Dungeon Bakery Chapter 23

‘There it is…….’

It was a night cloaked in pitch-black darkness.

Baek Seol carefully adjusted the black cloth draped over her head before cautiously poking her head out from between the bushes. The distance to her target was about ten meters. If she got a little closer and pounced, she could catch it!

Narrowing her eyes, she slowly straightened the back she had kept bent. Beside her, Slime No. 97 was pressed tightly against her, sending her an encouraging look.

Baek Seol nodded with a determined expression.

‘This time, your big sis is definitely going to succeed……!’

The target still hadn’t noticed her!

Baek Seol shot forward like an arrow and threw herself toward her target.

Hyah! Just stay still and let me catch you!

“I got you……! Huh?”

The target, which looked as though it was about to fall right into her grasp, let out a strange screech—“Kkieek!”—and twisted its body away at the last second.

As a result, Baek Seol, who had launched herself into the air, grabbed an empty space and went tumbling across the ground.

“Ow, ow, ow. Ah! Stop right there!”

Bathed in moonlight, the creature had a body shaped almost like a tiny person.

No, rather than a person, it looked like a ginseng root shaped like a person……? That was probably the closest comparison.

Its appearance was oddly familiar.

“Ugh. You never said mandragoras were this fast. Lucy, you idiot!”

After failing to catch the mandragora once again, Baek Seol flopped face-first onto the bushes and twisted her arms and legs in frustration.

That was right.

The thing Baek Seol was trying to catch was the strange plant she had encountered the other day—the mandragora.

‘I think it would be good to add mandragora as an ingredient, ppi. In alchemy, mandragora plays a role in strengthening the effects of other ingredients, ppi. You should choose the ingredient that has the largest quantity among all the ingredients, ppi. For example, sugar, ppi.’

‘Alchemy……?’

‘Yes, ppi. Who am I, ppi? Am I not the Staff of the World, ppi? This great Staff has mastered even alchemy…….’

Lucy’s words after that had all been self-praise, so Baek Seol had let them go in one ear and out the other.

But she had listened carefully to everything he had said about mandragoras.

The first time Baek Seol encountered a mandragora had been during the bright daylight hours.

Mandragoras were nocturnal plants that slept during the day and woke up to move around at night. If you woke one while it was sleeping during the day, it would let out a bizarre sound before quickly dying.

‘Then couldn’t we just go during the day and harvest them? That sounds easier.’

‘Ahem. You don’t know what you’re talking about, ppi! A mandragora’s effects only manifest while it’s alive, ppi. You absolutely have to capture it alive at night, ppi!’

Because of Lucy’s adamant insistence, Baek Seol had no choice but to enter the dungeon in the middle of the night.

“I’m sorry for making you lose sleep because of me, Gu-chil.”

“Kyuk!”

As if trying to comfort her, Gu-chil approached and rubbed his cheek against hers like a cat. His cheek, glossy from eating so much white bread, felt wonderfully soft.

Ever since she entered the dungeon, he had suddenly appeared from somewhere and followed her around like a bodyguard.

He had always accompanied Baek Seol whenever she entered the dungeon after the last quest, but she hadn’t expected him to come out at night, too.

“Thank you, Gu-chil.”

“Kyu-uuuu~”

Without ever asking Slime No. 97 whether he liked it, Baek Seol had started calling him Gu-chil in her head. Then, while trying to catch the mandragora, she accidentally called him Gu-chil out loud.

Fortunately, Gu-chil seemed quite pleased with his new name. Every time she called him Gu-chil, he happily went kyu kyu.

“Haah. How am I supposed to catch that thing……?”

Lucy had only said that it was active at night. He never said anything about it being this nimble.

Baek Seol let out a deep sigh.

The mandragora was so fast that even when she and Gu-chil charged at it simultaneously, they couldn’t catch it.

‘I only need to catch one…….’

Urgh.

Baek Seol slowly pushed herself up from the ground.

Gu-chil must be sleepy, too. She couldn’t keep making him work like this. They needed to hurry, catch one, and go home.

‘Lucy said I just have to pull up the sugarcane and bring it back…….’

Once she caught the mandragora, the rest should be a piece of cake.

Renewing her determination, Baek Seol set off in search of the mandragora. She crept along carefully and, before long, found it.

It was located a little way down a hill. From the top, it looked as though she could simply reach out and grab it.

‘That looks like the one from earlier.’

That root-shaped body. It was familiar.

It had to be the same mandragora she had failed to catch earlier.

And fortunately, she was standing at the top of the hill.

Baek Seol swallowed nervously and slowly stretched out her hand.

