marcille interferes, making an x with her arms as she shook her head vigorously.

"marcille—"

"silence, laios!"

"but—"

"silence!"

"uh—"

"silence."

said man backs away, not even bothering to try again as marcille raves on about why she would not be eating those random ass roots and mosses the dwarf stranger found.

"there's absolutely no way i'm eating that! see those—"

she points to the catacombs.

"those are corpses! i will eat monsters if i have to, but i am not eating something from a graveyard!"

the blonde elf then shoved the half of the mushroom to the dwarf's face.

"tell 'em! tell 'em that this is enough!"

"marcille!"

"who the hell are you anyways? and why did you suddenly start cooking for us?!"

"marcille!!"

"what?!"

"up!"

when the girl finally turns to laios, she was already too late to understand what he's trying to warn her about.

green ooze suddenly drips down on her before fully engulfing her head.

marcille panicked as she tried to tug the slime off of her, falling on her knees.

'oh no, it's covering my face! i can't cast my spells now...'

she gasped for her, but was unfortunately blocked by the ooze of the slime.

'come to think of it, my first death was from a slime that caught me off guard... and now it's happening again...'

before she could lose the last bit of air in her lungs, the dwarf kneeled in front of her and raised his knife up to cut a specific part of the slime, which immediately kills it as it splats on the ground.

marcille breaths desperately, coughing as she was finally released from the grasp of the slime.

"marcille! you okay?"

chilchuck asked, coming to the girl's aid."

"oh, just great. a little got up my nose though..."

she groaned and chilchuck immediately offered a handkerchief to her.

"blow it off, please..."

"i didn't know you could kill those with a knife."

laios approached the dwarf as he picks up the blob from the ground, looking at it curiously.

"it's easy if you know how its organs are laid out. sure, it looks like a gobbly ooze, but it's not really that different from a humanoid."

the dwarf explains and suddenly, there was a chart behind him that shows the anatomy of a slime as he points at it with his ladle.

"this here is how the organs of the slime are arranged. compared to a human's anatomy, it's like if you turned your stomach inside-out and surrounded your head and organs with digestive fluids."

laios listens in interest as marcille literally dies on the floor, slime oozing out of her nose.

"they can sense your breath and like to attack when you exhale. that's why if you shout or pitch a high fit like yhe good lady here, you get slimed."

"yeah yeah, rub it in my face will ya'..."

as if nothing happened in the first place, the dwarf went back to cooking as he then placed the slime in a pot and poured a bottle of liquid in it.

"you can't eat these raw. you first have clean it with hot water and citrus juice. then, you can either pat it dry or rub some salt in it and leave it out in the sun to dry. after that, you got yourself a high quality delicacy."

while one of them was definitely intrigued by the idea of slime processing, the other two is still trying to digest the information that you can actually eat slime. i think we know who's who.

"if you can, starve one for two weeks, then dry it. i promise the taste is worth the wait."

dwarf man hums as he spreads the cleaned slime out and places it in some wooden device of some sort, one which he held up proudly.

"by the way, this is a portable slime dryer i made for myself. this will dry out nicely while you walk around."

he says before tucking away the slime dryer in his bag before digging out another one that's wrapped in a leaf

"but this is the end result. we'll add this to your pot."

"ohhh, thanks. but is it really okay for you to spare it?"

laios looks at the dried slime closely.

"of course. you don't know how happy i am to have found someone else who is into monster cuisine just like i am. i've been studying monsters and how to make food out of 'em for over a decade now."

"ten years?"

"wait, has this dungeon been here for that long?"

"uhhm..."

the party asked amongst themselves, but the dwarf disregarded their confusion.

"i'll have these ready in a bit."

after a few minutes of waiting, the food was finally ready and the party looks at it with a mix of reluctance and excitement, the excitement mostly coming from laios.

"so huge scorpions turn red when they're cooked huh?"

chilchuck studies the bowl with furrowed my brows, and laios picked up his chopsticks as he prepares to eat.

"these actually look better than the one in the guide book."

the young man licks his lips, and chilchuck sniffs the food.

"...these should not smell as good as it does."

"cook it long enough and the meat shrinks in the shell. makes it easier to pull out."

laios picks one piece of the meat off and surely enough, it tears apart easily.

"...woah, it's good! the preparation changed the flavour completely."

"i know, didn't it?"

