by Virlyce
Vur picked up a nearby ladle and stirred the pot, mixing the bear’s juices into the stew. He scooped up the liquid that had fallen onto the counter and mixed that back into the pot as well. Stella frowned at his actions. “Haven’t you ever heard of the five-second rule?”
Vur shook his head. “No. What’s that?”
“If you drop food, you have five seconds to pick it up before it’s too dirty to eat,” Stella said, nodding her head. The bloody people behind her nodded as well. And the woman standing across from Vur was still paralyzed by fear.
“Okay. And?”
Stella wrinkled her nose. “That stew on the countertop has been there for way more than five seconds.”
“That’s okay,” Vur said. “I wasn’t the one who dropped it, so it doesn’t count, right?”
Stella sighed. “Never mind. You eat bears raw. I forgot you didn’t care about food safety and hygienic practices.”
Vur grunted as he placed down the ladle and lifted the pot to his lips. He tilted his head back along with the pot and finished the stew in a few gulps even though the pot was larger than his head. Mervin stared up at him with round eyes. He pulled on Stella’s arm, but Stella smacked him away. “Didn’t he say he was full?” Mervin asked as he rubbed his red skin, still staring up at Vur.
“It’s a liquid,” Vur said as he placed the empty pot down. “It doesn’t count. It’s like drinking water after a meal.” He exhaled and patted his stomach while licking his lips, removing all traces of stew from his mouth. “Ah, I probably should’ve saved some for Tafel.”
“It’s fine. I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have wanted any,” Stella said.
“Maybe,” Vur said as he looked around. There were only two doors in the room: the one he entered from, and the one behind the counter. “It doesn’t seem like there’s anything of interest here.” He walked around the counter and rummaged through the cabinets and drawers, but the things he found could easily be found in his own palace back at home. “Yep, boring stuff. Thanks for the drink.” He patted the bloody woman’s shoulder as he walked past and headed towards the next door. With a clank, he broke the lock by turning the handle and left the room.
The seven bloody people exhaled at the same time. Their lips moved, but no sounds came out. That didn’t stop them from speaking in turn though. One slammed its hand on the table and pointed at the door that Vur had just entered. The woman next to it pulled on its arm, gesturing towards the door Vur had came from, before shaking its head. The angered man stood up and walked to the entrance, pulling it wide open. The sight of frozen and dead bears greeted its eyes. Without a sound, the man closed the door and sat back down at the table, folding its hands into its lap, staring at the empty space where its bowl of stew would’ve been if the liquid hadn’t already been drunk. The woman by its side patted its back and let out a small smile. That smile stiffened as the door that Vur had just left through swung open.
Vur reappeared, covered in even more blood than before. Behind him, there was a corpse of a bloody creature, but it had been torn apart into an unrecognizable blob. “Forgot my crossbow,” Vur said as he walked back around the counter, leaving bloody footprints on the wooden floorboards. He once again ignored the gazes of the people as he lifted his crossbow, leaning it against his shoulder, and marched back out of the kitchen, closing the door behind him. The bloody people shivered as all of them thought they heard a faint human-like scream coming from beyond the door, but that was impossible. The bloody creatures in the next hall knew no fear nor pain….
***
Tafel exhaled as she glared at the sight in front of her. A series of corpses lined a path, leading up to a few mounds of ice that contained still-alive creatures inside of them. A diminutive figure stepped up to her side and nodded. “Well, it looks like Vur was definitely here,” Alice said with her hands placed on her hips. “But what’s the deal with the ones at the end? Actually, no, what’s the deal with the bears that look like they’ve been eaten?”
“He … probably ate them,” Tafel said, causing Alice to make a face. Tafel’s brow furrowed as she pursed her lips. “I wonder what they taste like.” She crouched down by the first corpse and poked around for some fleshy bits that Vur hadn’t completely eaten. When she found a piece, she stripped it off and popped it into her mouth.
“Well?” Mr. Skelly asked as he wrapped his arm around Alice, who had turned away from Tafel with a pale face. “How is it?”
