<~> CHAPTER 41

The five of us were behind a rock looking at one of those Barletts Luna had told me about... yesterday? Well, before we rotated through our turns sleeping anyway. It looked like a wide and kinda flat armadillo. The thing was huge though, the size of a large bull and a half. It would be a bit more intimidating if I hadn't gotten so huge myself but I was a little worried for my friends. Luna had sworn up and down that Maxwell could hold that thing back with his shield but their difference in size made me question that a little. It had an angled head that ended in a rounded beak that used it to eat rocks... The thing was walking around just eating the glowing rocks...

To my shame, I was drooling a little watching it. I haven't eaten any raw meat since the Minotaur and while I hadn't been starving or anything, the idea of sinking my teeth into one of these monsters was a lot more appealing than I'd normally like to admit. Just the thought of it had me automatically licking my chops without meaning to.

("How dangerous is this thing supposed to be?") I asked Luna.

("To you? Not very I'd bet. To us, moderately dangerous just from its size alone. The thing can trample us if we get caught under it, but it's pretty slow, so as long as nothing unexpected happens we shouldn't have any trouble killing it. The three of us have killed those both alone and with other teams before. They're not too difficult to fight.")

("Knock on wood,") I said.

She turned to me and tilted her head. Cute. ("Why?") she asked.

("Hmm... It's bad luck to talk about something bad happening without knocking on wood... It's a silly superstition where I come from,") I told her.

She smiled and lightly rapped her knuckles against my shield. I laughed and ruffled her hair but it seemed our little exchange irritated Maxwell based on the look he was giving us. I shrugged and crouched down a little next to him. "Can I eat it?" I asked.

Maxwell sighed and Aria gave me a horrified look. "Yes. It has a .... ....," he told me.

I turned and looked at Luna. ("He said, 'It has a soft belly.' Don't try to go through the shell on the top, flip it over if you want to eat it.")

"Soft belly," I repeated quietly to myself.

("How should we engage it?") I asked Luna.

("Well, let Maxwell attack it first and block it with his shield. If it starts to charge, you should dodge, it can hit hard once it has momentum going but it's slow enough that dodging shouldn't be difficult for any of us. Its weak spots are the joints under its shell on its limbs and above its head, be careful of the beak if you attack from the front though,") she explained. When I nodded back to her she leaned forward and tapped Maxwell on the shoulder to give him a signal.

("Just telling him we're ready,") Luna said.

I nodded and crouched on all fours, ready to follow him in. When it got close enough Maxwell jumped out and rammed the Barlett with his shield and sent it stumbling back. Piper, Aria, and I jumped out to circle it. The thing squawked at us and began to run forward, but before it could take more than three steps, Maxwell rammed into its head with his shield again. This hit seemed a bit more substantial because it stumbled back and swayed for a moment. Now! I jumped forward and stabbed my claws into the joint above one of its rear legs and tore through as much of it as I could before jumping back. Piper and Aria had done the same and with only one good leg left, it fell down onto its stomach. Maxwell bashed its head to the side with his shield again before stabbing it through the top of the neck with his sword. The sharpness of his sword must have surprised him because he accidentally decapitated the monster when trying to pull his sword back.

The large head anti-climactically plopped on the ground in front of us. My mouth was really watering now that the scent of blood was filling my nostrils. Maxwell looked around at all of us for a moment before flicking the blood off his sword and sheathing it again. I looked at him with puppy-dog eyes and he laughed the moment he noticed the look I was giving him. He waved Aria back and then gestured at me to go ahead.

I licked my chops again and flipped the armadillo thing onto its back. The skin on the bottom was smooth and soft but it smelled like wet dirt from being dragged along the ground all the time. I used my claws to slice a large gash down the middle and carefully pulled its skin apart to avoid having to bite into the nasty flesh on the bottom. The moment struck me as odd because I was at the exact intersection of my two opposing instincts, one to be slow and methodical and the other to tear into it and eat but they both agreed that the flesh on the bottom was worth avoiding.

Once I opened a large enough hole I leaned forward and started biting chunks of it off. It tasted decent, About as good as the bats but at least I didn't need to worry about guano. Not nearly as good as my favorites, Minotaur and Frost Salamanders. But the meat hit the spot all the same. As I ate my fill I idly wondered if the magic content of the monster made its meat taste better, kind of like a fantasy version of marbling. I coughed, nearly choking on a piece of meat from chuckling at my own joke. Then I found what I was looking for, THE HEART. I broke the plated ribcage and pulled them out of my way. I avoided most of the organ flesh and savored the part I had been salivating over.

It tasted so good. I tore large chunks off the large organ and swallowed them down. This thing's heart was larger than most of the other ones I've eaten so far so I couldn't devour it as fast. All this did was allow me to really enjoy the savory iron taste even longer. It took seven large chewy bites to finish it off and then I was full. It had taken so long to get to the heart that I had filled up my stomach already. I pulled back out of the hole I had made for myself and cleaned off some of the blood on me with my tongue. Even the blood tasted kind of good. When I was done licking my claws I shifted back to my human form and avoided most of the blood that had flicked off my umber hound form in the transformation.

