“Phew,” Ellie breathed lightly, lowering the wooden sword in her hands.

“Wow...” Minhyuk exclaimed in surprise. The destructive power that Ellie had displayed was so overwhelming that even Minhyuk, who was usually focused and preoccupied with food, could not help but gasp in awe.

“I will teach you four moves in total.”

“Yes!”

“After I teach you the moves, you have to repeatedly strike the wooden puppets with those moves. You only have one week to master them.”

“I understand,” Minhyuk answered, and Ellie began to demonstrate and teach him a set of movements. The moves were simple: a stab, an indiscriminate sword slash, a quick step back and a strike going down. The way that NPCs trained the players was usually quite monotonous. It was made that way so the players would understand the contents of the training and would be able to follow and learn them easily.

[You have mastered the basics of Ellie’s Swordsmanship.]

[Please repeat the movements to train Ellie’s Swordsmanship.]

[An invisible training progress has been created.]

[Your training progress will remain invisible for a week.]

“What does the invisible training progress mean?”

“It means that you can’t determine it.”

“Can’t determine?”

“It will depend on the amount of effort and perseverance you put in the training.”

“Aha,” Minhyuk said. Although Ellie only explained it briefly, Minhyuk was still able to understand it. What it meant was that the power that he could exert using Ellie’s Swordsmanship would depend on how much effort he would use to train within that one week.

“Anyway, work hard. I’ll give you an ingredient for every two puppets you destroy. Just one for every two puppets. No more than that.”

“Yes!” Minhyuk answered loudly, watching Ellie step out of the training grounds. Then, he sat down on the spot and went to Athenae’s official website. What he searched for was, ‘Eivelis Imperial Palace Food’. Plenty of related search words and articles popped out on the website.

[Guys, I’ve got a job as a chef in the imperial palace of Eivelis Empire. I even got a hidden class, yepyep. ‘Master of Peeling.’ I can peel onions really well. I can peel five onions in under one minute.

gsdfadl3: Lol, hahahaha. Are you really peeling onions in the game?

shinchanisthirsty: My goodness... Still a laborer even inside the game...

BlackDragontheCookingKing: But it’s alright. You can try a lot of different things here. The food here is so damn delicious ㅠㅠ 

Janggeumie: What if Ellie asks you, will you say ‘How can I answer why it tastes like onions when it really tastes like onions?’. Hahahahaha

AGourmet: Oh, but since you can eat a lot of delicious food then it’s okay, right? What’s the most delicious food?

BlackDragontheCookingKing: It’s ham. Ellie really likes spam so maybe that’s why the ham in here is really delicious. And all the ham in here are made out of C-grade ingredients. Yepyep. But of course, I still can’t eat ham that often here.

Janggeumie: Lies. Which empress would eat spam?]

“Oho. So it’s ham!” Minhyuk said. He found out that the next most delicious food right after spam was regular ham. Minhyuk could only think of a dish with all those ingredients in consideration.

“A, army stew...!” Minhyuk shouted. It was a dish made with ham, kimchi, dumplings, and ramyeon noodles put together. People of all ages loved it. After finally deciding what to eat and setting his goal, Minhyuk stood up and approached one of the wooden puppets to start his training.

Slash!

Slash!

Slash!

‘I will eat…! Army stew…!’ 

Stab! 

Stab!

Stab!

Minhyuk believed that Ellie had made a mistake tempting him with ingredients. Since she did that, he would live up to her expectations and even go beyond that, to get all the ingredients that he needed for army stew! So, Minhyuk continuously struck at the wooden puppet. He trained without taking a break. An hour later, Minhyuk was completely drenched in sweat. He could also feel his back and arms starting to go numb from the pain. A strong desire to take a rest crept up the back of his head. However, Minhyuk endured it.

‘It will be very delicious if I put ramyeon noodles in my army stew!’

Thwack! Slash!

Two hours of intense training later, Minhyuk’s back felt like it was going to snap in two. He could not even feel his wrists anymore. However, the wooden puppet still remained pristine, without a single scratch on its surface. Minhyuk thought, ‘Two of you have to die if I want to get one ingredient and taste that spicy soup!’

Slash! Stab!

Three hours later, MInhyuk’s body was shaking terribly to the point that it was difficult to stand up on his own. However, he still persevered. He believed that eating would become more delicious after doing hard work. Minhyuk had always lived by those words. In reality, even if he worked hard, he would not be able to eat any delicious food, but it was possible here. So, he swung his sword to achieve that. He could not collapse right now if he wanted to do that. His will to eat was so strong that it allowed him to persevere.

