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Without another word, the group fell in line behind Dinner.
"Dinner, right?" Jiro asked as they walked. "How bad is it here?"
He knew the situation in the Hex Food World wasn't good, but he needed the details.
"And you are??"
Dinner looked back at the imposing man, his single eye filled with confusion.
"This is the Knocking Master Jiro," Yuuki supplied.
He knew Jiro had visited the Hex Food World before, but who knew how long ago that was. In his youthful state—it was no surprise Dinner didn't recognize him.
"KNOCKING MASTER JIRO! I REMEMBER NOW! I SAW YOU WHEN I WAS JUST A KID, BUT YOUR APPEARANCE... HOW?"
Dinner was floored.
The first and only time he'd seen Jiro was in his childhood.
The village chief—the Daruma Hermit—had called him an honored guest and ordered everyone to treat him with the utmost respect.
But Dinner remembered a weathered, older powerhouse, not the young, vibrant man standing before him now. It was baffling.
Could a person really grow younger???
"I was under a Knocking seal before," Jiro said, his tone dismissing the question as trivial. "Now I'm not. Simple as that. Now, about the Hex Food World—what's the situation?"
His abrupt change in appearance had clearly thrown a lot of people off.
"It all started after the attack on the Human World,"
Dinner began, his voice heavy. "Brunch was at the Gourmet Festival. We only learned what happened after he came back—"
"—The Gourmet Corp leader's malice... it wasn't just contained there. It bled over, poisoning everything here. We live in the Gourmet World, but this place is still incredibly dangerous for us."
"We've always had the Horse King's protection, allowing us to grow our own food without having to risk the outside wilds. But Midora's malice reached even here."
"Most of our crops and livestock originally came from the Human World."
"That malice was too strong. Our plants and animals couldn't withstand it. The famine came on fast. For a while now, those of us who can hunt have been constantly searching for food."
"But this is still the Gourmet World. Bringing back enough food is nearly impossible. Everyone in the Hex Food World has Gourmet Cells... RIGHT NOW, WE'RE ALL STARVING."
Dinner's words painted a grim picture.
The situation was dire. Even with both the old and new Three Beast Knights, plus other powerful individuals, constantly hunting, the food they brought back was a drop in the ocean.
The Gourmet World was too dangerous—and they couldn't transport large quantities of ingredients at once. With a village full of people with active Gourmet Cells—the Hex Food World had been pushed to the brink.
It was the reason no one had been sent to greet Yuuki and the others. Anyone with the ability to travel was out hunting. The rest were huddled in their homes, trying to survive.
After hearing Dinner's account, Jiro felt a surge of helpless frustration.
Midora was his brother, yes, but what he had done this time was beyond the pale.
....
"I might be able to fix this," Yuuki said quietly.
He could have tried to help the Human World, but its sheer scale was overwhelming. He simply didn't have enough Life Energy. The Hex Food World, however, was a different story.
An area this size was well within his ability to restore. Besides, he would need their help later.
When he began preparing AIR, he would need to focus completely. Jiro would be busy holding back the Horse King, and leaving Nono to guard him alone felt insufficient. He needed the strength of the Hex Food World.
But they wouldn't follow him to prepare AIR if they were in the middle of a famine.
"WHAT? YOU CAN FIX IT?"
Dinner's eye widened in disbelief.
"Don't underestimate him,"
Jiro cut in, his voice firm. "He's a Reviver, and his skills are on par with Mohyan Shaishai and Yosaku—hell, he's probably better. IF ANYONE CAN FIX THIS MESS, IT'S HIM."
Hearing this, Dinner's single eye lit up.
Though he lived in the Gourmet World, the Hex Food World had the closest ties to the Human World. As a Reviver himself, he knew the names Yosaku and Mohyan Shaishai.
Their skills were on a completely different level from his.
To hear that, Dinner was filled with a mix of joy and awe. Of course, most of it was disbelief. Yuuki just looked so young...
But then he glanced at Jiro again—and his doubts vanished. The man next to him was centuries old but looked like he was in his prime.
Perhaps this Yuuki was the same.
Regardless, he knew one thing: the Hex Food World might just be saved.
....
Under Dinner's guidance, the group soon arrived at the Hex Food World. There was no welcoming ceremony this time, nothing like what Toriko and the others had experienced.
The village was eerily quiet. There was almost no one on the streets.
"Since the food crisis started, everyone's been staying indoors to conserve energy," Dinner explained with a heavy sigh. Though these people weren't strong enough to hunt, they knew they couldn't be a burden to those who were. So they stayed home, avoiding any activity that might burn precious calories.
After all, you needed to eat to replenish your strength. It was better for them not to move.
"Dinner, take me to your planting and breeding areas," Yuuki said. Those were the key. Solve the problems there, and the food crisis would be over.
He didn't need to purge the malice from the entire region, just those two areas. His Life Energy wasn't infinite, after all.
