I, Yuhaka, am hungry!

"?!"

Upon witnessing this, the Dragon King was so frightened that it immediately jumped back to create distance between itself and Yhaka. After all, Yhaka looked incredibly intimidating; its two pairs of sharp claws, powerful hind legs, robust body, and the triangular bony plates erected on its back made it appear extremely menacing. After all, none of the primitive Zerg on Zerus looked easy to bully; even the Zerus biomass reserves, the Steelbacks, were not easy to deal with. But...

"Awoo! O·w·O!" (←Dehaka's form has two pairs of eyes)

But Yhaka's silly expression makes his ferocious appearance less scary.

On the other side of the screen, Zelus slapped herself in the face. Why is Dehaka making such a cute face when he looks so ferocious?!

Facing the strong and terrifying-looking Yuhaka, the Dog Dragon King was not afraid. After all, Dog Dragons are naturally timid. Even a small Dog Dragon dares to snatch fish from the beak of a Rainbow Bird that is several times its size. Under the Dog Dragon King's leadership, it even dares to confront the Rathalos. So, the Dog Dragon King must be even more fearless.

Zelus, watching from the side, no longer felt the tension she had felt earlier. If it were the second form from before, defeating the Dog Dragon King might have resulted in some injuries, but if Yuhaka transformed into the third form, Predator, then the Dog Dragon King would have no chance of winning.

Chapter 02 [The Master Thief, Yuhaka]

"Chirp chirp~"

In the morning, as a new day begins in the ancient forest, the many small animals and large creatures living by the streams start preparing for breakfast.

"Woooooooo..."

In a cave, a petite figure lay on a bed made of haystacks and blue bear fur, snoring softly. She was also holding a system panel in her arms, grinding it incessantly and making a crunching sound.

"Ugh... Why? Why am I, a system, reduced to a little girl's teething toy?!"

"Well?"

Awakened by the system's voice, Yuhaka groggily opened his eyes, blinked a few times, and then sat up, biting the system panel.

The little girl, biting the system panel, looked around at her surroundings with a bewildered expression, seemingly puzzled.

Who am I? Where am I? What's in my mouth?

"That thing in your mouth is me—!!"

Yuhaka was startled by Zelus's shout and instinctively released his mouth, allowing Zelus to escape from the little guy's mouth.

"Ugh—she's covered in saliva! Even though it's a little girl's saliva, it's still disgusting!"

Zelus flicked the drool off the system panel and looked at Yuhaka, who was drowsy and drooling, with a headache, saying:

"Seriously, why am I being used as a teething toy...?"

It's been two days since Ehka arrived in this world. Last night, in the battle between Ehka and the Dog Dragon King, Ehka quickly won with a superior score. After all, the Dog Dragon King has little resistance to fire. In the battle, Ehka's first move was to unleash a fire breath on the Dog Dragon King.

The dog dragon king, once set ablaze, panicked and was then attacked by Yhaka, who unleashed a frenzied claw attack. Yhaka's claws were incredibly long, and they were like sharp blades, leaving deep, bone-revealing wounds on the dog dragon king's body. Thus, the dog dragon king died a miserable death under Yhaka's claws, without even a chance to summon his minions.

In the end, that dog dragon king was roasted and eaten by Yuhaka, which was truly pitiful for the monster.

"Well......"

Yuhaka rubbed his little eyes, yawned, and then slowly crawled out of his warm little bed and came to the outside of the cave. This cave was originally the nest of a blue bear beast, but Yuhaka had taken over the nest. Moreover, the owner of the nest was eaten by Yuhaka as a midnight snack, and the fur was even stripped off by Yuhaka and used as a blanket. I really don't know if that blue bear beast offended the goddess of fortune or something.

Feeling a bit thirsty, Yuhaka went to a small stream not far from its nest. Yuhaka lay down by the stream, wagging its big tail and sticking out its little tongue to drink water, while Zelus examined the biological essence that Yuhaka had obtained the night before.

[Paralyzing Tail Needle]: Attacking a target with the Paralyzing Tail Needle inflicts 15 Paralyzing Points. The higher the Paralyzing Points, the higher the probability of the target being paralyzed. The Paralyzing Points decrease slowly over time (based on the target's constitution). (One point of Paralyzing Points is counted as 1%) [Requires: 50 Evolution Factors]

[Dog Dragon Roaring Bag Organ]: Evolves into a roaring bag, increasing the attack range of the Fearless Roar by 15% [Requires: 50 Evolution Factors]

【Azure Bear Beast Hardened Armguards】: Evolves the forepaws into hardened armguards. (Hardness is calculated based on a 50% increase in the hardness of Eohaka's carapace.) 【Requires: 60 Evolution Factors】

Well, that's what Yuhaka got last night: biological essence and 31 points of pure essence. Although the amount of pure essence is small, it's better than nothing.

