Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill: Volume 12 Read online

  《Indeed, and I trust the next floor will not be another featureless plane. If it is, well...even one as even-tempered as I may lose myself to my anger.》

  “Sorry—you, even-tempered? Was that a joke, Fel?”

  《Why would it be? Hold your tongue, whelp! I am fully in control of my temper at all times.》

  “Nope, nuh-uh, no way! If people pass down legends about how you destroyed kingdoms because they ticked you off, you don’t get to call yourself that! Besides, you spend most of your time going out to hunt bloodthirsty monsters! How’s that even-tempered?”

  《That is a different matter entirely.》

  “How?! How is that different at all?!”

  At that point Dora-chan, who’d been flying ahead of us, pulled back to cut in between me and Fel. 《Okay, okay, simmer down, people. No more arguing—we’ve got places to be!》

  《You guys are so slooow! Sui’s gonna go on ahead!》 said the slime, bounding over Fel’s head and landing on the ground in front of us. In the end Sui was the first to make it to the forty-third floor, though the rest of us followed along right behind it.

  “I guess this would be next,” I sighed.

  《There’s so much sand, Master!》

  《A desert, eh? I think there was one of these in Dolan’s dungeon too.》

  Everywhere I looked, all around us was just sand, sand, sand, as far as the eye could see. The last remaining member of our party, however, had a very different first impression of the new floor than the rest of us.

  《Heh heh heh... Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Dora, Sui—rejoice! We have struck gold. This floor is full to the brim with monsters worth slaughtering!》

  《Seriously?! Aw, hell yeah! We’re not gonna be bored on this floor!》

  《It’s full of monsters?! Hurray! Sui’s gonna pew-pew all of them!》

  What? Wait, wait, come on—what’s exciting about learning that you’re surrounded by a horde of bloodthirsty monsters?

  《Look—one has arrived already,》 said Fel. I jumped in shock, then turned to look in the direction he gestured in. I could see a reddish-brown dot in the distance, moving gradually toward us.

  “Huh—whatever that is, it looks kinda familiar,” I muttered.

  《It is a swarm of sand scorpions,》 said Fel.

  “Oh, right! Those!” We’d encountered them before in Dolan’s dungeon. They were more or less just normal reddish-brown scorpions, except for the part where they were a meter long. “Wait, if there’s a swarm of them, then doesn’t that mean...?”

  《But of course. One of them lies nearby. There!》 Fel shouted, unleashing his trademark Rending Claws attack.

  The blast shot forward, skimming the surface of the ground and raising a plume of sand in its wake until it landed around thirty meters or so ahead of us. When the dust finally cleared, I could see a truly enormous scorpion lying in the crater Fel’s attack had left. It had been split cleanly in two, and needless to say it was very dead, but I could still identify it at a glance: it was a giant sand scorpion.

  With their extra-large leader out of the picture, the rest of the ordinary sand scorpions in the swarm immediately scattered in all directions. Unfortunately for them, their erstwhile targets weren’t about to let them escape that easily.

  《Fel might’ve gotten the big one, but you little guys are mine!》

  《Waaait! Take this! And this!》

  Dora-chan’s Ice magic and Sui’s Acid Bullets laid waste to the swarm of overgrown insects as they skittered away, but they could only defeat so many before the remaining scorpions had left their effective range and faded off into the distance.

  《Awww,》 moaned Sui, 《They got away!》

  《Do not lose heart, Sui. There is still ample prey left to entertain us.》

  《Yup, can’t let those small fry distract us all day! Let’s move on to the next one!》

  I’m telling you guys, “we’re still surrounded by monsters” is an awful way to console someone! I thought, then sighed. “A-Anyway, let’s wait on that until we’ve collected all the scorpion drops, okay? Help me out, guys!”

  We’d only just arrived on the forty-third floor, and the desert sands were already riddled with monster drops. We took the time to gather them all up, then set off through the dunes, kept cool by a barrier that Fel erected to ward off the desert’s all-consuming heat.

