Chapter 70
I was a bit puzzled to see the twins looking so disgusted.
’It shouldn’t be that bad.’
Since this was a raid conducted with Je Hyun-oh and the captains, we were proceeding at a moderate pace.
If I had done things the way I did in the game, everyone would have started by stripping naked.
I would have sold the basic outfits--the shirts and suspender jeans--to add to our funds.
Right now, we’re just moving up and down the dungeon a bit; isn’t that the basic foundation of a raid?
And thanks to clearing the day dungeon, the choice of dish was perfect.
’It’s reduced the amount of hard work.’
’Flame Lizard Tail Skewers’-made by skewering a flame lizard tail on a wooden stick and grilling it with lava salt and volcanic ash spice were one of the most efficient dishes in S2P.’
Per hunt, based on the day dungeon, you get four tails, one lava salt, and one volcanic ash spice.
The lava salt and volcanic ash spice each contain enough volume for four servings.
The numbers aligned perfectly, so there was no need to feel uneasy about leftover ingredients.
That wasn’t the only advantage of grilled lizard tails.
The recipe was simple, just skewer and grill-and the cooking time was short compared to other foods of the same grade.
Moreover, the price was excellent.
Adding lava salt and volcanic ash spice to the grilled tail brought the base price to a whopping 480G.
Tips were also high, so the expected selling price ranged from a minimum of 480G to a maximum of 700G.
No matter what other ingredients were used to make a dish in S2P, nothing was more efficient than grilled lizard tails when calculating time and cost.
I planned to run the restaurant like a food factory with this and rake in a fortune.
While making the same food repeatedly would lower the restaurant’s reputation, I could just restore that later.
For the purpose of making money, there was nothing better.
"How dare you! You clearly don’t know the terror of the Fire Dragon!" As Ella flared up in anger, I quickly pretended to be pitiful.
’I’m sorry, Lady Ella. But... you mentioned before that the leaf tea was like trash...so I wanted to practice with this." At the mention of the "leaf tea is trash" comment, Ella’s shoulders flinched.
I muttered quietly, sounding discouraged.
"I just wanted to serve a delicious meal to Lady Ella and Lady Elun.."
Just then, Kwak Han-mook, who had emerged with new lizard tails in both hands, quickly joined in.
"Our little Chestnut! He spent the whole night! Until the bags under his eyes turned black! Researching how to grill these tails to treat you!"
As he shouted while waving the tails, Ella let out a huff and yelled.
"F-fine! Keep him by my side. I shall overlook this much."
Elun crouched on the floor, picked up a slowly roasting lizard tail, and sniffed it.
"I think it’ll taste better than leaf tea."
"Right? I’ll cook it deliciously for you. Now, if you’ll excuse me." I had wasted too much time leaving the initial searing to the twins.
I hurried back up to the 44th floor and repeated the previous actions.
1:30 PM
The twins asked with exhausted faces.
"How long are we doing this for..?"
"Until the sun sets."
I planned to cook all of it tonight and start business tomorrow.
Because I had been going back and forth so much, even the monsters seemed a bit worn out.
In particular, unlike the general monsters or boss monsters that were constantly respawning, the hidden boss who operated on a flee-and-return cycle seemed absolutely fed up with me and Je Hyun-oh.
"You.. mortals..? Please stop now... Gack!"
The Flame Mage tried to utter something akin to a declaration of surrender, but Je Hyun-oh pounced immediately.
The day dungeon ended at 5:00 PM.
There were still over three hours left until clock-out time, yet he was already complaining.
’I haven’t even clocked out yet.’
Not a chance.
4:30 PM
It happened while I was diligently repeating the item farming.
The Flame Mage finally exploded in frustration.
"Stop! Sto-op! That damn spice! I’lI just give it to you!!"
This was the moment I had been waiting for. I stepped forward quickly.
"Lieutenant Colonel Je! Please stop for a moment."
Regardless of what the Flame Mage said, Je Hyun-oh, who was on the verge of slashing with his metal hand, stopped.
He looked back at me with dissatisfaction.
Of course, I couldn’t see his expression because of the goggles and gas mask, but I could tell just by the vibe.
I approached Je Hyun-oh and whispered.
"The day dungeon is ending soon anyway. It’s more profitable to negotiate now and get a large amount of spice."
I waved the bait enthusiastically, promising that I would help him hunt even more monsters tomorrow.
O ㅠ
Je Hyun-oh floated another strange emoticon and lowered his hand.
He clinked his metal hand regretfully, as it hadn’t managed to cut anything, and then pointed somewhere.
⇨ ⇨
With arrows even appearing on his goggles, he pointed toward the stairs leading to the upper floor.
I gave him a request.
"Then please push up to the 45th floor and come back down. I need to move the items."
^ ^
Je Hyun-oh immediately floated an emoticon and headed upstairs.
Having finally secured a spot for negotiation, I approached the Flame Mage.
The dignity he had during his first appearance was gone; he now had the face of an office worker exhausted by life.
"Mortal. Is the reason you harass only me so persistently because of the spice? I shall grant it to you for free."
At the declaration of defeat, I nodded and was about to state the quantity I wanted.
Just then, Dominic spoke from atop my shoulder.
"Chestnut. Please do not forget that I also have an inventory."
"..!"
I took a moment to try and hide the surge of happiness on my face.
Then, pretending to be very calm, I made my demand to the Flame Mage.
"Then please give me 90."
That was the current maximum combined inventory capacity of Je Hyun-oh, myself, and Dominic.
When I asked for that amount as if I were being lenient, flames dripped from the Flame Mage’s skeletal eyes.
"You little swindler!"
"Is the negotiation broken? I’ll have to call back the person who went up earlier-"
As I made a motion to turn around, the Flame Mage immediately changed his tune.
