---This happened during the fifteen days we spent traveling on foot to the post town of Karna, after Welf's change of heart(?) and roughly two months spent in Joringham.
The incident began with the goddess's complaint.
"Say, Talos."
"Yes?"
"Aren't we eating the same things too often? It's always either soup, smoked meat, or grilled meat."
"It is strange to expect anything else while camping in the first place."
"No, come on. We could barbecue fresh meat! Sprinkle on spices, roast marshmallows, things like that!"
"First, is there anyone here capable of hunting? Second, we did not buy spices, so can you gather edible spices or herbs? Third, we did not buy marshmallows."
"Ehh..."
"You never told me to buy them, so I did not."
"If you're a Familia member, you should naturally read your goddess's mind and accommodate her!"
As I bickered with the goddess, Welf—who had been mooching meals off us the entire time—quietly inserted himself into the conversation.
"Um, then shall I cook, Sm... Talos?"
"...? You know how to cook?"
"Well, nobody has ever collapsed after eating something I made... right?"
"That's true. All right, Welf is today's chef! Talos is banished from the kitchen~!"
And so, that evening—when we still had around ten days before reaching Karna—Welf picked up a frying pan and kitchen knife instead of a hammer.
"So, what are you making?"
"Hmm... Smoked duck has plenty of fat, and eating fat doesn't have any particularly bad effects on us, so I'll stir-fry the smoked duck, then stir-fry the dried vegetables in the rendered fat."
"As for seasonings, all we have is salt and pepper."
"That's fine! I have something I used to carry around when I lived on my own!"
"Hmm..."
Something... something felt unsettling.
Still, he had lived on his own until now. Surely he could make something fit for human consumption... right?
"I'm looking forward to it."
"Yes, sir!"
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A boy performs a fire show with cooking oil.
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No, smoked duck may be fatty, but could preserved food really produce flames like that?
And when I glanced behind him, the flat rock he was using to lay out ingredients was lined with seasonings and spices that I definitely had not taken out. About five of them?
...But why did I feel so uneasy? It looked deliciously greasy, and it smelled good too... yet something, something felt wrong.
This sensation of the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. I had not done much serious adventuring in the Dungeon, merely hunting monsters suited to my level without ever facing much danger, but there had been one time when I felt my life was truly at risk.
An Infant Dragon—a rare monster, one and a half meters tall and four meters long, effectively treated as a Monster Rex on the upper floors where no actual Monster Rex existed.
That day, too, I had been adventuring solo, casually smashing through Hard Armored with frontal assaults. From far away, screams and shouts rang out amid vibrations that made the ground beneath my feet rumble.
With a tingling feeling at the back of my neck and every hair standing erect, a survival instinct I had not even known I possessed went utterly berserk, sounding alarms that told me to flee this place at full speed, to run for the surface immediately.
I grabbed my backpack full of magic stones and hurried to run upward, only to see other adventurers running right past me toward the source of those sounds.
...Huh? Why were they running toward it? Judging by their speed, they were not at a level where they could take it easily. At best, early Level 2? One misstep, and it would be no different from all of them putting on a collective suicide parade. Why?
Sigh... If I had never seen them, that would be one thing, but if I watched them run off to die like that and later heard that a party had been wiped out, it would leave me restless at night. It would bother me.
With no choice, I tossed the magic-stone bag—which would only weigh me down—into some corner, grabbed the axe I had brought that day, the [Crescent Axe] from Dark Souls, and ran in the same direction.
"...Seriously, just don't die before I get there. It'll leave a bad taste in my mouth...!"
When I arrived, fortunately, the adventurer party that had run past me was still alive... but on the ground lay corpses: one torn into upper and lower halves, and another whose only relatively intact part was its severed head.
...They must have been the people behind the screams and shouts I heard at first.
After offering a brief prayer for the dead, I ran toward where the Infant Dragon was fighting the four-person party.
The party had a textbook-balanced composition. A mage was preparing an incantation in the rear, two swordsmen held the front line, and a spearman waited for an opening a short distance away, thrusting in whenever one appeared.
"Smith of the Hephaestus Familia, joining the fight!"
They might finish it off and stab me in the back afterward, so I shouted my Familia's name first and charged at the Infant Dragon.
I was wearing only half-plate rather than full heavy armor, so I leaped high and tried to bring my axe down directly on its forehead... but it turned and blocked with its tail, leaving no more than a wound on the tail.
At least, because I had struck it with a fairly large axe—not quite a greataxe, but close enough—it left a sizable gash.
ROOOOOOAR!
As it let out a pained shriek and thrashed its tail about, I fell back.
"...If we hold out until the mage in the rear finishes chanting, can we kill it?"
"It takes a while, but the damage from one shot is certain. Even if it doesn't kill it in one hit, it'll at least inflict a fatal wound."