She planned to simply reach down and grab it.

‘Good. Just like this…….’

The mandragora seemed completely unaware of the hand approaching it and sat peacefully on the hill.

Perhaps it was enjoying the breeze, because its eyes were gently closed, looking so……

“I got you!”

Delicious.

Baek Seol licked her lips as she looked at the mandragora caught in her hand.

Finally! She had caught the mandragora!

Overjoyed, Baek Seol only belatedly noticed that her body was tilting downward.

“Uh…… uhh?”

Come to think of it, her body had been standing on top of a hill.

And what happened when her center of gravity shifted forward?

Well, what else could happen?

She would topple forward and roll all the way down the hill.

“Aaaaah—!”

“Kyuk-kyuk!”

Like Newton discovering gravity after watching an apple fall, Baek Seol experienced a profound revelation and screamed in terror.

“Gaaaaah—! Help me! Gu-chil!”

“Kyu-uuuuuu!”

How long am I going to keep rolling?!

She had thought it was just a small hill.

But the slope stretched surprisingly far and deep.

Baek Seol hurriedly tried to grab the grass she could see, but all of it was withered, so it simply came loose in her hands.

After rolling and rolling for what felt like forever, Baek Seol’s eyes lit up when a black line suddenly appeared in front of her.

‘I have to grab that!’

If she didn’t catch it now, even she had no idea how far she would roll.

A lifeline!

And it was almost as if it had deliberately been extended for her to grab.

Baek Seol quickly reached out toward the black line.

Grab!

She had expected the black line to be hard, but surprisingly(?) it was warm and soft.

‘Huh?’

Almost like the body of a living creature.

But Baek Seol didn’t have the mental capacity to worry about that right now.

Because she clung tightly to the line that had saved her like her life depended on it, she was finally able to stop rolling.

“Ow, ow…….”

Fortunately, she hadn’t suffered any cuts from rolling over the withered weeds, but her entire body hurt as though she had been beaten up.

Baek Seol steadied her spinning vision and tried to look at the black shape in front of her.

As her vision gradually came into focus, she realized.

“……An elephant?”

The thing she had thought was a rope and had been clinging to was actually the trunk of the elephant standing in front of her.

And unlike the elephants she knew, this elephant was smaller and much cuter.

‘It looks like the elephant from that cartoon.’

What was its name again? Dumbo?

Its huge ears and round eyes especially reminded her of it.

The elephant, which still seemed to be a calf, had a black body, and it was only about the size of her face.

“Uh…… thank you. You saved me.”

“Ppoo.”

Its body was smaller than that of a normal elephant, but its trunk was much longer.

Without thinking, Baek Seol slowly released the elephant’s trunk that she had been holding.

The moment she let go, the trunk curled back toward the elephant as if it were alive, gradually shrinking back to its normal length.

“Wow…….”

So it really wasn’t an ordinary elephant after all.

Although it looked similar to an elephant, the creature standing before her was a monster.

She had never seen it featured on the YouTube channel Dungeon Expedition, which she liked watching, though.

The Black Rabbit that had visited her bakery yesterday had been the same.

“Thanks to you, I’m alive. I won’t forget this kindness.”

“Ppo.”

As if to say it was nothing, the Black Elephant flapped its ears and gently pulled Baek Seol’s wrist with its trunk.

It seemed to be telling her to follow.

Baek Seol silently followed behind it until she found Gu-chil, who was making little groaning noises as he searched for her.

“Gu-chil!”

“Kyuk!!”

While Baek Seol was sharing the joy of their reunion with Gu-chil, the Black Elephant had disappeared without her noticing.

“Uh…… I was going to give it something.”

Baek Seol sighed regretfully as she remembered the white bread and red bean buns she had packed in her bag just in case.

But her heart was already thoroughly worn out. She didn’t have the energy to go searching for the Black Elephant after it had already left.

And the mandragora clutched in her hand might wake up at any moment, too.

“I think this mandragora fainted.”

“Kyu-kyu!”

“Yeah. We should hurry and find the sugarcane, right? Before it wakes up.”

Thanks to the desperate effort she had made to hold on to it while rolling down the hill, the mandragora was still in Baek Seol’s possession.

It seemed to have been knocked unconscious after hitting something during the fall.

Seeing the mandragora’s eyes spinning in circles, Baek Seol quickly began retracing the path she had come from.

Gu-chil was familiar with the dungeon’s geography and knew where the sugarcane grew.

‘If I meet that elephant again, I have to repay it properly.’

She had no idea when they might meet again.