Ding!

[Yohaka] Killing [Sashimi Fish] yields [Gill Organ] Essence and 0 Pure Essence, 1 Biomass.

"what?"

Zelus was completely bewildered by the sudden kill notification. Then, looking in the direction of Yhaka, she saw Yhaka lying headfirst in the clear stream, with a slightly twitching fish body in its mouth.

Looking at Yuhaka's appearance, Zelus touched her nose and noticed the blood flowing down her nose. It seemed that her plan to cultivate the world's top essence raiders would take a long time to complete.

...A little girl grilling fish...

"Awooo..."

Yuhaka grabbed a grilled fish skewered on a branch and buried her head in it, eating it. Around her were many fish bones that had been eaten clean. Soon, under Zelus's speechless gaze, Yuhaka finished the grilled fish in her hands. After finishing the grilled fish, Yuhaka reached out to grab the next grilled fish... but Yuhaka grabbed a wisp of air.

"Woo?"

Yuhaka looked at the air in his hands with a puzzled expression, scratched his little paws, and then looked in the direction of the campfire he had lit. Then Yuhaka saw that he had eaten all the grilled fish.

"Hmm...I'm done eating..."

As she spoke, Yuhaka stood up, wagging her tail, and headed towards the stream, intending to catch some more fish to grill. Zelus, watching from the side, couldn't bear it any longer and floated in front of Yuhaka, saying to her:

"Alright, stop eating those fish. Let's go find some big guys and hunt their essence—"

Before Zelus could finish speaking, Yuhaka suddenly narrowed his eyes and raised his head to sniff the air around him.

Seeing this, Zelus was a little confused. Zelus thought that Yuhaka had discovered some dangerous target, so she opened the system map to check what was around. However, Zelus found that there were no dangerous creatures around, which made Zelus very worried.

"How could this be?! Impossible!? How could there be no target??"

Just as Zelus was wondering if her system's backend had malfunctioned, Yuhaka seemed to have spotted something and rushed towards it. Zelus was stunned for a moment when she saw this, and then she was pulled away by the rule that limited the maximum distance between the system and its host.

"Huh?! Hu ...

...The little girl is running wildly...

In a secluded and safe camp built in an ancient forest, four figures sat around a campfire, enjoying roasted meat.

"Hmm! Spending thousands of dollars on this game and the stealth helmet was definitely the right thing to do. I can actually eat such a big and delicious piece of roasted meat in the game. If I went to a restaurant, it would probably cost hundreds of dollars."

A man with an afro and wearing a hunter's suit made of animal fur said this, and a male hunter with an afro next to him nodded and said:

"Yeah! It's a bit of a shame that we can't really fill our stomachs, but at least we can eat some things we don't usually get to eat. But speaking of which, boss... why did we all have to choose the afro hairstyle for our hair? It feels so lame."

"Of course it's iconic! And it's silly enough to attract silly netizens to watch our live stream, since serious people can't attract people's attention these days."

"Uh... okay, I have nothing to say..."

A bespectacled male hunter with an afro wiped the condensation from his glasses and said to the other hunter with the afro who looked like he'd given up:

"Second brother, you should be secretly laughing. It's good that the eldest brother didn't make us look like ancient gods like Wang Laokui. When Wang Laokui streamed this game, he almost scared the NPCs to death. Besides, quite a few streamers have made their characters look like they can't be looked at."

Upon hearing what the third guy with the afro said, the second guy with the afro broke out in a cold sweat. He had also watched that live stream. Wang Lao Kui's character was simply unbearable to watch. When Wang Lao Kui controlled his character to enter a village, he almost scared the NPC gatekeeper to death. The NPC hunters in the village almost mistook Wang Lao Kui for a new type of orc monster and attacked him.

Thinking of this, the second brother with the afro shuddered, then nodded and said:

"The afro is great, it's great..."

The fourth brother with the afro, standing next to the third brother with the afro, looked at the system panel in his hand, which had transformed into something resembling a laptop, and said:

"By the way, do you veteran players of the Monster Hunter series know what this question mark icon above the quest sign means?"

The leader with the afro looked up from the grilled meat in his hand, a puzzled expression on his face, and said:

"Question mark? What question mark is there?"

