The Dungeon Inn - English

B01C22 - Meat problem

The next day while preparing meals, I thought about our meat problem again. Luckily, Sarah was a vegetarian and while Hilda preferred the mushroom soup, it didn't matter to her whether there was meat in it or not. Bruno, on the other hand, insisted on having meat for lunch, but like Karl, he didn't care about the type of meat. Karl didn't eat as much per meal as Bruno, but he wanted meat every time. So even without guests we didn't need a small amount of meat. Bruno wasn't complaining yet that the horn rabbits had become rarer, but as soon as he did, it might be too late. After all, we won't be the only enemies who eat them.

Breeding in the dungeon will also not be possible as they are herbivores and Hilda has emphasized several times that plants cannot possibly survive inside. Even the glowing crystals with their strong light shouldn't be able to help. Breeding outside would be an option, but I didn't want to inflate Bruno's responsibilities too much. So if I wanted to pursue the idea, I should summon someone specifically for it, like with the mushroom farm. After all, it's not just the rabbits that need care, but also the fields with vegetables. But that brings back the problem, that I need an excuse for where the person is suddenly coming from.

An alternative to breeding is of course using other sources of meat. That's why I made a deal with Simon's group to use their loot from time to time. This gave us access to snake meat, which we were currently using. But should I rely on the adventurers' frequent visits? It was still too risky for me to send Bruno deeper into the forest alone. The adventurers are always in groups of four and are probably much more experienced in combat than Bruno. So far only one snake had strayed to us. Hilda's frog legs weren't really an alternative, on the one hand because there was hardly any meat and on the other hand because it was something very exotic.

There are still the wolves that once attacked us when Simon's old group was seriously wounded. Maybe I should try to attract some, as long as I have some snake meat left. The improvised door also allows us to better control the amount of wolves coming in and if we do it at night again, we can use the glow crystal as a weapon. We can see the wolves well, but they will be blinded when entering the cave and are therefore less dangerous.

I told the others about my plan at lunch.

"Master, I understand your thought, but I find it a bit dangerous. The other day we had two experienced adventurers with us and now it would only be Sarah, who will be a great help with her magic, but I would feel safer with more combat power. We shouldn't endanger our existence because of some meat."

"Then what do you think about, if we let Heinrich and the carrier skeleton fight with us? We still have two swords lying around, so they could be equipped without any problems."

"Hmm, I would first have to convince myself of their fighting ability."

"Wait, you guys just want to use my Heinrich without permission?"

"Would you rather fight for him."

"Hah, don't be ridiculous. But what do you do, if he gets hurt? I don't plan on losing him lightly, he's such a good soul."

"I wouldn't know how to heal a skeleton, although I'm not sure how easily its bones give way."

"We're talking about wolves here, you've seen Karl eating bones often enough. I think some protection for him should be the minimum. As far as I'm concerned, the carrier skeleton can die. A soulless person is easy to replace, but who knows whether we will get another good soul like Heinrich."

"I see, would it calm you down, if we used the rest of the arm and leg braces?"

After we talked to Hilda a bit more, we got her permission to use Heinrich. Not that she had the final say on the matter, but why create strife when you can avoid it? I'm not sure how we managed to attach the braces to his bones, but after a few tries it worked. They weren't designed to be attached to bone-thin arms.

Bruno then tested the fighting abilities of the two skeletons. Heinrich turned out to be quite skilled with a sword. The supporting skeleton, on the other hand, was a bit too stiff. It could help a little, but you shouldn't rely on it too much. Luckily for Bruno it was still enough, he said, together with the two new factors door and light, the advantage should be on our side.

When night fell, I prepared the flesh of a snake and this time instead of letting the blood be absorbed by the dungeon, I brought it in a bowl close to the entrance. Bruno had fetched one of the glow crystals as late as possible so that we should have enough time to attract. After a while we heard the familiar howl of the wolves and soon the first wolf squeezed through the narrow crack in the door. Bruno was at the front and struck it with his club, which he had been keeping ready since the howling, and killed the first wolf. The second one didn't wait until Bruno was ready again, but on the contrary used the club to jump off it and attack Bruno's neck. Sarah didn't let it get that far and sent out an icicle, that wounded the wolf and threw it to the side. As soon as he was on the ground, Heinrich gave him a sword blow for good measure. A third wolf slid under the now raised club and was greeted by my spear. Although Bruno wasn't happy about having me so close to the front, he also felt that it was important not only to train, but also to gain combat experience. As always, Sarah was close to me and could have intervened, if I had missed him. The fourth wolf suffered the same fate as the first and we were back at the beginning of the rotation. Our tactic seemed to be working until the sixth wolf pushed against the door and opened it further. We had taken out the door latch to be able to open it, but there was currently no way to reattach it to the half-open door. The last two wolves immediately took advantage of this and jumped in at the same time. Luckily, Bruno was ready again and this time struck diagonally, but he was only able to catch one of the wolves, the other one was only slightly thrown to the side. But the wolf didn't get far as an icicle soon impaled him from the front. Sarah had reacted immediately when she saw the wider door and was therefore able to stop him in time.

"Phew, that went well again. If we do that again, we should see if we can fixate the door somehow."

This meant we were able to replenish our meat supply without further reducing the horn hare population.

But I soon had to listen to a lecture and face new problems.