Ch.211[Chapter 211] Dungeon 5th Floor

Sir Dominic was descending the stairs toward the fifth floor.

“You know what? This was actually a massive tower. It wasn’t called a dungeon but the Spire of the Slayer. It’s where the Slayer King imprisoned a princess he kidnapped from a neighboring country.”

Sickly Mary continuously babbled information to Sir Dominic.

Sticky jelly pieces clung to her mouth, which Sir Dominic had given her in exchange for information.

After satisfyingly chomping down the jelly, Mary continued.

“So the sixth floor was originally the room where the princess was held captive. Naturally, it couldn’t have any dangers. The princess couldn’t be harmed.”

They wouldn’t even let her use scissors, pins, or spinning wheels. Isn’t that too much? Mary muttered.

But Sir Dominic couldn’t properly hear Mary’s grumbling.

Or more precisely, he was in no condition to pay attention to anything else.

It was because of the terrible smell coming from the fifth floor.

The fifth floor smelled like algae rotting in a fish tank.

Sir Dominic could tolerate most smells, but this nauseating odor was completely unbearable.

“…What on earth is this smell?”

“Huh? What smell?”

Sir Dominic gagged from the overwhelming stench.

But Mary seemed unable to detect this horrible smell as she sniffed the air.

“Ah. Tonight’s dinner must be clear potato soup.”

Mary’s face brightened.

“It’s my favorite… no, my second favorite food.”

My first favorite is obviously this jelly, Mary said as she popped another jelly into her mouth.

“If this smell is coming from potato soup, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat potatoes again.”

Sir Dominic grumbled.

For Sir Dominic, who had quite a positive personality, this complaint was very rare.

That’s how… intense the smell from the fifth floor was.

Sir Dominic continued down the stairs with one hand covering his nose.

Finally, Sir Dominic took his last step onto the fifth floor.

Sir Dominic immediately began assessing his surroundings and frowned.

“What… is this place?”

The scene before Sir Dominic was ordinary in an unexpected way.

It was a place with all kinds of food ingredients scattered everywhere.

But the reason Sir Dominic frowned was simple.

There were no normal ingredients.

The vegetables were withered and twisted with cobwebs on them, and the fruits were crawling with worms and fruit flies.

But the most appalling were the meat and fish—the meats were moldy and decomposing into a slimy state, and the fish were rotting with their innards still intact, releasing pockets of putrid gas every few seconds.

Sir Dominic instinctively knew that the source of this smell was coming from these rotten ingredients.

“There’s a reason why potato soup is my second favorite.”

Mary sighed.

She picked up a sprouting potato from the corner.

“Even if it’s poisonous, it still tastes good.”

Mary sighed again and tossed the potato over her shoulder.

With a squelching sound, the potato disappeared into the rotten flesh of a withered roast piglet on the table.

“What is this place?”

Sir Dominic asked with a trembling voice.

This tremendous olfactory assault was not something an ordinary human could endure.

No, even a superhuman with extraordinary willpower would surely wrinkle their nose and cover it.

“The fifth floor was where the chefs were.”

Mary said, looking at maggots emerging from inside the meat.

“The princess on the sixth floor was very picky about food and would never eat cold dishes. So the Slayer King turned the entire fifth floor into a kitchen for her. A dream kitchen filled with every ingredient in the world and the best chefs.”

Of course, this was before it became a dungeon, Mary added quietly before continuing.

“Now they’ve become zombies who can’t taste anything. This isn’t because it became a dungeon. It’s because of why it became a dungeon.”

After saying this, Mary firmly closed her mouth.

She felt that Sir Dominic’s payment was insufficient to reveal anything more.

“Anyway, the fifth floor only has chefs. As I said earlier, even the boss is a chef. Which means it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“I see. I understand.”

Sir Dominic said, scanning the rotting… no, already rotten ingredients.

“I can’t stay here any longer. Let’s move forward immediately. We need to get down to the fourth floor quickly.”

Sir Dominic hastily left the ingredient storage with quick steps.

He was on the verge of passing out from the terrible stench.

Sir Dominic went through one of the open doors in an instant.

Mary followed him but suddenly looked back at the food supplies.

Then with a bitter expression, she began following Sir Dominic again.

…

Sir Dominic shook the slime off his shield and said,

“Not too difficult.”

“They were chefs to begin with. It’s natural that combat would be easy.”

Mary put a jelly in her mouth while hanging from the ceiling.

Despite eating enough to make her mouth sticky, she still seemed to enjoy the sweetness as her body trembled.

“What a shame.”