"This way!"
Dinner knew Yuuki wanted to test his method before making any grand promises. To offer hope and then snatch it away would be a cruel blow.
He led them to the planting area. It was a vast space, once filled with high-yield crops.
Now, all that remained were some preserved seeds, improved by the people of the Hex Food World, waiting for the day the malice would fade.
Yuuki knelt, pressing his palm flat against the dead soil. A wave of Life Energy pulsed from him, flowing into the ground.
Though there was no visible change on the surface, he could feel the fertility of the earth surging back to life.
When it reached a certain point, he pulled his hand away.
"Dinner, give me a seed. Let's see how it does."
Hearing this, Dinner immediately produced a seed, buried it in the revitalized soil, and applied a special ripening agent.
A single stalk erupted from the dirt, climbing skyward at an impossible speed before bursting forth with grains the size of a man's arm.
"IT WORKED! IT ACTUALLY GREW!"
Dinner's face was a mask of pure, unadulterated joy. He gave Yuuki and the others a hurried thanks and then began planting with a manic energy.
He was going to restore the entire planting area at once. It would consume a massive amount of his ripening agent, but that didn't matter.
As long as he could restore these fields, any cost was worth it. He could always find more materials for the agent later. The priority now was to make sure everyone had enough to eat.
Dinner's strength was considerable—and his planting speed was impressive. While he worked, Yuuki moved to the adjacent breeding area and restored it as well. There were no animals to be had, but he could leave that to the people of the Hex Food World to handle later.
With Dinner's frantic efforts, the entire field was planted and ripened to maturity in no time.
Seeing the sea of crops before him, Dinner couldn't help but laugh. Then, he let out a triumphant roar that echoed across the Hex Food World, calling everyone to the planting area.
Though they didn't know what he was doing, they knew Dinner was one of the few who could go out and capture ingredients, and a Reviver at that. They sensed that something important was happening.
After hearing his voice, everyone began to converge on the planting area.
....
"What's going on? Why is the planting area restored? DINNER, WHAT DID YOU DO??"
The first to arrive stared at the scene with wide eyes. As more and more people from the Hex Food World gathered, they looked at the bounty of food and began to weep with joy.
They didn't know what Dinner had done, but the crops here were back to normal.
That was real.
"So, kid—"
Jiro said, a wry grin on his face. "—You could have done this for the Human World. Why hold back?"
Since Yuuki could restore life to the land—why hadn't he even mentioned it back in the Human World?
"Take a look at how big the Human World is—old man. Tens of billions of people, a massive area. My Life Energy can repair the damage from Midora's malice, but it's not easy."
"Even if I poured all of my Life Energy into it, it would have been a drop in the bucket for the Human World."
Yuuki shook his head.
If he could have done it, he would have. But the problem was, he couldn't. The planting area of the Hex Food World wasn't that large, and besides, he needed their help. He wasn't about to work for free.
"Right..."
Jiro realized his point.
....
"Master Jiro, Chef Yuuki, Ms. Nono!"
Just as the two were talking, a voice called out.
The three of them looked over and saw a giant of a man in a wheelchair, a one-armed first-generation Melk standing beside him, and the Gourmet Surgeon Atashino covered in bandages.
These two were also members of the 0th Biotope. Besides the main battlefield, the IGO and the Gourmet Corp had also opened up several other fronts on different continents.
The Eighth Continent was the domain of the Gourmet Surgeon Atashino and the first-generation Melk. The Seventh Continent was the Reviver Malisman and the Gourmet Banchou Uumen Umeda. The Sixth was the warden of Honey Prison and others.
At this moment, the condition of Melk and Atashino was not good.
One was missing an arm, and the other was covered in bandages.
In the original story, when Toriko and the others had come here, their injuries were still very serious.
....
"It's Atashino and Melk. The injuries are a bit heavy, but at least your lives are saved!"
Seeing the two of them, Jiro greeted them.
"We meet again, Uncle Melk. But your injuries look a bit bad. There's a special energy preventing them from recovering—Give me a second."
With that, Yuuki directly injected two streams of Life Energy into the bodies of Melk and Atashino.
The two clearly felt a warm energy enter their bodies. Atashino found that the wounds under her bandages were healing at a rapid rate.
As for the first-generation Melk, it was even more direct. The severed stump of his arm began to bubble and churn—flesh and bone wove themselves back into existence at a speed that defied logic.
In a short while, their injuries were completely healed.
"THANK YOU SO MUCH, CHEF YUUKI!"
Atashino herself was a doctor. Though a surgeon, she was very clear about her own injuries. This was not something she and Melk could have handled.
But because of AIR—they could only stay here and wait. And going back to the Human World wasn't much better. The news Brunch had brought back, they also knew the situation in the Human World.
Now, the Human World had no resources at all. It was useless for them to go back. It was better to stay here.
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