothing, angle wrong despite the timing being right. The fucking thing was built too low to the ground to stab under, and getting beneath it meant getting in front of it.

The Cartigon’s skull hit him in the ribs before he could pull back.

His back hit a trunk hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs and the spear out of his hand. He slid down the bark and landed in the ferns with his vision clawing at the edges.

> HP: 152/240 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

’Fuck.’

The Cartigon turned to face him, slower now, the neck wound leaking in a steady drip. But its dull eyes tracked him the way they hadn’t before:

Locked on to its enemy, unblinking.

Ezra met its gaze and didn’t let go.

His spear was six feet to the left. The Cartigon was eight feet ahead and closing.

’Fuck it.’

Ezra lunged for the spear.

The Cartigon lunged for him.

His fingers closed around the shaft and he rolled onto his back as the bark-plated skull came down where his chest had been. The impact cratered the ground and sprayed dirt into his eyes.

Bludgeoning was still active.

He drove his fist into the wound on its neck from below. The hit connected with a wet crack and the beast’s shoulder buckled inward, the front leg folding under its own weight.

But even then it didn’t drop. Its head swung sideways and caught him across the thigh with the flat of its skull. He grabbed the spear in both hands and stabbed at the neck joint again, desperate and sloppy.

The pincers bit into the gap between plates and something in his wrists shifted.

Not pain.

It was direction, like autocorrect guiding his arms.

The angle of his grip adjusted by a fraction, and the spear slid deeper along a line he hadn’t aimed for, between the bark and the muscle beneath, following the seam of the joint in whatever anatomy the Cartigon had under there.

Something popped inside the joint.

The Cartigon’s front end dropped flat.

Its back legs were still pushing, dragging the body toward him in the dirt. He stepped around and brought his fist down on the cracked plates behind its skull. Bludgeoning force punched through bark into the meat underneath.

He punched again and again, stopping only when he could no longer distinguish bone and armor.

Its legs kicked twice at the ferns, a last act of defiance before the rest of it got the message. The breathing came in long, rattling pulls that slowed with every second.

He pushed himself off the beast and found the spear. His hands were shaking but the rest of him wasn’t.

He brought the pincer tip against the bare patch below its throat and paused.

The Cartigon’s eyes were looking up at him, breaths wheezing and gurgling.

"Good fight."

He sunk the spear into the skin and watched it twitch one final time.

[ Ping! ]

[ Event Summary ]

> x1 Cartigon (★★) Killed

> +150 Frontier Tokens

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

’Fuck off, not now.’

> HP: 133/240

His SP bar was sitting at a third, already steadily rising with every second.

The fight had lasted less than two minutes but his lungs burned like he’d sprinted a mile. He leaned on the spear shaft and watched his stamina tick back up in small increments while his ribs throbbed and his hip locked up every time he shifted his weight.

The thigh was the worst. He hadn’t even felt the headswing land until the adrenaline backed off and the bruise announced itself all at once.

The bludgeoning passive read eleven minutes.

’The buff won that fight. The spear opened the wound but the fist broke through. Without the meal I’d still be bouncing off its armor.

Or crushed like a meat crayon.’

He looked down at the Cartigon. He’d nearly lost half of his health to a two-star. How far up does the food chain go?

Didn’t matter.

As long as he was alive, that was fine.

’Eleven minutes on the buff. No idea how far the voice is. If there’s something worse than this between me and her, I’m fucked.’

He looked at the treeline behind him.

The beach was back there. He could still hear the faint noises of waves and seagulls chirping. Safety, if he could put up with more ball crunchers.

The scream came again, closer now. Much closer and hoarse. Whoever was making it had been at it for a long time. It cut through the canopy and died just as fast.

Ezra spat more blood into the dirt and kept moving uphill.

The undergrowth thinned as the incline leveled off, ferns giving way to broad-leafed ground cover. Light was getting through the canopy in wider patches. The clicking and buzzing had stopped. Nothing moved in the branches above.

Just the leaves settling and the sound of his own breathing.

The ground before him flattened into a clearing where the trees pulled back enough to let actual sunlight hit the floor.

The air was different here, different from the beach and the canopy altogether.

Warmer and drenched in musk. Or it was the thing in front of him.

A woman lay facedown in the center.

Ezra stopped at the edge and held his breath.

She was pale from head to toe, her skin slick with sweat that pooled in the small of her back and glistened along the curve of her spine. Her hips were wide, showing the faintest of hair where her mound met her crevice. Her ass sat round and full above thick thighs that pressed together, the soft flesh between them catching shadow.

Her breasts spilled out from under her chest, heavy and supple, nipples pressed flat against the leaves beneath her. One arm stretched above her head, pulling her shoulder blades together and arching her back into a dip that put everything on display.

The position was almost deliberate, like she’d been placed there by someone who knew exactly what a man would want to see. Ezra wholeheartedly agreed to that.

Her feet were bare, soles smooth and pink against the pale rest of her, while her long black hair fanned out in thick strands trailing across the leaves and disappearing into the undergrowth on the far side of the clearing.

’Eye contact Ez, don’t look down. Don’t look down. Fuck. I’m all over.’

The quest notification pulsed once, reminding him to save the poor woman.

He definitely didn’t need the reminder.

He stepped closer, careful not to step on sticks in case it spooked her.

The faint rise and fall of her back said she was breathing. She twitched, a ripple through her shoulders that didn’t match her breathing. He kept walking.

He could see the individual beads of sweat on her lower back, the way her ribs expanded with each slow breath.

She looked real.

Warm enough too.

’Why is she naked? How is she not dead?’

Her hand found his ankle.

Ezra flinched but didn’t pull away. Soft fingers, gentle grip. Her head turned just enough to show him one eye, wide and wet.

"Please, Slayer."

She barely whispered it.

Her fingers slid up from his ankle to his calf, slow and deliberate, her thumb tracing the inside of his leg. Her colorless nails dragged faintly against his skin and her pale lips parted like she was about to say something else.

Ezra let her touch linger, and shifted into it even.

Her hand climbed higher.

Past his knee.

Her fingers pressed into his inner thigh, warm and soft, and she pulled herself closer, her breasts dragging across the leaves as her body slid toward him.

Her other hand reached up and found his hip, both palms flat against his skin now, her face inches from his waist.

She looked up at him, both hazel eyes visible. Tears on her cheeks, lips trembling.

"Will you help me, Slayer?"

His grip on the spear loosened, just a fraction.

She saw the movement and her fingers dug into his thighs.

The temperature in her hands dropped like she’d been dead for hours.

Her fingers were too strong. The gentle pressure became a vise that dug into the muscle and locked, and when he looked down her nails had sunk into his skin deep enough to draw blood.

She smelled wrong, not like sweat or skin.

More like meat left out too long on the sun.

Her lips were still moving.

"Help me, slayer. Help me slayer.

Help me, help me, help me, help me please."

Ezra brought the spear up and watched it plunge through the soft of her throat with a wet scrunch.

He waited for the body to go limp, but it didn’t.

That was the lie that he could live with.