Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 1 - Chapter 8

Bonus Short Stories 

Brother Bear’s Cooking 
Ray Starling 
After finishing Liliana’s quest, my brother prepared a welcoming party for me and Nemesis. 
The round table was covered in many foods, and all of them were absolutely exquisite. It made me remember the time I had been brought to a high class restaurant in real life, but a part of me felt like what I had before me was actually better than anything there. 
However... 
“You didn’t make anything today, bro?” I asked. 
All the cooking before me had been made by the head chef of this place. 
“Oh, you noticed?” he asked. 
“Well, yeah, of course I did,” I answered. 
I would recognize my brother’s food with just a single bite. That’s how much of an impact it had. 
“Hm?” Nemesis chewed and swallowed her food. “You are capable of cooking, Brother Bear?” 
She then continued eating and waited for an answer. 
“‘Capable’ isn’t the right word here,” I said. “His food is really good.” 
My words made Nemesis’s eyes light up. 
“Hoh? Care to describe?” she asked. 
“The cooking he put his heart and soul into... actually killed people,” I answered. 
“Killed?!” she exclaimed in surprise. 
“That’s a bear-faced lie,” said my brother. “They all recovered.” 
Eight years ago, when my brother had still been a college student, he’d tried his hand at cooking. It had soon became obvious that he had a talent for it, and as he’d quickly learned how to do it well, he’d begun getting lots of praise from teachers and students alike. The people who ate his food encouraged him to participate in the college festival’s cooking contest, which was exactly what he did. 
And — since it happened to be a contest — he went all out, doing all sorts of ingredient and method-related research and arranging everything in the best way to create the ultimate culinary masterpiece. On the day of the contest, my brother presented the five judges with the very same work of art. 
Three of them lost their consciousness with the first bite. 
The other two released strange screams, which was a peculiar way to express just how delicious it was. Indeed, my brother’s cooking was way too good. So good, in fact, that all the information that it forced on the taste buds overwhelmed people’s consciousnesses and made them faint. 
The only two judges who hadn’t fainted had been trained people from a sports university. The taste was so good that no one without such training could bear it, and since my brother was quite well-built, he hadn’t realized it back when trying his food himself. Out of the three who fainted, the oldest professor received such a shock that his heart stopped. The scene became chaotic, but since my brother knew how to revive people in such a state, he quickly did so and prevented it from becoming a big problem. I recalled him saying that people thought he’d added poison to his food, which was obviously quite troublesome. 
“And so, my brother sealed this ultimate culinary masterpiece forever,” I spoke the closing words. 
“...Is it just me, or is that an event straight out of a different genre?” asked Nemesis. 
It actually happened to him, so take it as you will, I thought. 
“But man, even if it wasn’t as good as the masterpiece, I was kinda looking forward to your food, bro,” I said. 
“Well, you’ll have to bear this forever, then,” he said. 
“Huh?” I was confused. 
Forever? Why? 
“You know how the food here is almost unbearably good, right?” he asked. 
“Well, yeah.” 
“It’s not just due to the skill of the chef, but due to the ingredients, as well. Monsters that are fit for eating and vegetables grown by magic or skills are really tasty. Real life food can’t compete, honestly.” 
“...And by that, you mean...?” 
“Just about anything I make with these ingredients would be as good as the ultimate culinary masterpiece.” 
I was silent. 
Apparently, my brother’s cooking is as destructive here as it is in real life, I thought. 
I decided to simply enjoy the food before me. But I was pretty disappointed that I’d never be able to have anything my brother made. 
Marie’s Cooking 
Paladin Ray Starling 
It was the night after we’d left the capital and started making our way towards Gideon. We’d set up camp to rest, and I was watching as Rook opened the drops he’d gotten from the bear-like monster that Marilyn had killed. He got two items: a standard thing that was meant to be converted to money and... something really odd. 
“‘Honey Bear Claw’?” Rook read the item name. 
It was exactly what it sounded like. Though separate from the rest of the body, it didn’t reek of blood. In fact, it had a mild, sweet, honey-like scent. 
“Is it like the skins that drop from Teal Wolves?” I asked. 
“No. The skins are a material for armor crafting, while this item is for cooking,” said Marie, who was lying down in the dragon carriage. 
“Oh, right,” I said. “I’ve heard that bear claws are a gourmet cooking ingredient in Chinese cuisine.” 
“Yes,” she said. “They’re a cooking material here in Dendro, too.” 
I nodded. 
“Ooh!” Sitting beside me, Nemesis got all excited. “That can be our midnight snack!” 
...As gluttonous as ever, I thought. What kind of midnight snack is a bear claw, anyway? 
“Nemesis, that’s Rook’s, you know?” I pointed out the obvious. 