But contrary to Baek Seol’s wistful thoughts as she followed Gu-chil, she was reunited with the Black Elephant almost immediately.

“Oh! It’s that elephant from earlier!”

“Kyu!”

Gu-chil bounced excitedly as if to confirm it.

Baek Seol was about to run toward it happily when……

“Huh?”

She stopped when she realized something was wrong.

The Black Elephant was surrounded by Black Rabbits.

‘The atmosphere feels kind of ominous.’

The Black Rabbits’ eyes gleamed with murderous intent, as if they were about to pounce on the Black Elephant at any moment.

They looked so vicious that it was hard to believe they were the same Black Rabbits as the one that had visited her bakery yesterday.

The Black Elephant was about the same size as the rabbits surrounding it, making it look as though it could be eaten by them at any moment.

‘This isn’t going to end well!’

Seeing the largest Black Rabbit, apparently the leader, charge toward the elephant, Baek Seol hurriedly ran forward.

Hadn’t she just decided to repay the kindness of the creature that had saved her?

“Gu-chil! Help me!”

Baek Seol shouted in a small voice.

She heard Gu-chil go kyu kyu as if he understood.

By now, Baek Seol had realized just how powerful Gu-chil was after being protected by him in the dungeon.

She planned to have Gu-chil draw their attention while she snatched the Black Elephant away.

But there was someone faster than Baek Seol.

Whoosh! Bam!

“Kiing!”

Baek Seol faltered to a stop.

‘That’s…….’

Amazingly, the one who had rescued the Black Elephant from the Black Rabbits……

was another Black Rabbit that had appeared from somewhere.

The Black Rabbit moved with incredible speed, kicked the leader Black Rabbit away with its hind legs, and then stood protectively in front of the Black Elephant.

Baek Seol recognized it when she saw its sullen eyes.

‘That’s the Black Rabbit that came yesterday!’

But why was it stopping its own kind?

While Baek Seol wondered, the Black Rabbits began to move.

The Black Rabbit that had visited the bakery was quickly driven onto the defensive.

Its entrance had been impressive, but it was hopelessly outnumbered.

Its body, battered within moments, began to turn faintly red.

Seeing its reddened body, Baek Seol suddenly came to her senses.

“Wait—!”

She quickly pushed herself between them.

The Black Rabbits’ eyes grew even more hostile when they saw her, and they looked ready to charge at her at any moment.

But then—

“Kyu-uu!”

When the Black Rabbits saw Gu-chil bouncing toward them right behind Baek Seol, they immediately turned tail and fled.

“Are you two okay?”

Baek Seol hurriedly checked the Black Rabbit and Black Elephant behind her, but the Black Rabbit merely twitched its nose before quickly leaving with the Black Elephant.

“……Sniff.”

“…….”

Did I just save those guys?

It didn’t really feel like it.

If anything, they had ignored her so completely that it was almost insulting.

……No.

Let’s correct that.

Gu-chil had saved them.

Haha.

Baek Seol stood blankly in the spot where everyone had disappeared, scratching the back of her head.

For some reason, she felt strangely empty.

“Huh……? This is a sugarcane field?”

Looking around, Baek Seol realized that this was a field of sugarcane.

But she soon noticed something strange.

The area was far too small.

And nearby, just like the other dungeon plants she had seen elsewhere, there were withered stalks of sugarcane scattered across the ground.

As though they were slowly disappearing.

 

***

 

“Hmm. So that’s what happened, ppi?”

Lucy looked intrigued after hearing everything that had happened inside the dungeon.

Baek Seol placed the black cloth she had been carrying on her back onto the table.

Inside the cloth was the unconscious mandragora.

“Yeah. Strange, right?”

“Hmmm. It certainly is strange, ppi. Black Rabbits are monsters that move in groups, ppi. For one to act alone…… ppi.”

“And it even rescued another monster from its own kind.”

“Hmmmmmmmm.”

Lucy rubbed his beak with one wing.

He seemed to be trying to deduce the reason, but that didn’t mean he knew all the answers.

Strange. Very strange.

Leaving Lucy muttering to himself, Baek Seol handed him the black cloth.

“Here. Make sure the mandragora stays out of the light. I’m going to process the sugarcane.”

“Ppi! Why do I have to do that, ppi?!”

“Ahem. Do you know how much I’ve been through today?”

“……Ppi.”

Baek Seol left the mandragora in Lucy’s care and headed for the kitchen.

As the great Staff of the World who had mastered alchemy, Lucy should be perfectly capable of taking care of it.

After finishing the processing, Baek Seol began preparing to make cookies.