The fourth brother with the afro held up his laptop, pointed to the question mark icon next to the mission objective, and said:

"This is it."

The third brother with the afro carefully examined the spot the fourth brother with the afro pointed to for a while, then stroked his chin with a slightly surprised expression and said:

"That's... a random monster icon, right? Why would a simple quest to collect specialty mushrooms have a random monster icon? This difficulty level is a bit off, isn't it?"

The leader with the afro also noticed the random icon on the fourth leader's hand and said:

"Hmm... I don't think there's anything too serious about it. Back when I was playing Monster Hunter 2G, I encountered Tigrex and stuff when I was doing the 1-star collection quests, and there wasn't even a random encounter icon back then."

The second-in-command with the afro tossed the clean bone aside, looking completely unconcerned, and said:

"There's nothing to worry about if it's a random monster. The worst-case scenario is encountering a Deviljho. At worst, you can just collect the quest objectives while avoiding the Deviljho. At most, you'll just get carted. Even if you wipe out the whole party, you'll only lose a little money. It's not a big deal."

Hearing what everyone said, the fourth brother with the afro nodded to indicate that he understood, and then he didn't pay much attention to the monster that had wandered in.

After the four members of the afro-haired group finished eating and drinking, as they were about to leave, the fourth member looked at the whole roasted pig on the barbecue grill and said:

"Is it okay for us to leave food here like this? It seems a bit wasteful."

The leader with the afro looked at the fourth leader with an expression as if he were looking at an idiot and said:

"Fourth brother, have you gone crazy from writing your thesis? This is a game, all that stuff is just data, what's the point of wasting it? Hurry up, the mission time is a bit tight."

Hearing the boss's words, the fourth brother with the afro scratched the back of his head and said:

"That's true, why am I worrying about this?"

With that, the four members with the afro left the camp to search for the special mushrooms required for their mission in the ancient forest.

..............

After the four members with the afro left, Yuhaka poked his head out of a tree, sniffed, and searched for the direction of the scent he was looking for. Then Yuhaka saw something left behind at the afro's camp. Yuhaka's eyes lit up and he jumped down from the tree.

"OwO Meatballs!"

Without hesitation, Yuhaka reached for the whole roasted pig on the grill, sat down, and started eating. Zelus, standing nearby, watched speechlessly as Yuhaka happily ate the roasted pig, wagging his large tail. Zelus had initially thought some powerful biological essence was attracting Yuhaka, but it turned out to be just a whole roasted pig...

"What kind of nonsense is this...?"

"Zelus said this in a frustrated tone, but..." Zelus carefully surveyed her surroundings, looking at the camp tents left behind by the four members with the afro, and said:

"Is this a hunter's camp...? It's surprisingly rudimentary."

The hunter's camp consisted only of large green tents and beds made of dry grass, branches, and cotton sheets. In addition, there were two large boxes placed together outside the tents.

Through the scanning system onboard the system, Zelus could see that there were only some simple supplies inside, nothing else.

Just as Zelus was surveying the hunter camp, Yuhaka had already eaten almost all of the whole roasted pig on the grill. Soon after, Yuhaka, with her terrifying eating speed, devoured the entire whole roasted pig, leaving behind some white bones covered with the loli's teeth marks on the ground, which became the last proof that this whole roasted pig existed in the world.

"Lick it~"

Yuhaka stuck out his little tongue and licked his oily little hands. The satisfied expression on his face showed that Yuhaka was very pleased with the food. However, as satisfied as he was, Yuhaka was not content with just one meal. He sniffed his little nose, searching for the seasonings in the camp.

Soon, Yuhaka found what he was looking for in a box: a jar of cooking oil, a bag of spices, and salt.

"Meat jerky! OwO!"

When Yuhaka took the seasonings, he also discovered some dried meat in the box. This dried meat was just a consumable item to increase the stamina bar limit for the four members of the Afro group, so the four members of the Afro group did not take it.

Most players wouldn't eat the jerky that the Hunter's Guild distributes for free. It's tasteless, hard, and dry, like eating firewood, making it difficult for players accustomed to modern cuisine to swallow.

It takes at least a few minutes to finish one jerky, and at least ten minutes to finish two. Efficiency is very important for players, since it takes two jerky to fully replenish the stamina bar. Who would waste time eating jerky? It's better to have a roasted meat, which is delicious and worth it.

Players generally won't bother with those jerky items; only new players and NPC hunters would eat them.