Chapter 126

I made sure to keep the fairy dust from getting anywhere near Celeste. However, the water of life I produced as much as I could, filling up every available container and storing them in my storage ring. Once that was done, I began heading down to the eleventh floor.

This floor had elemental sprites and vengeful spirits.  After defeating a swarm of sprites, I noticed a similar glitter-like substance sprinkling down.

“They’re kind of like fairies, huh?”

“Sprites and fairies are the same?” Celeste’s face turned red, “You… that’s not even funny! You might as well say humans are the same as insects!”

“Ah… s-sorry…”

It was my mistake. Sprites were a mana-based creature, but they had no real body. They were just a bright sparkling light that moved around. Fairies had a body and a consciousness. Calling sprites insects was probably very apt.

We moved across the floor quickly. When I needed to recover, I drank life water. Since there was seemingly no limit to the amount I produced, I drank enough that I was starting to feel a bit bloated with water. I heard people who downed too much water could die from water poisoning. As I was downing a gallon of water of life after every fight, I wasn’t going to face a similar fate, right? That would be a perfect way to die in another world. I died from drinking too much water of life.

With my support skills taking care of almost everything else, my only concern was food. Celeste didn’t eat as much as Lydia or Miki, but I would run out before I reached the bottom. Thus, I started equipping the food job during battles again. I wanted the Collect skill in full effect just in case. I also made no assumption about what creatures happened to drop food. Even though these were ghosts, the collect skill could potentially cause food to drop from any monster.

Most monsters in this particular dungeon dropped ectoplasm so far. I had more of it than I cared to speak about. I didn’t have to wait for too long. The elemental sprites ended up dropping a hunk of tofu. Even with my cooking ability, I couldn’t make the tofu that appetizing.

“Well, at least I won’t starve,” I muttered to myself.

I continued on fighting monsters throughout the dungeon. Eventually, my job managed to level up.

{Cook has increased to level 6.)

{Preserve Food has been unlocked.}

If I used purify food, I could keep bacteria and stuff from growing on it and it lasted a surprisingly long time. A few tests on preserve food seemed to be a more efficient version of this. Since the only fresh food I had was tofu, there was only so much I could do, but it seemed like preserve food only needed to be cast once, and it didn’t allow the food to dry out. I found the tofu left out two days looks pretty rancid until I purified it a few times, but even then, it looked dry and not too edible. With preserve food, the tofu still looked good after three days.

“Well, purify food probably has more to do with cleaning dirty, poisoned, or cursed food.” I reasoned out loud.

I was eager to find more foods in the dungeon. Supposedly, there were mega-dungeons in cities build around them. The dungeons were hundreds of floors deep, and completing the lore was considered illegal because they were necessary for the city’s commerce.

What would it be like to visit a dungeon that had already been mapped out and the monsters already determined? For some reason, the thought of it kind of excited me. After being stuck in dungeons and earning lore, it looked like I was starting to become a dungeon diver junkie. Who knew, maybe after I claimed the mansion and freed my slaves, I might decide to live the dungeon diver life. Looking over at the firepit and the fairy sleeping by my side, I realized I didn’t hate this kind of life at all.