Being completely soaked inside a cave was, as expected, very cold.

"Qiong Xing!? Are you alright!?"

"...Yes, I landed in water, so I am not injur—achoo!"

With his body heat rapidly draining, Qiong Xing realized this was bad.

He somehow managed to climb onto the shore and looked up.

"We will head to rescue you immediately. We will look for an alternate route, so please stay where you are and do not move."

"Understood."

Qiong Xing reflected that he had, as expected, caused trouble again.

A few minutes earlier.

"Do monsters not appear here?"

"Huh?"

"No, they have been showing up this whole time. What are you talking about?"

Huh? That was news to him.

In Qiong Xing’s mind, monsters only meant green humanoid creatures, so when magical beasts appeared, he simply thought there were a lot of animals here.

"So those are monsters too. That is good to know. Wa—"

He stumbled over a small protruding rock under his feet and reflexively placed his hand on the wall.

At that moment, he heard a click.

"Ah, I have a bad feeling about this."

The instant he said that, the ground suddenly gave way beneath him, and he fell straight down.

It was quite deep, but there was water below, so he survived.

However, since there was no way back up, everyone could not just jump down after him, so he decided to wait quietly for them to come.

At first, Albe tried to jump down as well, but since he was the only one who could communicate with Qiong Xing, he stayed with Rohen and the others to search for a safe route.

"Sorry, even you got completely soaked."

There did not seem to be any injuries, but since Qiong Xing had been holding Fenrisúlfr when he fell, Fenrisúlfr had gotten soaked as well.

Worried they might both catch a cold, Qiong Xing used magic to dry them off.

He then sat down on the spot without moving, just as Rohen had instructed.

"I never expected the floor to give way. So that was the kind of trap Rohen was talking about."

Qiong Xing had fallen right into it, though he told himself that no one could have predicted it.

"I wonder what floor this is. That was quite a drop."

Qiong Xing was not particularly anxious since he knew Rohen and the others would come to rescue him.

With Fenrisúlfr there as well, he remained calm and at ease.

"...Qiong Xing, can those be eaten?"

"Hm?"

When he looked over, unlike Qiong Xing who was leisurely waiting, Fenrisúlfr was completely absorbed in the fish drifting through the water.

Drawn by that, Qiong Xing looked as well.

When he had fallen, he had been too flustered to notice, but now he saw large fish swimming smoothly through the water.

"They should be fine as long as they are not poisonous... could you catch some?"

"Leave it to me!"

With fish that large, they would surely be satisfying to eat.

Thinking they would make good souvenirs for Rui as well, Qiong Xing asked Fenrisúlfr who happily went off to catch them.

If Albe had been there, he would probably have said, "You are asking a Fenrir to do that?"

But since he was not, Qiong Xing did not worry about it.

Fenrisúlfr had returned to his original size, but even so, the way he skillfully caught fish one after another while splashing water everywhere was impressive.

"If there are leftovers, maybe we can make dried fish. Grilling it tastes really good... it is such a shame I cannot drink alcohol."

He felt nostalgic remembering the days when he would slowly enjoy grilled dried fish with sake.

That had truly been delicious.

"Fried fish would probably make Rui and the others happy too. And now that we have soy sauce, karaage would be nice as well."

Thanks to the treasure chests, he had even more things to look forward to.

"I wonder if wasabi will appear next."

He had not eaten it here yet, but he was starting to crave sashimi.

"Ah, we have vinegar too, so we could make sushi. Though I do not know what kind of fish these are."

He judged mostly by appearance, but even that was unreliable since the colors and sizes were unusual, making him unsure.

"...Um, Fenrir? I think that is enough."

Qiong Xing had been stuffing the flopping fish into his bag one after another, but when it seemed to exceed ten, he finally stopped him.

"Hm? Is that so? Well, if we run out, we can just catch more."

"Exactly. I would like to come back and get more soy sauce as well."

"It feels like you may be misunderstanding what a dungeon is... but oh well."

Qiong Xing recalled that Albe had said something similar, but since he only felt gratitude toward the dungeon so far, he did not think much of it.

Perhaps because he had been thinking about food the whole time, he started to feel hungry.

Since he had the chance, he decided to try the fish Fenrisúlfr had caught.

"For now, let us try grilling them."

He thought they might be mackerel, but since they were yellow, he could not be certain.

So, grilling them seemed like the safest option.

"We have salt, soy sauce, and miso. Which flavor would you like, Fenrisúlfr?"

"I want to try all of them!"

It seemed the great Fenrisulfr’s palate was steadily becoming more refined. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Since Fenrisúlfr had worked hard, Qiong Xing decided to prepare all of them as requested.

He did briefly wonder if Fenrir could get fat, but he wisely chose not to say it aloud.

...

"Following the smell to get here makes me feel like a dog, and I have mixed feelings about it."

When Albe and the others arrived, they are wearing complicated expressions just as their words suggested.

Qiong Xing felt a bit guilty that they had worked hard to find him while he had been leisurely eating fish, so he handed over the fish he had been about to eat.