Culinary God in Wilderness

He mulled it over for a long time. For Andre to surpass his score in the shortest amount of time, he’d have to wipe out an entire pack of Yukon Wolves and take down a Black Bear.

Both species were considered just a step below the Overlord Level creatures in the Alaska Forest, part of a group known as the "four great beasts."

The other two were moose and bison.

The true overlord was the brown bear.

’With his level of skill, he could do it if he really set his mind to it. After all, even a half-baked hunter like me managed.’

Although he hadn’t seen Andre in action much, ever since acquiring the perspective that came with his Basic Arrow Skill, he felt as if he possessed the keen senses of a Hunter.

Whenever he saw Andre holding his bow, he got the feeling that the man’s archery was definitely superior to his own, though not by a huge margin.

’Whatever, it’s useless for me to just sit here and speculate. I’ll keep going to the river every day and catch fish. Can’t pass up on free points.’

’The next time that old fella comes over to mooch a meal, I’ll ask him for a straight answer. Given his personality, he’s not the type to stab me in the back.’

After nearly two months of interaction, he felt he had a good grasp of Andre’s personality. The man was simple and honest, a salt-of-the-earth type. Perhaps years of living in the wild, far from the chaos of civilization, had prevented him from developing a cunning or deceitful mind.

Other factors aside, wiping out an entire Yukon Wolf Pack single-handedly was a near-impossible feat.

Wolves are extremely intelligent creatures, and the alpha, in particular, would almost never attack a human without provocation.

If he were to snipe them from a distance, Andre’s archery skills would certainly allow him to instantly kill one wolf in a surprise attack, but the rest of the pack would be alerted.

They would either swarm him to avenge their fallen packmate or turn and flee.

Humans are among the slowest runners of all medium-to-large animals. Even from a hundred meters away, a wolf pack could close the distance in seconds, and Andre would find himself in the same predicament Lin Chen had faced.

Even if Andre managed to kill a few more wolves, he could never survive a close-quarters brawl with the rest of the pack. One bite and it would be over. This made the scenario virtually impossible.

If the pack fled, Andre would have to hunt them down or try to ambush them later to make up the points.

Once the pack’s numbers dwindled too much, the alpha would deem the area too dangerous and lead its pack to a new territory.

In other words, trying to wipe out an entire pack in one go was unrealistic.

That would leave him with two choices: find a new pack or continue tracking the old one.

Lin Chen himself had faced a similar situation. His investigations over the past few weeks had revealed that the pack by the river that tried to ambush him and the pack he saw near the Musk Ox herd were two different groups.

The remnants of the pack whose alpha he’d tricked and killed had been absorbed by the river pack. Now, their numbers were back to their peak, even larger than before.

’So, what will Andre do...?’

He couldn’t help but be curious.

Before he knew it, another week had passed.

Day 63.

As usual, Lin Chen woke up whenever he felt like it, collected some firewood from nearby, and made a simple beef soup for breakfast.

During this time, he had made nearly every kind of soup imaginable.

Clear beef bone broth, braised beef soup, spicy beef offal soup, hot and sour beef stew, clear grouse soup, wild mushroom and chicken stew...

Eventually, he felt no sense of anticipation whatsoever. He was just forcing it down to fill his stomach and stay alive.

Lunch and dinner were much the same. He rotated through a cycle of stir-fried beef offal, stir-fried beef, spicy braised tripe, red-braised beef tendons and gristle, braised beef shank, sweet char siu-style beef, grilled beef skewers, and hot pot-style beef.

He also used some of his precious flour to make dumplings, noodles, and potato pancakes for a change of pace.

Even with all that, there was still over a month to go.

Only now was he beginning to truly understand the meaning of endless solitude, and why so few contestants from previous seasons had survived until the end.

Even those who made it to the finals looked like emotionless, walking corpses.

You couldn’t really blame them. The loneliness, the soul-crushing monotony of a life with nothing to look forward to, was enough to drive a person insane.

He now found himself looking forward to Andre’s visits, just to have someone to talk to.

That, and the few minutes he spent with the Little Snow Fox, were practically the only things he looked forward to all day.

’With the ingredients I have, what other new dishes can I possibly make?’

He sat in the yard, troubled, staring blankly into space.

The ham he was air-drying on the second floor wasn’t ready yet. Now that it was December in inland Alaska, there were only three to four hours of daylight, and the sun wasn’t warm enough. He had to rely on the heat from his fire to cure the meat.

The potato sprouts he had planted in the yard out of boredom, which had survived nearly a month of cold, were finally succumbing to the lack of sunlight and slowly dying.

The sunchokes, on the other hand, were thriving. As expected of such a notoriously resilient plant; there was a reason they grew so rampantly in North America.

Even when neglected, without sunlight or water, they grew taller by the day, showing no signs of faltering no matter how the cold wind raged.

The snow had let up for a while, then fallen intermittently for a few days. Ever since the calendar had rolled over to December, the snowfall had been gradually increasing.