Chapter 497 Joint Dungeon Exploration Start!
“This mee-soh soup thing is really delicious…” said Gaudino-san as he slurped down miso soup made with cabbages, onions and fried tofu.
“Aahhh, this really warms me up,” Gaudino-san nodded like an old man over his bowl of soup.
“This egg roll thing is really good too. The texture is really fluffy and the flavour is nice and savoury,” Siegwald-san said as he popped another piece of Dashimaki into his mouth.
“Indeed, indeed,” Gideon-san was also popping pieces of Dashimaki into his mouth.
“Mukouda-san’s food is too delicious,” said Gaudino-san as he stuffed his cheeks with rice balls made with mustard greens and commercially available [1] Furikake from [Net Super].
I was actually concerned about feeding members of the [Ark] meaty meals so early in the morning and decided to put in the effort to make a standard Japanese breakfast meal. Since the men were all bigger than me, I estimated that they would eat at least twice as much as me.
As for Feodora-san…
As a veteran cook for gluttons, I can more or less estimate how much a person (or monster) could eat. Which was why Feodora-san gets three times more food than all three of them combined.
It looks like… I underestimated her appetite.
Feodora-san ate up everything in a flash, so I gave her three more rice balls, which also disappeared as soon as they touched her plate. Then, she started staring longingly at Fer’s Teriyaki Cockatrice on rice.
Was it normal for Adventurers to prefer meaty breakfasts?
I asked Gaudino-san about this and…
“No, no, no, I prefer a light and refreshing meal like this,”
“Same here,”
“I ate a bit more when I was younger, but now that I’m older, I can’t stand heavy meals in the morning.”
So, the abnormal one was Feodora-san… [2]
“Oi, someone do something about that Elf, she keeps staring at my food,” Fer snapped.
“”Yeah, it’s getting really annoying!””
“Oi, Feodora, stop it,”
Even her colleagues were heckling her.
I took out a bowl of Teriyaki Cocktrice Don and, woah, her eyes are following my hands…
“… …”
Tee hee, it’s actually funny to see her gaze move up, down, left and right with the bowl.
Well, that’s enough teasing. I promise to feed them well so…
“Ahem, it’s not good to overeat before entering the dungeon, so, just one bowl, alright?” I said.
Feodora-san nodded several times, her fingers twitching.
I handed the bowl over and she immediately begin to stuff her cheeks with food.
“Please accept my apologies for this person’s behaviour,” said Gaudino-san.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” said Gideon-san.
“That Elf, she becomes like that whenever she sees delicious food,” said Siegwald-san wryly.
After her first large swallow, Feodora-san slowed down. However, the bowl of Teriyaki Cockatrice disappeared all too quickly. She looked sad about not getting seconds, but, seriously? I had already given her a lot of food…
After the livelier than usual breakfast, everyone took a little break to settle the food in their stomachs…
“Right, let’s go!”
…naturally, Fer was the first one to break the comfortable peace.
“Indeed, let’s capture some delicious meat.”
“”I can’t wait!!!””
“”Sui will pew pew~! Pew pew~!””
I can’t help but compare my easy-going party to the more serious-looking [Ark] members.
“This is…”
“Umu,”
“”Hey! Nobody said anything about this much water!””
“Hohoho, looks interesting.”
““Fishy~ fishy~””
The [Ark] members were staring at the scene before us, completely speechless.
Well, I can’t say I blame them.
What do you generally expect to see once you take the stairs down a dungeon? A cave of some sort? A tunnel? A stone dungeon-like underground horror?
Well, the stairs led to something that was rarely seen even in the fantasy world.
A wetland.
An actual wetland, or wasteland depending on who you are speaking to. That’s right, we went down a narrow stairway into a wide space filled with greenery and water.
Frankly, what I know about wetlands came from watching TV in my past life.
“Woah, I never thought I’d ever see an actual wetland…” I mused.
“Gururururu… That human told me the dungeon contains a forest-like place, how dare he lie to me?!”
“Well, this is a type of forest…”
In other words, it was a forest growing on a shallow body of water…
“Gununu…”
“Also, they also said they ‘heard about it’ from other people, so you can’t blame them for passing on bad intel. It was all they knew. You should be grateful that the dungeon even existed.”
“Muu,”
“More importantly, what are we going to do now? Shall we just cancel the dungeon challenge? I don’t mind that.”
“No! we’re going in!”
“If you want to go, you’ll have to endure it!” I finally snapped. “Stop complaining, you overgrown ball of fluff!”
“Grrrr…”
“Er, Mukouda-san, apologies for breaking into your conversation like this, but a Fanged Boar just noticed us,” Gaudino-san said.
I turned to look and blanched. What the… no, no, no, what business does a boar have to possess fangs like that?!
“Feodora! Gideon! Siegwald!”
Feodora drew her bow.
The men of the [Ark] drew their weapons and settled into their battle stance.
“Pu-giiii-—!!!”
The Fanged Boar let out a pig-like squeal and charged out of the bushes towards us, splashing dirty water everywhere.
I was situated safely between Fer and Grandpa Gon with members of the [Ark] in front, ready to fight when-
““Sui will go–!!””
Pew—!!
A single Acid Bullet struck the Fanged Boar on the head, right in between its eyes.
It continued to dash forward due to inertia but eventually, it collapsed in a heap in front of Gaudino and the rest of the [Ark] members.
“… …”
“”Yay~! Yay~! Sui beat the piggy~! Yay~!””
They could not hear her cheering, but they could not have mistaken the cheerful bouncing as anything but pure happiness at having taken down a prey.
I-I’m really sorry you guys.
Our Sui is not good at reading the atmosphere.
Thus, as we venture further in to explore the Unexplored Dungeon, [Ark] found this joint venture difficult in… many different ways.
[Gumihou: Oooh, I feel sorry for them already…]
[1] Furikake – a dry condiment sprinkled on cooked rice or fish, or as an ingredient in onigiri
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furikake
[2] Deleted [Ark]’s banter about Feodora’s appetite
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