At one in the afternoon, the gates opened, dragging heavily on the ground, revealing a large courtyard filled with several rows of cooking stations. Behind them, a large, creme-colored several floor tall building stood, with stairs leading up to it. Seemed like a residential one.

On the wide stretch between the last step and the entrance, two people overlooked the yard - a young woman with bright teal hair, gathered in five tight buns, lounged crosslegged on a short sofa and a huge man behind her, over three meters in height and almost  two in width, settled on the ground. The woman was wearing a partially fishnet top with some really short shorts, a sharp heel of bows-decorated knee-high shoes bouncing in the air. The man was barefoot - was there even footwear made for his size? - in a yellow shirt and black jeans, dark eyes looking under a wide forehead with droopy eyebrows, a black mop of short hair difficult to see from their perspective. 

Participants filtered in, throwing confused glances at cooking stations and waited for the examiners to speak. As the last of them walked in, a loud rumble they heard over the gate rolled again, the source ahead of them.

The woman tilted her head back with a smirk: “You're hungry, Buhara?”

“Starving,” tragically rolled eyes Buhara with a little smirk appearing on his face.

“Listen up!” the woman addressed the examinees, her loud voice easily reaching all the way up to the gates. “My name is Menchi.”

“And I am Buhara!”

Once again, not the Hunters she knew of.

“We are examiners for the second stage. And your challenge is…” Menchi made a dramatic pause, smugly looking over the expectant faces, “cooking!”

Dead silence hung in the air as everyone thought they misheard. Maybe - imagined Choerry thoughts flashing in their heads, a chorus of high-pitched confused voices - it was a mistake on Menchi’s part and she misspoke. The examinees looked at the cooking stations, quite a lot having their upper lips curling. She, personally, was ecstatic.

“Hell yeah,” she mouthed. Choerry, having an expectation of the possible challenge as soon as she saw their future equipment, patted herself on the shoulder. This phase can be counted as cleared. She was a good cook, great, even, if she said so herself! Sure as hell not at a level of high-class cuisine, but, among contestants around her, Choerry was optimistic in her abilities to be better than the vast majority. 

“Cooking,” blandly repeated contestant 159, square man with an axe tied to his back.

“Yes. You see, we are Gourmet Hunters,” Menchi said proudly and in the silence, following her statement, a couple of snickers were heard. Then a couple more, and Choerry could see even more shoulders shaking silently. A frown started to visibly appear on Menchi’s face.

Choerry blinked, confused. Then alarmed. Then concerned. She schooled her features back into neutrality and crossed her arms to avoid facepalming. 

This was taking an unexpected turn for the worse. 

“Sure, sure,” dismissively waved 255, the judoist, after his chuckling died down. “Just say what you want us to cook and we will be on our way.”

Visibly holding back her annoyance, Menchi let Buhara explain their task. It sounded simple enough on the first glance. Pork. They had to cook any pork well enough for both Menchi and Buhara to accept it. That was it. Simple and clean.

It wasn’t like the contestants indirectly carelessly insulted examiners' hunt or anything. Choerry drummed her fingers and uncrossed arms, getting nails away from her skin.

“This is easier than I thought,” hummed HyunJin next to her, eyeing the mangal next to them with its meter and a half spit. It had coal on its bottom, but seemed like fire could be started and regulated with handles on the side, like a good old gas stove. Counter next to it had a couple knives and a bowl of vegetables. “Maybe this one will not be as bad as the first phase.”

Choerry half-hugged her by the waist, having to lean only a little bit, as they were the same height, putting chin on HyunJin’s shoulder. She softly teased HyunJin: “Ooooh, you sound confident, good at cooking?”

“Yes. Shouldn’t be a problem, I cook often enough back home.”

Choerry made a noncommittal sound of agreement and looked at the other two, chin still on the girl’s shoulder.

HeeJin and Chuu’s expressions could only be described as “sour”, which, interesting. This situation shouldn’t be read as concerning to them as to cause visible distress, not with their scope of knowledge of Hunter-related topics. Maybe they were vegetarian? 

