Coffee, Liz, Kalli and I passed through the golden gate as we would step from one room to another, and were greeted by warm sunlight. It was literally the first time in my life feeling the actual sun on my face, making our recent hardships seem worth it for this fact alone. Other than almost being cleaved in two with a sword, that is.

‘Are we really still in the dungeon?’ I wondered.

‘Technically, yes. We’re in a pocket world that the dungeon created,’ Liz explained.

‘Ugh… What kind of monster would create a subdungeon like this,’ Coffee grumbled, escaping under a nearby tree to get some shade. I guess urban legends were true about vampires not liking sunlight. She was purposely angling herself to avoid every single sunray that passed through the branches.

We seemed to be on the top of a mountain with a forest path in front of us that angled downwards towards a flat plateau a few kilometers away, on which there was some sort of village or small town. Behind us was a cliff that dropped off to clouds breezing over very distant mountaintops, making it seem like a scene straight out of a Chinese kung fu movie.

On the edge of the cliff was a near-identical copy of the gate we had just passed through, except that the portal was closed. Another difference was that the golden inscriptions were missing on the arches, and in their place was a single panel that read . Curious, I slowly stumbled forwards and poked it, unleashing a tendril of Manifestation vectors that wrapped themselves around my extended pseudopod and materialized into a translucent, blue bracelet.

Ting.

The Great Manamoo Caverns Time Remaining 6 Days, 23 Hours, 50 Seconds Time Flux Rate 10-to-1 Current Mission Seek Cairne Village Rewards ???

‘What the hell?’ I shook my pseudopod vigorously to get it off, but the bracelet felt like it was tattooed on. I wiggled in frustration.

‘Oh no… Bell, that’s bad. Oh my god,’ Coffee hugged me tightly with a hint of worry in her voice.

‘…C-c-c-coffee?’ I blushed. ‘Why are you—What’s going on?’

‘That’s a curse... If you don’t complete that mission in the foretold time, the dungeon is going to consume your soul,’ Coffee said sadly.

…

‘Are you fucking kidding meeeee?!’ I slapped myself in the face and stared at the ground. Did I do something stupid again?! First the dildo-relic, and now I got myself into this shit?

Coffee stared solemnly into my eyes.

‘Pufu.’

Pufu?

‘Pff—hahahahaha! You should’ve—hahaha—seen the look on your face!’ Coffee burst out laughing on the ground, rolling around as I stared at her blankly. ‘Haha—c’mon Bell, learn to take a joke—haha!’

Deliberately slowly, I aimed my pseudopod at the branch above us and gathered mana at the tip.

Boom!

‘AGHH!!’ Coffee ran under the next tree to escape the sunlight, and pouted. ‘Meanie.’

Ignoring her, I turned to Liz.

‘So, without being a jerk like someone here, could you explain to me what the Time Flux Rate is?’ I asked.

‘Umm, that would be Emperor Class Flux magic… I think. The dungeon’s the only one capable of manipulating the flow of time as far as I know, but it slows all of the subdungeons to some extent. The 10-to-1 ratio means that we have ten times the amount of time it says we have remaining to complete the mission,’ Liz explained, looking at the blue bracelet on my pseudopod. ‘I think the dungeon uses this time to create an exact replica of that instance for the next dive.’

Ah, that made sense. She had mentioned before that instances refreshed after a certain time, which was why subdungeons that doubled as food sources were so valuable.

‘*cough* And uhh, there’s no obligation to complete the mission, which means that there’s no need to take a huge risk… usually,’ Liz added. I glared at Coffee, who shrugged and leaned against the tree behind her.

‘In our case, we might as well follow the missions until we near the end. Our escape route is just before the final mission point, which is at the Temple of Figus, home of the Great Moob,’ Liz said.

‘Pff--Great Moob?’ Coffee stifled a laugh.

‘The King of the Moob Clan, also known as The Manamoo Overlord, or Genghis Moob,’ Liz said seriously, not helping the situation one bit. Coffee was on the verge of exploding in laughter again.

‘Well, in that case, let’s get a move on,’ I said, moving towards the path before pain shot through my head. I tripped and crashed onto the ground. ‘Ack!’

Coffee was dying of laughter at this point, and couldn’t even stop to breathe. *twitch* I pointed my pseudopod at the branch above her head.

Boom!

'Man... I'm so hungry,' Coffee grumbled, dragging her feet while keeping pace with the rest of us. She was slouched over and her arms hung limply, swinging from side to side like a pendulum with every step.

'Why not just drink some of the blood stored in the ring?' I suggested.

'I used it all up during the fight and superclotted it. Clotted blood tastes so bad I'd rather starve...' Her eyes lit up and nuzzled up against me. 'Ohh, can I suck some of yours? I promise it will only hurt a lot for a short while.'

'No way,' I resisted, trying to push her away. Not that I was super against it, but I was still peeved that she made fun of me. 'You can wait until we run into some manamoos.'

'Eh? But the village is so far away...' she complained. 

'Maybe somebody shouldn't have joked around about having someone's soul sucked out,' I said, sticking my pseudopod in the air and forcing a smaller pseudopod out of that pseudopod. My take on a slime's middle finger.

'!’ Coffee suddenly halted, sniffing the air and drooling. ‘Hold on, I smell something.’

I sniffed the air too, and, indeed, something smelt delicious. It smelt familiar, and it was definitely something I hadn't encountered in this life.

'Shh, it's coming from over there,' I motioned for the others to stop, switching to absorption mana so that I could sneak closer to take a closer look. The smell was coming from the right side of the road. Cautiously, I brushed the branches of a shrub to the side to peek at what was going on.

