Dungeon? This Tree? Why Don't You Join Me for Lunch? (Dungeon Core)
Chapter 96: Mission Poison Bella…

Chapter 96: Chapter 96: Mission Poison Bella...

"Brandon, darn it, what did you eat in there!" I was rage, I was fury, I was holding Wrath’s spare axe and ready to split my idiotic son-in-law’s head in two!

"Well, there were these giant mushrooms. Normally people call them Mammoth’s Hoof, but I think I got them mixed up," oh...

Pig’s Mushrooms... mana leeching mushrooms! Bella was using my own son and my own weapon of choice, the noble fungi, against me!

"And what else," but even so, she shouldn’t be getting this much mana, darn it!

"Well, there was this Mammoth," I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream. "Deer."

Because for the love of me, I couldn’t remember such a creature existing! It must have been a mob.

And all mobs give to their creator!

Which is why I had long since put my golems to the good task of being compost for the Tree of Memories.

It’s not like they have free will or a mind of their own. Nothing bad would come of it, I was sure!

Sure...

But that’s for later! Something that was a future problem. A problem I could have nipped in the bud, but did not.

Because I was a drake.

"And what else, my son," whose scales I was going to sell on the black market without paying blood Lich King Solas any taxes.

Just because.

"Well, there was this moss Doran and I smoked," which explains his good mood. Considering that, he was in the middle of a lake, surrounded by dino sharks!

"Dad, I love him!"

That was Pan. My firstborn. The one who married not one, but three men with only one brain cell to their names.

Yes, for all three of them!

"Dad, I’ll eat your organs if Bran-Bran and Doran die!"

That was Solas.

Now, before, while he had still been a Lich King, that threat might have had some weight behind it. But now, my organs were either going to give him mad cow disease or indigestion.

I was hoping for the first one. He deserved it!

"Dad, come on!" Oh, Mordred. Sunshine, have you finally learned to value the life of others, I asked myself. "That’s dragon meat you’re leaving to the sharks!"

Nope.

Guess not.

What was I even expecting out of a Boliarin...

"I call dips on the eyes!"

Ah, like father like son...I wondered if I should give the eyes of those two to Nate instead. He seemed to really have a craving.

At any rate, I didn’t want for Mortimer to develop the habit... if he hadn’t already.

"I’ll save them," and my witch in the woods voice was back. "But they have to kill Belladonna!"

Because, after I killed good old Alexios with mushrooms, of all things, I knew to value life... and fungi!

Belladonna was using mana leeching fungi. Heck, maybe her mobs were fungi as well, I didn’t know.

Nor did I care if I had to be honest.

But the thing was that if I didn’t do this, if I let her slip through my fingers, then all was going to be over!

And nothing could be over while one of us survived.

So, I looked at Aron, pointed at the teleportation rune, and then whispered in Nate’s ear:

"The dino sharks’ eyeballs are yours!" Because, for the love of me, I couldn’t remember how I used to call them overgrown sharks.

Nor did I ever care to learn how the professors were calling them these days.

"Sure!" And so, the war began!

My men, together with Solas because apparently nothing was holy for the git, and hijacking a rune was perfectly normal for him, and the sharks.

When the first stinky headless shark appeared before the Tree of Memories I just knew where its eyes had ended up at.

That one went straight for the compost pile. I just wanted to make Aurora happy!

I sprinkled the corpse with golden mushroom dust, not knowing that in their search for the best way to keep the Tree of Memories supplied with minerals, the golems had moved under the compost pile.

Which was dripping mob blood onto the soil.

The soil, which had more than one dead animal’s remains in it. Seeing as it was a compost pile and all.

I didn’t pay attention when the first yell of: We want rights! Came from outside.

My brain, which knew what I was doing to the tourists, who were now calling the Cave of Sin their new home in Titan’s absence, was wrong.

But to be honest, I fed them, and they were neither working nor paying rent. They should be happy, I told myself.

And most of all, quiet!

So, I started to cut up the stinky meat. Now, you might be wondering why a shark’s meat is stinky.

Because... when the shark dies, the urea in it breaks apart in its skin. To put it bluntly, unmarinated shark meat smells like piss.

Or ammonia, if we have to be fancy about it.

I had lemons, but I wasn’t going to make lemonade!

Of course, nothing had prepared Nate and Aurora to supply me with enough lemons to convert a school of dino sharks into baked shark meat... wait, did one bake it?

I had to check in the World Dungeon Blog. Someone must have gotten hungry enough, one day, to cook it.

But for now, the only thing I knew was that I needed one of three things:

A: Lemon juice;

B: Milk;

C: Vinegar;

And seeing as Edda was on vacation, which I didn’t want to ruin as the poor system had been by Belladonna’s side for a long time while she was away, I was going to prepare the shark meat the only way I knew how:

Over a grill, which was over a cooking pit, slowly turning it this way and that.

Preparing it for my son-in-law dragon of a son, who could eat one of these sharks in one setting and not get fat.

Which, to Belladonna, who might still be dieting, might be unfair.

But to a cook like me, who hated diets and loved to feed people, was enough to make me see him in a brighter light.

The son who will ensure that my table never ended up being abandoned while there was still food on it.

The son I was going to love the most.

"Dad’s lost it," Morty was never good at sharing parental affection.

And the golems were growing tired of being ignored...