“Oh, I don’t mind,” he said. “Let’s all have a nice meal together.” 
“Yes!” exclaimed Nemesis with even more excitement than before. 
Rook — gentle as he was — adopted a smile that was downright angelic. 
Divine as he seems, however, actually worshipping him is a bit overdoing it, Nemesis, I thought. 
“But wait, none of us here have the Cooking skill, right?” I asked. 
“Oh, but Ray,” he said, “cooking is a sense skill, right? As in, a skill that carries over to the game if you know how to do it in reality. We should be able to cook it regardless.” Rook’s words reminded me that my brother had in fact done some cooking here in Dendro. His food was extremely good in real life, so he could surely do it here without any problems. 
“Well, if we don’t need the skill, then let’s get to...” I cut my words short. 
“What’s wrong, Ray?” asked Rook. 
“Hey,” I spoke up. “How do you even cook a bear claw?” 
“...I’m sorry,” said Rook. “I know a thing or two about survival, but none of it covers bear cooking.” 
Well, yeah, I thought. Hunting and cooking bears seems like something beyond simple survival. 
“Oh,” Marie joined the conversation. “I know how to cook bears.” 
“Seriously?!” I asked in surprise. 
How did she come to know that? I wondered. 
“After I lost my job, I did a lot of research, and it happened to cover how to cook a bear,” she explained. 
...Who the hell starts researching bear cooking after becoming unemployed? 
“So,” she said, “you can leave it to me! It’ll come out well... I think!” 
“Then I will look forward to this bear cooking of yours,” said Nemesis. Never having eaten bear before, I found her excitement relatable. Though, a part of me felt like the food would make me picture my brother. 
An hour had passed since those naïve thoughts of mine. Myself, Nemesis and Rook were all lying on the ground — face first — with our complexions completely pallid. 
The cause had been Marie’s cooked bear. The moment it’d entered our mouths, we’d all convulsed in agony and fallen down. It was easy to say that it was “bad,” but reaching that conclusion required going through a complicated, overwhelming stream of sensations. Strange, considering how normal the food had looked. 
“Oh dear,” said Marie. “Not even bear food came out well, huh?” 
The culprit herself was eating her cooking without showing any adverse reactions. 
...Looks like she has the stereotypical taste-deafness and is tragically bad at making food, I thought. Not only that — she’s aware of it, as well. You could’ve warned us, damn it! 
As we groaned in agony, Babi covered her portion of the bear claw in Tabasco and chowed down as if it was nothing. 
Lei-Lei’s Cooking 
Royal Capital Altea — Orion’s Belt Restaurant. 
“Hmm... hmm...” 

At the corner of a bustling restaurant, a woman was shaking a cocktail mixer. A party was ongoing. She hummed the tune to a famous rock song and put a significant amount of joy into her movement. None of that was strange for someone taking part in a party. However, her appearance was downright curious. 
She was clad in a Chinese dress, but her facial characteristics were those of a northern European. Though she was merely humming at the moment, she also had quite a unique intonation when speaking. The mixer in her hands was strange, as well. That was because, rather than being made of silver, it was forged from a brilliant red, Mythical metal — Hihiirokane. 
It clearly wasn’t a material meant for something as mundane as a mixer, but it happened to be the only one she’d ever use. There’d been a time when the concoction she was making had made a silver mixer melt without leaving a trace, so she wouldn’t feel safe unless she was using something as tough as the one in her hands. 
Of course, no normal cocktail could ever do something so ridiculously strange. However, the liquid in the shaker wasn’t a normal cocktail, but a Divine Oni Poison Sake (light). It was like the opposite of the sake used to defeat the Shuten Douji, famous in Japanese legend. She mixed a fruit drink with a poison that had a delayed Hangover effect. The poison had a two stages, and the first one was a light Intoxication that turned the drinker tipsy and made them experience heavenly bliss. 
However, a few hours later, the hell would open up. As vile as it might’ve seemed, her Superior Embryo’s skill nullified the drinker’s resistance to debuffs, so anyone who downed the drink couldn’t avoid the effects no matter how hard they tried. Also, since she didn’t add any alcohol to it, it didn’t trigger the age restrictions and could be consumed by underage people. 
Her intention was to give this special poison to the people in Shu’s party. However, neither he nor any other veteran who knew her tricks did anything to stop her. In fact, many of them were looking forward to having the newbie get a taste of what they’d once experienced. Shu also believed that it would be a good lesson for his brother. 
The level of freedom in Infinite Dendrogram was great, and it was extremely hard to tell what kind of trap you were falling into before it actually happened. Without great care and perception, getting the death penalty would be very easy. Since the Hangover debuff only gave a headache and nausea, having Ray get fooled and drinking the spiked cocktail so that he’d become aware of such dangers was a good idea. That was half of the reason why Lei-Lei made this drink. 
