Dungeon Bakery – Chapter 7.1

Author: isuzuuy

“Upload Suggestion”

Baek Seol uploaded the suggestion she had painstakingly written and stretched her arms. Now that she was actually using the skill for the first time to write a suggestion, she had put in more effort than she had expected. As a result, quite a bit of time had passed, and her body felt stiff.

Baek Seol stood up from her seat and rolled her shoulders before staring intently at the Suggestion Board, which had yet to disappear.

New I Have a Suggestion~♡

The previously empty board now had exactly one post on it—hers.

“Why can’t I change the title……?”

Baek Seol felt a little annoyed. Wasn’t this just like an online shopping mall’s refund board?

There had once been a turtleneck she had bought after seeing a picture of it and deciding to splurge because it looked so pretty. But when it actually arrived, it was far too small. She had wanted to write a review saying that it was so tight she could practically use the turtleneck as a scarf, thereby exposing the shopping mall’s atrocious behavior to everyone, but……

‘The post was automatically made private, and the title was fixed as “I’d Like to Request a Refund~♡.”’

It was obvious that this was a trick to keep other customers from seeing the shopping mall’s dirty laundry, so she had not been particularly pleased about it.

As that experience came to mind, Baek Seol was staring at the board with an inexplicably unpleasant feeling when—

“Hek, hek……!”

The door connected to the dungeon suddenly burst open with a bang, and Lucy fluttered inside. A leaf that had clearly been brought from the dungeon was clenched in Lucy’s beak. The leaf was enormous, and it seemed he had wrapped something inside it like a bundle and carried it back.

“Oh, you’re already back?”

What? I guess it really was easy to find.

Thinking that sending Lucy had been a great idea after all, Baek Seol quickly fetched a cup of water.

“You worked hard, Lucy. Here. Have some water.”

“Ppi…….”

The moment he entered the bakery, Lucy dropped the bundle on the floor, then sprawled flat on the table and glared resentfully at Baek Seol.

“Supporters are supposed to laze around and eat while their owners work, ppi…….”

“Who says that?”

“Everyone knows that, ppi! It’s basic common sense, ppi!”

Baek Seol scratched her cheek.

“Uh, sorry. I guess I’m a little lacking in common sense.”

“Ppiii……!”

She apologized. Why was he getting so worked up?

Baek Seol gazed indifferently at Lucy, who was still lying on the table and kicking his feet.

“Then this is the fruit of the Young Yggdrasil……? This?”

“Yes, ppi…….”

When Baek Seol showed little reaction, Lucy’s enthusiasm seemed to deflate completely, and he answered in an empty voice.

Oh. So this is what the bread ingredients look like?

Baek Seol rolled up her sleeves and quickly untied the bundle. As she unfolded the leaves one by one, a thought suddenly crossed her mind.

‘So there are trees in the dungeon…….’

The leaf was broad and long, almost like a banana leaf, and looked incredibly fresh, as if it had just been picked. But it was clearly a leaf that did not exist on Earth. That was because it was covered in strange patterns she had never seen before.

“That is a leaf of Yggdrasil, ppi. Yggdrasil grows its offspring by scattering them around each world, and those are the Young Yggdrasils. Only the fruit produced by the Young Yggdrasil can serve as the flour, the basic ingredient of bread, ppi.”

As Baek Seol stared blankly at the leaf, Lucy cleared his throat and began rattling off information. In truth, it was information Baek Seol had little interest in.

“Ah. I see.”

She nodded absentmindedly and continued unwrapping the leaves. Eventually, the fruits Lucy had picked were revealed. The apricot-colored fruits were about the size of Baek Seol’s index-fingernail, and there were quite a lot of them.

So I make powder out of these?

Hmm. So……

“How exactly am I supposed to turn these into powder?”

The freshly picked fruits looked far too fresh. They seemed impossible to turn into powder as they were.

“If you leave those fruits away from the Yggdrasil for about an hour, they will naturally turn into powder, ppi. In the meantime, why don’t you buy the remaining ingredients from the underground shop, ppi?”

Lucy spoke with an oddly exhausted expression.

Ah. The underground shop.

Come to think of it, he had said that the underground shop would automatically unlock once she obtained the ingredients.

‘And new recipes will appear, too.’

Feeling a little excited, Baek Seol picked up the fruits and tried putting them into her inventory.