Sir Dominic clicked his tongue as he looked at the zombies that barely provided any impact when hit.

The zombies in cooking attire were sufficiently threatening, but they were too weak for Sir Dominic who had overcome all sorts of adversities.

Feeling his energy drop slightly from the intense movement, Sir Dominic popped a jelly into his mouth.

The natural sweetness created by Gacharland’s nature had a somewhat sophisticated taste.

Of course, with his sense of smell already numbed by the terrible stench, it tasted like nothing more than a lump of sugar, but Sir Dominic was satisfied enough and moved toward the next room.

When they arrived at the next room, the door Sir Dominic had entered through closed, and zombies began to emerge from everywhere.

“…Poor things.”

Mary placed her hand on her left chest and offered a silent prayer.

“Trapped in the shackles of the System, forced to suffer eternally. Don’t you think that’s too cruel?”

Mary grumbled to Sir Dominic.

But Sir Dominic silently pushed forward, knocking down the zombies in their rotting clothes with his shield.

The zombies were so weak that they collapsed at Sir Dominic’s low attack power.

After dealing with all the zombies in the room, Sir Dominic stood there.

“Yes. Perhaps merciless rest is better than half-hearted sympathy.”

Mary’s body went limp.

She looked as if she pitied the zombies.

But Sir Dominic had already figured out Mary’s behavioral patterns while going through the previous rooms.

“Is your sugar level dropping?”

When Sir Dominic asked, Mary weakly nodded.

Mary was half-spider. She couldn’t be the same as an ordinary person.

Or perhaps the System’s constraints had given Mary a setting where her sugar levels dropped quickly.

“Maybe it’s because it’s been a while since I’ve been out, but I feel my energy draining faster.”

Mary glanced at Sir Dominic, then looked behind him.

There was a door there, but unlike the old and shabby doors they had passed through so far, this was an ornate, thick skull door.

“Hey, Sir Dominic. Don’t you need another piece of information?”

Mary pleaded with Sir Dominic.

Having already pawned all her material possessions to Sir Dominic, selling information was the only way Mary could get more jelly.

“It seems like the next room is the boss room, so I thought some additional information might be helpful.”

Sir Dominic looked at Mary.

This situation wasn’t new to him; through numerous exchanges, he had already obtained almost all information about the fifth floor’s boss.

“You’ve already told me the boss’s name. You mentioned he has a girlfriend. You even told me how many pieces of silverware he has at home.”

“N-not that! I mean patterns or hidden tricks!”

Mary desperately tried to persuade Sir Dominic.

“For example, the boss of the fifth floor is— W-wait! Just a moment!”

Mary tried to give Sir Dominic a sample of information, but Sir Dominic bravely opened the door to the boss room.

[Member of Sous Chef Poundation, Master of Lunchbox Horror, Tormentor of Pizza Shop Guards, Soup Master Featured on TV Programs, One of the Few Royal Chefs Who Can Distinguish Between Steak and Spike.]

[BOSS: Glutton Entrée & Gourmet Entry]

As Sir Dominic entered the door, an incredibly long boss introduction appeared.

Sir Dominic pushed the introduction aside and looked for the boss ahead.

“Uuugh… hungrrry… Need… need fresh food…”

“Cook… I must cook… I must serve breakfast to the princess… But there are no ingredients I like…”

The boss before him was an enormous mass of corpse, a giant patched together from various parts in a tattered state.

He was uttering different words from each half of his split head, which was connected in the middle by a giant mushroom growing there, with an old chef’s hat placed on top of the mushroom.

“What shall we cook todayyy?”

One side of the split face spoke. His pronunciation was slurred, perhaps because his tongue had hardened due to fungal growth.

“Potato soup. At least she likes that.”

The other side of the split face replied.

This side seemed quite rational.

Sir Dominic cautiously approached the boss with his shield raised.

He planned to rush in for a surprise attack once he reached an appropriate distance.

But Sir Dominic had forgotten one thing.

This was a kitchen.

And a messy one at that.

Clang.

At the sound, Sir Dominic immediately looked down.

He had accidentally kicked a ladle on the floor that he hadn’t noticed.

“Oh, dear.”

Sir Dominic sighed.

At this point, a surprise attack was out of the question.

The boss detected Sir Dominic’s intrusion from the noise of the ladle and shouted.

“L-let’s make pizza with that fresh meat and serve it to the princess!”

“I’m tired of potato souuup! Meat! I want something with meat in it!”

The massive patchwork corpse chef charged at Sir Dominic, holding cooking utensils in each of his four arms.