  Just as Fel predicted, we were jumped by one monster after another as we traveled. After that first course of sand scorpions, we were attacked by a creature that looked like an overgrown earthworm with a horrible, toothy maw, called a sandworm, followed by something that looked like a three-meter-long rattlesnake, which was apparently called a death sidewinder. We were also attacked by sand golems which rose up from the sands of the desert itself.

  All in all, the monsters that showed up on this floor didn’t strike me as all that different from the ones we’d encountered on the Dolan dungeon’s desert floor—no huge surprise, considering how specific of an environment deserts were. The desert-themed monsters just kept on coming too, one after another. In fact, I quickly started suspecting that Fel was going out of his way to guide us into their ambushes as we moved forward.

  Fel, Dora-chan, and Sui all seemed to have a lot of pent-up aggression going on after the nothingness of the forty-first and forty-second floors, so every time we did find a monster, they immediately brutalized it with their full arsenal of skills and attacks. It was such a merciless and one-sided way of fighting that honestly, I was a little repulsed. I understood how they felt, though, so I didn’t try to stop them in spite of my horror. I just spent the whole time trailing along after them and picking up drops. The UV-resistant hooded jacket I’d bought from my Online Supermarket helped me stay comfortable while I did so, at least.

  Eventually, after who knows how long spent exuberantly culling the local monster population, I noticed something far off in the distance. I couldn’t tell what it was, but I could tell that it was huge. My best guess was that it was some sort of big brown stone that had been shaped into a perfect sphere.

  “Huh? What is that thing?” I mumbled. “Wait, is it moving?”

  《Yes, it is. That, too, is a monster.》

  “A monster? That big sphere thing? Seriously?”

  《Wrong. The monster is behind the sphere.》

  “Behind it?” This was getting more and more confusing by the second, but just as I took a closer look, a comparatively small black something poked its head out from behind the sphere. “Hmm?” I squinted, trying to figure out what I was looking at. Then it hit me. “Gah! That’s a friggin’ dung beetle!”

  I remembered watching some sort of TV documentary special on desert fauna way back when. One of the creatures featured in the show was the dung beetle, and the thing I was looking at now bore an uncanny resemblance to them.

  《Fool! Your shouting has drawn its attention,》 grumbled Fel.

  I clamped my hands over my mouth, but it was too late. The giant dung beetle and its eponymous orb were now advancing in our direction, and they were doing it really, really quickly!

  “Oh god, no! Too close! Way too close!” I shrieked as the enormous bug bore down on us.

  《Oh, simmer down,》 sighed Dora-chan. 《Wouldn’t’a mattered if it noticed us or not—we’d do the same thing to it regardless! Right, Fel?》

  《Dora does make a valid point, indeed.》

  《Master, it’s okay! Sui’ll beat it for you!》

  “Why are you being so casual about this?! Gah, oh god, there it is! It’s so close! Aaaugh, grossss! I don’t even care who—just somebody kill that thing already!”

  《You don’t care who takes it? Then don’t mind if I do!》 said Dora-chan as he zipped on ahead of us, then unleashed a fireball that had to be somewhere around two meters in diameter at the giant dung beetle. It was so huge that it made the fireballs I cast every once in a while look like they could barely light a match in comparison.

  《Awww, that’s not fair, Do
ra-chan! Sui wanted to beat that one!》

  《There is still more than enough prey to satisfy us all, Sui. No need for impatience.》

  《Really, Uncle Fel? In that case, Sui gets to fight the next one!》

  《Ha ha ha—very well, then!》

  While Sui and Fel were having their little chat, Dora-chan’s fireball scored a direct hit on the giant dung beetle. It popped like a balloon...as did its dungball. The phrase “dirty fireworks” sprang instantly to mind, though frankly I would’ve been much happier to watch a little alien dude get splattered across the scenery than to witness what I’d just seen.

  “Blech!” I retched, just barely resisting the urge to toss my cookies.

  《Heh heh, how’d you like that?》 boasted Dora-chan.

  I didn’t, at all! Not even a little...

  《Hey, you gonna pick up the drops, or what?》 Dora-chan added.

