Leveling Up through Eating

Chapter 5.1: Garlic Bread and Soup



After entering the game again, Minhyuk saw a familiar scene.

He saw users hitting the scarecrows and Instructor Valen with his crossed arms and bored look. His expression only changed when he saw Minhyuk coming over.

“Oh, you’re here.” 

“Yes, Instructor!”

Minhyuk answered loudly while he gripped his small wooden sword tightly.

“I’ll continue to work hard in swinging my sword!” 

“Aren’t you working hard to eat? Hahahaha!”

Instructor Valen laughed heartily, he looked good when he smiled.

‘This kind of person has a bad personality?’ 

Minhyuk tilted his head and steadily approached the scarecrows once more.

By now, his STR stat has already increased by +2 and he has received the bread reward for the 11th time.

And as usual, Minhyuk swung his sword as hard as he could to get his bread.

Slash! 

Slash! 

While he was concentrating… 

“I’m done. Give it to me.”

He heard the voice of a user, and even before he finished speaking… 

Thud. 

It was the sound of something getting thrown. It’s probably the reward bag.

“I know. Get lost, then.”

“Did you just look down on me? Aren’t you just an NPC, huh?” 

There are really a lot of strange people in this world. They even try to lash out on NPCs to resolve their inferiority complexes.

There were a lot of them, a lot more than anyone could think of. These people had to let others know that they have been looked down on without admitting that they also did it.

There’s nothing more shameful and ironic than this attitude. 

“You looked down on me first so I did the same. Do you have any problem with that?” 

“What, you son of a…” 

“Shut your trap and get lost.”

His voice could give anyone the chills. It was borderline murderous. 

The user gulped in fright. 

“I… I’ll kill you next time! You better watch out!” 

Valen scoffed loudly. 

Minhyuk thought of something when he heard the sound.

‘Isn’t this like a cider [1]?’ 

Hearing the words of the instructor makes me feel refreshed. 

He swung his sword for another 50 times, got rewarded with bread and ate it with relish. Minhyuk did this continuously until he could see the sun start to set. 

Time in Athenae flows three times faster than in the real world.

I could even say that I spent a whole day in the game. 

Minhyuk still continued what he was doing until the day completely ended. After completing this set, Minhyuk’s STR has increased again by +1 but he saw a strange number in his stats. 

(Minhyuk) 

Level: 1

Class: None

HP: 59 MP: 10

STR: 9  AGI: 5  STM: 5

WIS: 5  INT: 5

Fullness: 100%/2

Bonus Point: 0 

“Huh?” 

A /2 has shown up in my fullness stat. 

Minhyuk asked Instructor Valen right away. 

“Instructor, there’s a figure and the number 2 that showed up after my 100% fullness stat, do you know what it means?” 

“Hmmm… I’m sorry but I also don’t know what it is.”

“Ah… I see. I understand, thank you Instructor!” 

Minhyuk thought that the NPCs would know about it but it seems that they don’t. It seemed that the NPCs do not know everything and it was one of the advantages of the game Athenae. 

Minhyuk sat down, started eating his bread and checked for more information on Athenae’s official homepage. The official homepage of Athenae could be accessed even when the user was inside the game.

He searched for the / after his fullness stat. After searching for a while, he was able to find out about it.

[A /1 appeared right after my fullness stat, does anyone know what this means? 

—PororoGum: Your character will be deleted in 1 hour, yepyep[2].

—thisisrigged: What does it mean? 

—ieatwell: I know about this. It’s when your fullness has reached 100% but you still continue to eat food. Getting this /1 is not easy, you must have been eating really well. Take a picture of your hands as proof, go!] 

“Ah……..” 

Minhyuk understood it now. His fullness is at 100% and if he would keep on eating in this state then the numbers would continue to rise. 

Minhyuk did not see it because he would only open his stats window when his stats increase. He guessed that it has been at /2 for a while now. 

Minhyuk kept on searching for more information and came to a conclusion. 

