Dungeon? This Tree? Why Don't You Join Me for Lunch? (Dungeon Core)
Chapter 37: Karma

Chapter 37: Chapter 37: Karma

As I exited the command tent, as Solas made me call his tent, I felt like a wreck.

Solas spoke about things I did not understand. When he said supply line, I just thought we had to find donkeys from somewhere and cart food from point A to point B.

He started to tell me about taxes and debtors’ jail, and I was pretty much sure that that was something of an original twist on his part.

It spoke volumes about how hated he was that he had to put people in jail to feed his army. But, hey, I couldn’t complain. Because the rich in his country were mostly thieves.

Not to mention that the few ones who weren’t were living in tax heavens. Like the Elven Grove.

Man, how I wish that I knew that one didn’t pay taxes there. I wouldn’t be in a war zone now!

"Sylvan?" Aron wrapped his arms around me and held me close. I patted him on the back.

"Honey, I need to grind," I murmured. I was slung over a shoulder, probably to be carried off to a tent. "Not that type of grind!"

Aron put me back on my feet, chuckling.

"Caveman," I said.

"Sorry, bunny-bun," he did not sound sorry, he did not look sorry, and I was sure that he was not sorry.

"I have to grind my mind controlling skill! The one I got from eating a mushroom once!"

Aron nodded, but I knew I had lost him.

"But Pan, he is... I guess a nephew, by this point, turned my mushrooms from mind-controlling into healing!" And I was still sort of mad about that, if I had to tell the truth.

"Oh," Aron said, starting to look me in the eyes.

"I’m not insane! I have to find another way to control minds!" And this is where Edda and cooking came in. But if I told Aron that, he was never, ever, going to eat anything I made him.

And I wanted to feed him some tasty, hopefully, mammoth cheese mashed potatoes!

But for that, we needed to raid the bloody dungeon! Because the entire Necromantic Union was made up of dungeons and mobs, apparently, and I should have felt at home here, but no!

Everything had to be undead in here!

"Look, why don’t you cook something? I went out and got you this," he took out a bag, not a bottomless one, but an extended one.

My eyes were ready to budge out of their sockets! That was cream! And cheese, nice cheese, no mold in sight. And potatoes! Huge ones!

Oh, as I saw the pink salt, I knew I was in love.

"I’ll cook!" The fire of the mission to lift the morale was lit under me. I had to make sure that everyone was fed!

"You know, when you get a nice recipe in your head, your ember eyes look like the sun," Aron leaned in and kissed my nose without permission.

For some reason, all I could do was go on my tiptoes.

But he leaned away just as fast, placed the bag in my hands, and then smirked.

"Should I call you a caveman?" He asked, his voice was as smooth as silk.

"I’m sorry," I sounded sorry, at least, to my own ears. I must have looked like I was sorry as well, because he kissed my nose once more.

And I was sorry... for not knowing much of these things.

So, I decided to let him lead me into this dance.

But first, I thought to myself, my regrets washing away by the smell of the cheese in the bag, I had to cook!

0000

The usual crowd which came to watch me cook was not there. Oh, sure, Nick, Nathaniel and Desmond were here, but the humans looked at me with mistrustful eyes.

After all, just a week ago I was Sylvan the Camp Cook. Now I was Sylvan the Dungeon Core, who was also a murder core.

Yeah, if I were a human, I wouldn’t have tried to be a foodie with the murder core cooking for me, either.

It was a challenge. I knew that should I not perform perfectly, they were never going to eat anything I cooked ever again.

But it was hard.

"Say, Nick," I felt that Desmond’s pouty lips were a clear indication that he was mad at me. Nathaniel still had feelings for me, so that was a big no-no. But Nick was neutral. "Why are the Boliari called Boliari?"

It was something that I had asked myself more than once. I mean, I already mused over this question, but I felt that I needed to do something as the potatoes, which I cut in big chunks and placed in a pot with salt, were boiling.

"This is our birthplace," he made a wide sweep of the area. That did not surprise me. I mean, everything was dead or half-dead in here. "We are mobs."

I blinked.

"You mean... you are not human?" all three of them looked human enough. Oh, sure, they had looked like nightmares back then, as I first saw them, but they had blood in their veins! They weren’t dead!

In my amazement, I even blurted those two things out.

"Well, goblins have blood in their veins as well," Desmond said so, as if I was some sort of retard. I didn’t hold it against him.

Judging by the nasty scar above his brow, he must have been seriously hurt during the skirmish.

"And they are alive," Nathaniel said, but gentler than his colleague.

"My father was a Lich, if you must know," Desmond continued, clearly angry. "And my mother, a witch. So, no, I am not human! Take your torches and pitchforks now, people! I don’t deserve to live!"

Desmond kicked dirt into the fire, which almost got into the pot. Had I not placed the lid over it, it would have.

"Huh, so this is what you care about," the redhead said, storming away. Nick went after him, almost running.

"It’s ok, he’ll pig out on your cooking and forgive," Nathaniel said.

I did not know what this was about, but I knew that Desmond will tell me.

And that is what I feared.