Marcille Donato/Synopsis

The story of Marcille Donato from Delicious in Dungeon.
== Background ==
With a tall-man father who worked as a court historian and an elf mother who worked as a magician, Marcille was born a half-elf, possessing the rapid growing of a tall-man and the longevity of an elf. As Marcille grew up in a village populated mostly by short-lived races, she struggled to fit in as her irregular and slow growing caused her to biologically be an infant despite her age, requiring multiple years to learn how to walk and talk. 
While Marcille's growing began to slow and she lived life like a normal little girl, her longevity and increased awareness caused her to notice the deaths of those around her, starting with her pet bird Pipi. Later on, when she was still a little girl biologically, Marcille's father Donato began to deteriorate from old age, falling ill and becoming unable to eat solid foods before passing on. At Donato's funeral, Marcille's mother would warn her that her longevity would force her to watch her loved ones grow old and die before she did, causing Marcille to develop a deep fear of death.
When she turned 35, Marcille would enter a prestigious magic school's dungeon-making program and quickly become the top student, becoming the teachers' assistant in just 5 days. There, she notices a fellow student Falin who tends to skip classes and worries for her grades. However, during a dungeonium making class, while Marcille's dungeonarium was healthy, Falin's one, despite appearances, was bursting with mana and was significantly better compared to Marcille's. Fascinated, Marcille would request for Falin to teach her how she achieved these results, to which Falin reveals she found a naturally occurring dungeon nearby and had used its soil for her project, often going there to study its environment as well. Thus, Marcille and Falin would become good friends, though Falin would mysteriously vanish from the school one night.
Two years before the start of the series, Marcille would move to the Island after hearing news of a newly uncovered dungeon. There, she would reunite with Falin, who had apparently dropped out of school in favour of accompanying her elder brother Laios on his adventures. Marcille would join Laios's party and, while not welcomed initially thanks to the actions of the party's previous mage, was quickly accepted as an integral member of the party, accompanying them on numerous adventures.
== Delicious in Dungeon ==
=== Introduction Arc ===
During their latest expedition into the dungeon, Laios's party finds themselves facing off a huge red dragon which begins to overwhelm them. In the chaos, the dragon attacks Laios but Falin shoves him out of the way, getting trapped in its jaws. Seeing the hopelessness of the situation, Falin casts a teleportation spell to bring the party back to the surface before she is devoured.
When Laios awakens, Marcille informs him that not only are they low on supplies, two of their party members, Shuro and Namari, have left to join other parties, leaving only her and Chilchuck to accompany Laios. Thus, Laios elects for the party to hurry down to stop the dragon and rescue Falin, or at least resurrect what's left of her. Noting that they don't have enough equipment to sell and buy provisions, the party decide to go back to town first. While Chilchuck and Marcille discuss what to eat, Laios tells them that he's decided to go into the dungeon alone, asking them to give him their unused equipment so he can sell them for supplies. Marcille and Chilchuck however, refuse to abandon their friend, resolving to follow Laios to rescue Falin. 
Laios reveals his plan to save time and money: the party will eat the dungeon's monsters, seeing as they're abundant enough to sustain a whole ecosystem. Marcille is disgusted by the proposition and begins to argue with Laios, but a rookie party passes through chased by a walking mushroom which Marcille easily defeats. Laios announces that they'll be eating it for lunch, to which Marcille is horrified. Hearing the steps of a giant scorpion, Laios lures it out and decides to cook it with the mushroom. Chilchuck remarks that the whole adventure is just an excuse for Laios to eat monsters, to which he says that while he genuinely wants to save Falin, he also saw this adventure as a chance to satisfy his interest in monster biology and ecology.
Laios attempts to cook the scorpion, only to find that it tastes bad. A dwarf arrives, remarking that Laios's methods need improving and thus, shows him the correct method to prepare giant scorpion: cutting off the limbs and tail, slicing the body into sections and removing the internal organs. He also reveals the correct method of cutting up walking mushrooms and goes off to use some neighbouring plants as ingredients. Marcille is horrified as the plants could've gotten their nutrients from the graveyard's corpses, but just as she asks to just eat the mushrooms, a slime descends from the ceiling and starts smothering her. 
Fortunately, the dwarf uses a cutting knife to stab the slime, instantly killing it. He reveals that while slimes look amorphous, they actually have rather advanced body plans and hunt by detecting noise and breathing, hence why Marcille was targeted during her pouting. The dwarf prepares the slime's body for consumption later and takes out his own batch of dried slime to use in the dish. To the party's surprise, the meal is exceptionally delicious, with Marcille eventually bending to peer pressure and trying out the meal, realising that it is in fact, tasty. With the meal finished, the dwarf introduces himself as Senshi, noting that the party seems to be going on a quest. Laios explains his quest, to which Senshi assures him that red dragons, being such large animals, require quite a bit of time to digest food so they should be able to save Falin before she's reduced to nothing but poop. Senshi offers to join them, which Laios gladly accepts. Thus, the party go off further into the dungeon, hoping to save their friend.
=== Second Floor Arc ===
Venturing further into the dungeon, the party arrive at the second floor: a lush and green forest suspended over the ancient kingdom’s castle. Noticing Marcille tiring from their trek, the party decide to find some food to eat, with Laios even offering to try and make his cuisine suit Marcille’s tastes. However, as soon as he reads the list of monsters which inhabit the area, she declines in horror. Senshi remarks that numerous plants fruit in the current season, exciting Marcille. To her horror, it’s revealed said plants are gigantic carnivorous plants, though Laios assures her that they don’t typically eat humans and that their nutrition is no different from regular plants. Seeing how aggressive the plants are, Marcille offers to instantly destroy them with a spell but Senshi stops her, causing the plant to grab her with its vines. Senshi tells Marcille that she shouldn’t take more than she needs to and thus, shouldn’t try to destroy the plants. However, Marcille’s fear is heightened when one of the plants spits out an adventurer’s corpse.
Laios cuts the plant grabbing Marcille down, freeing her. He reveals that the plant grabbing Marcille is a parasitic plant that implants its seeds into the skin of its victims and, noting that the plant needs to be gentle enough to keep its victims alive to spread the seeds, asks Marcille if her experience was comfortable or not. This obviously annoys Marcille, so Laios goes off to pick the fruits off of the plants. Using the ingredients he gathered from earlier, Senshi makes a savoury tart for the party to enjoy, which Marcille remarks is quite tasty with a blend of sweet and savoury. Marcille wonders why the plants make their fruit so sweet, so Laios reveals that they use their fruit to attract prey, expressing happiness that Marcille is becoming interested in dungeon ecology. With that, the party wash up, hang up the corpse for the corpse retrievers to spot and revive before going to bed.
That night, Marcille has a nightmare of her mother serving her food made from monsters on her birthday, scaring her awake. Spotting another party eating regular food for breakfast, Marcille is jealous but Senshi assures her that they’re in a better position. He remarks that from his years of experience, he noticed that the rations of most adventurers are lacking in the nutrients needed for the arduous journey through the dungeon, making them prone to malnutrition. That being said, he notes that their current diets are lacking in fats needed for stamina so he leads the party to hunt a basilisk.
The party find a basilisk nest, with Marcille noticing its eggs are soft like a snake’s despite its half-chicken anatomy. Suddenly, a basilisk arrives chasing the party from earlier, scratching up one of the adventurers and poisoning him with its venom. The basilisk spots the egg Marcille is holding and attacks, causing her to trip and fall as she tries to escape. Fortunately, Laios rushes in and, pulling a scary face and holding his arms up, manages to spook the basilisk and distract it, allowing for Senshi to sneak up on it. The two execute a double attack which cuts off both of the basilisk’s heads, killing it.
Using some herbs and vegetables, Senshi roasts the basilisk with the veggies and feeds them to the wounded adventurer, curing him of his poisoning. Marcille also heals him of his wounds and digs into the basilisk, noting that it’s extremely juicy and tasty. With the meal finished, the other adventurers thank the party for the meal but admit that they keep getting killed in the same spot, asking for advice to get stronger. Thus, Senshi advises them to keep exercising, have a balanced diet and rethink their circadian rhythm. The adventurers are thankful and thus, the two parties part to go their separate ways.
