Penelope brought the shield with her to the one with the grasshopper on it.

  The monster was no longer silver and was a lot easier to shove off of the metal.

  Ula waved at her as the group approached. “It looks like you’ve been busy.” The tanned grandmother smiled. “Thanks for the gear, Sweetie. I don’t know if we would have survived our first fight without it.” The older woman looked around. “I don’t know how you do it by yourself.”

  “I can clear the first room without going inside, and that gives me two levels. After that, I’m higher level than everything, so it’s just a matter of mana management.” Penelope swallowed and turned to the pile of gear that she had been moving around. “This is all stuff I can’t use, if you want any of it.”

  “I don’t want to—.”

  “The ring is mine!” Dawson ran over to the pile.

  Penelope looked at the pile of items. Everything except Mamozin had gone into the pile.

  She had thought for a moment about keeping the hand crossbow, but she wasn’t going to use it over her spells, and Marlow was trying to use a bow, so that would help him out when he wasn’t casting healing spells on the group.

  “Are you sure?” Ula picked up the War Hammer. “This is a really good weapon.”

  “I can’t use it, and I won’t be able to sell it until after we kill the floor boss.” Penelope shrugged as she picked up the short sword and hacked into the leg of the closest Demonic Mole.

  “What are you doing?” Patrick looked away from the items. There wasn’t anything there that he could use.

  “What do you mean ‘until after we kill the floor boss’?” Marlow stopped inspecting the weapon to focus on her. Concern covered the gentle mid-forties man’s face.

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  “Oh… um.” Penelope swallowed. “I thought we’d need to eat.”

  “You think I’m going to eat that?” Dawson glared at her.

  “We’ll probably get sick if we try to eat it raw.” Patrick walked over to the mole drumstick and touched two fingers to the bloody meat, then smelled his fingers. “Yeah, definitely will make us sick.”

  “I can cook it.” Penelope held out her hand. “Light Beam.” She focused on controlling the intensity and the range so that it shot only a foot out of her palm. She looked away as she dismissed the spell. “I can use the shield as a stovetop; I just need someone to cut them into steaks.”

  The other people just stared at her for a moment until Ula clapped her hands.

  “You were complaining about being hungry an hour ago!” The grandmother pulled a dagger out of her belt. “I’ll do the butchering. Marlow, you bring the meat to her. Patrick, help me move these monsters around. Dawson—.”

  “I’m not touching that!” The young man sliced his hands in front of him. “Let me know if it works.”

  Ula shook her head as he walked away. “Sorry about him, Sweetie. He’s a good kid, just opinionated sometimes.”

  Penelope shrugged. “We don’t really need him.” Her eyes lit up. “Oh yeah! I killed a big frog over there.” She pointed north. “I don’t know if there is anything we can eat on it but the legs, but it would be white meat.”

  “I love frog legs!” The older woman smiled. “Once Patrick helps me move these moles, he can go get them.”

  “I can?” The stocky man wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

  “You’re not going to be doing anything once we get the moles closer to the holes.” Ula looked at the two older men. “Unless you want to switch jobs with Marlow, but I don’t think he’ll be able to carry them as well as you can.”

  The two men exchanged a look.

  “It’s fine.” Patrick grumbled. “I’ll go get your frog legs.”

  “Great!” The grandmother sliced off the skin, deboned it, then tossed the quarters onto the shield. “There’s you some to start with. Now come on.”

  Penelope recast and started cooking. Her bonus from the Cook job gave every steak a bonus, though she didn’t get as much experience for the job as she had before.

  “That’s because after a while you aren’t learning anything new; you’re just going through the motions of what you already know.”

  She nodded and continued grilling.

  Once Patrick made it back with the pair of frog legs, the three older people went west to the group that Penelope had most recently finished. They finished butchering the legs from the two moles over there, then they brought the meat back.

  “We need to find a water source.” Ula sat down across from Penelope. “If we’d known we were going to be trapped down here, then Marlow would have taken water as his affinity, but we didn’t.” The older woman eyed the younger one. “You look like a natural flipping the steaks with that dagger. You work as a cook at a restaurant?

  Penelope shook her head. ”I guess I’ve grilled enough, and this isn’t that much different.”

  “Right…” The older woman looked over at the two older men who were talking about how they should dissect the monsters. She turned back to Penelope. "Earlier, you said that we could leave once we defeated the floor boss. Why do you think that?”

  Penelope swallowed. “Whenever we beat a square, the barrier between the safe zone and the cleared square disappears. If the floor boss is the main thing that is being kept on the first floor, then it sounds like we should be able to leave before we go down to the next floor.” She shrugged. “I can’t believe the person who made this place would create a system where we’d be just as trapped as the monsters and unable to get out to resupply.”

  “HEY! I didn’t think that humans would be crazy enough to charge into a Dungeon without bringing supplies!”

  Penelope focused her thoughts on her invisible companion. Then why didn’t you set up a way for them to get supplies?

  There was silence for a moment, which was enough time for the other woman to continue her side of the conversation.

  “That’s a good point!” Ula smiled. “You don’t know how much you’ve made my day, sweetie!” She looked over the other woman. “You’re a pretty sharp one. You know, we’d love to have you join us.”

  “Thank you…” Penelope flipped a steak and looked over at the younger man. “But I don’t think Dawson shares that opinion.”

  “Don’t worry about him!” Ula waved the comment away. “He just doesn’t know how to act in front of a pretty girl like yourself. Give him some time to get to know you, and I’m sure the two of you will get along like two peas in a pod.”

  Penelope blushed, and her stomach turned at the idea. “If you think so.” She focused on her cooking. She had managed to get the mana consumption down low enough that she wasn’t using mana any faster than she was spending it. For fighting a monster, it wouldn’t be very effective, but for maintaining heat, it was more than enough.

  “Oh, no reason to get embarrassed. Not much else to do down here other than fighting.” The grandmother nodded at the other two men. “And I haven’t decided which one of them I want yet, but I’ll let you know when I figure it out.” She winked.

  “Um…” Penelope swallowed as she tried to process what the other woman was implying. “Thanks, but I’m not thinking about anything like that. I just want to clear the Dungeon so I can go back home to my life.”

  “Really?” Ula waved her hands around. “We’re on another planet somewhere out in space. There was an ELF talking to us! How can you go back to your life after seeing all of this?”

  Penelope opened her mouth but closed it without speaking.

  “See, Sweetie?” The older woman smiled. “There’s no going back even if you do get back.” She tilted her head. “Might as well start thinking about what our new normal is.”

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