I asked the short-haired swordsman while looking toward the mage still chanting in the back, and he gave me an affirmative answer.
After hearing him out, I added a small complaint.
"No, seriously. You clearly can't take down an Infant Dragon easily, so why did you come charging in like it was the most natural thing in the world?"
"...What about you?"
"I saw people running to their deaths right in front of me. Was I supposed to just let them? I followed because I figured it'd keep me awake at night otherwise."
"Us too... same reason..."
"Well, us too... yeah!"
We had been talking leisurely while catching our breath, but then the Infant Dragon swung its tail—blood streaming from it—at us. We dodged and went back on the offensive.
When it paused after swinging its tail, I brought my axe down once more on the wound I had made, a deep gash that exposed bone.
Thwack!
Since ancient times, they had said the best way to hurt someone was to hit the place you had already hit once more.
Perhaps because I had taken proper stance and struck the wounded spot dead-on, the tail sought freedom, shedding the restraints of bone, muscle, and scales as it flopped around and sprayed bright-red blood in every direction.
Simply put, it had been completely severed.
ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR!
"Shut up, you lizard bastard!"
As it went berserk from the pain of losing its tail, the two swordsmen, the spearman, and I—the axe wielder—all charged in at once and focused on attacking its legs, which were the easiest targets.
Slash, thrust, chop... The first thing to give out was its left hind leg.
At some point, its tendon must have snapped. The Infant Dragon crouched with its left rear foot collapsed beneath it, lashing out with its forelegs and its tail, now severed from the middle onward. Seizing the opening, I tried to attack its abdomen, but...
"...And thus, by the punishment of the great divine king, evil shall be destroyed!"
"[Vajra of the Stone Heavenly King]!"
The instant I heard the incantation behind me reach completion, I leaped sideways without even looking back.
Sure enough, not long after I jumped, a massive spear made of lightning—probably shaped after the Vajra, one of Indra's divine implements—struck it directly with a thunderous crash.
KRAAAAA-BOOM!!!
The moment the Vajra hit it, bolts of lightning spread in every direction with a clap of thunder.
The problem was... one of those bolts came flying at me too!
"You fucking piece of shit!"
In a hurry, I planted the Crescent Axe—with an all-metal haft, which I had been carrying as a makeshift lightning rod—into the path of the bolt racing toward me and leaped back again. Fortunately, after striking the axe, the lightning ran into the ground and no more bolts approached me, but...
"Hmm... Did it melt a little?"
The leather around the haft where the lightning had struck directly had already turned to ash and vanished, and it had even melted slightly.
It had heated up from the current, but that level of heat was nothing much to me. Still... the axe edge was completely ruined. And besides...
Bzzzz. Click!
Perhaps a weak magnetic field had formed, because it kept trying to stick to my armor. It would probably wear off by itself over time...
Come to think of it, with that much power, what happened to the magic stone...?!
I slung the axe, which kept trying to cling to my armor, loosely over my back and went to where dust had piled up. There, I found a large magic stone split into five or six pieces, along with the tailbone I had severed. The tailbone must have remained as a drop item.
Hmm... My share would probably amount to only two fragments of the magic stone at best. Hmm... At the very least, I should buy all the magic stones. Or perhaps trade the magic stones for making them a weapon from the bone.
And so, carrying the magic stones and drop item, I went over to the party resting nearby...
Unaware of how that connection would continue in the future...
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Ah, why had I suddenly started reminiscing about the past?
Right. I was feeling my life was in danger while watching Welf cook...?
"It's done! Eat it quickly before it gets cold!"
"Huh...?!"
While I was recalling old memories, the stir-fried duck and vegetables had apparently already been finished. The color and scent were flawless, utterly perfect. Yet my survival instinct was screaming at me to run...!
Just in case, I looked at Welf. He was shoveling the food on his plate into his mouth with gusto.
...Was it safe, then? Well, here goes...!
I carefully picked up a piece of vegetable and duck, then slowly put it into my mouth. My survival instinct was still sounding the alarm, but... no matter how bad it tasted, I could endure one bite.
Then, first...
The first flavor I tasted was the fatty protein characteristic of duck meat. And perhaps he had seasoned it with salt, because it was moderately salted.
The moment I relaxed, some overwhelming assault of flavor began to descend upon me.
The heat of chili powder.
The sweetness of honey.
The astringency of unripe persimmons, though I had no idea how he had managed to reproduce it.
The sourness of lemon.
And then the saltiness returned, this time crashing over me with overwhelming force.
Then, as the finishing touch, every flavor exploded at once.
...And I lost consciousness.
I later heard from Welf that the goddess and I had fainted at the same time...
Meanwhile, Welf had been happily eating it... and that was the moment an unspoken pact was formed between the goddess and me: never let Welf cook again.