13 Chapter 13

✦Happy Easter to anybody celebrating it!✦

'By cooking?!' Hajime thought. If it was a kind of unique skill or a special technique, then he might have believed it. But cooking? Seriously?

Seal noticed Hajime's doubt, so he decided to show him.

"Okay, I will show it to you." Seal said as he took a corpse from the pile of Kickmaster Rabbit he had killed earlier. He then proceeded to cut it into 5 pieces.

"How are we going to cook it, though? We have no way of getting fire." Hajime asked.

"This." Seal summoned fire in his hand.

"Fire magic!" Hajime now understood why Seal did not bring any wood with him. Seal had fire magic, so why would he need to bring anything else that would most likely slow him down.

Then Hajime remembered something that happened earlier. Didn't Seal-san use fire magic to save me from the Kickmaster Rabbit when it was about to kill me? He did!

"..." Seal only nodded and continued his cooking.

He did not bring anything to make the meat taste better, so they just have to eat plainly cooked monster meat.

After Seal had finished cooking the rabbit meat, a nice aroma drifted in the air. When Hajime caught a whiff of it, he almost drooled. Since when could monster meat smell that good?!

"The food is ready!" Seal shouted. His hands each held 1 rabbit part by the bone as he walked toward Hajime and gave him one.

"Are you sure it's safe to eat?" Hajime questioned while holding the rabbit meat. Although he was hungry, he cared more about his life than to satisfy his hunger.

Immediately after hearing that, Seal held the rabbit meat and took a bite out of it. This action shocked Hajime as he tried to reach out to stop Seal from swallowing it, but soon he realized that Seal was eating it like normal meat!

'Is there really no bad side effects?' Hajime thought, and with a few moments of hesitation, he slowly took a bite out of the Kickmaster Rabbit meat.

'Delicious!' Hajime was suddenly assaulted with a sweet and delicate taste. The meat seems to melt in his mouth. He swallowed the juicy meat, and he began devouring the rest like a wolf. It was finished in less than a minute.

*Growl*

Hajime's stomach growled as if it was asking for more, and frankly, he wanted more too. The taste was just too extravagant. It was not like those foods in the royal palace that were made using the best quality materials. This was merely made with limited resources, and shockingly, it was made with the lowest quality meat, monster meat!

"Eh... This taste is so-so, would have been better with spices, honestly." Seal said in a slightly dissatisfied voice.

Hajime, hearing that, was astonished. This is so-so?!

Hajime could not help but wonder, 'What would Seal-san best dishes be?'

"Do you want some more?" Seal asked as he sees that Hajime liked his cooking.

"Please!" Hajime said.

"Okay." Seal handed 2 more pieces of rabbit meat to him, while Hajime received it with care.

After a while, they had finished eating all the rabbit meat and their hunger was now satisfied. Seal stats had increased but albeit only a bit. Hajime felt some kind of energy flowing through his body actively. He felt that he could kill dozens of monsters without rest. Albeit it was only the weak ones, not those powerhouses like the Behemoth.

"Hey, Seal-san, why do I feel stronger all of the sudden?"

"Hm? Oh, right. Whenever you eat monster meat, your stats would increase by a lot. You would also gain the monster's skills. Although there were great benefits from eating monster meats, many people hesitated or did not eat it because of the really bad side effects such as turning into a monster and intense pain." He explained.

After pausing for a quick breath, he continued, "But the side effects were removed by me, so you can get stronger by eating monster meat without any worries."

"...That's awesome!" It took Hajime a moment to respond, but when he did, he was excited.

Seal-san's cooking skills could be considered a treasure, and even if the foods that are made were considered low-quality by the person himself, it wouldn't matter at all! What mattered were the effects it had on the foods. Thinking about his foods makes me hungry, would he cook more of his 'so-so' foods if I asked him? Hajime pondered.

Hajime considered himself lucky as he had met someone like Seal because it had increased his chances of surviving this horrible dungeon.

"Okay, get ready. We are about to start moving deeper into this labyrinth." Seal said as he starts packing everything he needed.

"Eh? W-why do we have to go now? I mean, c-can't we stay here?" Hajime started getting nervous as soon as he heard about venturing deeper into the dungeon.

