Augustine Xadau

## Daring Chef

**Augustine Xadau** is a side character who serves as a quest giver in some games, such as *Monster Hunter Stories Ultimate*.

## Description

Augustine Xadau, better known by his alias, the Daring Chef, is a large, muscular, elderly Wyverian man with green eyes, beige skin, a short, grey beard, and short, grey hair. He wears male Bistro armour and carries a Sword and Shield known as the Millenium Knife. His left eye is gouged out, and a large scar can be seen below it.

## Personality

Augustine, true to his title, is a passionate and curious chef who likes to experiment with and craft new dishes, even if it involves using ingredients one normally might not expect to see in a high-class dish, like materials from Nerscylla, Lunastra, Teostra, and Deviljho. In his eyes, any monster can make for a delicious meal with the right preparation, even if the general public and high-profile critics alike don't agree with his views and goes on his way to try and prove them wrong, even hunting the monsters himself from time to time. He also seeks to spread his teachings, believing that the world hasn't truly seen the best of what the cooking world can offer, and will take aspiring and experienced chefs alike under his wing, with one notable individual being Debli, a wannabe Rider who acted as a chef's apprentice in his village before the Black Blight destroyed it.

## Background

Born and raised in a small town near Mezeporta known as Althabulem, Augustine Xadau grew up poor and impoverished, being born into a family of peasants, and sought to overcome his lot in life while following his passion in life, which was cooking. He was mesmerized by how the art of preparing meals could bring people together and ignite sparks of creativity inside of its practitioners, and grew to idolize Monsieur Chereau, the inventor of the Well-Done Steak, for his inventiveness and success within the culinary world. Unfortunately, he lacked the funds needed to properly pursue his career choice, so to build them up, he traveled to Mezeporta and took up a career as a Hunter there, killing and capturing dangerous monsters for money, and in his free time, he would test his cooking abilities by reducing the corpses of various monsters to small, bloody chunks with his knives and boiling their contents in a large pan, sprinkling the stew with spices and herbs he gathered along the way, before getting more creative with his dishes, such as cooking pies made with Bulldrome and Mosswine meat and making haggis from Moofah guts. Once he raised enough funds, he was able to take part in culinary school like he dreamed of, and sought to show the world just what he was truly capable of. While he was recognized as a competent chef within Mezeporta, he garnered a reputation from the general public and high-profile critics alike as being willing to use ingredients that should not go together, or even in a dish at all, which has made him divisive among them. Some examples of this include Yulongup meat being put into dumplings (the fish are widely seen as unappetizing due to being bottom feeders), Deviljho juices being used to pickle Boxeulang meat, Tropical Berries being paired with Monster Guts, explosive powder from Lunastra and Teostra being sprinkled into alcohol, deep-frying Nerscylla legs, and ice cream flavoured like a Kirin's flesh. Despite how odd his cooking style was, he has managed to amass a dedicated following around the world, with one notable follower being a would-be Rider with a Great Poogie as a companion. Sadly, his hunting career would eventually be put to a halt following an attack from a notably powerful Doragyurosu that was dangerously close to Mezeporta, with the monster gouging out one of his eyes with its whip-like appendages during their battle. Due to a mix of his wounds along with his old age, he does not hunt nearly as often as he used to, instead preferring to contract other Hunters and Riders to gather ingredients for him.

## Abilities

While his style of cooking is rather strange at times, Augustine Xadau is a skilled chef that can prepare fine meals out of nearly any monster, regardless of how edible it is believed to be. He is also an experienced hunter, utilizing G-Rank equipment and carrying a notebook filled with information on a wide variety of monsters he hunted, with a large portion of the notes detailing how to make dishes out of them. Due to how well-traveled and powerful he was prior to the attack that halted his hunting career, he is fabled to have eaten at least one of every monster found in the world, including Major Elder Dragons like Jhen Mohran and First-Class Elders like Fatalis, and he neither confirms nor denies this. He also has a stomach lining that is twice as thick as a normal Wyverian's, allowing him to eat things that would damage a normal Wyverian's stomach, and he can tolerate the taste of any kind of food, no matter how weird or disgusting it is.

## Tropes that Apply to Them

* Asexuality: He has no interest in men or women, preferring cooking and hunting over forming romantic relationships.
* Beard of Awesome: He has a short beard that reflects his toughness.
* Career-Ending Injury: Downplayed; while he still hunts despite having his left eye gouged out, he doesn't hunt nearly as often as he used to due to the injury along with his old age slowing him down, preferring to focus mainly on his cooking instead.
* Chef of Iron: He's a professional chef who also happens to be a G-Rank Hunter.
* Cool Old Guy: He's 163 years old and an accomplished G-Rank hunter, having hunted all manner of monsters over the course of his hunting career. Even with his old age and eye injury slowing him down, he's by no means incompetent, as an unlucky Ethereal Knight found out the hard way.
* Cordon Bleugh Chef: While not a bad chef by any means, he's been known to make meals with ingredients that many consider weird or unappetizing, which has made him divisive among food critics.
* Extreme Omnivore: Has a taste for things considered inedible, such as Khezu steaks. Justified in that his stomach lining is twice as thick as a normal Wyverian's and secretes more digestive juices, allowing him to tolerate items that would make other people sick.
* Eye Scream: His left eye was gouged out by a particularly strong Doragyurosu's whip-like appendages. This, in addition to his old age, is what put his hunting career on hold.
* Famed In-Story: Due to him being well-traveled, an accomplished G-Rank Hunter, and having a tendency to make food out of any monster he sees, he's rumoured to have eaten at least one of every monster in the world, ranging from the lowly Velocidrome to the powerful Fatalis. He neither confirms nor denies this.
* Handicapped Badass: While his missing eye and old age have slowed him down to the point where he rarely hunts anymore, he's still a capable combatant, as an Ethereal Knight who attacked him in his own kitchen learned the hard way.
* Hot-Blooded: Even in his old age, he's burningly passionate about cooking, and encourages others to give it their all in anything they partake in.
* Intergenerational Friendship: He's friends with Mezeporta's Food and Item Vendor despite being many years her senior.
* The Knights Who Say "Squee!": He's a big fan of Monsieur Chereau and will describe him in a gleeful manner if the player brings him up during a conversation.
* The Mentor: Acts as this to aspiring and experienced chefs who want to expand their cooking expertise. The most notable in this regard is Debli.
* Rated M for Manly: He has large muscles, a short, yet prominent moustache and beard, a hot-blooded demeanour, and a large scar running across his face, and is an accomplished hunter and chef to boot.
* Weapon of Choice: His signature weapon is a Sword and Shield called the Millennium Knife.

## Notes and Trivia

* The Doragyurosu that gouged out Augustine's left eye and ultimately put his hunting career on hold is described as being red with rage, which implies that it was a Supremacy Doragyurosu that crippled him.
* Augustine Xadau shares his birthday with Heston Blumenthal, a British celebrity chef notable for his experiments with food pairing, a method of identifying which foods go together in terms of flavour.