Chapter 335

By the time every prepared ingredient had been grilled and eaten, Kagura was leaning back in her chair with one hand resting on her round, overstuffed stomach.

She let out a deeply satisfied sigh.

"This is heaven... Haruto, your cooking is the best in the whole world!"

"There’ll be plenty more where that came from."

Haruto smiled, anticipation shining in his eyes.

"The Gourmet World is enormous. There are still countless ingredients waiting for us to discover."

The more he explored this place, the more eager he became to see what kinds of delicacies he would encounter next.

After resting for the night, Haruto left the Gourmet Restaurant with Kagura and Kanna.

Once outside, Kagura tilted her head slightly and closed her eyes, feeling the currents of wind moving through the forest.

After confirming there was no immediate danger nearby, she opened her eyes and nodded to Haruto.

Only then did the three continue onward.

Over the next half month, they pushed steadily deeper into the forest, capturing ingredients wherever they went.

Inside a canyon constantly struck by lightning, they harvested Thunder Bamboo Shoots, each stalk capable of drawing lightning into itself.

Once the outer shell was peeled away, the flesh inside was as white as jade. The texture was crisp, with a strange tingling sensation from the electricity stored within, making every bite an unusual experience.

In a river that shimmered with all the colors of a rainbow, they caught large numbers of Seven-Colored Butterfly Fish.

Their scales reflected seven colors beneath the sunlight, while the flesh was so delicate and naturally flavorful that no seasoning was required. Simply steaming the fish released a sweet, almost dreamlike aroma.

They also discovered an enormous hive built hundreds of meters above the ground in a colossal tree.

The hive belonged to Crystal Bees, whose bodies looked as though they had been carved from transparent crystal.

Their honey was equally extraordinary.

Crystal Honey was nearly as clear as pure crystal and hundreds of times sweeter than ordinary honey, yet somehow never became cloying. It also contained an immense amount of vitality and could rapidly accelerate the recovery of injuries.

Of course, those fifteen days had not been free of danger.

While harvesting Thunder Bamboo Shoots, the three encountered a large colony of Thunderstorm Bamboo Rats.

Each one was more than three meters long, electricity constantly crackling across its body, and they could even spit concentrated balls of lightning.

Even Haruto went numb whenever one of those attacks landed cleanly. His limbs weakened so badly that he could barely move properly.

After finally escaping the colony, it took him quite a while before the numbness completely faded.

Naturally, Haruto still managed to capture several of the bamboo rats along the way.

Their meat was tender and juicy, with a faint electrical tingling sensation that remained on the tongue after each bite.

Haruto had been very satisfied with the flavor.

The three also stumbled into a forest of Explosive Pine Trees.

Those trees produced fruits Haruto simply called Explosive Pinecones.

Whenever the trees sensed a living creature passing nearby, the pinecones would immediately drop from the branches and detonate.

Inside each fruit were pine nuts as hard as diamonds. Propelled by the force of the explosion, they could punch straight through a steel plate a meter thick.

Even Haruto had been blasted into a miserable state and forced to flee in a hurry.

Fortunately, the pine nuts tasted excellent too.

One afternoon, the three entered a dense redwood forest.

The trees here towered more than a hundred meters into the sky, with trunks so massive that more than a dozen people would have been needed to encircle one.

Sunlight filtered through layer after layer of foliage, scattering tiny patches of light across the forest floor.

A faint, clean fragrance hung in the air.

After walking for a little over ten minutes, Kagura suddenly stopped.

Her expression became serious.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on the information carried by the wind.

Haruto and Kanna immediately stopped as well, their attention shifting toward the surrounding forest.

Both of them understood how wide Kagura’s sensory range became when she used the wind.

If she was reacting like this, she had definitely found something unusual.

Several seconds later, Kagura opened her eyes and looked toward a particular direction deeper within the forest.

"The wind says there’s a very powerful humanoid creature over there."

She frowned slightly.

"Its presence is strange. Violent, almost feral... and extremely strong."

"A humanoid creature?"

Haruto paused.

There were not many humanoid species in the Gourmet World.

After considering it for a moment, he decided to investigate.

"Let’s take a look."

If even Kagura described something as powerful, it was definitely not an opponent to underestimate.

But in the world of Toriko, stronger creatures generally meant better ingredients.

Kagura nodded and moved ahead to guide them.

Kanna stayed close beside Haruto, holding the Mirror of Death at a slight angle as she remained alert for any sudden attack.

The three moved quickly through the dense forest.

The farther they went, the darker the surroundings became.

At the same time, an increasingly oppressive pressure began hanging in the air.

After another ten minutes or so, Kagura stopped again and pointed toward a clearing ahead.