As the party venture on, they notice that Marcille seems to be lagging behind, tending to chicken out along the way. When they suggest taking an easier route, Marcille begins feeling insecure about being a burden and as such, tries to appease them by offering to take down the big bats up ahead. However, Laios declines her help. Senshi notices a lack of vegetables and directs the party to a mandrake colony, to which Marcille offers her expertise on these magical plants and gives instructions on how to harvest them. However, the process, involving a dog and a rope, are deemed too impractical by the party, with Senshi even revealing that cutting off the mandrake’s head is sufficient to stop its screaming. Humiliated, Marcille decides to prove her worth by modifying her method, deciding to bait one of the big bats native to the area into pulling out the mandrakes. The plan works, but during the process the bat crashes into the tower Marcille is hiding in, causing a huge explosion.
When the party come over to investigate, they find Marcille in a “dumbed down” state, seemingly in shock from the mandrake’s scream. Marcille comes clean to the party that she was scared of being a burden and thus, hoped to show off her prowess and make them apologise to her. Laios assures her that she is useful and that the only reason he refused her help is that he wants her to save her strength for fighting stronger monsters later on. Senshi cooks the mandrakes and basilisk egg into an omelet and notices that Marcille’s mandrakes are much less bitter than the ones he harvested. Thus, he thanks Marcille for this learning opportunity and gives her some mandrake heads as a treat, causing her to cry about being sick of eating monsters.
The party arrive at a castle section, where Chilchuck warns them not to touch anything he doesn't allow them to while he disables the traps. Senshi however, begins stepping on tiles that activate traps, simply remarking that he dislikes complicated instructions and thus, couldn't keep up with the instructions. Noticing a fire trap, Senshi asks Chilchuck to help him find the source of the oil being used, which Chilchuck agrees to so long as Senshi follows his instructions around future traps. Senshi finds the oil, which he notices is olive oil heated to the perfect temperature for frying foods. Thus, using the bat's meat and leftover veggies, Senshi cooks up some kakiage for the party to eat. As the party eats, Senshi thanks Chilchuck for using his knowledge of traps to help him cook the food and thus, Chilchuck decides to teach Senshi how to use traps in the future for his advantage.
The party continue their journey through the second floor, where Chilchuck uses Laios’s sword to open a secret door and shortcut through the tower. Laios notices that the decorative badge on his sword is gone, recalling that it was a memento from his first time as a dungeon explorer. He recounts that three years ago, he and Falin decided to gain some experience by joining a gold-peeling team, stripping the dungeon’s ruins of their solid gold exteriors. The crew entered a section of the castle where they found a bunch of knight armours standing about. However, just as they were about to dismantle the armour to sell, the armours came to life and attacked the crew, wiping them out. Though Laios got killed from the experience and was scared to go near any armours after that, he managed to get his current sword as a memento from the experience.
However, Laios has overcome this fear and now wonders how living armours taste. To this, Marcille and Senshi insist that they aren’t organic creatures and cannot be eaten. The party soon find themselves in the room the living armours inhabit and decide to try and dash past fast enough to avoid them. However, the armour come to life and attack, blocking their way through. Thus, the party escape through the door in which they came from. Laios remarks that the armours were much more aggressive today and seemed to have strategy, causing him to theorise that whoever’s controlling the armours could be hidden behind the door they blocked. Thus, the party re-enter the chamber, distracting the armours while Laios goes to open the door on the other end. The party fight valiantly against the armours but start to get overwhelmed. Suddenly, Laios arrives from the other room and tosses in a shield with an egg case attached to it, causing all the living armours to chase the shield.
The party is confused at what Laios did, to which he reveals that he made a discovery while in the other room: living armours are in fact, animals, being colonies of mollusks that hide within armours and mimic human movement by moving simultaneously. As the party entered the chamber during spawning season, the armours were notably more aggressive towards them. Laios decides to try and cook the living armours, and while Chilchuck and Marcille protest, Senshi agrees and makes three dishes from the mollusks: a vegetable stir fry, a simple grilled dish and steamed living armour, using the armour’s helmet to steam the mollusks. Seeing as the creature was just discovered, the party is reluctant to try it and get Laios to take the first bite, causing him to remark that not only are living armours edible, they are also delicious. However, he does remark that the steamed armour tastes like mould thanks to the odours getting trapped inside.
As the party clean up, Laios is excited at his new discovery, remarking that he really had nothing to fear of the armours after all. Noticing that Laios picked up a new sword, Marcille offers to check it for curses but Laios quickly assures her it’s safe. Thus, the party continue their descent, entering the third floor.
=== Third Floor Arc ===
The party enter the third floor, being the crumbling ruins of the Golden Castle's interior. With Laios listening out for and identifying threats, he advises the party to turn away from a route inhabited by golems, but Senshi asks that they go down that path instead. While Marcille is quick to inform him that golems are 99% dirt and completely inedible, Senshi tells her that he isn' interested in eating them and has other plans. He leads them to his campsite, where the party are equipped with gardening tools. Senshi reveals that he's managed to use the golems as gardens to grow crops, remarking that golems are perfect for guarding his vegetables and keeping them healthy.
As such, the party enter a small room, where Senshi gets to work deactivating the golems by removing their cores, causing Marcille to realise Senshi is the one created them in the first place. As the crew get to work harvesting the veggies, Senshi reveals that while the vegetables may seem harmful, they actually benefit golems by tightening the soil composing their bodies, making hem more resilient to damage. Marcille scolds Senshi for activating golems without a license, which he shrugs off since it's rather normal to him. Senshi thanks the party for their help, and thus, while Laios and Chilchuck stay around, Marcille goes to use the bathroom.
When Marcille returns, the party prepare to cook up a meal with the fresh vegetables. She offers to use her magic to start a fire, but Senshi declines, fearing that magic would cause him to lose the skills needed for daily survival. The party notice that the vegetables are incredibly delicious, so Laios asks Marcille what the last 1% of a golem is, wondering if that may be the cause behind their tastiness. Marcille declines to say, claiming that it's secret. As Senshi leaves to take care of some business, Marcille remarks that the toilets on the level are always clean and proper, sometimes even having flowers to decorate them. This quickly causes Laios and Chilchuck, with Marcille in extension, to realise that Senshi's the one cleaning the toilets and using their waste for fertiliser. Laios asks Senshi why he doesn't live on the surface as it's easier to be self-sufficient there. To that, Senshi replies that he's doing his duty of maintaining balance in the lower floors and feels more at peace when living in the dungeon. Laios asks again why Senshi decided to help the crew, to which he assures them that the golems can fill in for him for a while.
The party go to barter the vegetables, during which Senshi tells them that he previously owned an unmanned store but closed it after his payments kept getting stolen. This causes Chilchuck and Marcille to realise the chest they kept looting in earlier adventures was where Senshi collected his money. He also remarks that while he has customers from deeper in the dungeon, the party doesn't have time to meet them. Arriving at a tavern, the party offer their vegetables but are turned away by the half-foot innkeeper, who insists that they trade with coins instead, even slapping their produce to the ground. However, just as the guards can drag them away, orcs arrive and massacre the tavern-goers, save for the party after the chief orc recognises Senshi. This causes the party to realise that the orcs were the "other customers" Senshi was referring to. 
The orc chief reveals that the Red Dragon has recently been invading the floors they're native to, forcing the orcs to flee to higher floors and pillage for goods. He demands goods from Senshi, which Senshi agrees to in exchange for being given a safe place to stay for the night. While the party is uneasy with staying with the orcs, Senshi seems solely concerned with being able to make bread from the leaven and flour the orcs retrieved. Sent to stay in a chicken coop, Senshi demands the bread ingredients which the orcs, annoyed with his persistence, give him. The chief's son notices Marcille and asks to play with her. However, the chief declines and instead tells his son of how many years ago, the orcs were driven underground by tall-men and elves, forcing them to inhabit dungeons. Marcille retorts that the orcs killed many people and a full blown argument erupts between the two over the wrongs of their races, withe the orc chief even trying to outcompete Marcille in kneading dough. 
