"...Oysters..."
Tang Han had never imagined there would come a day when he himself would utter those two words.
He was sprawled over the table, belly bulging like a woman six or seven months pregnant.
He had run two hundred and seventeen trials. Only fifty-one had scored above A. He had drunk every single failed batch himself. Even though each cup had only been a mouthful, once the number piled up, it had nearly added up to a whole bucket of liquid.
And it was not enough for Tang Han to taste only the failed drinks. If he wanted to create the best honey special in the world, then he also had to sample the A-grade drinks and above, drawing experience from them as well.
The experiment had taken him four full hours. Aside from restroom breaks, he had not left the conference room once. He had even skipped lunch and filled his stomach with honey special instead. The pages he had used to record ingredient ratios and analysis had piled up thick enough to make a book.
And yet even after all that, he still had not succeeded...
Even though Tang Han could now consistently make honey specials rated A or above—good enough to open a shop and start selling them—as long as he had not reached S, it did not count as success.
He still had not experimented enough. He would need several times more testing before he could cross the A+ threshold and reach the ultimate peak.
But Tang Han had already reached his limit. His stomach was full, and his progress had stalled halfway.
And then the bastard system delivered yet another blow that made his heart sink.
Ding. Detected that although the host will no longer produce trash rated B or below, there are now too many qualified A-grade products remaining, which may result in waste. The host must first deal with these A-grade finished products before the system will continue supplying unlimited ingredients.
"...."
Tang Han looked at the twenty-odd cups of A-grade honey special still sitting on the table and closed his eyes in despair.
Looks like making the world's best honey special was not happening today.
He had only just begun to enjoy the fun of being a researcher, but the capacity of his stomach had dragged him back to cruel reality.
The human stomach had limits.
Just like research funding approved from above—even if it looked enormous, it was still nowhere near enough for researchers to burn through.
"Forget it. I'm done. I'm rotting."
Tang Han's stomach was so bloated that he could not even stand up. There was no way he could go complete Rice Shower's apology mission to save time, so he decided to take a nap first, wait for his stomach to digest a little, then wake up and continue his research.
Just as Tang Han gave in to despair, he suddenly heard a faint little noise from the system in his head, soft as a mosquito's buzz. At the same time, an ash-gray-haired horse girl happened to follow the smell all the way here.
She wore five diamond-shaped ornaments on her head and had an eternally expressionless face. Other than eating, she had no interest in anything else.
Tracen's number one glutton—
Oguri Cap.
"Smells good..."
Oguri Cap's nose twitched as she pushed open the conference room door.
Normally, the conference room sat far away from every active part of the academy. There was no food there, no training, nothing fun to do, so almost no horse girls ever came here. At most, they only passed by.
But today, as Oguri Cap happened to be walking past, a sweet fragrance caught her attention. Her hunger took complete control of her body and led her straight into the conference room.
After entering, Oguri Cap discovered that there was not a single person inside—but the tables were covered in drinks.
Her stomach let out a loud rumble. Even though she had already cleaned out the cafeteria's entire lunch supply just two hours ago, she was hungry again.
Looking at the honey specials on the table, Oguri Cap began to drool.
"Want to eat..."
Seeing that the drinks seemed to have no owner, Oguri Cap sat down in the seat beside Tang Han and picked up a cup of honey special.
She took a sip.
"Delicious."
Her expression remained flat as ever, but the tremor in her eyes betrayed her astonishment.
Oguri Cap had never really liked honey special all that much. It was not filling, and the taste usually was not that good, so when she wanted to deal with hunger, it was never her drink of choice.
But now, for the first time in her life, she realized that honey special could actually taste this good.
And the honey in these drinks was incredibly rich and thick, unlike the watered-down stuff sold outside. The honey specials in this conference room could practically be eaten as desserts, which made Oguri Cap even happier as someone looking to fill her stomach.
Since these honey specials had no owner, letting them go to waste would be a terrible shame.
So she would eat them.
Oguri Cap calmly nodded to herself and continued lifting the honey specials from the table and drinking them.
"Delicious... delicious..."
"?"
Tang Han, who had only dozed off briefly, suddenly heard movement nearby and snapped his eyes open. Then he saw a white-haired horse girl frantically consuming all the honey specials he had made earlier.
"O-Oguri Cap?"
Listening to that constant stream of "Delicious," he had half thought some big eater from another series had wandered in from the wrong set. Instead, it was Tracen's greatest glutton.
The moment Tang Han saw a horse girl sitting beside him, his first instinct was to run. But when he realized Oguri Cap was paying absolutely no attention to him and was focused only on clearing the honey specials from the table, his eyes lit up.
"Oh-ho. Heaven really is helping me."
Looking at Oguri Cap beside him, Tang Han felt as though he had found a priceless treasure.
Did this not solve the waste problem immediately?
With Oguri Cap, this food black hole, right here, his experiment could continue.
The system's requirement was that honey specials rated below B had to be drunk by him, but anything A and above could be given to someone else.
At this point, Tang Han's technique was already stable enough to produce A-rank and above every time. All he was missing was the perfect ratio in a few key ingredients. He no longer needed to keep tasting every batch to gather experience, and with his mouth saturated in honey flavor, he could not distinguish subtle differences anymore anyway. So all he had to do was feed every new batch to Oguri Cap while he focused on the final ratio research needed for an S-rank drink.
Tang Han immediately sprang into action. In just ten seconds, he mixed another A+ honey special.
Oguri Cap, having just finished the twenty-odd cups on the table, suddenly noticed that there was another cup in front of her.
Hm? Another one?
Without thinking much about it, she tipped it back in one gulp.
Then Tang Han made another. A+, but still not good enough. Clicking his tongue in dissatisfaction, he pushed it over in front of Oguri Cap.
Hm? Another one appeared?
Oguri Cap found it slightly strange, but her hands did not stop moving.
Lift. Tilt head back. Open mouth. Pour in. Close mouth. Swallow.
After downing more than twenty cups in a row, Oguri Cap's senses finally picked up the presence of the black-clad figure sitting beside her.
She suddenly realized that this black-clothed person had been there the whole time, sitting right next to her, pulling out endless ingredients from somewhere like a blue robotic cat from a fourth-dimensional pocket, then skillfully making delicious honey specials and placing them in front of her.
So it was this black-clad person who had been continuously making honey specials for her to drink!
Could he—or she—be the God of Honey Specials?!
Oguri Cap did not care about Tang Han's real face. Nor did she care why he could endlessly pull ingredients out of his pockets to make more honey specials. She had only ever cared about one thing:
Filling her stomach.
And so the two of them fell into a perfect rhythm. Tang Han kept making fresh honey specials, and Oguri Cap kept drinking them.
Three hundred cups. Five hundred cups. Nine hundred cups!
At last, as the sun slanted westward and the entire conference room was saturated with the scent of honey, with Oguri Cap's belly swollen as though she were ten months pregnant, Tang Han's experiment finally came to an end.
Tang Han leapt onto the table in excitement and raised a cup high above his head.
Item: The Best-Tasting Honey Special in the World
Rating: S
Description: No matter what a person's tastes are, once they drink this honey special, they will think it is the most delicious one in the world.
"I... I did it."
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter116)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter144)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 118
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 111
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 80
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 112
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 95
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 89
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 53
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 61
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 65
Uma Musume: From Beginner 61
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 37
Uma Musume: I Want All 35
I Can Copy Unique Skills 36
A Guide to Aid in the Underwor 26
Summoning an Evil God, but the 27
My patreon : patreon.com/queen_sin