Slash!

Stab!

Three and a half hours later…

Baang!

…a white wooden puppet broke down into pieces.

[You have obtained 1 Special Point (SP).]

[You can also invest your special points on stats that can’t be raised with bonus points.]

“Oho!” Minhyuk shouted happily, quickly investing the SP to his DEX. Then, he rested for five minutes before continuing his striking spree. Minhyuk kept on striking and striking the wooden puppets until…

[You have increased your STR by 1.]

[You have increased your AGI by 1.]

[You have increased your Will by 1.]

“Oh... Will!” Minhyuk said in surprise. Minhyuk was able to increase his Will by eight points inside the Farming Dungeon. This stat was extremely different from regular stats. It was very touching for him to receive even a one point increase in this stat. Although he was not aware, his Will was the only thing that was keeping him up despite his body’s huge urge to fall down from exhaustion. It was due to this stat that he was able to continue swinging his sword at the wooden puppets.

Bang!

***

Three days later.

Ellie was heading towards the training grounds. She did not have the time to check up on Minhyuk’s progress these past few days as she was busy with the empire’s affairs. She said, “Destroying two a day might be too much for him.”

Even so, if Minhyuk was able to destroy two wooden puppets in one day, his progress in Ellie’s Swordsmanship would still increase by a lot. Ellie believed that the progress that he would accumulate in that one week was enough to give any foreigner like Minhyuk a huge boost in strength. However, Ellie thought that it might still be too hard for Minhyuk to destroy two wooden puppets in a day. After all, this process was long, tedious, and so monotonous, that anyone was bound to give up at some point.

She wondered if he even received at least one SP. To get one SP, one had to hit the wooden puppet 500 times. This was a very tedious and tiring chore, right? However, that was on top of a difficult condition. Was there something more difficult than hitting a wooden puppet alone in an empty and quiet training ground? But when Ellie opened the door to the training grounds and saw what Minhyuk was doing…

“Sword of Fury.”

…her eyes widened in shock. Minhyuk’s sword was covered in red light as he clenched the hilt of this sword tightly and stabbed at one of the blue wooden puppets in the training grounds.

Stab!

His sword was embedded deeply in the middle of the blue wooden puppet.

“...H…how is this possible?” Ellie gasped, eyes growing as wide as saucers.

***

Minhyuk turned to look at Ellie when he heard her shout in surprise. He had just learned the four basic movements of Ellie’s Swordsmanship so he wanted to try and test out the skill on the very first day. When he tried it, the notification only showed him this:

[Sword of Fury]

The usual words that were written under the skill description did not come out, even the progress percentage did not show. When he struck the wooden puppet with the skill, all he managed to do was shake the puppet. However, that much disturbance was enough. That was the reason why Minhyuk always tried to use the skill whenever he tried to destroy a wooden puppet. As time went by, the damage that he could inflict on the wooden doll increased. In other words, his skill was growing as his training progressed further. As proof, he was able to stab the wooden puppet with his sword. A feat that was incomparable to destroying the wooden puppet, but still amazing nonetheless.

“You’re here?” Minhyuk greeted Ellie as he wiped the sweat off of his forehead. Meanwhile, Ellie looked at the surroundings.

“...”

She was at a loss for words. There were a total of sixteen wooden puppets lying down on the ground, broken into pieces.

“H…how did this happen…”

Even Ellie, a person that had seen a lot in this world, was astonished. One could break a wooden doll in five hours at the fastest. That was to say that the person striking the puppet would hit the wooden puppet seventy times in an hour. But, was that something that could be done repetitively? It was something that was very difficult for anybody to accomplish in a single day.

Yet, in front of her eyes, there were sixteen puppets lying around. This meant that Minhyuk had destroyed around six puppets in a single day. Ellie could tell that Minhyuk had devoted all of his time to swinging his sword and striking the wooden puppets, only allowing himself the most minimum break.

“Since I destroyed sixteen puppets, that means I will get eight ingredients. Hohohoho!” Minhyuk said happily. It seemed like he was powered by the will to eat delicious food.

Ellie looked at Minhyuk and noticed the hilt of the wooden sword in his hands. The hilt was dyed red with the blood from Minhyuk’s hand. She thought, ‘My god...’