Noticing that Laios has been completely silent all this while, the orc chief asks him what he plans to do if he defeats the Lunatic Magician responsible for creating the dungeon and becomes king according to prophecy. Laios admits that he has no plans for that, causing the orc chief to denounce him and other adventurers as greedy and shortsighted. Marcille retorts that the orcs should just fight for the throne themselves, leading to another squabble. With the bread done, the chief demands that the party give it to his clan, but his son manages to convince him to share the bread. Furthermore, Senshi points out that the chief's promise of lodging includes food, so the chief reluctantly gets his tribesmen to cook up some food for the party. Marcille realises that orc cuisine is rather delicious and apologises for her previous insults, though the orc chief doesn't fully buy them. As the party eats, Laios admits that currently, he's focused on saving his sister from the Red Dragon and promises to help the orcs in their plight. Hearing this, the orc chief agrees to help the party, giving them a map and pointing out the dragon's most recent location. While he doubts Laios will actually become king, the orc chief wishes him luck and thus, the party all enjoy dinner together.
Walking along, the party find the bodies of another party with coins littering the floor. As Marcille casts protective prayers over them, she notices the necklace of the fallen dwarf is actually a pearl-like centipede and is spooked, casting a blinding stun spell. When the light fades, the party quickly realise that the other party was wiped by a bunch of treasure bugs: insects and various arthropods that mimic various kinds of treasures in appearance. They quickly notice that Senshi is sorting out the bugs to eat, horrifying Marcille. Using the bugs, Senshi makes various snacks, with Marcille and Chilchuck noting that treasure bugs are, in fact, eaten as delicacies outside of dungeons. Marcille reluctantly takes a bit of her pearl centipede skewer and realises that it's gooey and creamy, scaring her from every wearing necklaces. With that, Chilchuck throws away the inedible "treasure bugs", but soon regrets it after Senshi tells him mid-throw that those are actual treasures, devastating both him and Marcille. 
As the party continue, Marcille notices the air chilling and ghosts gathering as a result of the fallen adventurers. Noting her lack of expertise in spirit magic, Marcille urges the party to hurry onwards but Laios, dropping his sandwich, stalls behind and is attacked by a ghost. Fortunately, Marcille uses a small blast to dispel it, allowing the party to flee. As they run away, Laios asks why Marcille couldn't just use the magic Falin used, to which Marcille explains that Falin's spirit magic was extremely advanced compared to hers, recounting the time when Falin managed to talk a ghost into un-possessing an adventurer's corpse. However, as Marcille doesn't have Falin's capabilities, the party is forced to behind a small door. There, Senshi prepares a homemade batch of "holy water" by combining different objects or rituals said to repel evils. The ghosts arrive and just as they are about to consume the party, Senshi arrives to the rescue, using his bottle of water as a flail which dispels the ghosts. With Laios helping to take over Senshi when he tires, the ghosts are all dispelled, causing Laios to remark that the party should stop bemoaning Falin's fate and instead, focus on adapting around her absence. The party notice that the holy water has been chilled by the ghosts, turning it into a sorbet which they eat. As Laios eats, he accidentally blurts out that they wouldn't have such delicious food if Falin hadn't gotten eaten up, angering the party and making Laios ashamed as he didn't word himself properly.
As the party venture on, they come across a locked door which Chilchuck gets to unlocking. Marcille's stomach begins growling loudly, to which Laios recommends the party to stop for the night. Senshi advises against this to save time, but Laios insists that it's important for the party to conserve energy and find food soon. The door is unlocked and the party find themselves in a deserted dining room. Coming across a living painting, Marcille burns it before it can suck Laios in but he says it's part of his plan: by entering the paintings depicting food, he hopes to get some rations for him and his party. Though reluctant the party decide to let Laios try it out and ties a rope around him, ensuring that he can be pulled out if anything happens. However, after exploring the first painting he explains that he couldn't get any food and thus, decides to try another one. He enters a painting depicting a party but upon exiting, realises that food can't be taken out of the paintings. 
Thus, Laios elects to eat his fill first instead, entering a crowning ceremony's painting. However, he quickly tugs on the line and is yanked out. Laios explains that while he did manage to eat a good meal, he was spotted by an elf mage who, recognising him from his previous two adventures, attacked him for invading and forced him to escape. He also realises that the food he ate in the paintings still amounted to nothing, angering the party. With this wasted time, the party elect to go to bed at a nearby pantry. Marcille notices Chilchuck mumbling to himself, to which Senshi remarks that he's probably tired, being a child. Chilchuck clarifies that he's not a child and angrily storms away after Marcille tries questioning him further about his personal life. 
Later that night, Marcille is woken up by Chilchuck as he asks her to watch the door while he goes to fill up water. Unfortunately, while trying to secure some coin bugs for his friends to eat, Chilchuck gets trapped in a room with a mimic, forcing him to face it alone as Marcille has fallen asleep. Fortunately, Marcille soon awakens and after getting the rest to get up as well, they find that Chilchuck has killed the mimic by dropping the room's iron bars on it. As Senshi and Laios immediately begin scavenging the mimic, Marcille is disgusted so Laios assures her that mimic flesh is safe to eat and only their digestive organs can be toxic. Chilchuck just tells Marcille to give up dissuading them, knowing that they're too determined.
Thus, while Senshi cooks up the mimic, Marcille helps Chilchuck repair his torn up vest and muffler. When the meal is finished, the party realise that it tastes delicious and appears like crab meat, though Chilchuck is annoyed at the party using his tools to scrape out the meat. As they eat, Marcille questions why Chilchuck chose not to tell the party about the mimic, to which he explains he has bad memories of them, having died to them numerous times and wanted to avoid the mimic at all costs. However, as he saw a coin bug and didn't want it to get eaten by the mimic, he went off and accidentally trapped himself. Fortunately, Laios informs Chilchuck that mimics are actually the prey of treasure bugs, being parasitised by them as food for their larvae, with their chests also being used later on as living spaces for the adults. Chilchuck is irritated when he learns that he went through all that trouble for nothing, to which Marcille teases him for constantly hiding things and convinces him to share his true age. He reveals that he's 29 years old, and while Senshi and Marcille, being from longer-lived races, still insist on calling him a child, Laios realises that he's 3 years Chilchuck's junior and begins treating him as his elder, irritating him even more.
=== Fourth Floor Arc ===
After some washing up, the party arrive on the fourth floor: a magic infused lake with the ruins of the castle town submerged below. Marcille casts water-walking spells on the party but Senshi, distrustful of magic and fearful of losing his edge in survival, refuses, forcing Laios to hold him down and Marcille to cast her spell. However, even this doesn't work as Senshi's dirty and thick beard blocks the magic, causing him to nearly sink. Senshi thus decides to call on an old companion of his: a kelpie named Anne. The party are reasonably scared thanks to the reputation of kelpies to kill humans, but Senshi assures them that Anne is harmless, always accompanying him when he fishes. As such, he has decided to try riding her across the lake. Marcille is fascinated but Laios, acknowledging the danger of monsters, warns against this. Despite this, Senshi carries on with the plan and just as expected, Anne drags him underwater in an attempt to kill him. Laios quickly fastens a rope over himself and dives in to save Senshi, killing Anne in the process.
Senshi is saddened by the betrayal of his companion, realising that Anne was just waiting for him to get on her back before drowning him. Despite this, he manages to get over it quite quickly and starts butchering the kelpie's corpse. During this, Marcille requests for some of the kelpie fat, which she makes into soap. Laios and Chilchuck return from their excursion, having found the party from earlier dead once again in the water and their grain scattered about. Thus, Laios uses the kelp he gathered from a fish-man corpse, the grains and some of the mimic legs to make a porridge. When Marcille hears of the origin of the grains, she's annoyed but quickly digs in, noting an interesting texture of fish eggs on the rice. She finds Chilchuck questioning Laios about some of the ingredients' origin, but after Chilchuck asks her whether she found the meal delicious, Marcille replies that she did, causing him to just shut up. 
