Dungeons and Dalliances (Futa LitRPG)

3.13 - Kitchen Duty

Bright and early the next morning, after a quick, cold breakfast, Natalie attended to her punishment: kitchen duty.

Their team hadn't been the only one sentenced to it. Unsurprisingly, a significant portion of the freshmen student base had overstayed their dungeon first run. Five hours from class end to curfew didn't leave much time to get anything done, and pushing for more had gotten them caught. Real delves took a full day at least. The smaller week-day ones were plenty for earning experience, though. Both the literal sort and the class-based sort. And monster-core farming, which, while not the only way to start working toward credits and gear, was definitely the predominant method.

The looks of muted outrage amused Natalie. Conforming to how Tenet ran every other aspect of the campus, status of birth didn't exempt princes and princesses from cleaning floors and scrubbing dishes. Some were less happy about that than others. None looked pleased, but to be fair, that was probably because who would be pleased attending kitchen duty this early in the morning? Natalie certainly wasn't. Only some of their indignation came from their noble status, and the rest of it, from a mundane source.

There were three cafeterias scattered through campus, and the good news was, she did get assigned to the same one as Jordan. The bad news was that things were hectic enough there weren't many opportunities to talk. Though, one did eventually come. Scrubbing dutifully away with hand-brushes, on their knees, they found a chance to chat.

"You think they'd give us a mop, at least," Natalie grumbled. "This is so inefficient."

"I get the feeling efficiency isn't the point," Jordan said. "They have actual staff for that."

"Still." Being put to work was one thing, but being put to busy work was another.

A few moments passed, rough bristles scratching away at tile.

"So," Jordan said. "Explanation time?"

Natalie sighed, knowing it had been coming. She'd even been looking forward to it; she wanted to get the ordeal off her chest. Still, she couldn't be wholly excited to detail all the bizarre stuff that had gone on, yesterday.

"Which part should I start with?"

"How about why you snuck a core out?"

"Because it's full of potions of infertility."

The scrubbing stopped. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"Infertility?"

"Yup."

"Okay," Jordan said slowly, drawing the word out. "And how did that happen?"

"Remember the 'trap' I fell into?"

"Could hardly forget."

"Not so much a trap."

"Kay?"

"More of an encounter."

"Of ... a different type?"

"Very sticky sort, yeah."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I got shown a very good time by an excited mass of vines."

Jordan stared at her.

"And once it was done having its way with me," Natalie said, "I was rewarded with practically a bathtub's worth of infertility potions. The dungeon cares about my career, I guess. How considerate."

For a long moment, Jordan didn't respond. Natalie didn't blame her for that.

Finally, Jordan shook her head to clear it.