She didn’t want to think about the first answer that occurred to anyone in this situation. It promised a fiasco in progress, which was fun only when watching from the sidelines, not when your friends were in the center of it.

HeeJin caught her gaze and helplessly grimaced. “It's fine,” she mouthed. Choerry smiled at her and stood straight,  letting go of HyunJin’s waist, lazily turning back to their examiners. Cooking stations stood two meters apart, so no chance of subtly cooking in their stead... She meant helping. No way of subtly helping.

Was it too insensitive of her to already kinda miss the first stage?

“The phase will end when we are full,” Menchi finished the explanation, uncrossing and switching her legs. “Start!”

Everyone turned around and promptly dispersed in the forest, none hearing the following exchange between examiners.

---

It went even worse than she imagined was possible.

Choerry considered it as a real achievement, right there, since she always thought of the worst case scenario and was one of the best qualified to pass this stage. And yet, the examiners' emotions and skewed expectations were an obstacle she couldn’t possibly move. So she moved past voicing her disappointment right to the next thing on the “reasonabilities list” - restraining herself from attacking and killing Menchi.

Bloodlust she felt from somewhere to her right did nothing to help with that.

So, from the beginning. An hour ago, when she was searching in the forest, it turned out that there was only one breed of pigs in the Visca Forest Preserve, the Great Stamp - a giant horned boar twice as tall as a human, with huge snouts that allowed them to plow through anyone foolishly standing in front of them. 

She kicked one quietly from above, breaking its spine, and was the first to come back, taking care to avoid any other examinees. Choerry also thought of getting some local edible plants or spices, but there were none on her way back that were ripe or were ones she was familiar with using, so she had to settle with the provided ones. Which is disappointing, as even a strike of inspiration to use nuts turned out to be futile - the only nut grooves she found were of measelnut, the bluewing sort, not the early one.

She wasn’t joining HyunJin and HeeJin for this phase. This was a task she was sure girls were up to, so she did not feel the obligation of monitoring their progress. Besides, Chuu went with them, for some reason now chaperoning them. Was that because of Hisoka? She never met him, that was true, but met plenty of somewhat similar folks. Choerry understood the worry Chuu felt, but, well. Both of them are more likely to be targeted just by virtue of knowing nen. 

She was butchering the carcass under unsubtle non-observation from examiners, when she heard a distant stomping growing closer and closer. Some moments later, a crowd of participants burst into the yard. An impressed whistle slipped from her lips - almost everyone got a stamp! Wait, oh no, almost everyone got a stamp. It was concerning in a sense of competition, somewhere in the back of her mind, but, also… Was that… intended? She threw a glance at Menchi and Buhara. Judging by their expressions, no. They would probably be the ones curating the repopulation efforts as Gourmet Hunters were usually careful about that kind of stuff.

JinSoul once worked with one of those, asked to aid in gathering some of the trickier creatures from Ribbos Sea, including endangered species. The Hunter she worked with donated a hefty sum for the preservation and repopulation organisations that worked with those. Gourmet Hunters used the limited or restricted ingredients, sure, but Choerry knew the majority of them were on good terms with Poacher and Beast Hunters. Were these two an exception? 

Regretfully, back then she was busy with Kim Lip, and missed the opportunity to meet them in person. Oh well.

Choerry washed her arms and walked to her station with several bowls of meat, away from the designated zone by the wall she was butchering in. She felt some people look at her and a smile bloomed on her face as she addressed them with a raised eyebrow, but all of them looked away with confused expressions. Despite getting attention, Choerry got to her station uninterrupted and cheered, seeing her friends already busying around their stations, all of them keeping close. 

Were Great Stamps around here considered a danger to whatever purpose this structure was built? It was, after all, clearly a decision to build it here and in this style, like some rich person’s mansion. Actually, she could imagine the Association getting a job to somewhat reduce the population of such dangerous animals. She might ask Menchi or Buhara about that later, after the phase. 