Later on, Marcille presents the kelpie fat soap she made to Senshi, which he agrees to let her use on his beard, causing it to be much cleaner and elegant. With this, Senshi is finally affected by magic and, walking on water for the first time, he thanks Marcille for opening his eyes to these new experiences. As the party walk along the lake, they're attacked by a shoal of blade fish, which Marcille wipes out with a waterspout. This angers Senshi, who explains that Marcille's recklessness killed off too many of the fishes and is not only a waste of food, but caused an imbalance in the ecosystem. Suddenly, a school of fish-men surface, swimming away and causing Senshi to faceplant. As he looks into the water, he notices a huge monster approaching and true enough, a kraken surfaces and attacks. Laios tasks Marcille with attacking the beast, but it proves resistant to her attacks. As Marcille flips through her book, trying to find a solution, Senshi approaches her and asks her to just use a simple water-walk spell on the kraken. She obliges and with the kraken beached, Senshi uses his butchering knowledge on cephalopods to swiftly kill the kraken.
With the fight done, Laios ponders how octopuses taste, to which Marcille proclaims her love of cephalopod cuisine, promising to show Laios a nice seafood place. Unfortunately, Laios reveals that he actually wanted to try the kraken but after tasting realises that it's disgusting, causing Marcille to clarify that most cephalopods don't taste like that. Senshi notices a giant parasite wriggling through the kraken's flesh and under Laios's persuasion, decides to cook and grill it despite Marcille's protests. The party realise that the worm is rather delicious, with Marcille remarking that it might even be better than octopus. With the kraken dead, balance is restored to the ecosystem thanks to this new food source. Unfortunately, as Laios ate a raw piece of parasite, he contracts a tape worm living within it, forcing the party to wait while his digestive tract deals with the worm. While Laios's plight slows down the party, Senshi simply admires how the dungeon ecosystem is self-sufficient and he need not interfere. 
The next day, Marcille awakens as she realises she's overslept. She panics upon realising she can't hear Laios's heartbeat, so Senshi and Chilchuck point out she's listening to it through his armour and Laios had in fact, recovered from most of the symptoms overnight. Marcille reflects on Senshi's words, remarking that the dungeon's design is straddling a balance by having monsters which must be combatted by adventurers, thus maintaining the ecosystem. Marcille recounts her time in magic school, where she learnt about the designs of dungeons as well as where she first met Falin. Marcille notes that the whole dungeon is meticulously designed and recommends that Senshi move out soon, seeing as it's so full of magic which he dislikes. Laios, awakening, realises that Marcille was the one Falin wrote about in her letters back home, expressing her happiness at meeting the half-elf as a friend. Marcille quickly tells Laios that Falin also expressed her admiration of Laios as well, though in reality she just talked about how Laios could imitate dogs really well. 
Noting the party's current location and where the dragon was last seen, Chilchuck estimates that they'll take two days to reach it and thus proposes for the party to rest a while longer before they go off. While Marcille cleans herself, she laments that she's causing issues for her mostly male party, recalling how Shuro and Namari left the party in search of better employers after Falin was eaten. As the party prepare to leave, Marcille pours away the excess water she boiled. Unfortunately, this causes an undine to rise out of the water and attack. Marcille blasts it with magic while Chilchuck and Senshi try to start a fire, but just as the coast looks clear, the undine blasts her leg, injuring her. She frantically unleashes more attacks, but the undine blasts her shoulder next, leaving her on the brink of collapse. Noticing the undine stained with her blood, Marcille unleashes one final attack which blasts her to shore, allowing Laios to catch her. The undine forms itself into an even larger ball of water, forcing the party to retreat. 
Stuck recovering once again, Marcille informs them that she's running low on mana and can't make a full recovery on her own. Thus, while Marcille rests, Laios, Sneshi and Chilchuck try to wait for another party to come by. In the meantime, to restore Marcille's health the party barbecue the kelpie meat, giving her some liver to restore her blood, though she soon requests more of the other parts as she's tired of only eating the liver. Just then, another party arrive, with Namari being among their members. She introduces her friends to her new employers: Mr and Mrs. Tansu, gnomes who are private researchers to the Island's Lord, as well as her new teammates Kaka and Kiki, the couples' adopted tall-man children. Marcille is still upset at Namari for deserting the party, to which Namari tells her that she simply was dodging death herself. Laios asks Mr. Tansu for help with healing Marcille but he refuses as the party has nothing to pay them with. Laios warns them about the undine, but Mr. Tansu is confident thanks to gnome culture revolving around interacting with spirits, assured that he can quell its wrath. Unfortunately, the undine remains unsated and even kills Namari, though she's shortly revived by Mr. Tansu. Mr. Tansu notes that the dungeon has unique properties binding human souls to their bodies and allowing revival to happen, which is why he was hired to study the place's ancient spells. Thus, he gives the party a proposal: if they help him do some research on a nearby spell, he'll help them heal Marcille. 
The party arrive from their short venture, having dealt with a bunch of stinging tentacles, one of which Laios feeds to Marcille after noticing its interesting taste. With his own daughter healed, Mr. Tansu fulfils his promise and heals Marcille, restoring her health. After hearing the party praising Namari, Marcille is jealous and sarcastically praises her, with Namari retaliating. With the undine still angry, Marcille reveals to Mr. Tansu that she accidentally poured boiling water onto the undine, to which he, Namari and Senshi all remark is "typical" of an elf. As waiting for the angry spirits within the undine will take too long, Mr. Tansu elects to return to the surface with his team. However, Laios asks for Marcille to return to the surface to restore her magic, which she refuses as she wants to save Falin as fast as possible, even bluffing. Namari supports Marcille's decision to support, stating that as the team mage, she is integral to stopping the Red Dragon. At her wit's end, Marcille begs Namari to rejoin them, but Chilchuck asks her to stop. Noting that Namari was hired on account of rumours about her financial issues, Chilchuck worries that her willingness to join other teams would soil her reputation. 
With no other solutions, Marcille decides to defeat the undine and drink it, allowing her to absorb its magic. However, she is unable to think of any plans until she notices Senshi's pot which could be used to trap the undine and boil it to death. Furthermore, Namari realises that Senshi's pot is actually made of adamant, a near-unbreakable metal which could trap the undine. As the party attempt to catch it, Namari steps in to replace Laios thanks to his lesser strength. Cooperating with Senshi, Namari manages to capture the undine and seals the pot, boiling it over a fire and keeping it trapped until it finally stops fighting, defeating it. Marcille thanks Namari for her help and drinks the undine's remains, with Senshi also using the water to make a stew to help Marcille better absorb the undine's magic. With the stew finished, Marcille shares with the other party, and while Namari is initially scared of trying it, she soon accepts and realises how delicious it is. As the party clean up their cutlery, Namari remarks that she believed Chilchuck would desert since he doesn't like unpaid labour. Chilchuck confirms this but explains that he stuck around thanks to his morals, warning Marcille not to trust people who claim to not want anything. Laios asks Namari what Shuro's up to, to which she says that Shuro, being madly smitten with Falin, left to get help, hoping to find the numbers and strength needed to rescue her. Namari wishes the party luck before she and her employers leave the dungeon for the surface, allowing both parties to continue on their ways. 
=== Red Dragon Arc ===
The party soon arrive at the entrance to the fifth floor which is a stairwell covered in stinging tentacles. The party attempt to trudge through the tentacles but find that progress is slow. As Marcille leans near the walls, Chilchuck warns her that not only are tentacles nearby, their presence indicates that there are hidden traps which they could activate, ranting about how they've caused him much trouble in the past. Suddenly, giant frogs attack and while Marcille manages to blast one's head off using her staff, it and Laios's sword are flung away by another frog who proceeds to grapple Senshi's axe. Chilchuck, noticing that the frogs seem immune to the tentacles's stinging, uses some of the dead one's skin to make makeshift gloves which he uses to try and uproot a tentacle, hoping to activate a trap. Unfortunately, the frog attacking Senshi notices him and attacks, trying to devour him, though this causes the tentacle to be uprooted and the trap to activate, killing the frog. 