“AAAAAAAAAGHHHHH!—”

The shrill scream stopped abruptly, and was replaced by an aroma so delicious that it almost made me jump out of the bush. In the middle of a little opening in the woods were two buff cows standing behind a large cauldron. Yes, standing. On their fucking hooves.

They were picking up moving... vegetables? and throwing them into the cauldron while stirring the watery contents inside. Every vegetable they threw in would scream upon making contact with the hot soup, and stop immediately once they drowned miserably. As cruel as this was, the food smelt absolutely god-like. It was just missing something...

'MEAT!' Liz exploded forwards, brandishing a sword she stole from one of the guards back at the mansion.

'FOOOOOOOOOOD!' Coffee rocketed past Liz, and stabbed a blood dagger into one of the manamoo's eyes like a lightning strike. Her eyes were crazy and bloodshot. I made a decision to treat her to nice dinners from now on.

The other manamoo jumped backwards and did a somersault in the air, landing on his back hooves and forming a ying-yang sign with his front hooves. He thrust one hoof forwards and clip cloped to taunt us.

Holy fuck. A kung fu cow.

"MOOOO!"

'FOOOOOOOOOOD!' Coffee slashed, which the manamoo dodged gracefully, knocking her hand away and pushing her backwards with its shoulder. It jumped into the air and did a double kick, which Coffee ducked under and striked with an uppercut. The manamoo twisted it's body to dodge the strike, using this momentum to then let loose a roundhouse kick to Coffee's left guard, forcing her to slide back a few feet.

I aimed my pseudopod at the ground where I expected it to land, and fired three consecutive air bullets in a triangle, but it was no longer there.

'Where did it go--' 

FUMP!

My head exploded in pain as a kick went down hard on the side of my body, sending me flying into the tree nearby. 

"MOO!" It screamed at me.

Ssssshing!

A silver streak flashed and a thin, horizontal, red line formed on the manamoo's neck, just as I blacked out.

'Ugh...' I woke up feeling groggy. 'I feel like shit.'

Clinkle.

'L-Liz said t-t-this'll make you feel better,' Kalli stuttered and brought a bowl of soup in front of me with a spoon inside. I blew on it and slurped some, feeling the warmth seep through my slime an help me regain some strength. Truly, shabu shabu was the best with both veggies and meat.

'Thanks Kalli,' I smiled, patting him on the head with my pseudopod. He blushed and ran back to hug Liz's arm.

I surveyed the camp from the boulder next to the tree to the cauldron to Liz, who was butchering the remaining manamoos into strips of meat.

'Where's Coffee?' I asked.

'Over there,' Liz responded, pointing over at the boulder. 

'Over where?' I was confused. 'Is she behind the rock? I don't see--oh. Oh my. Ho lee shit.'

She wasn't behind the boulder. She was the boulder.

'How much did she fucking eat?!'

'She finished the entire cauldron of soup on her own, other than the individual bowls we had,' Liz sighed. 'She even threw in the rest of the captive Leafes.'

'Leaves?'

'Leafes. The other civilization who live here. You know, the vegetable people.'

'Vegetable people...?'

'What rock have you been living under? They're everywhere throughout the dungeon. You know, the vegetation that mutated and formed small villages here and there?'

'I have never met one before.'

'You will soon enough. Cairne village is a Leafe village, after all. They might not be too happy with how things worked out here.'

'Ahhh, dammit. We'll think of something,' I hoped.

'We could always eat them,' Coffee suggested, apparently awoken from her gluttonous slumber. I guessed so. The dungeon would recreate everyone, anyway. What's the worst that could happen? It just meant more food for us.

Ting!

Quest Update: Don't do it.

'''...''' Coffee, Liz and I looked at the blue bracelet, and then towards each other.

'Is this supposed to happen?' I asked.

'Never happened to me...' Liz raised an eyebrow.

'Seems like a hoax,' Coffee said.

Quest Update: Please, just follow the story.

'Is that you, dungeon hive?' I asked.

Quest Update: No... Nope. Nuh uh.

...

Was the hive mind always this nonchalant? I remembered it being a lot more... intimidating and powerful-sounding. Maybe...?

'Are you a submind of the dungeon hive?' I asked. It was the only thing that made sense.

Quest Update: How did you know?! Do you have psychic powers?!

Aha! I was right!

Quest Update: Lmao. Just kidding, you dumbass. Wtf is a submind.

...

Quest Update: Wow, you haven't even attained a Saint Class spell yet? Are you planning to waste that core I gave you? It's a pretty good one, you know.

...

Quest Update: Joking again~ It'd be cheating if I gave you the power to conjure a Saint Class spell already, right? Anyway, stick to the mission plot and you'll be fine.

'Let's go burn that village to the ground,' I said.

'Yep, let's do it,' Liz agreed.

'Uhn!' Kalli nodded vigorously. I couldn't tell if he understood the situation or was just agreeing to violence because we were talking about it.

'YES, MOAR FOOD!' Coffee shouted fleefully, bloated stomach jiggling. Erm...

'I don't know--' I began.

'FOOD!' Coffee zoomed down the forest path towards the village.

'...What the hell is wrong with her?' I wondered.

'I have no clue...' Liz looked concerned. 'She seemed fine until we ran into those manamoos.'

Quest Update: It's a side effect of her curse. They're starting, and there's only one spell that can prevent her from getting so fat that she'll explode. You have to stop her now! You need those villagers to complete the final mission. The final reward is a scroll that can undo any curse.

Ting!

Actual Quest Update: Reward - Curse Removal (King Class Magic Scroll)

'Shit. Coffee, stop!' I yelled. It didn't help. Fuck. I groaned and started moving despite the sickening headache. 'Lets go, Liz!'

'Aye. Yosh!' Liz lifted Kalli onto her shoulders.

'Uhn!' Kalli raised his arms.

We ran after Coffee as fast as we could.