"Are you planning on living here?" Seal answered with another question.

"No, but—" Hajime did not get to finish as Seal interrupted him.

"No buts. Do you want to be weak forever?"

"...Well, I want to return home. I have family members waiting for me, and I want to continue doing what I like the most."

"And how are you going to do that? With your current strength, you might as well stay here forever."

"..." Hajime did not say anything as he knew how weak he was compared to other the stronger monsters on the deeper floors.

"Think about it for a bit. If you want to leave this labyrinth, I will bring you back up, and you can continue being bullied by your teammates. Or if you want to come with me, I won't force you to fight, but I can promise you that I will make you strong enough to defend yourself by the time we leave this labyrinth. Well, it's your choice. I don't care about people who are burdens. They might as rot in this labyrinth for all I care." Seal said mockingly as his tone changed to that of a harsh one.

"I will go out for a bit. You stay here where it is safe, and I will be back in 1 hour. I expect you would have made your choice already." Seal said, and without waiting for an answer, walked out of their temporary base. Leaving behind a nervous and shocked Hajime.

...

Seal went around the 1st floor of the True Labyrinth Level and killed some more monsters. These past few hours had been beneficial to him as he had gained a lot of levels and skills from the monsters.

In front of him was an injured Claw Bear that he was fighting. It did look like it did not have any more power to fight against Seal, so he ended its life.

[Level up!]

Immediately after killing that Claw Bear, he heard a robotic female voice in his head.

『The host has met the requirement for a skill upgrade. The unique skill, «Skill Absorption» has been upgraded to «Status Conversion», and has unlocked a new ability. Please open up the skill panel for more information.』

'Oh? That skill can be upgraded?!' Seal thought excitedly. He opened the panel as instructed by the system.

︻

Status Conversion

Rarity: Unique

Ability 1: Absorption of the enemies' stats and skills. (Only works on dead enemies.)

Ability 2: Convert unnecessary skills into skill points. Skill points can be used to upgrade other skills.

︼

The new ability completely stunned Seal as he stayed still for a minute. His shock was understandable as the skills of some of the monsters he killed were worthless and that they had no use.

With how hard it was to get a skill to the next level once it was high rank, the new ability was very extraordinary.

He spent the following hour to organize and strengthen his skills.

Returning to his base, Seal wanted to know what decision Hajime made.

"So have you made your decision?" Seal said as he sat in front of Hajime.

"...I have to choose the first option," Hajime said nervously as he was worried that Seal might get angry at him.

"Ok." Seal simply said without any hint of anger.

'I tried to help him. In the end it was his choice and not mine.' Seal thought. He was not mad because he understands his choice.

"You're not mad?" Hajime asked. This is not how he thought it would play out.

"I'm not. I can see that you value your life and would not like to take risks." Seal said truthfully. He wasn't mad. After all, in this world, the weak can only cower and suffer before the strong.

"So, do you want to go back right now?"

"If you can, please."

"Okay, take this transfer stone. Once you have broken this stone, it will bring you to the surface of this labyrinth."

"T-thanks!" Hajime did not dwell on where Seal got such life-saving items as he thought it was better not to.

Seal took out the transfer stone and brought it in front of Hajime. But before he gave him the transfer stone, he whispered something to Hajime.

"Once you get back to the surface, do not mention anything about me to anyone. You can tell that someone saved you but do not say who did. Got it? Or else, you know~." Seal said while smiling the entire time.

Hajime shivered, that smile might look innocent to anyone else, but to Hajime, it looked like the Devil smiling at him.

"Okay, bye~!" Seal said as he dropped the transfer stone into Hajime's hands. He still maintained his devilish smile.

"B-bye!" Hajime immediately crushed the transfer stone. He swore inside his heart that he would not ever say anything about Seal even if his life is on the line. Or he might suffer a fate much worse. That was what his instincts told him.

Hajime then disappeared while his face turned pale as he thought about the tortures he would have to go through if he told anyone about Seal.

"Well then, time to go rescue that vampire girl on the 50th floor of this level." After that, Seal instantly disappeared from the cave.

✦Weekend Question:

What is your favorite Sacred Gear in High School DXD?

✦