The boost from eating AIR was already incredible.
After experiencing firsthand how much stronger a single ingredient could make him, Midora understood something clearly—he needed more. A lot more.
Otherwise, forget about going after Acacia. Just surviving one of Acacia's attacks would already be a miracle.
With that decision made, the three powerhouses brought Kael straight to Area 7.
Kael felt a little speechless.
His original plan had only been to ask Midora to take care of the Monkey King. He hadn't expected Ichiryu and Jiro to get involved. He'd assumed the two of them might hesitate.
Apparently, he had underestimated Frohze's importance in their hearts.
Now it wasn't a one-on-one hunt.
It was three apex monsters surrounding the Monkey King.
Kael couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for it. Any one of the three could suppress the Monkey King with ease. Ichiryu could kill it outright. And now their strength had increased again.
That was the truly terrifying part.
"Ichiryu, this kid's interesting. He knows way too much."
Inside Ichiryu's mind, the Don Slime was studying Kael with obvious curiosity. No matter how it tried, it couldn't sense the Gourmet Demon within him.
Back when the Don Slime ruled the entire Red Universe, it had been intimately familiar with every Gourmet Demon there. That was why, in the original timeline, Ichiryu had been able to tailor the most suitable growth plans for the Four Heavenly Kings.
But Kael was different.
There was nothing to sense.
Part of it was the system masking him. The other part was simpler—Kael's Gourmet Demon had no consciousness.
A Gourmet Demon was essentially the embodiment of a host's appetite. You could usually infer its nature from emotional fluctuations or favorite foods. When someone encountered something they craved, their appetite would flare up and reveal itself.
That was how the Don Slime investigated others.
Normally, Gourmet Demons were extremely difficult to detect. Even the Blue Nitro Pair had only discovered NEO while devouring Acacia. Without consuming him, they wouldn't have known.
"Yeah. I don't know why he knows so much," Ichiryu replied calmly, "but he's clearly on our side."
He wasn't worried about Kael causing trouble in the future.
He trusted Setsuno's judgment.
Kael had shared ingredients with the Bewitching Food World. During their journey, Ichiryu had also learned more about that place from him. Kael wasn't a bad person.
As for ambition? Ichiryu didn't care.
Not everyone was free of desire like him. He'd even appointed Shigematsu—someone openly ambitious—as Vice President because he knew what he himself lacked.
If anything, what surprised him was Kael's growth speed.
It was absurd.
Ichiryu had once believed the final hope would rest on Toriko and the others. Yet now, Kael had already stepped into that position while Toriko and his group were still wandering around the Human World.
At this rate, unless Kael stopped improving altogether, they would never catch up.
And would he ever just sit still?
Ichiryu didn't think so.
Midora and Jiro were also thinking about Kael. The shock he'd given them was simply too great.
But none of them voiced their thoughts. Instead, they discussed AIR.
Kael didn't mind teaching them the true method of preparing it. AIR only appeared once every few hundred years. And now that Earth had matured, there was no guarantee it would even manifest again.
In a few hundred years, who knew where he'd be? Maybe drifting somewhere in the universe. Maybe in another world entirely.
So sharing the technique didn't matter.
After hearing his explanation—and understanding how to bring out AIR's true flavor—Ichiryu and the others nodded.
This was why chefs chased the "voice" of ingredients.
Ingredients themselves knew best how they should be prepared.
Once you listened, you'd find the optimal method.
It didn't take long for them to reach Area 7. When monsters of their caliber moved at full speed, distance meant nothing.
Would reckless movement in the Gourmet World be dangerous?
For most people, absolutely.
For these three?
The danger was for whatever crossed their path.
Especially now.
The rage and killing intent radiating from them were so thick it was almost tangible. Kael's adaptability kept him from being too affected, but every creature along their path instinctively fled.
Before long, they arrived at Area 7.
It was a colossal continent.
To humans, stepping onto it felt like entering a land of giants.
Insects, plants—everything except mammals—were magnified countless times. A single roadside blade of grass could tower dozens, even hundreds of meters high. A grain of pollen might be the size of a building.
That was Area 7.
They headed straight for the Gravity Mountain Range, where the Monkey King resided.
It hadn't originally been a mountain.
After the Monkey King's wife died, he had piled up massive amounts of ingredients in her memory. Over time, those ingredients formed a mountain. And as it rose, the gravity around it changed.
The gravity there was more than ten times stronger than other heavy-gravity zones.