“It tastes like iron, but it’s salty too,” Tafel said as she stood up and wiped her bloody fingers on the thigh region of her robes. “Overall, not that different from an actual raw bear. It might even be tastier if you enjoy the taste of that.” Her forehead crinkled. “Which Vur does.” She walked over to the frozen bears near the end of the hall and tapped on the surface of the ice, causing the bears’ eyes to roll towards the sound. “And this is how he was taught to preserve food by his mother. We could probably leave them here without issue.”
“Our contractor’s a savage…,” Mistle said as she hovered near Tafel. “These poor bears.”
“They’re monsters,” Tafel said with a snort. “It’s not like they have any feelings. And they’re made of blood too, so I doubt they can even feel any pain. If anything, the creatures in this dungeon are all a type of golem created by some perverse magician who’s probably the final boss. They’re very rare, but it’s not like an artificial dungeon is impossible to create.”
Alice slipped out from Mr. Skelly’s embrace, walking with her head held high to avoid looking at the eaten corpses on the ground. Unfortunately, she was too short, and the bones of the bears were on her face level. So she bashed them aside with her shield, clearing a path to the door at the end while walking around the frozen mounds. “How far do you think Vur got?”
Tafel’s expression darkened. “Even if we run, I doubt we’ll catch up to him before he reaches the final boss.” She pushed open the door. “Unless the dungeon’s like a labyrinth and he got … lost….”
Seven bloody people stared at the intruding demon. They were sitting around a table with utensils in their hands and cooked vegetables on the plates in front of them. After examining Tafel, they exchanged glances with each other and stood up. A few reached underneath the table while others walked towards a cabinet, but in the end, all of them pulled out some kind of weapon.
“…Did Vur get lost in a completely straight line?” Alice asked, raising an eyebrow.
“He….” Tafel bit her lower lip. “Maybe…? He’s Vur; the impossible becomes possible for him. Like getting lost where no one else possibly could.”
“Or we can use logic and conclude that the door has multiple exits,” Diamant said. After being discovered by Tafel and Alice, he had reverted back into the form of a ball of light. Unfortunately, Alora wasn’t around to discover the secret of canceling a polymorph. “Close the door and open it again. We might be able to find the path Vur took.”
“Got it,” Alice said as she shut the door just in time to block a bloody arrow. There were a few thudding sounds as multiple attacks landed on the door. “Now I open it again?”
“Yeah,” Tafel said as she readied her staff. “I’ll block any attacks that come your way.”
Alice nodded as she prepared her shield as well. Then she kicked open the door. The sight was exactly the same, and a bombardment of bloody spells flew towards the group.
***
“Is it just me, or is it a little loud back there?” Stella asked, turning her head almost a hundred and eighty degrees behind herself without moving her body like an owl.
Vur twisted his torso around and cupped one hand over his ear. A few moments passed, but the only sound he heard was the wind whistling as the walls whished past. “Nah. It’s just you.”
“Oh,” Stella said as she fixed her posture. Her legs swung back and forth as she sat on Vur’s shoulder, holding onto a clump of his hair to prevent herself from falling off as they traveled at high speeds. Vur was sitting
on a strange bloody creature with seven legs, two heads, and four tails. Each of the legs seemed to belong to a different kind of animal. One of the heads was crocodilian, and the other was birdlike. The tails were all long and thin like a furless cat’s. “How much longer do you think it’ll take for us to get out of here?”
Vur shrugged as his chimera mount rounded a corner. The hallway after the kitchen ended up being a type of maze with traps laid out on the floor, walls, and ceiling. Vur came to the conclusion that one of the beasts living inside the maze would know the way out, so he sat on one. Then it started running on its own.
“This is such a dumb idea,” Mervin said, his face pale. Vur’s body jolted up and down along with the chimera’s clumsy seven-legged gait. “I’m getting motion sickness. Genies weren’t made to move like this.”