The other half, on the other hand... 
“Today’s poison sure is greaat,” she said. 
...was the fact that, to her tastes, drinks were better when they had poison in them. 
Given that her drinks received great feedback, that wasn’t exactly wrong. 
“It’s done!” she cried. 
And so, she poured the drink into glasses and brought them over to today’s guests of honor — Ray and Nemesis. 
“This isn’t alcohol, okaaay?” she said. “It’s just juice, okaaay? Drink it and you’ll just feel as light as air, okaaay?” 
Cheshire’s Cooking 
 
A strange animal was moving around in a certain space. It had two arms and two legs, but its entire body was covered in a costume that seemed much like a space suit. The space didn’t have an up, down, left or right, making it appear like the creature was doing something in the vacuum outside a space station. Contrary to the appearances, however, it wasn’t doing anything related to space repairs or experiments. It was actually mixing flour with eggs to make dough, which it then kneaded, cut, and began baking in the oven. 
To be blunt, it was baking cookies. The “it” that did that while wearing a space suit for some reason was actually… Control AI No. 13, Cheshire. 
“Meow meow meow meow...” it sang. 
The day before, when Ray and Nemesis had accidentally paid a visit to his workplace, he had offered them his tea and cookies. However, Nemesis had eaten far more than he could ever have expected, completely emptying all the cookies he had stored in his time-stopping inventory. Due to that, he was now baking new cookies, which was something he hadn’t done in a long time. Also, the space suit he wore was nothing but a means to protect the cookies from being covered in his hair. 
A bandana might’ve been enough for humans, but Cheshire — a cat — had to go the extra mile. This problem wasn’t exclusive to Cheshire, either. Most long-haired tians and Guardians had to be considerate about it, too. He probably could’ve made the cookies after creating a more appropriate avatar for himself. However, since Cheshire has been making cookies with this body for a long time, he believed that changing his avatar would affect the quality of the end result. He was particularly picky about the circumstances of his cookie making. Even his space suit was made specifically for this purpose. 
Also, though this particular space had only one Cheshire, there were many more of them doing the exact same thing in other similar spaces. As a result, the amount of cookies he was making was far too great for him alone, but since it was all going to the time-stopping inventory, there was no problem, no matter how much of them he made. In fact, he even believed that it was best to make a great amount at once. However, he still felt like he’d made a bit too much. Since he’d had processing power to spare, he had dedicated 1,000 of his copies to this task. Due to that, the number cookies he’d made was so great that one large warehouse wouldn’t be enough for them. Even Cheshire’s inventory had its limit, so he had to find a way to take care of them that didn’t involve eating them. 
“But what is there for me to doo...? Oh.” 
At that moment, he remembered the exchange he’d had with Ray and Nemesis. Nemesis had suggested that Cheshire should sell his cookies in the marketplace. Cheshire had said that he’d think about it, and now that he had such an abundance of cookies, it seemed like a particularly good idea. 
“The market, eh...? Good idea.” 
And so, he quickly began doing what he had to. 
 
A few days later, a bipedal cat appeared in the capital and began selling cookies, which both looked and tasted delicious. After selling all the cookies it had, the “cookie-selling cat” disappeared somewhere, becoming an urban legend in both the capital and online discussion boards. 
Figaro and Cooking 
Tomb Labyrinth 
It might be hard for those living in developed countries to understand, but there were times when people couldn’t get food even if they wanted it. 
An Infinite Dendrogram player going by the name of “Figaro,” for instance, didn’t know what it was like to go hungry in real life. However, he was now starting to understand it. That was because he’d lost all his food while exploring the Tomb Labyrinth. 
“How unlucky,” he sighed. “I had no idea that such a monster existed.” Though he’d visited the dungeon many times before, the monster he’d encountered had been completely new to him. It had dropped a box, so it had clearly been a boss monster. However, he hadn’t gotten a special reward from beating it, so it hadn’t been a UBM. Thus, Figaro could only assume that it had been merely a rare encounter. 
During the battle, the monster had released a vaporous, colored breath which didn’t seem to do any damage. Figaro hadn’t had much trouble beating it, but it’d left behind a problem which he’d only noticed after taking the drops. 
Once Figaro had opened his inventory to store the items, a disgusting smell came from the inside and assaulted his nostrils. He’d looked inside and noticed that the food he had was extremely discolored. Organic drops such as skins and meat were affected, too. By using Identification, he’d found that all and any items that could be used as food had become poisonous. 
Not only would they give him debuffs — they would sure taste awful, as well. Clearly, the monster’s skill was nothing short of annoying. 
