A painted red outline retched and gagged, spitting repeatedly at the ground. "Argg! It's in my mouth! And my eyes! What just happened?"

I wish I knew. I'd suspect the monster of self-destructing, except the maps didn't mention them having that ability, and the explosion hadn't actually done any damage. It had just caused a mess.

A lot of mess, I had to admit, as chunks of meat detached from the ceiling and blood dribbled down my armour. Thank goodness it had recently had a comfort enchantment upgrade; it was cleaning itself noticeably faster than normal.

"The monster exploded when I attacked it. I don't know why."

"Monsters don't just explode!"

"Try telling that to the ceiling."

Another chunk of meat gave up on its temporary adhesion and dropped to the ground with a splat. Looking around, there was a surprising amount of meat. The monster must have been substantially fatter than the ribbons of floor sixteen.

... But the pocket it was hiding in wasn't.

Was some sort of spatial expansion involved? I'd disrupted it, and suddenly there was more meat packed into the space than would fit? That could explain the monster suddenly redistributing itself around the room. And maybe some of the adjacent rooms.

"I don't suppose the monster core survived?"

"I don't think there's anything salvageable. Not unless you want to spend some time with a shovel."

"No thanks," said Cluma, and I could hear the shudder despite her invisibility. "Let's just keep going."

"There are monsters in all the adjacent rooms. Two in the room in front of us. Let's get close enough for me to attack, but try to keep a wall between us and them, in case they give a repeat performance."

"Mmmk," agreed Cluma, so we made our way to the corner of a corridor, doing our best not to step in anything too objectionable.

I tried to get a better look at the monster from our vantage point, but seeing anything through the distortion was tough. I could see the pocket, but I could barely look inside. It didn't seem any larger than the previous floor, but I didn't trust what I was sensing.

I'd deliberately struck the previous one hard to get the pocket to collapse instantly, believing that to have the best chance of killing the occupant. What if I held back a little?

There was another wet slap. A streak of red flashed in front of me, impacting the wall to my left with a squelch.

"Staying around the corner was a good choice," opined Cluma.

"Well, this is an interesting problem," I commented. "I've never encountered a monster that I couldn't not kill before."

"Should we attack them some other way?"

"I don't think we can. They're immune to physical attack, and the only offensive spell we have between us is your [Minor Harm], which still requires you to touch them. I suppose we could try my lightning glove, but trying to aim it through the distortion would be tough. I'd prefer to go back a floor to practise."

"Didn't you pick your beacon back up when we teleported in, though?"

"Yes, unfortunately. Maybe we should just rush this floor, and find one where the monsters are less explosive."

"Mmm... But what if this sort of thing continues to floor twenty?"

"Well, I won't give up just yet. There's a few more things I can try with spatial affinity." Holding back even more, or creating the discharge outside the pocket's entrance rather than on top of it, to start with.

In the next room, I created the patch of spatial affinity off to the side of where the monster was hiding. The mana interacted destructively with the spatial pocket, which tore open, ejecting the monster hiding within back into reality. For a moment, it swam angrily through the air, searching for its attackers, but then it ran into my patch of spatial affinity mana.

Three chunks of monster splatted against the wall in front of me in rapid succession.

"Interesting..."

"What was? It still exploded."

"Yes, but it exploded when the monster ran into the spatial affinity mana, rather than when the pocket was destroyed. It wasn't that the pocket was bigger on the inside than the outside, but that the monster spatially compressed itself."

Cleaning up affinity mana—effectively turning it back into raw mana—wasn't something I could do. There was no option other than to let it naturally dissipate, which it would do quickly in the absence of anything holding or stabilising it, but not in zero time. I could move it, though.

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"Okay, plan for the next one," I continued. "I'll force it out of its spatial pocket, then you stab it once it's vulnerable."

"And how do you know it isn't still going to explode?"

"I'll keep any stray spatial affinity mana away from it."

"No, I mean when I stab it. If it's spatially shrinking itself, what happens to the magic when it dies?"

"Umm... Okay, valid point. Maybe keep your eyes and mouth shut?"

"No thanks. Kill it with [Far Reach]."

"That doesn't work around corners, though."

"At least you'll be at a distance! I'd have to get right up close, unless you fancy finding me some better arrows, or making more of those grenades."

"It would definitely explode if you threw grenades at it; that's kinda the point of grenades. Fine. I'll get the next one with [Far Reach]."

The next room, I did exactly that, bisecting the writhing monster with the blade of my sword-staff, then immediately spinning around and diving around the corridor corner.

A few seconds later, during which I hadn't heard a single slap of wet meat or the splash of blood, I pulled myself back up from the ground and did my best to look nonchalant.

"Wow. It's really flat," came Cluma's voice, informing me that she'd already run into the main room, wasting my efforts to look dignified.

"Flatter than floor sixteen?"

"Flatter than a sheet of paper!"

Okay, that was very flat. Inspecting the two halves of the monster, it was true, too. Together, they were the same length and height as the floor sixteen monsters, but rather than being a few millimetres thick, to my senses they were effectively two-dimensional. They had no perceivable thickness at all.

