Chapter 70

Seeing the twins recoil in horror left me a little puzzled.

‘It’s not that bad.’

After all, I was keeping things fairly restrained because I was running the strategy with Je Hyun-oh and the captains.

If I’d been playing the game the way I normally did…

…everyone would have started by stripping.

I’d have sold the default outfit—the shirt and suspenders overalls—to raise some starting funds.

Compared to that, all we were doing now was running up and down the dungeon a little.

This was practically the basics of Sla2Plate.

And thanks to unlocking the daytime dungeon, I’d even chosen the perfect dish.

‘This’ll save us a lot of trouble.’

Flame Lizard Tail Skewers, made by skewering Flame Lizard tails, sprinkling them with Lava Salt and Volcanic Ash Spice, then grilling them, were one of the most efficient dishes in Sla2Plate.

Each hunt in the daytime dungeon yielded four tails, one Lava Salt, and one Volcanic Ash Spice.

Both the Lava Salt and the Volcanic Ash Spice contained exactly four servings.

The numbers lined up perfectly, so there were never any leftover ingredients to make you feel wasteful.

That wasn’t the only advantage of grilled lizard tails.

The recipe was simple—just skewer the tails and grill them—and the cooking time was short compared to dishes of the same tier.

On top of that, the selling price was excellent.

Adding Lava Salt and Volcanic Ash Spice raised the base price to a whopping 480G.

Tips were generous as well, so the expected selling price ranged anywhere from 480G to 700G.

No matter what other ingredients you used in Sla2Plate, once you accounted for the time and cost involved, no dish was more efficient than grilled lizard tails.

I intended to run the restaurant like a food factory and make a fortune.

Making only one dish would lower the restaurant’s reputation, but I could always recover that later.

As a money-making method, nothing came close.

“How dare you! You don’t even know how frightening a Fire Dragon is!”

Ella shouted angrily, so I immediately put on a pitiful expression.

“I’m sorry, Ella-nim. But… the other day, you said my leaf tea tasted like garbage… so I thought I’d practice with this.”

The moment I brought up her comment about the leaf tea, Ella’s shoulders twitched.

I lowered my voice as though disappointed.

“I wanted to make something delicious for you and Ellun-nim….”

Just then, Kwak Hanmuk hurried over carrying fresh lizard tails in both hands.

“Our Little Chestnut! Stayed up all night! Researching how to grill these tails! Until the bags under his eyes turned black! Just so he could serve them to you!”

As he dramatically waved the tails around, Ella clicked her tongue.

“F-fine! Put them beside me. I’ll overlook this much.”

Ellun crouched down, picked up one of the slowly roasting lizard tails, and took a sniff.

“I think it’ll taste better than the leaf tea.”

“Right? I’ll make something delicious for you. Then, if you’ll excuse me.”

I’d already spent too much time having the twins handle the preliminary roasting.

I hurried back up to the forty-fourth floor and repeated the routine.

The twins looked completely exhausted.

“How long are you going to keep doing this…?”

“Until sunset.”

Tonight we’d cook everything we’d gathered and start the restaurant tomorrow.

After watching us come and go so many times, even the monsters seemed tired.

Unlike the normal monsters and bosses that respawned, the hidden boss fled after defeat and returned later, so he seemed especially sick of seeing Je Hyun-oh and me.

“M-mortals…? Could you stop now…, gah!”

The Flame Mage had barely begun something resembling a surrender before Je Hyun-oh charged him again.

The daytime dungeon didn’t end until five in the afternoon.

There were still over three hours left before quitting time.

And he was already complaining.

‘I haven’t gotten off work yet either.’

Not a chance.

We continued farming tirelessly.

At last, the Flame Mage finally exploded.

“Enough! ENOUGH! That damned seasoning! I’ll just give it to you!!”

This was the moment I’d been waiting for.

I immediately stepped forward.