With Chilchuck saved, Senshi gets to work making a gnocchi dish out of the frog and tentacles while Laios makes the frogskins into anti-tentacle suits. Marcille is annoyed by their spontaneous actions but is eventually convinced to wear the suit and try the gnocchi, which is rather delicious. Now immune to the tentacles, the party descend the stairwell, retrieve their weapons and enter the fifth floor: the ruins of the Golden Country's castle town. At the bottom, Marcille notices that her suit is still sticking to her, which Laios explains is thanks to being unable to properly dry the suits, which resulted in some coagulated blood remaining. Marcille is annoyed at this nuisance but the party manage to remove the suits anyways. 
Venturing throughout, the party find an abandoned pantry which Senshi loots for its goods. Laios soon finds that on the other side, scorched warg corpses litter the floor: casualties of the Red Dragon. Seeing how active the Red Dragon is, Marcille worries that they'll be too weak and Falin may already be digested, so Laios tries to calm her down, deciding to brainstorm for plans. Senshi inquires how the party previously defeated dragons, but Laios explains that they could only accomplish such a feat thanks to the team's members, with dragons being extremely hard to kill thanks to their steely hides. Furthermore, Laios spots a crack in an overhead bridge where the dragon bumped its head, making the feat of stabbing its only weakpoint even harder. 
After some thinking and consideration, the party come up with a plan: Chilchuck and Senshi could wear the dragon out by leading it through the narrow streets, luring it to a point where Marcille could use her spells to collapse a building onto it, after which Laios could strike the killing blow. As such, while Senshi bakes bread, the party plan out their route to lure the dragon. Returning back to camp, Marcille is annoyed by Senshi's single-minded focus on food but Laios reminds her that they lost of hunger last time and must now have sufficient energy for the fight. Senshi fries up some cutlets for the party to eat, with Marcille tearing up at the idea of finally being able to eat normal food after the adventure. With the end goal looming nearer, Laios thanks each of his team members for their contributions and, while noting his bad timing, thank him. As the Red Dragon appears outside the building, Marcille casts protection spells and the party gears up to face the dragon down once and for all.
Marcille arrives at her post, where she writes runes all over the walls in preparation of collapsing the building on the dragon, noting that if needed she can unleash stunning spells on the dragon. Unfortunately, while luring the dragon into using up all of its fuel Laios loses the pot lid after it scalds him, forcing the team to detour as they've lost a source of protection. Marcille notices the dragon approaching and thus is forced to unleash the spell early, crushing the dragon. Unfortunately, it survives and flings the rubble Marcille is on off, even being completely unharmed. Furthermore, Laios's sword somehow moves away, preventing the party from attacking it, with Marcille's attacks also proving useless. 
Seeing the chaos unfolding underneath, Marcille decides to try and help them, bumping into Laios where he explains that Chilchuck and Senshi were knocked out after the dragon attacked it. Laios comes up with one last idea: seeing as Chilchuck managed to blind the dragon's left eye with Senshi's cooking knife, Laios can stand inside the pot and get Marcille to launch him at the dragon, allowing him to execute a sneak attack and stab it through its inverse scale, killing it. Marcille is concerned for how dangerous this plan is, so Laios assures her that it's alright. With the magic runes completed, Laios is launched to the dragon's head, where he clamps himself in place by letting the dragon bite him. Now in position, Laios stabs the dragon's scale, killing it. Laios soon falls onto the floor, passing out from blood loss as the dragon bit off his left leg. 
When Laios comes to, he notices Marcille bandaging his wounds, promising to recover his missing leg and other teammates. Fortunately, Senshi and Chilchuck manage to emerge from a pile of rubble, though badly injured so Marcille heals them, causing Chilchuck to scream in pain. Marcille assures Senshi that recovery pains are normal for healing spells, horrifying him as she goes to heal him next. Sure enough, Marcille soon reattaches Laios's leg and the party is up and running again. With the dragon dead, Laios thanks the party for their help and thus, they go to cut open the dragon, hoping to recover Falin. Carving through the beast's flesh, Laios reaches one of its ribs and opens up its abdomen, eventually finding its stomach. Laios opens it up, only to find it empty. Marcille wonders if they got the wrong dragon, so Laios tells her that the scar on its eye confirms the dragon's identity. With no remains left in the dragon's intestines, Marcille begins to despair but Laios thinks of one final place the dragon could store its waste: its fuel pouch. As Laios sifts through the mass, he finds a human hair, a staff and eventually, to everyone's horror, Falin's skull.
Unable to distinguish Falin's bones from the warg bones, Laios elects for the party to move the whole mass back up to the surface. Marcille warns against this however, stating that Falin's corpse, in its desiccated state, can't hold onto her soul very well and could release it if they move her skeleton too much. Marcille notes the struggle of finding fresh flesh to resurrect Falin, so she elects to use the dragon's corpse instead. Chilchuck is confused on how Marcille plans to resurrect Falin, so Marcille reveals that she is in fact, a specialist in ancient, or black magic and that she might know some spells that could resurrect Falin. While Chilchuck and Senshi are fearful of the consequences, Laios agrees to her proposition and thus, Marcille uses her blood to draw a runic circle. the party proceed to sort out Falin's bones from the wargs', which Marcille is fortunately skilled in, teaching Laios about human anatomy on the way. Soon, Falin's skeleton and the skeletons of the two wargs are assembled. Chilchuck is worried that the wargs may accidentally be resurrected, so Marcille assures him that only humans and demi-humans can resurrect. 
With Falin's corpse placed in the magic circle, Marcille begins the resurrection process, regrowing the flesh on Falin's body. As she faints from overexertion, the party noice that Falin was successfully resurrected, though she's covered in blood and choking. Laios quickly sits her up and, welcoming her back, gives her a cloth to cover herself with. Marcille awakens and is overjoyed at seeing her friend alive and well again, embracing her. As Falin is rather dazed, Chilchuck introduces Senshi to her, and, hearing Falin's grumbling stomach, the party decide to relax and prepare a meal. 
Marcille and Falin go off to take a bath, washing off their bloodstains. Marcille is overjoyed that Falin came back without a fault but Falin insists on washing herself, even trying to share magic with Marcille after noticing she's rather pale, noting that she seems rather reinvigorated after resurrection. Falin remembers that she died, but is unsure how and what happened. Falin is confused and, remembering the magic circle Marcille used to revive her, is worried that she forced her friend into a difficult situation. Marcille reassures Falin that she has nothing to worry about as everything worked out and thus, the two dry themselves and rejoin the rest. Marcille notices Chilchuck gossiping about her usage of black magic, so she tells him that all magic can be used for good and evil, which is why she chooses to use black magic to help others. However, she asks the party not to think about the resurrection method she used. 
Just then, Falin notes that Senshi just passed by with his pot and some firewood, causing the party that he's going to cook near the dragon's corpse which is still emanating flammable gases. Before they can stop him, Senshi ignites a spark and accidentally blows up the surrounding walls, though thanks to Falin's protective spell the party is unharmed. This causes Falin to notte that her magic seems to have improved after being revived. While the dragon's abdomen is now in flames, Senshi decides to use the tail's meat to cook and, using the flaming corpse as an oven, bakes up some pizza and a whole feast for the party. Falin takes a bite of the pizza and is amazed at how tasty it is. As the party enjoy the meal, Laios suddenly erupts, gushing about how delicious the dragon is. Marcille quickly informs Falin that the party has been eating mostly monsters for the past few days. Instead of getting disgusted, Falin is fascinated and asks for the details, with Laios recounting their ventures. Furthermore, Laios finally comes clean on the fact that a living armour is in fact, inhabiting his sword which he named Kensuke. However, acknowledging how Kensuke's cowardice nearly cost them their fight with the dragon, Laios elects to dispose of his sword sometime later.