This should work, right……?

Perhaps her guess had been correct, because a window immediately appeared.

<System: The Underground Shop will be unlocked upon fulfilling the ‘First Ingredient Acquired’ condition.>

<System: A new recipe will be unlocked upon fulfilling the ‘First Ingredient Acquired’ condition.>

Done.

With a satisfied expression, Baek Seol opened the recipe first.

New! Moist White Bread

The most basic and fundamental bread of any bakery. It is incredibly moist.

Race Compatibility: Slime-type ◎, ???

Effect: Makes the body moist.>

So this was the bread slimes liked.

Baek Seol lowered her gaze slightly and checked the ingredients for the Moist White Bread.

<Required Ingredients: Young Yggdrasil Fruit Powder, Dungeon Sugar, Dungeon Salt, Fresh Dungeon Yeast, Butter Made from the Milk of an Eight-Colored Unicorn, Water>

Wait.

Dungeon sugar and salt, fresh yeast, and…… an Eight-Colored Unicorn……?

“Why are there so many ingredients……?”

“Baking is naturally like that, ppi.”

Baek Seol had never had the slightest interest in baking or cooking, so seeing the excessive number of ingredients already made her head hurt.

I wonder if I can buy all of these from the underground shop……?

Apparently, there was no need to worry.

Baek Seol opened the newly unlocked Underground Shop tab and looked through the list of items for sale. Slowly, she closed her mouth.

‘There are…… so many……?’

It was filled with ingredients she had never seen in her life. But fittingly for something called an underground shop, the prices were astronomical.

“Wait. Dungeon Sugar costs 1,000 points for one bag?”

The bag itself looked smaller than her fist.

The same went for Dungeon Salt and Fresh Dungeon Yeast. No, those were actually among the cheaper items.

“Gasp. Butter the size of my palm costs 2,000 points……?”

Isn’t this way too expensive?

While Baek Seol stared wide-eyed, Lucy flopped down onto the table and grumbled.

“Of course. These are ingredients you can obtain without doing any labor, so it can’t be helped, ppi. There will probably be a limit on how many you can purchase as well, ppi.”

“Ugh. You’re right.”

Just as Lucy had said, the purchase quantity for all of them was limited to two.

Judging from the “6 days 23 hours 55 minutes……” written beneath the window, it seemed the purchase limit reset once a week.

I guess I have to buy them for now.

The money she had earned after completing the quests amounted to exactly 10,000 points. On top of that, she had spent nearly 4,000 points decorating the interior.

‘Then if I buy these, I won’t have any points left.’

Can’t I just not buy them……?

Baek Seol glanced at Lucy. As if he had read something in her eyes, Lucy hurriedly backed away.

“You can’t get those ingredients, ppi. They’re not something I can obtain, ppi.”

“……Hmm.”

His voice was filled with genuine determination. Judging from how firmly he said it, they really must be ingredients that even Lucy had difficulty obtaining.

Ugh. I guess I have no choice.

‘At least I’ll get money once I complete the quest…….’

Although it seemed like she was spending more than she would earn, she had to proceed with the quest for now. It wasn’t just about the money. For some reason, the disappointed expression on the slime’s face kept lingering in her mind.

Without hesitation, Baek Seol purchased the ingredients.

Chrrr—

She heard the sound of her points disappearing as the ingredients piled up in her inventory.

“Okay. Then shall we wait until the Young Yggdrasil fruits turn into powder……?”

Exactly one hour later, just as Lucy had said, the fruits had turned into powder.

Baek Seol stared at the apricot-colored powder that had once been fruit inside her inventory, then headed toward the kitchen.

Now that she had all the ingredients, she was going to try using baking skill.

“Baking.”

Perhaps because she now had a recipe, a system window different from before appeared.

<System: The baking skill will be used. The recipe ‘Moist White Bread’ has been automatically selected.>

<System: The required ingredients will be consumed.>

Then Baek Seol’s hands, which had never baked anything in her life, began moving automatically.

She mixed the fruit powder with water, combined the Dungeon Sugar, Salt, Fresh Yeast, and Butter in the appropriate amounts, and began kneading the dough. The movements were so fast that they were almost impossible to see.

‘Wow……. I’ve already finished kneading. So do I just leave it like this to ferment now?’

While waiting for Lucy, Baek Seol had searched baking on her smartphone and learned that fermentation came after kneading.

