The Shadow Rabbit, as I came to call it, was the other monster on this floor. Nonaggressive, it remained in the shadows and fled the moment you attacked it. It had very little strength, but it was extremely fast. The only way one could defeat it was to kill it in one hit. If you didn’t have Life Sense, you wouldn’t be able to pinpoint its location at all. If you didn’t have Lydia’s speed, you’d never be able to kill it.
I located a rabbit and then switched to Cook and allowed her to attack. We only knew if it struck after her sword struck the ground. Fortunately, the weapon seemed to have a magical property, as it didn’t get too banged up using this method. Three out of four times it’d move before she struck or she’d flat out miss. That meant every fourth time led to the death of a rabbit. Unfortunately, their experience was also crappy. If I wasn’t starving, they wouldn’t even be worth hunting in my opinion.
Sense Life was very useful but had its setbacks. I realized that life was indistinguishable, so I couldn’t tell the difference between a rabbit and a Living Armor. However, Living Armors were constantly moving, whereas rabbits tended to remain in one spot, freezing when we got near them. Through that method, I was able to see where rabbits and Living Armors were around the dungeon. I could avoid congested hallways without needing to get near them. Our mobility in the dungeon increased drastically.
“There is one right there,” I said, pointing and switching to Cook.
Lydia always attacked without question. She was a lifelong slave, and it showed with her obedience. When this rabbit died, this time, there was something left over when the body melted away.
“F-fur…” I looked at the black fur… realizing that after all that work, I hadn’t managed to get any food.
“Can you sense life below us?” Lydia asked.
I shook my head. “No, I guess the dungeon floors block that.”
“What should we do?” Lydia asked once again for my direction.
I shook my head, “Let’s try a little longer.”
After killing ten more, we found another two pelts of black fur.
“This is pointless.” I sighed. “Let’s just try to make our way down to the next floor.”
Lydia ran ahead boldly and attacked an armor. I hadn’t been paying attention until the moment she killed it.
{Cook has increased to level 4.}
{You have unlocked the Cook Skill: Purify food.}
I had left my Cook job active.
“Are you freaking kidding me?”
My words weren’t aimed at the level at all. Rather, sitting where the Living Armor had fallen apart, was a fully cooked, tasty looking piece of turkey drum the size of my arm. I walked over to the drum and picked it up. I sniffed it. It smelled fine.
A Living Armor had a turkey drumstick? I used to play Castlevania back in the day, and I seemed to remember that you could find turkeys in the wall. Was this one of those kinds of things? Up until now, the Living Armor had not dropped anything, but now it dropped food when I had Cook equipped.
“Purify Food!” I made sure the food was edible before splitting it with Lydia.
After that, we started fighting more armors, and soon we had enough turkey drumsticks that we didn’t know what to do with them. Although we weren’t a step closer to getting out of the dungeon, we were no longer desperate. With light, food, and water, we could hold out for rescue. In the meantime, I decided we might as well keep pressing forward.