“...Man, I’m hungry,” he complained. 
Which was only natural, given that he’d been exploring the dungeon for almost ten hours nonstop. Though he could easily log out and eat some real food, his avatar’s hunger was separate. If he continued on without eating anything, he would soon be tortured by a burdening emptiness in his stomach. Normally one would leave, restock on food, and try raiding the dungeon all over again. 
Keyword: “Normally.” 
“Okay, the accessories that nullify Poison, Weakness, and Food Poisoning are...” 
However, the man in question was Over Gladiator Figaro. 
He was the long-standing king of duels and the one they described as “the biggest meathead among all four of the kingdom’s Superiors.” Though his looks — which would’ve fit a noble youth — made it hard to imagine, his solutions to any problems he was faced with were extremely simplistic. This problem was no exception. 
“This should do.” 
He said that as he finished replacing the rings on his fingers with new ones he’d taken out of his inventory, all of which gave him a resistance to disease-based debuffs. He then reached into his inventory once again and took out the poisoned food. 
“Time to eat, then.” 
And that he did, seemingly not caring about the food’s state. As the debuffs were forcefully nullified by his accessories, he continued eating the disgusting food while ignoring the stomach-turning taste of the poison. He didn’t even scowl or flinch. 
Figaro continued swallowing the food that bordered on biological weaponry as if to exemplify the “anything goes as long as you get the nutrients and leave with a full stomach” mentality. 
“This should let me last a while longer,” he said, sighing. 
The meathead who was ready for any and all debuffs finished eating the rotten food without any trouble whatsoever and made his way towards the lower levels of the Tomb Labyrinth. 
But his perseverance in the face of foul food was only natural, because this meathead was English. 
Reiji’s Cooking 
Reiji Mukudori 
After the mysterious player killer in Noz Forest gave me the death penalty, I spent the day doing things such as taking care of my baggage and filling out my college documents, all of which was done by the time it was evening. My death penalty was going to last until tomorrow morning, so — since I didn’t have much to do — I’d decided to make myself a slightly more complex dinner than usual. Sure, I converged on a simple chicken stew, but I made sure to be careful and meticulous in my cooking. 
“I think I’m doing this right,” I said... 
After I left my nearly-completed stew to boil under a weak flame, I had the time to pick up my portable terminal and take a look at MMO Journal Planter. That was the name of a news site focused on MMOs, and — naturally — it covered a lot of Dendro-related news. 
“...Hm?” One of the headlines there caught my attention. It said “Today’s Dendro: The Dendro Diet — Super Popular Among Young Girls!” Curious about what that referred to, I opened the article, which went as such: 
“Today’s Dendro is brought to you by the Dendro reporting writer, A! This one is for the girls who have yet to start Dendro! Yes, you ladies looking at your screens! 
“‘I want to become thinner, but I can’t contain my appetite!’ 
“‘I want to eat more tasty things while not minding the calories!’ 
“Do those words seem relatable to you? Then I highly recommend taking up the super popular Dendro Diet! Inside Infinite Dendrogram — a VRMMO — you won’t get fat, no matter how much you eat! The food is delicious and — with rewards from quests and the like — you will never have to worry about not having the money for it! You can choose to eat lots of tasty things in Dendro while being modest with your real food! With that, you will soon have a well-proportioned, thin body! 
“This hit VRMMO — Infinite Dendrogram — is being sold in every game shop in the country!” 
“Hm...” I murmured. 
The article sounded like an ad for a supplement with dubious effects. It was true that Dendro’s food was great, though. Also, the dinner I’d made yesterday was simple, so it kinda applied to me, as well. 
“But I still think that a person’s real diet should also be tasty and nutritious and... oh.” 
My stew was done boiling, so I began eating it alongside some bread and salad. Well, this came out rather well, I thought. 
“Not as good as my brother’s, but yeah.” 
Again, though, it’s not good to limit all your good food eating to Dendro and neglecting to do so in reality, I thought while remembering the article I’d just read. 
 
Later on... 
“Hey, Jabberwock.” 
“What is it, No. 13?” 
“There’s a publicity article that treats Infinite Dendrogram like a dubious supplement... and it says that it was written by the Dendro reporting writer, A,” said No. 13. 
“That’s No. 1.” 
“...She is doing her job, right?” 
“Yes. In fact, she is busier than all of us. However, since No. 1 excels in processing power, doing something extra isn’t difficult,” explained Jabberwock. 
“That seems fine, but... won’t this article cause misunderstandings?” 
“It’s not lying, so it should all be fine.” 
“...If you say sooo.” 
The number of female users slightly increased, but it was unknown whether it was related to the article.