("How was it?") Luna asked.

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("Not bad. About as good as the bats but way more meat for the kill,") I replied. ("Are these things edible for normal people?")

("Well... yes, but they don't taste very good. I think we're going to continue eating the Venison for now, there's still plenty left.") Luna smiled and wiped a stray drop of blood off my face.

I looked over at Aria who looked a bit green around the gills from watching me eat. She averted her eyes away from me the moment I looked over at her. It was kind of a shame that we hadn't been able to grow any closer but without the rings, I didn't really know how to do it. I still didn't know enough of the language to talk about things normally with her, most of the words I knew so far were for practical things like directions and coordinating in battle. Or stuff about camping. I just didn't have a good enough grasp of the language to converse and tell her much about myself yet. Nor could I understand enough to know if I should or not.

Ah well, c'est la vie.

Glancing back at the dead monster I nudged Luna with my elbow. ("So... what are we doing with the rest of that?") I asked.

She shrugged. ("I don't know. We mostly came to hunt one of these for you. I suggested it to Piper, we don't know if you need to eat dungeon monsters or not so it seemed like a good idea to let you eat your fill since these things are so big. I also think that you get stronger every time you eat one of those hearts so it seems like a good idea to hunt at least one of everything that seems edible for you.")

I turned to her more fully. ("You noticed that too? That I've been getting stronger after I eat their hearts?")

("Well, I mean it seems kind of obvious after what happened with the bats right? You ate one of their hearts for the first time, then your hearing suddenly got a lot better. Your fur is also really cool to the touch and you were able to comfortably swim in that freezing lake so I'm guessing you got that from eating the Frost Salamanders. It might also explain why you're so intensely focused on digging so deep into their bodies when you're... like that, enough to even eat a goblin heart despite how awful you said they smelled.")

I scrunched up in disgust just thinking about how horrible that experience was.

("You're really observant Luna... I didn't even realize my fur was cool to the touch.") I shifted back to my wolf form and ran my fingers through my fur. It didn't feel cold to me... ("If you're right that means that I might be getting something for every heart I eat right? There might be other changes I haven't noticed, maybe we should start writing down all the different monsters I eat.")

Luna nodded. ("That's a pretty good idea but I don't know if we have much we can write with.") She scraped the ground with her boot. ("We can't even make a list on the ground of this floor.")

("What about charcoal?")

She shrugged. ("We don't really have the tools to make it here in the dungeon. We would need a kiln or something similar.")

I shifted back to my human form and sighed. ("I suppose I could just scratch some of the rocks with other rocks.")

Luna giggled. ("Well, I don't think it will be that hard to recall a list of all the monsters you've eaten by the time we make it back to the city. We'll just have to go through the floors and think about which ones you've eaten while we were there.")

("How many floors are left?") I asked.

("This is the twelfth floor, so eleven more to go not counting this one. They should start to go faster as we keep going up. We've also gotten stronger based on that fight,") she said gesturing toward the barlett, ("and they'll only get easier from here. Most of our time will be spent walking.")

"You two ready?" Maxwell asked.

We both nodded and started following after him. This floor's layout didn't change as much as most of the other floors so he knew where he was going this time. All of us stayed alert on the walk back but I could tell that none of them were as tense as they were on other floors. Anything was better than the Bloody Halls. This floor felt like a relief after that ordeal.

("You said there was a city up above this dungeon. Do you guys have an apartment up there or anything?") I asked, glancing at Luna.

She stayed focused on the area around us as she replied, ("No, occasionally we rent a room at an inn when we're staying up in the city for a while but we spend most of our time in the dungeon. The first five floors usually have a lot more people on them, so we usually camp out on the fifth even when we're between jobs. The sixth floor is the Lost Halls, which isn't too dangerous but it's a pain to navigate, especially without tools. So most people stop at five unless they're prepared to go deeper.")

("Are the people on the first five floors dangerous? Like coming across others on the forest floor was?") I asked while scanning the area for monsters.

("It's not as dangerous on the first five floors to run into other people because there are enough people there that it would be hard to get away with just killing someone and running away. Bounties are put on people who are seen killing others by the Hunter's Association. It's not impossible to run into someone hostile but our first instinct wouldn't be to drive them off the same way we tried to with the group on the fourteenth floor. You still need to do watches though. Even if the people there are less likely to kill you on the early floors, people still might try and steal your stuff.")

I nodded and looked over at Aria. Hopefully we wouldn't need to worry about her as we got closer to the surface. I hoped Maxwell and Piper could get a better read on her character than I can. The five of us continued walking through the beautiful crystal-lit caverns toward the next stairs up.