"However! These days, one must know how to look after their own interests. That was a compliment."
"Thank you. Now please give them to me quickly."
"Do you know how precious this item is! Gathering the ashes of mana and bottling them requires a complex process.."
The Flame Mage went on a long lecture about the greatness of the volcanic ash spice.
But isn’t that something the monster should just handle on its own?
It wasn’t something an adventurer invading a dungeon needed to know.
Still, since he looked so miserable, I offered an additional negotiation proposal out of pity.
"From tomorrow, you only need to give me 99 every day."
Since I had to run the restaurant, I thought about having two people handle operations and two people visit the dungeon just for material farming and collection.
Considering the need to move lizard tails and lava salt, and the round trip to the restaurant, I set a reasonable number.
At my declaration of 99, the light in the Flame Mage’s skeletal eyes dimmed slightly.
For some reason, the black flames flickering at the edge of his robe seemed to lose their momentum as well.
’Was that adjustable?’
I wondered if I could use the Flame Mage’s robe to cook.
"Could you.. reduce it a bit more?"
"I already reduced it for you. Including what you just gave me, today’s total volcanic ash spice was 235. This is less than half."
The Flame Mage slumped, seemingly lost for words.
At this point, I brought out the carrot.
"In exchange, if you treat me well, I’ll give you one dish every day."
Some hidden bosses with an interest in humans can be given dishes as gifts.
If you give a dish of a certain grade or higher to those with the fire attribute, they are extremely pleased.
Since the dishes were made from ingredients from the Fire Dragon dungeon, they suited their tastes perfectly.
Sure enough, the Flame Mage showed interest at the mention of food.
"Is that true? A dish made from dungeon ingredients. I wonder how it will be."
The Flame Mage cleared his throat with an ’ahem’ and shook his robe a couple of times.
Then, the flames at the edge of the robe, which had diminished, flared up again.
I wondered what the price was.
It would be great if that dropped as an item too.
"I have guarded the 44th floor of the dungeon for a long time and met many mortals, but this is the first time someone has offered me a dish."
The Flame Mage stepped closer to me.
"What is your name?"
"Little Lamb. Oh, and tomorrow, that pitch-black person from earlier will come instead of me."
The Flame Mage’s expression looked as if he had lost his appetite.
Actually, since he was a skeleton, I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed likely.
The skeleton mage eventually promised to give 99 volcanic ash spices every day.
"Do not forget the plate of food!"
Once the negotiation ended and the Flame Mage vanished, I began gathering the volcanic ash spices and called for Je Hyun-oh.
It was to put them in his inventory as well.
"Lieutenant Colonel Je!"
However, Je Hyun-oh was nowhere to be seen. He still hadn’t come down.
’Did he keep going up without stopping at the 45th floor?’
There was nothing wrong with clearing the upper floors of the dungeon, but the problem was that I had nowhere to put the volcanic ash spices right now.
Unlike the outside world, in a dungeon, items not placed in the inventory disappear when moving to another floor.
Furthermore, expensive items could only be placed one per inventory slot.
’I gave the inventory expansion items to the captains because of the lizard tails.’
Currently, the inventory slot per person was 33, but I had used 9 slots to secure expensive items.
Since I only had 24 slots left, it was a loss if I didn’t put them in Je Hyun-oh’s inventory.
But I was too scared to leave Dominic alone and rush off to find Je Hyun-oh.
’Who knows what he’ll do if I leave him alone.’
If I took my eyes off him for a second, the dungeon might collapse.
I tried sending a message to Je Hyun-oh, but there was no response.
Just as I was struggling alone with the volcanic ash spices.
"Roasted Chestnut."
"Yes..."
As I answered listlessly, Dominic wiggled down from my head to my shoulder, and then down my arm.
I quickly caught him with my hand.
"I shall try using magic."
"But..."
A mage wouldn’t have an inventory expansion skill, would they?
While I preferred the Chef class, I had played through all the other classes.
There was no such skill among the spells a mage learns.
"I can simply create a new one."
Dominic’s body sparkled.
A blue magic circle the size of a pudding slime appeared beneath the volcanic ash spices, and it gulped them down.
"I have increased the stacking limit per inventory slot. It was easier than I thought."
"Mr. Dominic..!"
I was deeply moved.
"This kind of magic.. is wonderful. I look forward to your help in the future."
Wasn’t this a peaceful magic, much like Je Hyun-oh’s hobby of trimming landscaping trees?
To encourage him to use only peaceful magic from now on, I showered him with a storm of praise.
"As expected, only Mr. Dominic can do this. You are the best companion I can trust and rely on."
At my praise, Dominic replied, gently wagging his ears.
"I am glad that you are happy, Roasted Chestnut."
With the best pudding slime perched on my head, I went up to find Je Hyun-oh.
I figured he must have gone quite far up, but...
For some reason, as soon as I reached the 45th floor directly above, I ran into Je Hyun-oh.
Before I could wonder why he was there, I realized his state was strange.
Je Hyun-oh was standing still, his metal hand hanging limply at his side.
He wasn’t attacking or taking any action; he was just motionless.
In front of him, a monster wearing a tailcoat made of black flames was floating in the air.
It had the head of a goat, and its horns were transparent like glass, with black smoke swirling inside.
Additionally, it held a net bag filled with skulls in one hand and a staff entangled with thorny vines in the other.
The skulls in the bag rattled, singing a funeral dirge in a grotesque tone.
Amidst the distorted chorus, the goat’s eyes, shimmering with red light, looked at me.
’Why is the hidden boss of the 88th floor on the 45th..?’
Simultaneously, a system window popped up.
[You have been affected by the status ailment ’Hallucination’]
[Duration: 60 seconds]
[Recalling your happiest memory.]