“Then hurry up and turn back into a beansprout,” Stella said, shaking her fist at the genie king who was sitting on Vur’s other shoulder. “And nonsense! All of Vur’s ideas are good.” She tugged on Vur’s hair. “You can’t let him disrespect you like this. You should get rid of him.”
Vur turned his head towards Mervin. “Why is this a bad idea?”
“Think about it,” Mervin said. He held one hand up and turned his head away, vomiting off the side of Vur’s arm. He wiped away the remaining spittle from his lips and readjusted himself. “Genie kings don’t even eat. How did I vomit…?” He shook his head. “Anyway, think about it. If you’re an animal being chased by a predator, where would you run?”
Vur stared at Mervin. “I can’t relate.”
“…If you’re hunting a bear, where does it run when you first show up?”
“I kill it instantly because Grimmy says I shouldn’t play with my food.” Vur nodded. “My food never runs.”
“Okay,” Mervin said, his expression dim. “Well, animals will run to where they think is the safest place for them. Squirrels run up trees. Rabbits run into burrows. Sloths just die. If this chimera you’re sitting on has lived in this maze for its whole life, then there’s no way it’ll run to the maze’s exit. It wouldn’t run somewhere unfamiliar to escape from you. If anything, it’ll head deeper into the maze.”
Vur raised an eyebrow. “So I should get off?”
“Probably.”
Vur grumbled. “But it’s pretty comfy. I think I’ll wait and see where it brings me first.”
Mervin scratched his nose. “Well, you’re the landlord, so I guess I can’t complain.”
“Vur’s body isn’t for rent!” Stella glared at Mervin. “It’s private property owned by me!”
***
“Ugh.” Tafel groaned as she pressed her back to the wall and dropped down, sliding onto her butt as her legs bent. She lowered her staff onto the floorboards and tilted her head back, digging her horns into the wooden surface as she stared up at the ceiling. “That was tough.”
“What do you mean?” Mr. Skelly asked with a grin. Half of his helmet had been shattered and cracked off, revealing the right side of his skull. “I’m not even out of breath.”
“You don’t breathe,” Alice said, glaring at the grinning skeleton. She was stacking the bodies of the bloody people in a corner of the kitchen where they wouldn’t be blocking any of the cabinets and drawers from opening. Parts of her shirt and pants were torn, but there wasn’t a single dent on the round shield that hung from her back, making her seem like a turtle. “Help me move these bodies.”
“This is cruel…,” Mistle said as she hovered over the bloody people. “They were having dinner and you ambushed them. They couldn’t even eat their last meal.”
“Like I said earlier, they’re monsters.” Tafel climbed to her feet and dusted off the bottom of her robes. “Even a slime has to eat, these things aren’t any different.”
“Didn’t you say they were like golems?” Mistle asked. “Have you ever seen a golem eat anything?”
A tiny wrinkle appeared on Tafel’s forehead. “Golems eat mana. The concept’s the same. If you feel so guilty about conquering a dungeon, why are you even here?”
“Vur dragged me along….”
Tafel pretended not to hear as she walked over to the counter and pulled open a few drawers. Her eyes lit up. “Their utensils are made of mithril.”
“What?” Alice asked, dropping the bloody corpse in her hands as she whipped her head around to face Tafel. “Really?”
“Yeah, look,” Tafel said as she picked up a spoon that was tinted with a bluish hue. “It’s a mithril spoon. There’s dozens of them.”
Alice went to the table and grabbed the utensils that the bloody people hadn’t been able to use for a final time. “Woah, you’re right. These really are made of mithril. No wonder why those knights stripped everything in those previous rooms. If even forks and spoons are made of mithril, then….” Her gaze shifted onto the wooden table. She rapped on it with the back of her hand, a dull thudding sound echoing through the room. “Now, trees aren’t my specialty, but even a layman like me can tell that this is pretty good stuff. This is something that E would’ve used in his dining room.”
“E? The ex-dwarf king?” Tafel asked.
“Wouldn’t it be better to call him the dwarf ex-king?” Alice asked as she gathered up the utensils, plates included, and handed the stack over to Tafel, who shoved them all into a portal. “He’s still a dwarf, you know.”