Or not, depending on whether she would still remember that question by the time they complete it.

All around her, sounds of roasting were filling the air; fire crackling and meat juice simmering where it touched the heat, rare grunting of the skew supports, unused for such weight crammed on them. She had to quicken up. While Buhara looked like a man who could empty a restaurant's storage all by himself, she did not know how much Menchi could eat. She would bet it was far less. Even if by chance she turned out to be an enhancer. 

Well, no. If she was an enhancer and took small bites, she could easily go through all of them. But that was unlikely. She separated one of her ponytails in two and tugged on them, securing the hairband higher. From behind her raised arm she threw a quick appraising glance at Menchi. Who knows, who knows. Enhancers were typically interested in something more straightforward than search for ingredients and experimentation with them, but there were always exceptions. The best medic Hunter Association had was an enhancer, after all.

After flicking fire on, she prepared loin for grilling, cutting into its skin and muscle the tiniest bit, before massaging oil, some spices and a drop of vinegar into it. After a bit of consideration, she put honey back on the shelf inside the counter.

Truth be told, she never cooked anything like this and has no idea how it would taste in the end. Only hopes and theoretical estimations. Mostly she was going off of what she ate in high-end restaurants. Albeit, she usually had sauces based on fruits or berries, and even at home or at JinSoul’s she cooked with them. Grilled seasoned loin with grilled vegetables that, on a second thought, begged for a sauce… Choerry sighed and took out honey again. Garlic honey sauce it was. 

Reducing the fire level, not deeming the heat enough to rely only on coal lining the bottom of large low-sitting mangal, Choerry put chopped vegetables and the meat on the grill with smaller gaps than a default one that she found in the station. 

After she prepared everything for the sauce that she would do in the very end, she stood over the mangal, content with her vision for her dish. In the pause she had, twirling prongs, Choerry looked around to gauge the speed of cooking other participants had and gasped, inhale turning into a choked snicker.

Every single person in front of her just roasted their pigs whole! The overwhelming majority hadn’t even scrubbed carcasses before putting them over the fire! It was beyond bland and stupid and- 

The girls! Choerry’s head whipped around lightning fast.

For a blessed long second, she felt relief, before seeing the situation better. Her face froze in a lopsided smile, her habitual reaction to the horror, reserved for rare occasions she actually saw one.

HyunJin was clearly the best cook out of those three, because despite her going for the tactic of roasting the pig whole, the girl scrubbed it clean and Choerry could catch a nice smell of seasoning coming from her station, which was the reason she felt so sure everything was fine earlier. The pig was rotated evenly and the fire level was precise from what she could gauge. The skin was starting to softly color.

Overall, leagues above other applicants, awesome job.

The other two girls fared worse.

HeeJin worked with a carved and later cut piece of meat - as did Chuu, for that matter - but the chunks were uneven and taken off of its leg, judging by the carcass lying near her, the girl not having enough strength or time left to get it to the wall. The grill she cooked on was covered in burnt fat, but the meat itself was still barely grey, the heat too low. Was there salt or any spices? Choerry watched HeeJin poke the meat with a spatula as if she was afraid of it.

Situation directly on Chuu’s mangal looked relatively fine if only slightly worrying. Ribs were a bit burnt, but some people liked meat that way, consoled herself Choerry.

She also had a handful of red berries on her counter. Since there were no berries provided to her, Chuu must have gathered them herself. The only plant bearing red berries of this size and shape at this time of a year in a forest like this one, were the banishberries. 

And, unlike their lookalikes moltenred berries, they were decidedly not edible. Sweet, yes, but very opposite of edible. Breathtakingly, even, one might say.

Chuu was nervously humming some happy tune, face scrunched in deep concentration, the entirety of her focused on the slightly burnt ribs.

Oh, no.

A drop of fat fell on the coal in her mangal and Choerry turned to her station.

This was, without a doubt, a disaster.

She turned over grilling meat and vegetables before moving. Choerry should handle the girls in a way that couldn't be used as a mark against their cooking being not solely their job. They were clearly observed and she didn’t know how wide the allowed leeway was.

