"I'm a news reporter. Director Mansam personally gave me permission to film, so I followed you in!"
Tina was exactly the kind of person who'd chase a scoop at the cost of her own life. If it weren't for her Food Luck, she'd have been dead a long time ago.
"Even if you're a reporter, even if the director gave you permission, you shouldn't have followed us all the way in here," Sunny said. "Any random beast around here could wipe you out in seconds. If we're free, we can protect you—but if we get tied down in a fight…"
He didn't finish the sentence.
Sunny might be narcissistic and a little arrogant, but he wasn't the type to abandon someone in danger. All of the Four Heavenly Kings were soft-hearted that way.
The problem was that he couldn't guarantee he could protect Tina while fighting. Losing focus in combat was basically suicide, and he wasn't reckless enough to risk that.
"It's too late to say that now," Toriko said helplessly. "If we escort her back and then come again, the Gourmet Corp will probably have already taken the Jewel Meat. We don't have that kind of time."
He was honestly baffled himself—how had he not noticed Tina tagging along earlier?
"You don't need to worry," Kael said, glancing at Tina. "You don't even need to protect her. She won't be in danger."
Tina had a natural ability to make people overlook her. That had to be Food Luck at work. As a reporter, she needed massive amounts of photos and footage, so her Food Luck interfered with those around her.
That was why she could safely reach places others couldn't. As for areas that were truly deadly, where no one could protect her, Food Luck itself would stop her from going in.
Since Food Luck had allowed her to reach this place, it meant it had already judged that she wouldn't be in danger here.
"Why do you say that, Kael?" Komatsu asked, confused. "Miss Tina and I are both just ordinary people, aren't we?"
He knew better than anyone how fragile "ordinary" was. Every time he'd gone on an adventure with Toriko, Toriko had protected him. Without that, he'd have died countless times already.
He had Toriko. But Tina didn't have anyone like that.
"You're right—you're both ordinary people," Kael said. "But both of you have extremely dense Food Luck. As long as Food Luck is with you, you won't encounter danger. Even if you do, it'll turn into a close call at worst."
That statement made everyone freeze.
"I know about Food Luck," Rin said slowly, "but isn't it supposed to be something vague? Just… luck?"
People used Food Luck as a blessing all the time, but no one had ever claimed it could be observed.
If Kael could say Komatsu and Tina had strong Food Luck, that meant it was something visible.
"Food Luck is vague," Kael admitted. "And extremely hard to observe. Under normal circumstances, you'd need terrifying strength to even sense it. Even someone on Master Setsuno's level would struggle."
"I can barely observe it myself, and only because I have some… special abilities. Komatsu's and Tina's Food Luck is at least ten thousand times stronger than an ordinary person's. Someone with Food Luck that dense almost never encounters danger in the wild."
Kael laid it all out. They'd learn about it eventually anyway.
"So why is their Food Luck so strong?" Toriko asked, intrigued. "This is the first time I've really heard about it."
"I don't know," Kael said. "Food Luck is abstract. I can't explain why theirs is so strong. Yours isn't weak either—just nowhere near theirs. Still far stronger than a normal person's."
Komatsu made sense—he was one of the protagonists, after all.
But Tina?
Kael had no explanation for her. The only answer was that she was the anime-original side character favored by the animation staff, just like how Zonge was the manga author's beloved child.
"That… actually explains a lot," Toriko said slowly. "Back on Baron Islands, we were searching for the Galala Crocodile. It only showed up because Komatsu got his blood sucked by Baron Leeches."
"And in the Eighth Biotope, when Komatsu and I were in serious trouble, he noticed the Silverback before I did. Once we restrained it, the crisis was over."
"The Beach Cave was the same. Komatsu should've died when he ran into the Devil Serpent alone—but he was saved by Knocking Master Jiro."
"And the Puffer Whale cooking… nine failures, then success on the tenth try."
As Toriko listed incident after incident, everyone's expressions changed.
Every time, Komatsu had survived by the skin of his teeth—and somehow ended up being the key to success.
It perfectly matched what Kael said about Food Luck.