With their adventure finished, the party decide to go to bed, Marcille is excited at the prospect of sharing a bed with Falin again, and while Falin is nervous that she won't fit, Marcille assures her that she'll always be little in her eyes. Falin goes to say goodnight to Laios, returning to her bed soon afterwards where she and Marcille sleep. Unfortunately, Marcille's woken up later that night after Laios found Falin missing from her bed. While searching for her, Marcille hears a commotion outside and finds Laios being attacked near the dragon's corpse by a mysterious elf, with Falin crouched nearby. Marcille fires a warning shot, demanding that the elf let her friends go. Unfortunately, the elf whips out a grimoire and begins summoning small wyverns made of blood which attack the party. Furthermore, Falin seems to not be herself and punches Laios in the gut, knocking him unconscious. Marcille does her best to fend off the wyverns but finds herself unable to keep up with the elf's magic, causing her to realise that he is in fact, the lunatic magician responsible for making the dungeon. Marcille tries to hold a civil conversation with the mage, hoping to ask him about the dungeon's design, but he simply opens up a hole in the ground, plunging the party below.
Marcille summons some lights, causing the party to realise they've been warped to a closed, box-like room. Suddenly, the walls begin closing in and with no visible way out, Marcille sadly accepts her fate as the walls start to crush them, lamenting that all of her efforts were for naught. Just then, ghostly arms reach out and drag Marcille into a hidden passage, which the party uses to escape. Ending up in a cellar, Marcille is too weak to move and the party is surrounded by ghosts, but fortunately said spirits leave peacefully, allowing the party to finally rest. Chilchuck accidentally bumps into orcs, who, despite initially planning to kill the party, spare them after they recognise Senshi's scent. The leader of the orcs, Leed, thanks the party for killing the Red Dragon at the request of her brother, the orc chief Zon and thus decides to prepare a medicine to heal Laios and Marcille's wounds. Marcille watches in horror as Leed delivers the medicine mouth-to-mouth to Laios, which causes him to pass out from the medicine's disgusting taste. Marcille tries to weasel her way out of treatment to no avail as Leed gives her a dose too, causing her to faint as well. 
=== Fifth Floor Arc ===
Shortly after Marcille recovers, the party, running low on supplies and weary, elect to return to the surface first. However, after trekking for two days the party still find themselves unable to leave the fifth floor, which Marcille believes is thanks to the magician purposefully warping the dungeon layout to confuse them. Furthermore, when Chilchuck tries to scale the walls to look outside, he notices the magician's wyverns flying about which would attack them or notify him. Chilchuck smells flowers so Senshi, attributing them with the presence of water, gets the party to follow the scent where they could potentially get some food to fill their stomachs. 
The party arrive at a graveyard, where Marcille waits outside repairing her staff while Laios, Chilchuck and Senshi check for monsters. When the boys return, they assure her it's safe though they're spewing mucus and tears as a result of suffering from hay fever. Marcille realises that the party was fighting against dryad flowers, causing Laios to realise that he could pick the fruits to eat, disturbing Marcille at how human-like they look. Furthermore, Chilchuck mocks her over their previous misadventures in the second floor after finding mandrakes, annoying her. Senshi cooks the ingredients found into a pottage which he serves to Marcille in an empty fruit husk. While she's still unnerved by the fruit's face, she finds the pottage delicious and restoring to her mana. Chilchuck wonders if the magician already sealed off the entrance, to which Marcille assures him that as long as mana can enter the dungeon, there's still a way for them to escape. Furthermore, Marcille notices that their might be patterns to the dungeon's shifts, causing the party to decide to log down the shifts and timings of the dungeon's walls. Noticing her party's wounds, Marcille decides to teach Laios some basic support magic, recognising that she can't hold up the entire party in the magical aspect all by herself anymore. Thus, while she teaches Laios some of the fundamentals of elf magic, Senshi, still believing Chilchuck to be a child, mistakenly tries to give him a "birds and the bees" talk on the dryads, horrifying him.
Arriving at a room to spend the night, Marcille asks Laios to practice his healing magic on her wounded ear, showing him the right way to apply his magic after he incorrectly grabs her ear. With some guidance, Laios manages to successfully heal her. Laios thanks Marcille for teaching him and while he attempts to heal Senshi, Marcille repairs her staff, lecturing Laios to not care about making his patients uncomfortable. Chilchuck interjects, stating that most parties break up from relationship issues, remarking that Laios also needs to focus on improving his social skills instead of learning magic. Marcille offers to teach Chilchuck magic, which he refuses as his relatives were arrested by the western elves after having dealings with black magic artifacts. 
Marcille decides to clarify on how her type of ancient magic actually works: she's drawing on a dimension of infinite energy that can be used to bolster regular magic by opening small passageways to said dimensions. She reveals that since Falin had no more mana to be revived, Marcille used the dungeon's passages to allow magic to flow into her corpse, allowing her to be revived. Suddenly, a loud rumble is heard and bricks are seen flying from a building to build up another structure. Laios wants to follow along but suddenly falls light-headed with mana sickness, forcing the party to go and check without him. They realise that the path's layout is shifting, lifting up into the air so they quickly hop off. Just as they think they're safe, the elevated platform reveals a cockatrice, which pursues the party. They manage to escape into a small room but Senshi, noting that the cockatrice's snake head has heat vision, tasks Marcille with distracting its chicken head to let them escape, seeing as she's the tallest of the three. While not confident in her scaring abilities, Marcille manages to use her magical prowess to draw the cockatrice's attention, allowing her to blow the snake head off and Senshi to kill the chicken half. 
Unfortunately, in the process Marcille got bitten by the cockatrice, meaning that she will turn to stone sometime soon. Arriving back at the room, Laios orders Marcille to take off her pants, brace her ears and assume a fetal position, which he reveals is to ensure she stays intact during petrification. Marcille, having believed it to be a preventive measure for the venom, yells at Laios but turns to stone at that moment, with her pose making her susceptible to breakage. Thanks to her incapacitation, Laios practices his healing magic to try and cure Marcille's condition, while Chilchuck searches for some herbs to cure her. In the meantime, Senshi uses Marcille as a pickling weight for some dryad pickles he's making, ensuring that she won't topple over, though her right eyelashes fall off. After a couple of days, Chilchuck manages to find the herb while Laios attempts the spell, causing Marcille to revert to normal. After Marcille's caught up with everything the party did, she feels guilty about delaying them but while thankful, she simply orders the party never to use somebody as a pickle weight. 
With Marcille well and mobile again, the party set off once again, with Chilchuck leading the way having found a pattern in dungeon shifts while she was petrified. They eventually reach the street where they fought the dragon but to their surprise, its corpse is completely absent, though the crack from its fall is still present on the walls. Suddenly, Laios is spooked after looking at the crack and reveals he's been having visions and audial hallucinations following his use of magic. He notes that he heard a voice warning them of the "magician's eye" and sure enough, the party spot the blood wyverns flying overhead. Marcille quickly drags the party into the crack, where they emerge on the other side. Chilchuck is confused as to how Marcille did that, to which Laios notices that the wall is currently being infested by cleaners: miniscule organisms that assist in the maintenance of dungeons, cleaning up rubble and rebuilding structures. Marcille remarks that since the wall still had a hole, she figured it would still be under reconstruction and thus, would be soft enough for the party to punch through. Senshi remarks his disdain for the creatures as they often eat his belongings, to which Laios explains they just eat anything in the way. Marcille likens the cleaners to the body's healing methods and monsters to the dungeon's immune system, irritating Senshi at the involvement of magic again. 
The party continue onwards, eventually arriving at a stairwell leading out of the fifth floor. Marcille dons her frog suit in preparation for tentacles, but is quickly informed she didn't need to and that the party is stopping for a meal. Senshi cooks up some grain bowls for the party, using half-finished bricks made by the cleaners as dishes. Laios, curious about the taste of dungeon cleaner secretions, takes a bite, only to realise it tastes terrible. Suddenly, Laios is attacked by a spider-like monster, with the party being attacked by a party of female warriors as well. Having mistaken the party for monsters, they're confused at their unusual looks and when they're ordered by their leader to kill one just to make sure, a voice tells them to stop. Shuro emerges, telling his party that he recognises his old partymates, releasing Laios from the spider monster's silk. Laios is happy to see his old friend and thus, introduces Senshi to him. The party quickly notices that the party they repeatedly encountered dead is following Shuro, having been revived earlier, with the leader introducing himself as Kabru. 
