Not a normal boar.

It was massive, twice the size of any boar he’d seen in the game. Well, he guessed it was also another world now, and it had tusks the colour of old ivory and a hide that shifted between dark brown and mottled grey. But what made Liam’s breath catch was its back. Mushrooms grew there. Dozens of them, clustered in fleshy, pale clusters along its spine, pushing through the hide like the animal was some kind of walking garden. The smell hit him in a wave, deep, fungal, intoxicating. Truffles. The thing reeked of truffles.

A hybrid, Liam guessed this one must have been rooting through truffle-rich soil for so long that the spores had taken hold.

Liam drew his knife. The blade was nothing special, iron, single-edged, the kind of tool that worked as well for dressing game as it did for fighting. He circled left, keeping downwind.

The boar hybrid lifted its snout. Its eyes, small and dark, locked onto him.

It charged.

Liam sidestepped, but the thing was faster than it had any right to be. A tusk caught his thigh, tearing through fabric and biting into flesh. Pain flared hot and bright, and he grunted, swinging the knife down. The blade skidded off the hybrid’s hide, barely cutting through the mushroom growth.

Tough. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

He adjusted his grip, planting his feet. The boar wheeled, hooves digging furrows in the meadow, and came at him again. This time, Liam dropped low and drove the knife upward into the soft spot beneath its jaw. The blade sank deep. The boar screamed a sound like a pig being slaughtered, high and raw and thrashed, throwing him sideways.

Liam hit the ground, rolled, and came up with the knife still in his hand. Blood ran warm down his thigh. The hybrid staggered, its charge losing momentum, dark blood pouring from the wound beneath its jaw. It turned, tusks lowered, and tried one more time.

Liam met it head-on.

He caught the tusks with both hands, muscles straining, boots sliding backward through the dirt. The hybrid’s breath was hot and foul against his face, thick with that truffle scent. For a moment, they held there, locked in a contest of raw strength, the boar’s weight driving him back inch by inch.

Then Liam twisted.

The hybrid’s neck snapped with a sound like a green branch breaking. It dropped, heavy and sudden, and the ground shook when it hit.

Silence.

Liam stood over the kill, chest heaving, blood dripping from his thigh onto the grass. The smell hit him fully now, no musk, no animal stink, just truffles. Rich, complex, layered truffles, so thick in the air he could almost taste them.

So he crouched down next to the boar and bit into its truffle-rich body.

A blue screen materialised in front of his vision.

[New Recipe Discovered: Truffled Boar]

[Effect: Aphrodisiac. Takes effect 30 minutes after consumption. For the chef (Liam): 10,000x increase in lasting time. For all other consumers: 500x increase in lasting time.]

Liam stared at the text.

He read it again.

His ears went flat against his skull. His tail went rigid.

The screen pulsed once, as if confirming.

Liam looked down at the dead hybrid, at the mushrooms still growing from its back, at the truffle scent still pouring off it in waves. Then he looked at the sky, where the first stars were appearing through the canopy.

Flour, eggs, butter, salt, he thought automatically. Then he stopped. That wasn’t going to work this time. The ingredients in his head had been replaced by something far more dangerous.

He knelt beside the carcass and began field-dressing it, his hands moving with practised efficiency. The meat was dark, marbled with fat, and the truffle scent intensified as he worked, clinging to his fingers, his arms, his clothes. By the time he’d carved out the usable cuts and harvested the mushrooms from the hide, he smelled like he’d bathed in truffle oil.

Liam slung the wrapped meat over his shoulder and started back toward camp, his thigh throbbing with each step. The wound was already closing, his regeneration stat doing its work, but the blood had soaked through his pants, leaving a dark stain.

He emerged from the trees to find the campfire blazing, orange light flickering across the clearing. Rogue was tending the flames. The driver was setting up a tent. And on a log near the fire, Midnight sat with her knees drawn up, watching the forest edge with those half-lidded eyes.

She saw him first.

Her ears shot upright. She was on her feet before he’d taken three more steps, crossing the distance between them with that quick, silent grace she had. Then she was climbing him, scaling his arm and shoulder like he was a tree, and by the time she’d settled across the back of his neck, her shape had already shifted small and serpentine, a coil of blue scales, a tail looped loosely around his collar. Her tiny snout pressed into his hair. She inhaled once, long and slow, and a thin curl of smoke drifted from one nostril.

"Truffles," he said, holding up the wrapped meat. "I found a hybrid boar. It had mushrooms growing out of its back."

Rogue looked up from the fire. "Wow, those are rare as hell."

Liam set the meat down on a flat stone near the fire pit and started unwrapping it. The truffle scent bloomed outward, filling the clearing. "I got a new recipe, Truffled boar, gives a buff."

Midnight had drifted closer, her nose practically touching the meat. She inhaled deeply, and a shiver ran through her small frame. "Midnight wants to try it," she said, and her voice had dropped half an octave.

Rogue caught the shift immediately. His eyes darted between Midnight and the meat, then to Liam. "What kind of buff are we talking about, exactly?"

Liam picked up his knife and began portioning the meat. "Aphrodisiac," he said, matter-of-fact. "Takes thirty minutes."

The word landed in the clearing like a stone dropped into still water.

Rogue’s sharpening stopped mid-stroke. "C-c-c-come again?"

"Aphrodisiac. Thirty minutes to kick in." Liam laid the slices across a makeshift grill he’d fashioned from green branches. "For me, it increases the lasting time by ten thousand times."

Rogue’s mouth opened. Closed, opened again. "LAIM WHAT THE HELLL, WAIT ARN’T WE ALL VIRIGINS?"

"For everyone else, five hundred times."

The fire crackled. Somewhere in the trees, an owl called.

Rogue set his daggers down very carefully on the log beside him. "I’m going to go check the perimeter," he said, standing. "For a very long time. Possibly all night."

He walked into the darkness without looking back.

Midnight hadn’t moved. She stood beside the fire, watching Liam turn the meat with the tip of his knife. The truffle scent curled around them both, warm and thick and inescapable.

"Liam," she said quietly.

"Yes?"

"Midnight is going to eat a lot of this."

[TOOL TIP]:

Status: Recipe Unlocked

The 10,000x Factor: The system granting the Master Chef a 10,000x multiplier to his internal engine durability has completely overridden his standard shopping list. Reciting pancake recipes is now mathematically useless; his internal processor is currently displaying a critical ’May Hestia Have Mercy on Sanctum’ warning.

The Strategic Tactical Retreat: Rogue hearing the phrase "500 times lasting duration for consumers" while remembering the current caravan demographic has triggered an immediate [Self-Preservation Exodus]. He is currently sprinting into the pitch-black forest to become a permanent tree-hugger, or humper.

The Carnivore Deadline: Midnight declaring her legal intent to consume massive, high-volume portions of the aphrodisiac meat has initiated a [30-Minute Doom Clock]. The system notes that when the timer hits zero, the camp tent’s structural integrity will be put to a supreme server-wide stress test.