But her hands did not stop even after the kneading was complete.

An orange glow emanated from her hands as they hovered over the dough, and the dough gradually began to swell.

‘Does it ferment automatically from the kneading stage?’

As if to confirm Baek Seol’s thoughts, once fermentation was complete, her hands automatically slapped the dough several times to release the gas before dividing it into three equal portions.

After that, they pulled a bread pan out of a drawer—one Baek Seol had no idea where it had been hiding—and neatly placed the dough inside.

From there, it took less than five minutes before the bread pan went into an oven that Baek Seol had no idea when it had even finished preheating.

‘I-Is the skill over now?’

Then did she just have to wait until the bread was finished?

As if laughing at Baek Seol’s thoughts, the oven immediately rang with a ding!

‘Huh?’

Her hands moved automatically once again, carefully opening the oven and taking out the bread.

After lightly brushing the remaining butter over the top, they sliced the loaf into easy-to-eat pieces with a bread knife.

Only then did her hands stop.

“…….”

The savory aroma of freshly baked bread brushed the tip of her nose.

This baking skill was really incredible……?

It made bread in an instant!

“Ahem. It’s too early to be surprised by something like that, ppi. There are even more things to be surprised about…….”

For some reason, Lucy seemed to be puffing out his chest from somewhere in the distance, but Baek Seol was too astonished to pay him any attention.

The delicious aroma filled the bakery and began wafting out through the cracks of the brown door.

And perhaps because it had caught the scent, the brown door soon opened with a jingle!

“Kyung!”

Baek Seol hurriedly grabbed the bread and went outside.

There, she saw the pink slime that had left earlier looking disappointed.

The slime was bouncing around, somehow looking incredibly excited.

‘So I just sell this now?’

With quick movements, Baek Seol moved the red bean buns from the display shelf into her inventory and placed the white bread on display.

The slime immediately bounced toward the display shelf at lightning speed.

“Kyu-u!”

Just as Baek Seol felt that the slime’s tiny black bead-like eyes were sparkling, it jumped up and snatched the white bread.

The freshly baked bread, still giving off wisps of steam, instantly entered the slime’s body and began dissolving.

Gulp.

A Satisfaction bar appeared above the slime, and Baek Seol stared at it with tense eyes.

***

At the same time, a new post appeared on Another.

[Title: Guys. Did you see the post on the Suggestion Board? Author: Noble Hunter]

Hey guys. Remember the post I made last time? I posted that a separate board called the Suggestion Board had appeared.

There’s actually a post on it now, right? Who wrote it? And there’s even a reply.

I tried to read it, but it just says, “This is a private post,” so I can’t see it. Someone tell me who wrote it.

-Comments:

AfricaYouth: That’s not important right now.

Noble Hunter: Huh?

AfricaYouth: You don’t know? The system window design has changed. Hunters are going crazy right now.

Noble Hunter: What do you mean, the design changed?

AfricaYouth: I mean the design of the system window that appears for every Awakened has changed!

SimilarEgg: Honestly, the system window was ugly as hell. It looks so much better now that it’s changed.

InsuranceOfSinbad: Yeah. The system window annoyed the hell out of me too. Didn’t everyone feel that way? I have no idea why it suddenly changed, but I like it. LOL.

Noble Hunter: Holy crap…….

***

The Satisfaction bar was slowly rising when a system window suddenly appeared.

<System: A reply has been posted on the Suggestion Board.>

Oh. There’s already a reply?

It had only been a little over ten minutes.

But right now, the slime’s satisfaction was more important to Baek Seol than the reply. So she only skimmed the system window that appeared afterward.

<System: Your suggestion has been accepted, and the system will be modified. The system’s design will be changed.>

Baek Seol stared at the Satisfaction bar above the slime’s head as it continued filling up.

The bar that had stopped at around 70% several hours ago continued rising without stopping.

Finally, it reached the very end, accompanied by a small fireworks effect.

“Kyuuk!”

The slime bounced happily.

Baek Seol noticed that the slime’s pink body had begun to shine with a glossy luster.

“Wow……. I guess the slime is completely satisfying.”

Seeing the delighted slime somehow made her feel warm and fuzzy inside, and Baek Seol lightly wiped her nose.

Another system window appeared.

But this one was slightly different from the previous ones.

<System: Congratulations! You have completed the quest.>