Tafel shrugged. “You knew what I meant,” she said as she searched through the bloody people’s refrigerator. “Their freezing device is pretty nice too. Lots of space, and it doesn’t look like it takes a lot of mana to maintain. Well, that makes sense. If the mana it took to operate it was greater than the mana provided by the food inside, then they’d just unplug it and use the mana source to power themselves.” She took out a carrot and sniffed it before biting into it. “Tastes like a regular carrot.”
“…Do you just eat everything raw?” Alice asked, raising an eyebrow. “First it was that bloody corpse, now it’s a carrot? Are you a barbarian?”
“There’s nothing wrong with eating carrots raw,” Tafel said, furrowing her brow. “In fact, people who cook carrots are ruining a perfectly good vegetable. Once you cook it, it becomes all mushy and disgusting with no texture. It’s like eating a slime.”
“Yep, you’re a barbarian,” Alice said. “Why am I the one on the frontlines while you’re staying behind and casting? It should be the other way around.”
“That’s not really my fault,” Tafel said as she tilted the refrigerator through a portal by lifting one side from the bottom. She grunted as it toppled over completely, disappearing from the room. “Bring that table over? I’ll work on separating the cabinets from the walls.”
Mistle hovered overhead, watching the party strip the room of everything including the lights on the ceiling. “This is too cruel….”
“At least they dispatched all the monsters first?” Sheryl asked as she floated around the blue ball of light. “They don’t have to see their belongings taken away.”
“That doesn’t make it any better.”
***
“Is this their nest?” Stella whispered to Vur as she sank into his body, leaving only her head showing outside. The chimera mount had finally stopped running once it entered a pitch-black cave. Hundreds of glowing red eyes permeated the darkness, all of them staring at Vur.
Vur hopped off the chimera and yawned as he stretched his arms towards the ceiling. A figure flashed from the darkness, lunging towards Vur. With a simple downward movement of his arm, he swatted the attacking figure into the ground. It was a chimera with three legs and five wings. Vur crouched down and lifted it by its neck while sniffing its chest. Then he took a bite out of it without hesitation. He swallowed and licked his lips. “Tastes like chimera.”
“What does chimera taste like?” Stella asked from inside of Vur’s body.
“Try some and you’ll know,” Vur said as he stood up, his hand still wrapped around the creature’s neck. He glared at the eyes that
seemed to be shrinking back. Even though it was pitch-black and only lit up by red eyes, Vur could clearly make out everything inside the cave. Hundreds of chimeras were staring at him, but most of them were small as if they were still hatchlings. “This is probably where they spawn from.”
“Do you think they have a mother?” Mervin asked. “Do you think she’d be the mini-boss of the dungeon?”
“Dummy,” Stella said, her tone filled with disdain. “Don’t you see that these chimeras are super weak? They’re pests, like rats or cockroaches that happen to be living in a dungeon. And you think a pest is a mini-boss?”
“Isn’t Vur just too strong? I’m sure a group of knights would have trouble dealing with even a single one of these chimeras,” Mervin said.
Stella harrumphed. “What do you know? You’re just a beansprout.”
“…Aren’t you just a flower?”
“Everyone knows flowers are smarter than beansprouts. On the hierarchal food chain of plants, fairy birthflowers are at the top.”
“Plants eat each other?” Vur asked, tilting his head as he kicked aside a few chimeras while making his way deeper into the cave. Only a few brave ones came out to attack him, the others pressing themselves against the cave’s walls, creating a path for him. “I didn’t know they had a food chain.”
“You didn’t know? Well, that makes sense; it all happens underground,” Stella said and nodded. “The roots of a birthflower travel really far and wrap around roots of other plants. Then they suck out all the nutrients and consume the plant completely. The only plant that can grow in the vicinity of a birthflower is another birthflower. We even eat trees.”
Vur thought back to the garden of birthflowers he planted. Tafel had contributed with a few fruit trees that she had transported with the help of portals. Oh wells.