“Lieutenant Colonel Je Hyun-oh! Please stop for a moment.”

Je Hyun-oh had been just about to slash him with his metal hand.

He stopped.

Then he turned toward me.

I couldn’t see his expression behind the goggles and gas mask, but it somehow felt obvious that he was dissatisfied.

I stepped closer and whispered,

“The daytime dungeon is almost over anyway. It’s more profitable to negotiate here and receive a large amount of seasoning.”

I tempted him by promising he’d be able to defeat even more monsters tomorrow.

Another strange emoticon appeared across Je Hyun-oh’s goggles.

He lowered his hand.

His metal fingers clicked regretfully before pointing somewhere.

The arrows pointed toward the staircase leading to the next floor.

I nodded.

“Then please clear only up to the forty-fifth floor before coming back down. We need to move the items.”

A cheerful emoticon appeared immediately.

Je Hyun-oh headed upstairs without another word.

Now that I finally had a chance to negotiate, I approached the Flame Mage.

The dignity he’d possessed during our first meeting had completely disappeared.

Now he looked like an exhausted office worker burned out by life.

“Mortal. Have you been harassing only me this relentlessly because of the seasoning? I’ll give it to you for free.”

I nodded and was about to state how much I wanted.

Just then Dominic spoke from my shoulder.

“Roasted Chestnut. Please don’t forget that I also have something called an inventory.”

“…!”

I spent a brief moment trying not to let the happiness show on my face.

Then I calmly turned back to the Flame Mage.

“In that case, ninety-nine, please.”

That was the combined maximum inventory capacity of Je Hyun-oh, Dominic, and myself.

I deliberately asked as though I were already going easy on him.

Flames dripped from the skeleton’s eye sockets.

“You swindling bastard!”

“Then shall we consider negotiations broken down? I suppose I’ll have to call back the gentleman who just went upstairs…”

As soon as I pretended to turn away, the Flame Mage immediately changed his tune.

“However! These days one must know how to look after one’s own interests. It was… a compliment.”

“Thank you. Then please hand them over.”

“Do you have any idea how precious these are?! Gathering magical ash and bottling it requires an incredibly delicate process…”

The Flame Mage launched into a lengthy explanation of the greatness of Volcanic Ash Spice.

But wasn’t that the monster’s problem?

It wasn’t something an adventurer invading the dungeon needed to know.

Still, he looked so miserable that I offered another proposal.

“Starting tomorrow, ninety-nine per day will be enough.”

We also had a restaurant to operate.

I was thinking of having two people run the restaurant while the other two came to the dungeon to gather and transport ingredients.

They still needed to move the lizard tails and Lava Salt back and forth, so I settled on that number.

When I declared ninety-nine, the flames inside the Flame Mage’s eyes dimmed slightly.

Even the black fire flickering around the hem of his robe seemed to lose some of its vigor.

‘So that can be adjusted?’

I wondered whether his robe could be cooked somehow.

It would’ve been nice if it dropped as an item.

“I-if you could reduce it a little more…”

“I already did. Including what you’ve given me today, that’s a total of 235 Volcanic Ash Spice. I’m asking for less than half.”

“…”

The Flame Mage slumped, seemingly at a loss for words.

I decided it was time to offer a reward.

“In return, if you cooperate, I’ll bring you one dish every day.”

Some hidden bosses who were interested in humans could receive food as gifts.

If you gave fire-attribute hidden bosses a sufficiently high-quality dish, they were delighted.

Since the dishes were made using ingredients from the Fire Dragon Dungeon, they suited their tastes perfectly.

Sure enough, the Flame Mage immediately became interested.

“Truly? A dish prepared from dungeon ingredients… I wonder what it would taste like.”

He cleared his throat and shook his robe twice.

The weakened flames around the hem immediately flared back to life.

I wondered how it worked.

It really would have been nice if that dropped as an item.

“I’ve guarded the forty-fourth floor of this dungeon for many years and met countless mortals, but never before has anyone offered to cook for me.”