"Huh. And I thought I was being novel, enchanting your steak. These monsters have spatial affinity flesh."

"Really? Can we eat them?"

"Probably not advisable. The mana structure that's keeping it all compressed is holding for now, but I wouldn't recommend chewing it."

Could it be chewed? How would you chew something two-dimensional? Still, I foresaw the potential for a literal taste explosion... Best not to try.

"Aww. Then where's the monster core?"

Good question; the entire body was flat. It didn't have the lump of the previous floor's monsters. No, wait. [Disassembly] stirred, informing me exactly how to extract the core.

I followed its advice, drawing my knife and cutting into the monster. Five centimetres of knife vanished into the monster without coming out the other side, and with a flick, I popped the level seventeen monster core out.

"By there," I answered.

Cluma lifted the dead monster and waved a hand underneath, then, holding it beneath the wound, stuck a finger of the other hand into the hole I'd just made and wiggled it around. It should have gone straight through her hand, but instead vanished into whatever pocket dimension the monster kept its innards in.

"I wish I could see properly; this probably looks really funny," she giggled. "Okay, they don't explode when knifed. Let's finish off this floor."

That was unsurprising; if they always exploded when killed, the dungeon's documentation would have mentioned it. It must only be because I'd disrupted their magic.

The strange monsters investigated to our satisfaction, we made our way to the boss chamber, killing off the ribbons as we went. As usual, the boss was a bigger version of the mobs. At least on the inside. What was going on outside was anyone's guess.

"Back away a few stairs, and I'll detonate it," I said, warning Cluma before subjecting the pocket dimension to a burst of my mana. The expected thud came, followed by a string of smaller thuds as bits of monster redecorated the room.

Gravity reversed, and we landed neatly on the ceiling, well away from the mess, although, of course, the gravity reversal meant that the blood started flowing down the stairs towards us.

"Why can't bosses disappear faster?" complained Cluma, doing her best to ignore the red tide around her feet.

"Given how thoroughly it's mixed in with the surrounding landscape, I'm surprised the dungeon can pick out its remains accurately enough to erase it at all."

I'd never noticed blood stains remaining after a boss fight, even in Serpent Isle, where it mixed in with the mud and soil. Sure enough, a few seconds later, the mess faded away to nothing. Not for the first time, I wondered where stuff actually went when a dungeon reclaimed it. You couldn't just erase matter. Then again, you weren't supposed to be able to create it, either, and water crystals seemed to.

"Do we have time for the next floor?"

"Maybe, but given the enemies, I'd rather teleport out somewhere we know is safe."

"Okay. Home time then," said Cluma. "Steak again!"

"Actually, I was planning to..."

"Steak!"

"Okay, okay. Keep your ears on."

We grabbed the chest contents and walked through the invisible portal to the next floor, teleporting home from the safe part of the staircase. Where I carefully cooked and enchanted another steak.

Maybe I could slowly tone down the amount of mana I used? Would she notice, or could I get the taste to slowly decay away to something she wasn't so obsessed over?

For myself, I cooked up a curry. You couldn't buy ready-made sauces or pastes anywhere, but fresh ingredients were available, including all the herbs and spices I needed. Didn't Dad say something about growing them here, in things that were functionally equivalent to greenhouses? Since they were only used in small quantities, they didn't need much growing space, so meeting demand wasn't hard.

"If you aren't careful, you're going to pick up another weird trait, acting so obsessed," I warned Cluma as she inhaled her meat.

"Don't care."

"Are you going to at least try the curry?"

She glanced at the pot and helped herself to a ladle full. "Not bad," she commented after tasting it. "The only problem with it is that it's not as good as mana steak. You've spoilt all other food forever!"

"Hardly. I only have [Advanced Cooking], and it's at low level. How does enchanted steak compare to what your mum cooks? Besides, you've only had steak a couple of times. You'll tire of it eventually," I finished, laying my groundwork for my wean-Cluma-off-enchanted-meat plan.

She stared at her empty plate for a bit. "Mum needs to learn a runecrafting skill. How high level does it need? Or you need a rank three cooking class next. Either way works."

Well, that backfired... "It needs [Advanced Runecrafting], and I doubt she'd agree to take a runecrafting class just for you. She'd need [Apprentice Mage] first, too. Okay, what about higher level monster cores? What's better between my steak and that core you had in Synklisi?"

"Uh... Honestly, I don't remember much from when I ate that..." admitted Cluma, blushing.

"What's the point of gourmet food if you don't remember eating it?!"

"I remember your steaks!"

"I wish you'd forget them."

"Nope. Too late."

"You need a balanced diet! Vitamins and stuff."

"Then best you learn how to enchant fruit."

"Fine. What's the worst that could happen?"

A few minutes later, I burst out laughing at the ridiculous sight of Cluma devouring an enchanted melon, rind and pips included. It was nice that she'd found a hobby other than hugging people, but couldn't she pick something a little more normal?