Shuro reveals that the female warriors accompanying him are his retainers, who he left back home to seek the aid of after feeling guilty for letting Falin get eaten. Laios forgives Shuro for leaving them, assuring him that the party managed to successfully defeat the Red Dragon. He frantically asks about Falin but collapses from exhaustion, prompting the three parties to take a rest in this room. Thus, Marcille is sent with the mages in Kabru's party, Holm and Rin, to set up a magic barrier while Shuro's lead retainer, Maizuru, leads the other retainers in cooking and Laios fills Shuro in on the party's adventures so far. 
Harpies descend upon the cooking party, prompting the rest of the adventurers to come out. During the fight, Marcille notices that Shuro and Laios seem mad at each other, to which Chilchuck reveals that Laios told Shuro about Marcille's usage of black magic, infuriating him as it could've hurt Falin. Just then, one of Shuro's retainers drops down dead in front of the duo and her killer is revealed: Falin, albeit twisted into a chimera with a draconic lower half. While the party initially try to reason with the chimera, Falin seems unreceptive and beats down the adventurers, killing Maizuru, most of the retainers and even some of Kabru's party. When she's injured, Laios decides to take the responsibly of putting down his berserk sister but after she calls his name, Laios is unable to find the will to stop Falin. This causes Kabru to come in, stabbing Falin in her vitals. Unfortunately, this seems to only enrage her, causing Falin to summon huge spikes from the ground that impale Rin and leave the party incapacitated before escaping. 
With the threat gone, Holm gets to resurrecting Maizuru and with her assistance, gets everybody back up on their feet, However, Shuro, believing that Marcille's magic somehow caused this, orders Laios to let him bring her with him, where he can ensure she is punished by the western elves for her crime. Laios refuses, insisting that he needs Marcille's help as he intends to defeat the magician and break the curse, even starting a fight with Shuro which devolves as they admit everything they dislike about each other. Eventually, Laios triumphs and Shuro, recognising that Laios does have the preparations to defeat the magician, relents and decides to peacefully return to his homeland, allowing Laios to continue his quest unimpeded. He also decides to discreetly warn the Island's Lord about the presence of the Falin Chimera and gifts Laios a small bell, which he can use to ring for Shuro if he needs help escaping to foreign lands should the western elves arrive. After a small meal of harpy egg omelet, Kabru and Shuro's parties make for the surface again, leaving Marcille and the rest of the party to continue their descent. 
=== Sixth Floor Arc ===
Following Falin's bloodstains, the party descend into the sixth floor: an ancient network of canals and reservoirs dug by dwarves. To their surprise, the floor's weather has drastically changed, becoming cold and snowy instead of hot and humid. Walking along, Laios recalls Falin talking about finding a man named Delgal, who Marcille explains was the last king of the Golden Country who triggered the dungeon's discovery by appearing at the surface six years ago, crumbling to dust shortly afterwards. As Laios recalls his ventures in the paintings, he remembers that the magician, having seen Delgal's father die before his eyes millenia ago, must be paranoid that the party is out to harm his master especially after Laios entered the paintings and thus, sent the Red Dragon and by extension, Falin to search for Delgal, unaware of his death. 
A blizzard suddenly arrives, forcing the party to seek refuge in a dark tunnel. When Marcille casts a light spell however, the party notices that they're surrounded by doppelgängers. Laios informs them that this is the work of a shapeshifter: a type of illusion-using monster that imitates other beings before devouring the original. Thus, the party quickly get to work differentiating the phonies from their real selves, imprisoning the clones with physical quirks, including all of Laios's clones thanks to how obvious they are. Unfortunately, with Laios's lack of observational skills towards humans, the party worry about how successful he will be in helping them sniff the fakes out. Noticing that each Marcille clone has a different hairstyle, they interrogate each of them but each has a rational explanation for why they look like that, with the party also unable to remember how Marcille was wearing her hair earlier. Thus, the party get to checking each other members' tools, eliminating three clones. This leaves each party member paired with a doppelgänger, sans Laios.
With all physical differences eliminated, Laios decides to observe their behaviours and thus, tasks each pair to cook up a dish based on Senshi's instructions, assigning them as A and B respectively. The pairs, while sceptical of Laios's observational skills, get to work: Chilchuck B asks Laios with help for opening a jar, which Chilchuck A insists is evidence that he's a fake, causing the party to distrust him; Marcille B is clumsy and high-strung while Marcille A is focused and calm; both Senshis seem to be equally skilled and knowledgable on food. As the dishes are finished, Marcille B points out that Senshi A is unusually attractive, but Laios just remarks that he's always looked good. 
Thus, Laios announces his deductions: Chilchuck A, Marcille B and Senshi B are all the real party members while the others are fakes. When all of the members question Laios on his reasonings, he tells them he'll explain later and thus, the pairs fight over who's the real one. Suddenly, Laios starts facing the darkness downwind and begins barking, shocking the party at how good he's imitating dogs. True to Laios's deductions, his barking causes the clones to dissipate and the caster to reveal itself: a multi-tailed fox-like monster who attacks Laios. Fortunately, before Laios can pounce on it, Marcille uses her magic to blow the monster up, killing it. With the threat gone, Senshi goes to remake the dishes after the ones made by the clones were revealed to be fakes and the party sit down for lunch. Laios reveals that he noticed some behavioural errors that tipped him off to the identities of the clones: Chilchuck B was sitting on a box which could be trapped, lacking his usual wariness, Senshi A remarked he took all of the harpy eggs, lacking his usual sense of environmental responsibility, while Marcille B threw away the boiling water without checking for undines, an act of clumsiness aligned with her normal behaviour. The party commend Laios's observational skills and sit down to eat dessert, but just as Senshi's about to make tea, he notices that his tea and grains are gone. 
The party track a trail of grains to an empty cell and suddenly hear a scream, where they find one of Shuro's retainers, Asebi, holding Marcille hostage. She orders the party to drop their weapons and orders Marcille, as a black magic user, to undo the curses affecting her. Asebi reveals the two curses afflicting her: a summoning curse on her neck and a lycanthropy curse causing her to take the form of a humanoid feline. Marcille notices that the curse on Asebi's neck is written in Eastern script and was likely made by Maizuru, but just as she tries to inquire about the curse's effects, Asebi yells at her to hurry up and orders Chilchuck to get her some food. Asebi eats a ration ball, so Senshi, noticing her hunger, offers to make her something, which she refuses until she starts coughing thanks to the dryness of the ball. Thus, Asebi agrees to let Senshi cook, though he demands that he doesn't use any monster ingredients. Thus, Senshi uses the little ingredients he has to make a simple risotto. 
Asebi unexpectedly enjoys the risotto, even asking for more, but the party quickly notice her table manners are horrible. Suddenly, she throws out the mushrooms from her risotto, which she explains is because she simply dislikes them. With Asebi also using her spoon incorrectly, Senshi is ticked off at her crass behaviour and demands that she use her spoon properly and pick up the food she spilt, causing an argument to erupt whilst Marcille tries to get Asebi to sit still, warning her that moving during the curse's deactivation could have unforeseen consequences. As Marcille warned, the curse mark summons a knife-wielding hag made of paper. Senshi shoves Asebi out of the way, explaining to her why he wanted to teach her how to use a spoon properly but when she still insists on her way, Senshi decides to use the battle to teach her the importance of using tools the right way. Seeing as the hag is wielding a carving knife that despite its sharpness, is quite thin, Senshi uses his pot to break the hag's knife, slamming it into a wall. With Laios igniting the hag's bisected lower half, the hag is burnt to ashes, leaving the party safe. 