She marched to Chuu first, clasping hands behind her back. 

“Those aren’t moltenred berries.” Chuu was startled out of her focus, eyes immediately snapping up to her. “These are banishberries and they are highly poisonous. Thoroughly wash hands after throwing them away or do not touch them again. Have you touched them before handling the meat?”

Choerry must’ve scored trust points somewhere in the last hour, as the girl compiled without another word. She threw away berries and the meat, scrubbing her fingers clean before restarting her dish anew, borrowing new grill and tongs from HyunJin. Choerry paused for a second, eyeing gloves Chuu still had on, and moved to the neighboring station, where HeeJin stood, looking at her, distracted by their exchange. 

She crouched near HeeJin, poking her to step to the side slightly. Out of the depths of the counter, she fished out tongs. Choerry put them back on the shelf after making sure the girl saw her do so and stepped back, putting distance between her and HeeJin's station.

“Oh, I couldn’t find them! Thank you!” blinked HeeJin in confusion, leaving spatula in the cabinet and getting a more suitable tool.

Choerry nodded, leaning closer, hands clasped behind her again. “Rise heat a bit,” she whispered in HeeJin’s ear, “and put some more seasoning, too.”

“You sure? I don’t want it to suddenly burn,“ hesitated HeeJin, her hand already taking salt and pepper from the shelf. Only salt and pepper.

“It won't. The longer you let it cook at low temperatures, the more rubbery it gets.”

HeeJin turned the heat up a notch and flipped the meat over with pincers. Choerry nodded, about to return to her station, leaving advice for about more different spices behind her teeth, but the girl had another question. “How much salt and pepper?” 

“Eh, by eye? And pepper until you can smell it faintly?” How did one measure salt and pepper at the beginning? No, stop, scratch that, how could someone get to teenagehood without knowing that? 

She pondered over HeeJin’s basic cooking skill level, when she cast a glance at her own station.

The question about the girl’s upbringing was immediately dropped as she rushed to her dish. Ruined dish. 

While she was away, helping the girls, somebody threw dirt at it. 

It flew at an angle, over not only meat, but the vegetables too, sticking to the grill. Not much, two or three handfuls, but it was more than enough to completely ruin her dish. The person kept their distance, throwing it. 

But not distant enough to stay incognito. It could’ve been someone else, stepping close to his station to frame the man, but a tall short-haired redhead with a sickle at his waist forcibly relaxed his stance, moving weight to his left leg as soon as she approached her station. He didn’t sneak a glance at her or even acknowledged her return to her task as she entered his field of vision. Choerry memorized him, squinting.

He rotated his pork over the flame and had glanced at her from a corner of her eye, not turning to her a single degree. Their eyes met and she saw his startle pressed down as to not noticeably twitch. She smiled at him, taking her tongs and angling the grill, letting all of the food tumble on the ground.  

In the silence and attention descended around her, she pulled the grill completely off, and lifted it, still scorchingly hot, hanging on tightly clasped tools. Breaking eye contact, she turned around and walked away with it, the few examinees on her way hurriedly moving away.

Choerry threw the grill next to one of the unused stations, hanging new, unbent tongs on her loose jeans straps and subtly putting a salt shaker in her backpack. She took a clean grill in one hand and a bowl of vegetables in the other.

Humming, she jovially put all of that sans salt shaker near Chuu. There were two plans in her head, one declaring that she was in cooking speedrunning mode now, and the other for her revenge that will have to wait.

She refused to take the pigs HeeJin and Chuu offered, instead taking a washed bowl and a knife with her into the forest. Choerry returned with a new piece of loin less than half a minute afterwards. 

Making eye contact with the man, beaming at him without care for the world, she put new meat in the sink, while it was still actively bleeding.

He caused her to lose time. A lot of it, as many participants were halfway done. Sure. Deal. She will take it back, later. Right now she had to grill the meat anew. Choerry made the same preparations as before, squeezing the surplus of blood in the meat. 

