While Silas was literally enjoying himself in a dangerous world inside a rift, Chloe was coiled up in a cave, her eyes shut tight. She wasn’t feeling cold. It wasn’t anything related to temperature. It was something much more common and fundamental.

Hunger.

She was hungry. Everything had its advantages and disadvantages. She had been thrown into this land of ice and snow and managed to awaken a sick ability, Absolute Zero. She could tell that she was now insanely powerful, but this same land lacked one fundamental resource. Food.

Monsters were roaming about, and she could kill them with ease, but that was where the problem lay. Unlike Silas, who had the system to ensure a smooth progress for him, Chloe got hit with all the power of her ability. She lacked control and finesse. She lacked the clean kill ability. All her kills either became blocks of ice or ice. It was all ice, and you can’t eat ice.

This brought us to her current situation. She was hungry, so much so that she could eat a whole mammoth. Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but the ultimate answer was that she was hungry. It wouldn’t kill her since she was an SS-Rank. Just the mana in the air could sustain her for weeks, even years. Not to mention, she was in a land that complemented her ability. She was literally swimming in mana-wealth, but she wasn’t a god. She was a human, and every normal human being, even the abnormal ones like Damien, ate.

Food was a fundamental aspect of human life, and so was hunger. Hunger was annoying, painful, and stubbornly persistent. No matter how powerful she had become, no matter how absurd her new ability was, hunger remained hunger. Chloe slowly pushed herself up from the icy cave floor.

Her movements were sluggish, not because she lacked strength. Far from it. She could feel power flowing through every part of her body. The problem was that power didn’t fill her stomach. Her stomach growled loudly.

"..."

The sound echoed through the cave. For a moment, Chloe stopped moving and stared ahead.

"I need food," she sighed.

Her voice had become softer and colder since her awakening. Even she could hear the difference. Slowly, she stepped out of the cave. The frozen world greeted her once more. Snow stretched endlessly in every direction. Mountains towered in the distance. The air glittered with tiny particles of ice mana. Ordinarily, the sight would’ve been beautiful, but right now? It looked edible. Everything looked edible. The snow, the ice, the rocks, and even the distant mountain looked slightly edible.

"Okay... maybe I’m a little hungry." Absolutely not enough to eat a mountain. Definitely not. Her stomach growled again.

"..."

Maybe the mountain wasn’t completely off the table. She began walking. Her legs felt strangely heavy from both exhaustion and frustration. She wanted food, real food. She wanted cooked food, maybe a sandwich, a burger, or pizza. Even the cafeteria food she used to complain about sounded heavenly right now.

Several minutes passed when suddenly, her eyes caught something. They narrowed as something blue appeared ahead. It was a massive tree. It stood alone amidst the snowfield. Its trunk was silver-white with branches that stretched outward like frozen rivers. Hanging from those branches were dozens of blue fruits. They were roughly the size of pears, bright, glossy, and almost glowing. The moment Chloe saw them, every survival lesson she’d ever learned vanished.

Poison? Danger? Unknown plant species? Potential death? Who cared? Food was FOOD. Nothing else made sense when food and hunger clashed in a person’s stomach. Her body moved before her brain could even process what was happening.

She appeared beneath the tree, shocking herself. She hadn’t meant to move that fast. Her newfound power was still difficult to control. One of the fruits hung low enough for her to grab. Without hesitation, she plucked it. The fruit felt cool in her hand. Its skin was smooth, almost crystalline. For exactly one second, she considered checking whether it was poisonous, but her stomach growled, and a decision was made.

She sank her teeth into it. Her teeth broke through the skin, and sweet juice exploded in her mouth. Her eyes widened.

"..."

She took another bite. Then another. In seconds, the fruit vanished. It was delicious, ridiculously delicious. The flesh was soft and sweet, like a mixture of pear, peach, honey, and something she couldn’t identify. It practically melted on her tongue. For a brief moment, Chloe looked genuinely emotional, but she grabbed another. Emotions could wait. She was starving here! The elegant ice queen who had slaughtered an entire wolf pack without blinking was now standing beneath a tree, devouring fruits like a starving squirrel, with juice dripping down her fingers.

She didn’t care. Her stomach finally stopped protesting, warmth spreading through her body. She felt energy entering her. Satisfaction and relief hugged her like long-lost friends. She almost... almost cried. By the time she finally stopped, nearly twenty fruits had disappeared.

Chloe leaned against the tree.

"I regret nothing."

The wind blew softly. For the first time since entering the rift, she felt slightly human again. Unfortunately for her, she had just eaten the fruits of a tree that every creature in the region avoided, not because they were poisonous. No. The fruits themselves were perfectly safe. The problem was the thing that owned the tree.

And several kilometers away, something very large suddenly opened its eyes. It stared ahead, its insane eyesight landing on the culprit that lay waste to its property. Well, she didn’t exactly lay waste to it, but who would explain that to an angry monster? Definitely not me. I’m just a viewer.

Chloe’s eyes stared up, landing on one fruit just above her head, the last one of the tree. She smacked her lips, her eyes glowing, jumped, and plucked it. The creature’s eyes twitched in anger as it watched Chloe devour the fruit in two bites.

ROOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRR!

Well, it was royally pissed.