The Flame Mage floated a little closer.

“What is your name?”

“Little Lamb. Ah, by the way, tomorrow the man dressed all in black from earlier will be coming instead of me.”

“…”

The Flame Mage looked as though he’d suddenly lost his appetite.

Well, he was a skeleton, so I couldn’t be completely sure.

In the end, the skeleton mage agreed to provide ninety-nine Volcanic Ash Spice every day.

“Don’t forget my plate of food!”

After concluding the negotiations, the Flame Mage disappeared.

I began gathering up the Volcanic Ash Spice while calling for Je Hyun-oh.

I wanted to store some of it in his inventory.

“Lieutenant Colonel Je Hyun-oh!”

But Je Hyun-oh was nowhere to be seen.

He still hadn’t come back down.

‘Did he keep climbing instead of stopping at the forty-fifth floor?’

There was nothing wrong with clearing additional floors.

The problem was that I had nowhere to store all the Volcanic Ash Spice.

Unlike outside the dungeon, if you changed floors, any items that hadn’t been placed into your inventory disappeared.

Valuable items also occupied one inventory slot each.

‘I’d already given the inventory expansion items to the captains because of the lizard tails.’

Everyone currently had thirty-three inventory slots.

I’d already used nine of mine collecting expensive items.

That left me with only twenty-four.

If I couldn’t use Je Hyun-oh’s inventory too, we’d lose valuable loot.

At the same time, I was afraid to leave Dominic here by himself while I searched.

‘Who knows what he’d do if I left him alone.’

If I looked away for even a moment, he might destroy the dungeon.

I even tried sending Je Hyun-oh a message, but there was no response.

While I stood there worrying over the seasoning by myself—

“Roasted Chestnut.”

“Yes….”

I answered weakly.

Dominic slowly wriggled down from my head to my shoulder, then along my arm.

I quickly caught him in my hand.

“I’ll use some magic.”

“But…”

Mages didn’t have any inventory expansion spells.

Chef was my favorite class, but I’d played every class at least once.

There wasn’t a spell like that.

“Then I’ll simply create one.”

Dominic’s body sparkled.

A blue magic circle no larger than the pudding slime himself appeared beneath the Volcanic Ash Spice.

It swallowed the seasoning whole.

“I increased the storage capacity of each inventory slot. It was easier than I expected.”

“Dominic-ssi…!”

I couldn’t help but be deeply moved.

“This kind of magic… it’s wonderful. I’ll be counting on you from now on.”

Wasn’t this just as peaceful as Je Hyun-oh taking up tree pruning as a hobby?

To encourage Dominic to keep using only peaceful magic in the future, I showered him with praise.

“Just as expected of you, Dominic-ssi. You’re the best companion I can rely on.”

At my praise, Dominic quietly wiggled his ears.

“I’m glad you like it, Roasted Chestnut.”

With the world’s greatest pudding slime perched atop my head, I headed upstairs to look for Je Hyun-oh.

I expected him to be much farther up the tower.

“…?”

But for some reason, the moment I stepped onto the forty-fifth floor, I found Je Hyun-oh immediately.

Before I could wonder why he was here, I noticed something strange.

Je Hyun-oh stood motionless with his metal hand hanging limply at his side.

He wasn’t attacking.

He wasn’t moving.

He was simply standing there.

Floating before him was a monster dressed in a black tailcoat woven from black flames.

It had the head of a goat.

Its horns were transparent like glass, with black smoke swirling inside them.

In one hand it carried a net sack filled with skulls.

In the other, a staff wrapped in thorny vines.

The skulls rattled together, singing a grotesque funeral dirge.

Amid the distorted chorus, the goat’s crimson eyes settled upon me.

‘Why is the hidden boss from the eighty-eighth floor on the forty-fifth floor…?’

The instant the thought crossed my mind, a system window appeared.