For most, it was a deadly super-gravity region.
For them?
It was nothing.
Aside from Kael, the others were centuries-old monsters who had long since adapted to everything the Gourmet World could throw at them.
As for Kael—he'd adapted too. He had learned Enbu, and through Faction Inheritance, Midora had beaten him half to death countless times in training. His martial skill had improved at an astonishing rate.
But Enbu had its limits.
The highest level was the Master tier. Beyond that was the Monkey King's realm.
Enbu had originally been created by the Monkey King as a dance for his wife. It embodied his control over power.
But that didn't mean the Monkey King had stopped growing.
Enbu had reached its ceiling.
He had not.
Reaching his level—or surpassing it—purely through Enbu was nearly impossible.
After hitting that limit, one had to find their own path of control.
Everyone had their own understanding.
When they arrived, the Monkey King was playing games with other creatures.
The next second, Midora's fist appeared directly above him.
The Monkey King reacted instantly, unleashing a terrifying aura.
But the punch was too fast. Too sudden.
And Midora was stronger.
Even though the Monkey King sensed it at the last moment, there was no time to dodge.
Hunger Blow.
Ever since Frohze's death, Midora had been unable to eat his Full Course Menu again. No matter how much he consumed, he was never satisfied.
He had endured that hunger for hundreds of years.
And he turned it into this move.
Unless someone else starved for centuries, they would never replicate its power.
The punch landed.
The entire Area 7 trembled.
It was like detonating a super hydrogen bomb at the continent's core.
A true nuclear explosion in fist form.
The mountain range—and the land around it—were obliterated.
Even the grave of the Monkey King's wife was erased.
The shockwave swept across the continent. Every creature in Area 7 sensed the catastrophic force and fled from the core.
"He's venting everything on the Monkey King," Jiro muttered.
Midora hadn't held back.
It wasn't his ultimate technique, but it was a full-power strike.
Caught off guard, the Monkey King was either dead—
Or gravely wounded.
Honestly, it was unlucky.
But that misfortune traced back to its ancestors.
If they hadn't greedily drained PAIR dry, none of this would be happening.
Now, because this generation had no offspring, once the Monkey King died, PAIR would leave its body and return to the earth.
Kael couldn't even follow the movement of that punch.
The gap between him and Midora was still too wide. All he could feel was the overwhelming force.
When the dust settled, he saw the result.
Half of the Monkey King's body was gone.
If Kael had been able to see clearly, he would've noticed something.
At the instant Hunger Blow descended, the Monkey King knew he couldn't dodge.
So he unleashed a desperate energy blast at Midora's fist.
Midora didn't evade it. The attack was rushed—it couldn't hurt him.
The Monkey King hadn't fired it to push him back.
He'd done it to use the explosion's recoil to forcibly shift his body away from the fatal blow.
Even so, the result was near-death.
Only its monstrous vitality and will kept it alive.
That was how battles in this world were.
Results came abruptly.
One moment of failure—and you were dead.
If Midora had used his Gourmet Demon's arm earlier, the fight might already be over.
But he hadn't deemed it necessary.
The Monkey King's body had shrunk back to just over three meters tall. Missing half its body, it posed no threat to Midora.
Not with Jiro and Ichiryu standing nearby.
This time, it was doomed.
Even if the other Eight Kings came, they couldn't save it.
They only united when facing an enemy that threatened the entire planet—when their territories and survival were at stake.
Otherwise?
They didn't interfere with one another's domains.
Entering another King's continent was considered provocation.
So no one was coming.
Seeing the Monkey King still breathing, Midora didn't relax.
As long as it wasn't dead, he wouldn't lower his guard.
Underestimating a dying enemy was how you got killed.
His mouth opened.
Midora's weapons weren't just his fists.
His tongue was terrifying.
In the original timeline, it had left deep scars on the planet itself.
He'd only consumed one ingredient so far, so he wasn't at that level yet.
But against the Monkey King?
More than enough.
His tongue shot out like a spear.
Too fast to react.
It pierced straight through the Monkey King's remaining body, punching a massive hole through it.
The attack was undeniably powerful.
Just… a little disgusting.
Kael still couldn't get used to fighting with a tongue.
He wasn't from this world, after all.
The tongue didn't retract.
It wrapped tightly around the Monkey King instead.
______________________________
"For anything in this world… its true value is only born when it's shared. The same goes for my cooking. Something you made only for yourself has no value at all."
— Frohze to her son Midora