  I grimaced. “Nope. I’m good,” I replied, and left it at that.

  I did end up appraising the giant dung beetle in the end, and found that it was an A-rank monster called a tyrant scarab. Its rank meant that at the absolute least it must have dropped a magic stone, but even if said stone hadn’t come from a dung beetle, it had almost certainly been flung off to who knows where when the awful orb exploded. Dora-chan’s fireball had probably sterilized it, sure, but I still wasn’t about to touch the thing.

  And so we set off through the desert once more. Desert-themed monsters continued to ambush us, and my familiars continued to take them down without mercy or hesitation. Sui was particularly gung-ho about its hunting on that particular day, and I collected quite a fair number of items as we meandered our way through the seemingly endless expanse of sandy dunes.

  We weren’t quite done encountering new monsters for the day yet, though. It happened just moments after one of Sui’s Acid Bullets had drilled a hole through a sand worm that had jumped out to attack us. The sandworm disappeared, leaving a magic stone behind, and as I was picking up our spoils, I noticed something far off in the distance that the monster had been obscuring up to that point.

  “Hey, guys?” I said. “Am I seeing things, or does that camel look normal-sized even though it’s gotta be way far away from us?”

  I rubbed my eyes. It had to just be a mirage or something, right? No matter how many times I blinked and squinted, though, the camel’s distinctive two-humped silhouette remained unchanged.

  《Your vision is unimpaired,》 said Fel. 《The creature is simply massive.》

  That settled it. If I wasn’t seeing things, then the camel before us was almost as big as an ancient dragon. No wonder it was so easy to see from a distance—it was enormous beyond all possible reason!

  《A monster! Sui’s gonna beat it up!》 the slime shouted with glee as it bounced toward the mega-camel.

  《No need to defeat that one, Sui. Let it be,》 Fel said with a sort of irritated scowl.

  《But whyyy?》

  《I have lived for an age, and over the course of those many long years, those creatures’ meat still stands out in my memory. It is truly that foul,》 Fel explained, scrunching up his nose in distaste.

  《Ha ha, dang! It must’ve been real bad for you to make a face like that, Fel!》 said Dora-chan.

  《Indeed. I have no desire to ever taste it again.》

  《But on the other hand,》 Dora-chan continued, 《this is a dungeon! There’s no guarantee that it’ll drop the same stuff you ate back then, right? It might drop some totally different sorta meat, even!》

  He had a point. The items that dungeon creatures dropped weren’t necessarily equivalent to the meat and materials you’d get from butchering the same creature if you found it in the wild. Then again, it was still possible we’d end up with an enormous slab of meat so nasty that not even Fel would give it a second chance, which would be a pretty big pain in its own right.

  《The only items of worth that defeating one of those creatures could gain us are magic stones. If you wish to slay it nevertheless, though, I will not stop you,》 said Fel.

  I decided to appraise the camel, just to be on the safe side. It seemed that my recent level-ups had improved my appraisal abilities, incidentally, since the information the skill gave me had become quite detailed.

  【Mountain Camel】

  An A-ranked monster that is, as its name indicates, roughly the size of a mountain. One of the ten largest earth-bound monsters in the world. While generally docile, their massive stature and inattentive nature leads to them regularly trampling smaller creatures underfoot. Though their meat is technically edible, its intensely gamey flavor renders it unpalatable, and while their skin can be made into leather armor, it tends to be fragile and carries the creature’s distinctive and potent odor.

  Hmm, hmm. Guess Fel was right on the money. The monster’s meat was barely edible, and its pelt was more or less worthless. Being an A-ranked monster, it would almost certainly drop a magic stone, but more than anything else, I found my eyes drawn to the part about them being docile, but liable to squish you to death by accident. “Trampling smaller creatures underfoot”? Seriously? Nope, I am not getting near that thing!

  In the end, I put my foot down and vetoed us hunting the mountain camel. Dora-chan and Sui didn’t offer much resistance after I shared the results of my appraisal with them, and so we ignored it entirely, once again forging on and on into the desert.

  ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

  We’d been traveling through the desert for five days, and my familiars had spent all five of them venting their pent-up wasteland resentment on the local monster populace. I couldn’t even count how many monsters they’d hunted by the time we finally reached the end of the forty-third floor, where its boss awaited us.

  Or at least, I presumed that the stairs down to the next floor were inside the box-like stone building that we eventually came across. I couldn’t go in to check, though, on account of the enormous jet-black snake monster curled around the structure. I appraised it immediately.

  【Apep】

  An S-ranked monster. Feared as an emissary of death itself in desert cities. Its poison is especially potent, and it is said that those unfortunate enough to encounter one are erased from this world without leaving so much as a single strand of hair behind.

  Okay, wow. That’s one scary-as-hell appraisal, all right. And wait a second... “Is it just me, or has it already noticed us?” I asked.

  《Of course it has. We could hardly hide ourselves in this terrain, even if we wished to.》

  《Guess it’s telling us that if we want a piece of it, we’re gonna have to go get it ourselves?》

  《Ooh, Sui wants a piece of it! Sui’s gonna beat it so good!》

  The black serpent—or rather, the apep—had already been staring at us, but now it uncurled itself from around the building, rearing up and spreading open a flap of skin that reminded me of a frill-necked lizard. Then it hissed, baring its enormous fangs at us in a show of intimidation.

  《No! Do not leave my side!》 barked Fel, an unusual note of urgency coloring his tone.

  “Wh-What? Why?” I asked.

  《I have fought one of these creatures long ago. They bear a poison that is powerful indeed,》 Fel explained.

  Apparently, the encounter had occurred before Ninrir had granted him her blessing and before his magic was as developed as it had eventually become. He had won the battle, of course, but supposedly it was quite a close contest. Anyway, when an apep reared up and spread its frills like that, it was supposedly a sign that it was about to spit its poison at you, and getting hit by said poison would make you crumble away in the blink of an eye.

  When I asked Fel what “crumble away” was supposed to mean specifically, he explained that there had been some desert-native plants living in the vicinity of his previous apep fight. He described them as spikey, so I assumed they were cacti or something, not that it really mattered. Anyway, some of those plants got caught in one of the snake’s poison blasts, and they had
instantly dissolved into dust, fading away into the sand around them.

  “‘Fading away into the sand around them’? What the hell? And wait, this is supposed to be poison, right? Does that even count as poison anymore? I don’t really know how that stuff works, but all I can say is holy crap, I’m amazed you survived that!” I muttered in astonishment.

  《Hmph! Do not underestimate me. I perceived the danger its poison posed in an instant and withdrew to a safe distance,》 Fel said.

  My main takeaway from all this: fantasy world poisons could be terrifying sometimes! Fel could swap over to long-distance magic attacks these days, but back then he’d been young enough that his magic wasn’t as strong or accurate as it was now, and it had taken him quite a few blasts to bring it down.

  《Of course, now that I bear Ninrir’s blessing, I could bathe in that creature’s poison and emerge with life and limb intact. Since you bear the blessings of a god, the same is true of you as well,》 Fel clarified.

  “Okay, so why the panic, then? Wasn’t that kinda unnecessary?” I noted. Not that I was opposed to the extra precautions, mind you—Fel made that poison sound really nasty, and I certainly didn’t mind being in one of his barriers, just to give me some peace of mind.

  《I acted for the sake of caution, and nothing more. I know, after all, what becomes of those who face the full brunt of that poison,》 said Fel. 《Moreover, though we ourselves would not perish, that is not to say you would suffer no loss were the poison to hit you without my barrier there to intercept it.》

  “What do you mean, I’d ‘suffer loss’? And wait, just me?”

  《Indeed. In all likelihood, the clothes that you wear would be destroyed.》

  “Oh.” Right, that would make sense. I had the protection of the gods to keep me from dying of poison, but my clothes, bag, and other stuff were significantly less blessed, and I doubted my own blessing would extend to them. That meant that they’d probably crumble away if they got a poison bath, and let me tell you, I was not interested in running around a dungeon desert in the buff! “Thank you, Fel. You seriously saved me there.”