"mm! it's actually good, i can't believe it."

marcille's ears twitched as she listens to the cheerful praises of the guys behind her, and her stomach grumbles for the tenth time today, begging her to eat now. hell, they even got chilchuck on their shenanigans.

'...ah, screw it!'

"alright, let me try it!"

marcille finally gave in, holding her hand out for a bowl.

she sat there for a moment as she stares at the noodles pinched between her chopsticks, a frown on her face.

"what are these?"

"dried slime innards."

she groans before forcing herself to slurp it down, her face going bright at the flavour of the broth and noodles.

"so good!"

"i never thought slime could taste this good."

laios says, and the dwarf nodded along.

"they're good soaked in fruit juice too."

"mm, and these yummy roots you put in are nice and fluffy."

chilchuck added in, chewing on one of the said roots.

"they're actually the stems of the plants that grow upside down from the dungeon."

"the algae is super soft and delicious too! is also some kind of special dungeon treat?"

"nah, that's just plain old algea. you those wherever it stank."

marcille shuts up completely, a deadpan on her face as she placed her bowl down.

the party continues to eat their fill until nothing was left, and now they're cleaning out the bowls and utensils they used for eating.

"oof, i'm stuffed."

"maybe now's a good time for introductions."

"yes, of course. my name is senshi, it means "seeker" in dwarvish."

the dwarf, which is now known as senshi, introduced himself while cleaning his pots.

"my name is laios. that's marcille, the mage, and chilchuck the lockpick."

laios introduces himself and the other two with a smile.

"something tells me that you three are not simply out on a mission."

senshi says as he placed his cleaned pots down, turning to laios.

"oh, well..."

laios' expression shifts to solemn from his next words.

"on the lower levels, we lost two people. one of our party members was eaten by a monster. we're trying to save her before she's digested. and the other one... her status is unknown, but we're hoping to get her back safely before it's too late."

'come to think of it, we don't really know what happened to [name]. she could be dead or alive for all we know. best case scenario, she's out there alive and trying to survive off of monsters, just like we're doing right now... worst case scenario...'

laios shakes his head, his frown deepening as he tried not to think of anything horrible.

'falin and [name] are in danger, but i'm hoping for the best scenario for both of their situations.'

"i'm sorry, that's horrible... you said one of them was eaten by a monster. which monster is it?"

senshi asked, genuinely curious.

"a dragon with crimson scales."

"dragon... crimson scales on lower level... that's a red dragon."

laios perks up at senshi's conclusion.

"i hear that dragons mostly sleep because they're so big and need to conserve energy. their digestion should be slower than other monsters."

"i sure do hope so..."

'falin... i'll save you, no matter what.'

laios pulls the straps of his bag on as he thoughts about his sister, before his gaze lingers on the ring on his finger.

'you too, [name]. you're probably out there, committing terrorism and all that, but stay strong...'

"please, would you allow me to join your party?"

senshi suddenly says, placing a hand on his chest to show his sincerity.

laios didn't even miss a single beat as he smiled at the dwarf man, fully accepting his request.

"of course. actually, you'd be a great help to us."

"i would? fantastic."

the two shakes hands, nodding in agreement.

"thanks so much."

"no, thank you."

senshi then started to daydream about the red dragon, particles comically sparkling around him the more he talks.

"for years, i've dreamt of cooking one of those red dragons, i have so many recipes in mind. steaks and hamburgers are classy and easy enough. oohh, shabu-shabu would be nice too. or oyakodon, as long as we have enough eggs..."

senshi rambles to himself as he walks away, the party watching him as a single thought crossed all their minds.

"is it okay to eat something that ate one of us?"

but no one said a word so meh, they'll figure it out when they get there.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

ba-dump.

ba-dump.

ba-dump.

do you hear that? that's the sound of  beating heart.

but it's not from a human, no.

it's far from a human. it's anything but a human.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

a/n:

—ahhhh,  first chapter done! i'm so glad to finally finish this! sorry it's a bit late, i was busy with personal stuff in life. gotta get ready for my id pictorial tomorrow for senior high lol.

—no [name] pookiebear for now, sorry :(( she'll be here soon, don't worry!

i have decided i will be leaving a dunmeshi meme at every end of the chapter so here's the first one!

okay that's all for now, stay hydrated and always keep a smile on your faces everyone! ^^ *insert zendaya outro*