"It’s there."

Haruto followed her finger.

The instant he saw the creature standing in the clearing, his pupils contracted.

A complicated expression crossed his face.

It was a humanoid creature roughly three meters tall.

Its head resembled that of a bird of prey, with a sharp beak that gleamed almost like metal.

Its golden eyes were filled with savage appetite and violence.

Dense dark-red fur covered its entire body, beneath which exaggerated muscles bulged with explosive power.

A long tail extended behind it.

"Nitro..."

Haruto murmured.

He had never expected to encounter one here.

The Nitro were among the most mysterious and powerful races in the Gourmet World.

They were manifestations of the appetite within Gourmet Cells—creatures born from pure hunger itself.

The Blue Nitro, known as the Gourmet Nobility, possessed tremendous strength and extraordinary intelligence, with individuals powerful enough to contend with the Eight Kings.

A Red Nitro might not compare with a Blue Nitro, but it was still far from weak.

Jiro, the legendary "Knocking Master," had been fed Red Nitro meat from childhood by Guinness, the Battle Wolf and one of the Eight Kings.

For an ingredient to be chosen by Guinness to nurture one of its young, its value hardly needed explaining.

What made the situation strange was that Nitro generally operated around the Gourmet World’s Area 1.

Even with the approach of GOD making them increasingly active, encountering one this close to the border of the Human World was highly unusual.

"Whatever the reason, now that I’ve found one, there’s no way I’m letting it slip away."

Haruto licked his lips.

He was extremely curious about what Nitro meat tasted like.

If the creature before him had been one of the Blue Nitro he knew about, Haruto would not even have considered fighting it.

He would have immediately taken Kagura and Kanna and left the Toriko world altogether.

But this clearly was not one of the eight Blue Nitro he recognized.

It was a Red Nitro.

Dangerous, certainly, but not necessarily beyond his ability to fight.

While Haruto and the others were observing it, the Red Nitro suddenly snapped its head around.

Its golden eyes locked onto their hiding place.

A vicious gleam flashed through them.

It released a sharp, piercing shriek.

Then, without hesitation, it charged.

The Red Nitro moved at astonishing speed, leaving blurred afterimages across the ground as it smashed straight through trees in its path.

"Temperamental, aren’t you?"

Haruto’s lips curved into an excited smile.

He turned toward Kagura and Kanna.

"Kagura, Kanna, get farther away. Don’t come close."

"This thing hits hard. I don’t want either of you getting caught in the crossfire."

"Be careful."

Kagura nodded.

She grabbed Kanna’s hand and quickly flew backward, retreating several hundred meters before stopping atop the branches of an enormous redwood.

From there, the two watched the approaching Red Nitro from above, ready to provide support if necessary.

Haruto took a deep breath and loosened his arms and shoulders.

His Gourmet Cells began stirring.

Large quantities of Nen surged out from his body.

As the Red Nitro rapidly closed the remaining distance, Haruto’s eyes showed no trace of fear.

Only hunger for a rare ingredient.

Whatever reason had brought this Red Nitro here no longer mattered.

Now, it was prey.

"Come on!"

Haruto drove one foot into the ground and charged directly toward it.

A massive amount of Nen gathered around his fist.

The Red Nitro’s claws flashed coldly as it struck at the same instant.

Fist and claw collided head-on.

BOOOOM—!

A deafening explosion tore through the forest.

A visible shock wave erupted from the point of impact and swept violently outward.

Towering trees snapped in half like stalks of straw.

Branches and leaves were ripped into the air before raining back down across the clearing.

The hard earth split apart beneath them, enormous cracks spreading outward like a spiderweb while dirt and shattered stone flew in every direction.

Both Haruto and the Red Nitro were thrown backward by the tremendous recoil.

Haruto activated his flight magic in midair, barely stabilizing himself before dropping back toward the ground.

The moment his feet touched down, he slid more than ten meters, carving two long trenches through the soil.

He shook out his numb right hand.

The muscles in his arm were still trembling from the impact.

Haruto gave a helpless smile.

"So it’s that strong."

He had expected to hold an advantage in raw power.

Instead, the Red Nitro had matched him almost perfectly—perhaps even surpassed him slightly.

Capturing this thing was going to be much more troublesome than he had anticipated.

Not that Haruto had any intention of giving up.

If anything, the excitement in his eyes only grew stronger.

The harder an ingredient was to capture, the more delicious it usually turned out to be.

Haruto took another deep breath, planted his foot, and charged again.

The Red Nitro had already regained its balance.

It shook its head, apparently irritated by the result of their first clash.

With another furious shriek, it launched itself toward Haruto.

BANG! BANG! BANG—!

A brutal battle erupted.