Athenae had always promoted realistic representations of reality. Ellie could tell that Minhyuk’s hands had bled from his skin peeling off from extreme training. This was the main cause for the sword to be dyed red in blood. In fact, it was a bit insignificant, and the foreigners had natural healing and recovering abilities. This amount of injury was usually enough for their healing ability to recover. 

However, the fact that the sword had been dyed with blood despite the healing power meant that Minhyuk had been swinging his sword non-stop, his natural healing ability failing to keep up with his injuries. This was something extremely surprising, even for Ellie. Nonetheless, she did not let it show on her expression.

“How did this happen, how did you make such a mess? Clean this up. Look at this mess!”

Minhyuk thought that Ellie would praise him, but contrary to what he expected, he received a fierce scolding. Minhyuk looked at her dumbfoundedly, before jumping out and shouting, “Gasp! I’m gonna clean this up. You have to give me my ingredients!”

Ellie chuckled to herself when she heard his words. She thought, ‘Len... I think I know the reason why you chose him.’

Ellie could now understand why Len gave Minhyuk Ellie’s Kitchen Knife. She already knew that this foreigner was very strange. He was someone who liked food, so much that he would put it above everything else. However, through the training, she realized that Minhyuk was also someone that worked hard, giving his all to the things and tasks that he was given.

‘He might have learned a lot of different things, but it seems like this is the reason why he’s so strong.’

Ellie nodded and thought, ‘It’s completely possible.’. Even though she would only teach Minhyuk four chapters, in other words half, of Ellie’s Swordsmanship, Ellie believed that Minhyuk would be able to exert the greatest power that this swordsmanship could offer. Ellie grinned as she watched Minhyuk frantically clean up the mess in the training grounds, thinking to herself that she wanted to get closer with Minhyuk. If anyone who knew her found out what she was thinking, they would definitely be surprised.

***

Lee Seokhoon, the team leader of the development team, accessed Athenae. Despite being one of the operators, he still had to access the game. This was so they could prepare for Athenae’s future update.

Generally, operators had to often meet with influential NPCs inside Athenae in order to proceed with the update. They had to discuss with them and subtly direct them towards the general course of action that they needed to do in the future. It was because of this that they had been hailed as the influential envoys of the God of Athenae. This title made the NPCs treat them favorably, some would even go as far as worship them.

‘We need Ellie’s help to open up the Northern Continent.’ Lee Seokhoon thought. That was also the reason why he came to Eivelis Empire’s Imperial Palace. He needed to meet Ellie to help the update proceed in that direction. Not long after, the knight leader appeared and greeted Lee Seokhoon.

As they walked past the halls of the imperial palace, Lee Seokhoon thought, ‘I heard that Player Minhyuk is also in the palace.’. Lee Seokhoon did not know what Minhyuk was up to but he had a hunch that the Special Players Management Team would know.

‘Ah, I have to speak formally with Ellie.’

Even if the development team and the God of Athenae were working together, every time Seokhoon went to see Ellie, she would receive him with a cold stare. He always had a hard time whenever he approached her. He felt like he would be stabbed with a sword if he did anything wrong. Seokhoon soon saw the door to the throne room open.

“Have you been well?”

Ellie nodded in answer as she reached out for the parchment filled with the instructions from God of Athenae that Seokhoon was handing over. The NPCs had no choice but to follow the instructions in the parchment. This was because the God of Athenae was the absolute ruler of this world. However, even though she would follow, Ellie still could not help but shake her head at the contents of the parchment.

Lee Seokhoon started his explanations to clear up any questions that the empress might have. He said, “The God of Athenae has continuously asked the envoys to pioneer the march towards the Northern Continents. And since there are quite a number of monsters blocking our path, we are requesting the Eivelis Empire to support us with 20,000 troops.”

Just as Ellie was about to nod her head, the door to the throne room opened. A young man burst inside and shouted, “Ellie-noona!”

‘D…did he just say noona?! Gasp?!’ Lee Seokhoon thought, freaking out inside. 

‘The man was referring to Empress Ellie as noona? He said noona, right?!’

In fact, Lee Seokhoon thought that it was more fitting to call Ellie 'Old Woman' instead.

‘I don’t know what’s going through this crazy guy’s head, but I’m sure that he will end up in jail.’ Lee Seokhoon thought, turning around to look at the player’s face. He could see a strangely familiar player running towards Ellie excitedly. The player was none other than Minhyuk.

“Gasp?!”

This was the second gasp that he had unknowingly let out in the span of a minute.