“Stupid examinees with their stupid tactics and stupider expectations, trying to bite wrong person, well nice try, buddy, I will show you how it's properly done,” she grumbled under her breath, before feeling attention in her somewhat annoyed atate. Raising her eyes, she met Chuu’s questioning gaze. The redhead sent a quick glance at the man’s back, before looking back at her, raising an eyebrow, her waving her prongs in a stabby manner. Choerry shook her head at the proposition, her mind already made up.

As she returned to her dish, she felt somewhat more relaxed. It was nice to know someone was angry on her behalf.

Her focused vigilance over her meat almost caused her to miss the first participant to try their luck, bringing a full pig on a gigantic plate. It was, again, the same judoist who was dismissive of the examiners' profession earlier. Buhara approved the dish, Menchi, without lifting for fork, did not. At the examinee's arguments she told him sharply of all the ways his pork was overcooked at some parts and undercooked at others without even tasting it.

As she was now practically glued to her station, Choerry observed the state of participant’s dishes more carefully, coming to two conclusions. First, while a lot of people immediately around her roasted pigs whole, there still was a decent amount of people who made attempts at a proper dish here and there. Second, by the looks of it, some were also sabotaged, like her.

Third, she rethought her declaration of roasting pigs whole as a morose decision. If you made it properly, there was no downside to it and only benefits.

She made the third conclusion when, upon Menchi’s finished evaluation, Buhara ate the whole pig in a record time.

You could topple the eating capacity of either of them. It might take time with Buhara, but it would happen sooner or later. Roasting them unbutchered was a valid strategy.

Next participant came up the stairs, carrying a dish with another whole pig.

It continued for some time, examinees standing in a queue to have their dish evaluated. As reliably as a clock, everyone was approved by Buhara and shot down by Menchi, with the man afterwards eating every single dish, no matter how well-cooked it was. 

After some time, Choerry changed her opinion again, as Buhara appeared to be truly bottomless, chewing on the thirty-eight’s one. Those pigs were longer then she was tall, this was illogical on every level. If he wasn’t one to be targeted to be filled, it might’ve been seen as a good thing that Menchi hadn’t taken a single bite.

It might have been, if she wasn’t getting more and more irritated with each failure, that is. 

Even HyunJin, with deliciously smelling, evenly roasted meat to a nice golden shade, failed all the same, Menchi taking a second bite after Kurapika’s attempt - who she wasn’t seeing at all during this phase as their groups were on direct opposite ends of the courtyard - and telling it wasn’t tender enough. Choerry was one hundred percent sure that HyunJin’s dish was delicious, the woman seemed impossible to please. 

At least Buhara gave her cooking a small compliment. Not that it helped, really.

Menchi tasted the dishes only sometimes, almost exclusively the smaller sized dishes, where meat was prepared in chunks or, rarely, modified full carcasses.

Some butchered their pigs at the beginning of cooking, others, seeing the reception unoriginal dishes got, tried to make something out of the pork at a later stage, chopping some vegetables or cutting both into some form of stew. 

She still failed them, obviously. The woman was slowly riled up by each dish she failed, mood worsening since the tasting began. 

Choerry’s mood was soured too. She was beginning to have doubts that her pork would pass her critique, as this was looking less and less of objective evaluation and more of a fit thrown by an offended pride. There it was, what she was worried about. The standard Menchi had was rising with each person, being somewhere above the clouds by now.

Choerry was preparing the sauce, as her pork was eight or so minutes before being done, but she was already starting to feel a slowly rising wave of her own annoyance, forestating the result.

The atmosphere was growing tenser by the minute, many people simply standing at their empty or just turned off stations, staring at their examiners. 

Until Menchi snapped.

“I’m full,” Buhara patted his stomach, a blessed smile on his face. The pile of bones behind him would’ve looked impressive, if her attention wasn’t focused on Menchi.

“You know what? So am I.” The woman threw an irritated look over the courtyard. Choerry tensed. “Enough of this. We finish this phase here. Failed, one hundred and forty-eight, passed, none.”

