Book 3: Chapter 63 (1/2)

“Ugh.” Tafel groaned as she pressed her back to the wall and dropped down, sliding down 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. “Golem’s 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.”