"That's true for me too," Tina said. "In the Eighth Biotope, I was stopped at the entrance. Same with the Beach Cave—I got scared and didn't go in, and later the Devil Serpent sealed the entrance with its roar."
"After that, we ran into someone terrifying at the cave entrance. He killed everyone who attacked him—but didn't touch us."
"And this time, I didn't even expect I'd be able to sneak into the underground arena."
Sunny's eye twitched.
"You're saying you got into the underground arena?"
That place was inside IGO headquarters. It was restricted to elites only, with insane security. Beast fighting didn't exactly fit IGO's public image, so everything about it was classified.
And yet Tina had just… walked in.
"Yeah. I don't really know how. I just followed some people and ended up there."
Now it made sense.
Food Luck had guided her past IGO's layers of security and straight into the arena.
"That's ridiculous," Sunny muttered. "Food Luck can just stroll through IGO headquarters and still get rewarded with permissions afterward?"
"It is unreasonable," Kael said. "That's Food Luck. People with dense Food Luck can easily accomplish what they want—finding ingredients, getting access, anything."
"Komatsu follows Toriko to hunt ingredients, so ingredients naturally appear before you."
"Tina is a reporter. She needs news, so she can easily get into places she shouldn't—unless Food Luck judges the danger as unsolvable and blocks her."
Everyone nodded. As overpowered as it was, bringing Tina along didn't seem like a real problem anymore.
That was when the ground began to tremble.
Several massive slabs of marble shook violently, and towering humanoid monsters—over thirty-five meters tall—rose up.
"Rock Drums," Sunny said. "The strongest predators on the Black Grassland. Capture Level around 27. Their bodies are pure marble, and they're insanely strong."
For Sunny, only massive hair-based attacks or reflection techniques would work.
Toriko wasn't much better. His Knife and Fork couldn't pierce their defenses yet. Unless he unlocked Leg Knife and Leg Fork, only Nail Punch could hurt them—and that would burn way too many calories.
They still had Gourmet Corp to deal with.
"Hair Lock!"
Sunny moved first.
Golden hair flashed, and several Rock Drums were frozen in place.
At the same time, Kael tossed several bottles.
They shattered on the ground, releasing green mist that enveloped the Rock Drums.
The Rock Drums soon broke free of the Hair Lock—but inside the green mist, they posed no threat at all.
"What was that?" everyone asked.
"Give me a moment," Kael said. "I want to see if I can tame them."
He stepped into the mist, pulled out the Knocking Gun Jiro had given him, and struck several points on the Rock Drums.
Their bodies began to shake violently.
The green mist was absorbed into them, and green patterns slowly spread across their marble bodies.
Half a minute later, the Rock Drums stopped trembling and stood quietly, staring at Kael.
The mist contained a special parasitic plant. Once vaporized and exposed to stone, it would invade and take control.
Rock Drums were made entirely of marble. Combined with Knocking, Kael forced them to absorb it completely.
They were fully tamed.
"…That's it? Completely tamed?" Sunny stared at Rin. "Could you do that?"
"With enough time, maybe," Rin said slowly. "But taming them on the spot like this? Impossible. I've never seen a method like that."
Her approach was gradual. Kael's was pure efficiency—the Gourmet Corp style. Control first, worry about feelings never.
They don't care. They treat tamed beasts as tools.
Sunny fell silent.
A chef who was also a Gourmet Hunter was already ridiculous.
Now he was a top-tier Beast Tamer too.
Even Sunny, a lifelong genius, was starting to lose confidence.
"Let's go," Kael said. "They'll take us across. The others won't attack."
The Rock Drums lifted them onto their shoulders.
Terry didn't bother—one leap put him on a Rock Drum's head.
Even as a newborn, a Battle Wolf was terrifyingly fast.
Under the Rock Drums' escort, they headed straight for the Regal Plateau.
Other Rock Drums appeared along the way but didn't attack.
They passed through unimpeded.
The GT Robots weren't so lucky.
One of them had already been half-destroyed after running straight into a roaming Regal Mammoth—and then finished off by its own teammates.
That was Gourmet Corp for you.
No coordination at all.