---

Which was the current situation she was stuck in.

Was she angry? Oh, yes. She was pissed. 

Choerry could not believe she would fail because of- because of this! Because someone insulted Hunter’s specialisation! Because people had no imagination! “Oh, no, sorry, guys, I failed because other contestants couldn’t bother to hit two fingers on the pork! Haha, oopsy!” She would be laughed out of the room! All of them passed on their first try, and here she was, trained and prepared and eager only to be blocked by other’s sheer stupidity?!

She needed a plan. Less anger, more analysis. No irrational actions, focus on clear, methodical plans, no blindness in this home.

Maybe she should kill everyone who just roasted a pig whole, to prevent them from entering and ruining the next year too? God, to think she would need to retake the exam!..

A loud crash rang across the courtyard. Examinee 255, the goddamn judoist who was disrespectful from the moment the examiners specialisation was mentioned, broke his station in a single punch.

“I’ve had enough of this. You don’t like our dishes? Too bad!” he roared, glaring at the examiners. “I’m not here to butcher pigs and cook high cuisine! I’m here to become a Hunter! A Blacklist Hunter at that! I want a real test! Not this prissy Gourmet Hunter crapola!”

Sorry to hear, buddy. You have zero analysis skill needed for the job.

“Sorry to hear that,” echoed her thoughts nonchalant - severely unimpressed - Menchi, staring him dead in the eyes.

Her words caught him off-guard, even making him stand a bit straighter. “Yyeah?!” 

“Yeah, ‘cause this year Gourmet Hunter crapola rules,” Menchi blinked, uncaring of the rage now rapidly filling the examinee. ”Hey, better luck next year, huh?”

“Don’t you,” red in the face, he let out a yell, charging at Menchi, fist rising, “mess with me!”

His enraged attack was cut short with a loud slap, followed by a second and a third, from his body falling by the entrance to the courtyard, after hitting the top of one of the gate supports.

Blessed and heavy silence filled the air.

Buhara lowered his hand after sending the judoist’s body sailing through the air across the site.

“Buhara,” said Menchi, “that was uncalled for.”

“Not really,” he slanted his eyes at her. “If I hadn’t stepped in, you would've killed him.”

“Hmph! Perhaps.” Menchi stood up, with half a dozen knives in her hands. “He wants to be a blacklist Hunter? Hah! Remind him he was popped by a prissy Gourmet Hunter!” In a swift motion, she threw long knives in the air, low, barely above her head, catching and throwing them again, blades spinning faster than most eyes could track. “Doesn’t matter what kind of Hunter you aim to be, you’ve gotta be proficient in the martial arts! Rare foods are often obtainable in remote, inhospitable places and we are frequently called on to run down and capture poachers! If you’re any kind of Hunter, martial arts become your second nature! As does the burning desire to challenge the unknown!” All her knives landed in one hand, aimed at them as a collective. “That’s what I seek in each of you!”

Applicants all around gritted their teeth.

The way Menchi said it… it was good for those who never understood this. It filtered the essential part of being a Hunter. It’s all about the Hunt. Truly, Choerry felt the same way and empathised with the passion. She shared the idea, as she, too, sometimes broke in restricted or preserved areas in her Hunt, moved by her hungry curiosity.

Choerry did not share the lack of objectivity, nor did appreciate it.

This wasn’t a test of “challenge of the unknown”. It was a crippled evaluation, completely broken by the examiner's lack of professionalism.

It put a roadblock between her and her Hunt.

Which formed only one line of action.

Menchi had to move.

Her weight began rolling to the tiptoes, knees starting to bend. With stare fixed on Menchi, Choerry collected her oozing aura and- 

“Even so-" 

-a voice cut in, stopping her before she made a single step towards the woman.

"-isn’t failing an entire applicant pool a bit abrupt?” 

Above them, an aircraft with the Hunter Association logo was sailing - the Judging Committee, flashed in the back of her head - and, from thirty meters up in the sky, a figure jumped down.