The end of the quest was surprisingly anticlimactic after everything else. When the next two nutrias came after another five-minute rest, James easily killed them.

Dungeon Objective Quest [2]: Defeat the Lumina Nutria [12/4].

Extra experience is awarded for finishing all Lumina Nutria.

Extra experience is awarded for completing Quest by yourself.

Your Class Pure Castor has reached Level 7! Stats allocated.

Your Race Human has reached Level 7! Stats allocated.

Quest Reward: 7500 Bytes, 1 small chest.

Like before, the smell chest appeared next to a staircase leading downwards. This time not bothering with looking at it too closely since it exhibited the same behavior as the last chest she had won, she opened it immediately. Again, the chest disintegrated when she grabbed the item within. Unlike last time, though, she didn’t know what she was holding.

Fire Starter [Inferior]: This starts fires.

Was the System messing with her? She Identified the pen-like object again.

Fire Starter [Inferior]: This starts fires.

Apparently not. She’d have to experiment with it to see how it worked. She had time until her mana regenerated completely. Treating it like a pen she was going to write with, she gave it a little squeeze, shouting in surprise when a stream of fire left that end of the white device.

Hovering her hand over the newly scorched rock and touched it after she didn’t feel anything too hot. It was warm, but that’s it. Probably why the fire starter was only rated as an inferior item. Next, she tried it again, this time facing the other side. Carefully positioning it so that if the back shot fire she wouldn’t be in the way, she squeezed on the sides and fire came out of the front. No wonder the System didn’t provide a more thorough explanation, you couldn’t mess it up if you tried.

The entire time she kept her Mana Sense focused on the fire starter. Squeezing it again several times she observed the trigger mechanism. The ambient mana seemed to condense on the tip and turn red, creating a spark and streaming outward.

She didn’t think she could replicate the effect herself currently, but she would surely try once she got out of the dungeon. If anything, it might expand her understanding of mana, which would not only be beneficial for her Mana Sense sphere, but surely also improve her overall experience.

But she was getting hungry, and she had finally solved her two biggest problems when it came to cooking: her ability to roast and cut her meals. With her new dagger and fire starter, she figured even she could use her limited cooking skills to make a steak. There was plenty of meat around, after all. Hopefully unpoisoned by the nutria’s glowing tendencies.

Grinning to herself, she went back in the tunnel to one of the normal sized nutria and started to head back to the first chamber since it had plants to fuel the fire. She was going to eat some meat again!

A short walk later she was back by the stream with a fire going with some rock heating over it. She figured the rocks could act as a skillet for her to roast her meat on. Letting the fire continue and heat the rocks, she turned to the hanging nutria. She had prepared it by gutting it and bleeding it out, a procedure she remembered reading somewhere.

Examining the dead nutria, James figured her amateurish (or, more accurately, non-existent) skills would have to suffice for skinning and butchering it. She wasn’t in a position where she needed to preserve the most meat from the animal. She knew she had way too much on hand. If she butchered this one too much it wouldn’t be hard to get another nutria to cut up for her meal.

Stealing herself, she began to skin it with her dagger, losing an atrocious amount of meat in the process. But, as she noted earlier, it didn’t matter. Soon enough, she had some meat laid out in front of her in weird cuts. The meat looked pretty lean to her untrained eye, but what did she know? Even more importantly, there was nothing she could do about it. Besides, fat content was the least of her problems, she didn’t even have any salt! Or pepper for that matter.

Going over to the fire, she held her hand over the rocks and nodded in satisfaction at the heat she could feel even a couple of inches away. Grabbing her meat, she laid it out nicely on the rocks, smiling in satisfaction at the sizzling sound that began to fill her ears. Waiting until she saw that half the meat had cooked, she turned it over, frowning slightly at the charred pieces of meat that greeted her. She had no way, at least that she knew of, to really control the temperature of the rocks. She’d just have to eat these burned pieces.

Finally, the wait was over, and she transferred the nutria steaks to some clean rocks she had kept to the side. Slicing some pieces off with her ridiculously sharp dagger, she was happy to see that the meat was cooked all the way through.

Stabbing her dagger through one slice, she held it up to her mouth and took a bite. It wasn’t gourmet. It wasn’t even really any good, tasting bland and dry. But she had managed to hunt, prepare, and cook it herself with her limited resources. Continuing to eat, because she was just too hungry to care too much about taste, she figured at least that was a reason to celebrate.

Eating as much as she could, she eventually pushed it aside. It was time to sleep, she could finish the dungeon tomorrow. If her most recent quest had taught her anything it was that she couldn’t go forever. With that thought, she curled up against a rock and put her arm over her eyes. Within minutes, she was asleep.