‘I guess it’s not that big of a deal, huh?’ 

The highest number he saw was a /5 on a user. Nothing strange happened so Minhyuk thought that it would be fine and he just kept on swinging his sword.

And once again he has received another set of rewards.

[You have achieved 1000 strikes on the scarecrow.]

[You have acquired the title ‘This Zone’s Strong Guy’.] 

[You have gained 1 Reputation.] 

“I— Instructor!” 

Minhyuk immediately called out to Valen.

“What’s the matter?” 

“I… I got the title ThisZone’sStrong Guy.” 

“Co- congratulations!”

Valen was overjoyed, it was as if the one who got the title was himself.

“A person can get a lot of different titles, you can get a special title in a variety of ways. There are multi-titles and sole-titles. You can split them into these two big categories.”

Minhyuk listened attentively to his words.

“Multi-titles are titles that any user can obtain while sole-titles are special titles that can only be obtained when a user becomes the first person to achieve a specific milestone. The rewards for the latter are especially good. The This Zone’s Strong Guy is a title under the multi-title category.”

Instructor Valen told him this information with a satisfied smile. 

“You can also check your titles by thinking or saying it out loud.” 

Minhyuk checked the details of the title right away. 

(This Zone’s Strong Guy

Multi-title

Title Effect: +5 to all 5 Basic Stats

“Oh…” 

Minhyuk let out a surprised cry and quickly checked his stats window.

Level: 1

Class: None

HP: 114 MP: 100

STR: 9+5  AGI: 5+5  STM: 5+5

WIS: 5+5  INT: 5+5 Rep: 1

Fullness: 100%/2

Bonus Point: 0

Leveling up by 1 gives 5 bonus points. Right now, Minhyuk’s stats look similar to someone who has leveled up by 5.

I just swung my sword so I could eat! 

“Well, you must have seen that your reputation increased. If you have the reputation stat then your intimacy with the protectors will increase a bit and when you make a deal with them you will be able to buy items from them on a cheaper price or sell your items to them on a more expensive price. And once your reputation reaches a certain level you will obtain a +1 in your magical defense stat.”

“What is the magical defense stat?” 

“It’s literally the defense against magic. You don’t necessarily have it right now. Also, any unmarked stat will be marked once you get it, understand?” 

“Ah, I see. Thank you.”

Minhyuk ate his bread and started hitting the scarecrows again with a happy expression.

‘My body definitely has changed once my stats rose and I got the title.’

“Wow…” 

“He- he’s freaking strong!” 

The surrounding users shouted in surprise.

It’s been an hour after all, and they’re all beginner users with the same stats but he’s the only one who could finish it at twice the speed. They’re all stunned at his power.

And all of this was observed by Instructor Valen with a fatherly smile(?) on his face. 

***

Footnotes

[1] cider : it’s Sprite in KR, it’s a slang for feeling refreshed after an injustice is solved. Lol. Have to look up slangs about ciders because I was honestly confused for a moment there.

[2] raw says ㅇㅇ which means 응응 or just an informal way of saying yes, so I used yepyep.

TL note!

Regarding the titles… It was written as 다중칭호 and 유일 칭호 so I named it as multi-title and sole-title however idk what it is usually called in other rpg games. Help me… ㅠㅠ Also… Lol even the author questioned Valen’s smile. XD

P.S. I saw your comments on Ch 3.2… Yes Thu_rsday was right. There was a special reward. But Juslin was also correct in his question, however as stated by Valen, no one will waste their time to hit the scarecrow for 2 days straight just to get +4 on STR and this was also stated by Team Leader Park who’s going to be crazy for hard bread right??? besides they don’t know how much they need to hit to get the reward lol so they probably gave up. We don’t know if he’s the first or the only one with this title since it’s a multi-title ^^ but I think he was the first one to get it based on Valen’s reaction.

For any errors and issues contact me through discord:- https://discord.gg/Q3dStgu


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