Thus, Senshi and Marcille gently lecture Asebi on her actions. As she finishes her food, Asebi reveals that her curses were created using black magic, which is why she sought Marcille in particular after hearing of her feats of black magic. Thus, after hearing that the party are heading to break Falin's curse, she believes that they can cure her curse as well. However, Marcille admits that they don't really have a plan as there are many things unknown about the soul's condition, which could mean that the curses afflicting Falin and Asebi are incurable. Asebi is confused as to why the party still press forwards, to which Laios tells her that he wants to make sure Falin doesn't rampage about hurting others or gets hurt herself. Furthermore, the party have to lay low in fear of getting arrested for their black magic usage. Asebi is disappointed at this news, but Laios, noting that she's docile despite being half-monster, is excited at this prospect of having Falin live a normal life despite her condition. Furthermore, Marcille remarks that should they find the lunatic magician, they might somehow get him to help them cure Falin and Marcille. Thus, Asebi reluctantly joins the party, revealing that her real name is actually Izutsumi. 
Later that night, under convincing from Laios, Marcille goes to bed but unfortunately starts to have nightmares. Thus, to save her from the bad dreams plaguing her, Laios uses her as a pillow, entering the dreamscape himself and, after facing his own dreams, enters Marcille's dream. Laios finds himself in a monochrome hall of endless bookshelves and portraits where he finds a younger Marcille, warning him to escape this dangerous place. She drags him along, warning that a monster she saw ate her father and "Pipi". Laios remembers Falin's advice on shielding the dreamer's emotional scars when dreaming and thus, offers to help Marcille defeat the monster haunting her dreams. Unfortunately, said monster reveals itself to be a terrifying amalgam which chases them down. Marcille laments that the monster kills everyone, to which Laios tries to comfort her, saying that he has a plan to defeat it. Unfortunately, the monster catches up and infects Laios with its venom, causing a part of his face to rapidly age. Laios asks Marcille to try and use her magic, but she says that when she tried to use magic to defeat it, "she", referring to a doll of Falin, was hurt in the process. This causes Laios to realise that the monster is representative of Marcille's fear of death and tries to get her to face it head-on, only for the monster to start sucking him in. 
The duo manage to escape, but Laios notices that he's aging faster and faster. Marcille worries that he can't catch up with her, but he reassures her that he can after he takes a short break. However, Marcille rants that everybody who said that was "swallowed" by the monster, her pet bird Pipi included, which is why she wants to study magic to stop it. She recalls how her mother warned her during her father's funeral that she would have to watch her loved ones pass away before she did. This causes Laios to realise Marcille isn't scared of death per se, but rather, seeing herself outlive her loved ones. As the monster approaches, Laios urges her to stand strong, praising her for her prowess in magic. As the monster starts swallowing Laios, Marcille laments that she doesn't have the tools needed, so her tells her that so long as she wishes hard enough, she can achieve anything she wants. Thus, Marcille summons the magician's grimoire and strikes the monster, dispelling her bad dream and allowing her and Laios to return to the waking world. 
As Laios awakens, he notices Marcille falling back asleep and quickly wakes her back up, informing her of her bad dreams earlier which she can't recall. Laios empties Marcille's pillow and reveals that they're inhabited by nightmares, clam-like dragon relatives that invoke bad dreams in sleepers to feast on their emotions. Senshi cooks the nightmares up, with the steam forming a projection of Marcille's dream where as her younger self, she played with a white dog in a library after escaping something. While Laios still remembers something different happening in the dream, he's just glad that he managed to help his friend get a pleasant sleep and a good dream. 
The party carry along a narrow path, with Izutsumi nagging them to hurry up. They eventually end back up in the room where the party last fought the Red Dragon, which Marcille notes was believed to be the deepest point of the dungeon until a door was discovered recently, seemingly only openable by magic. After Chilchuck finds the party's gear, Laios and Marcille happily unearth their underpants and sleeping bag respectively, with most of their gear sans their rations being present. Chilchuck scolds Izutsumi for trying to pocket a gold coin, causing an argument to trigger between the two. Senshi finds some fish frozen in a pile of ice and asks Marcille to help him defrost it, so she decides to instead teach Laios how to draw a magic circle. Laios's circle works, but it's revealed that the ice pile is actually a golem, formed from when Senshi accidentally dropped a core into the drain. Icicles begin dropping from the ceiling, which Laios shields Marcille from. Fortunately, with some teamwork Chilchuck and Izutsumi bring the golem down, allowing the fish to be harvested. 
Izutsumi criticises the rest for being useless but soon catches a cold, so the party decide to change their clothes. Marcille offers to give Izutsumi some cover but she declines, revealing that she's fully furred like a beast, though this only causes Laios to be even more curious about her anatomy. Thus, using the steam produced from defrosting the fish, the party take a sauna and Senshi prepares some seafood chawamushi. Izutsumi demands to eat first, but is denied as meals only start when everyone's ready. During this time, Chilchuck apologises for his earlier remarks to Izutsumi and gives her a repaired rucksack as a gift. 
The party set off, with Marcille helping Izutsumi dress in some winter clothes. Senshi hands everyone some candied mandrakes as some travel food but Izutsumi refuses, believing that eating monsters will cause you to contract strange diseases and even become a monster. While Marcille remarks that this fear of becoming "impure" is quite commonplace, especially since many new diseases are popping up from animals that live close to humans. The party stop to rest for a while, during which Laios decides to make some food himself as Senshi is asleep. During this, he tries to explain to Izutsumi that nutrition isn't that simple and you aren't literally what you eat, giving the analogy of a sheep not becoming a plant after eating grass. However, Izutsumi quickly points out what appears to be a sheep-plant hybrid growing in a nearby pasture and runs off to harvest it. Laios explains to Marcille that the plant is a Barometz, a sheep-mimicking plant that tends to attract predators with its fruit, so they quickly race off to try and stop Izutsumi. 
True to Laios's warnings, dire wolves arrive so while he faces them off, Izutsumi ditches him and leaves, forcing Marcille to chase after her, losing her staff on the way. As the two enter a cave, Marcille questions Izutsumi on why she ditched the team, to which she simply remarks that since she hates dogs, she left Laios to fill in for the team, calling back to the golem fight earlier. Marcille protests that this isn't how teamwork works and that they didn't leave her alone on purpose. Marcille tries to follow Izutsumi, but the latter simply remarks that Marcille should follow her own path more, noting that it's bizarre how Marcille does things she dislikes all the time. The dire wolves draw near, but while Marcille offers to try and scare them off with a spell, Izutsumi just runs off by herself. Marcille casts an explosion spell, scaring the wolves and catches up just in time to find Izutsumi being attacked by another wolf, casting a stun spell to paralyse it. 
Noticing Izutsumi's broken arm, Marcille walks her back to camp. On the way, she explains that while she doesn't like eating monsters, she does so to stay on the path to her goals, hoping to use these "shortcuts" to help those she loves sooner. The two regroup with Laios and the rest, who, with Laios's impressive dog impressions, managed to scare off the rest of the wolves. Marcille uses her magic to heal Izutsumi's broken arm, and while she does scream from the pain, Marcille praises her for withstanding it. Seeing as the wolves ate all the mature fruit, Senshi decides to cook the unripe one instead, revealing the developing fruit to look like a lamb fetus which grosses out Marcille and Chilchuck. Nevertheless, the resulting meal made from it is noted to be exceptionally tasty, with Izutsumi especially enjoying it despite first impressions. Furthermore, Laios notes that barometz interestingly tastes like crab. Marcille, Senshi and Laios pet and praise Izutsumi for eating the food, but she quickly scratches them up, yelling that she only ate the food out of obligation. She also forces Marcille to eat some, noting the hypocrisy if she doesn't otherwise. 
After trekking onwards for a while, the party sit down to eat breakfast. As Senshi cooks, he recalls that Marcille once likened souls to eggs and asks her if chimeras are similar to scrambled eggs in a manner of speaking, noting that eggs can be vastly different based on preparation style. Marcille quickly clarifies that she only used eggs as a metaphor for the human body containing souls, so Senshi remarks that eggs are very interesting as they can be used for many things anyways. As the party eats their eggs benedicts, Izutsumi remarks that she senses an unearthly presence, so Laios admits that he's been seeing visions ever since he used magic for the first time, but decided not to tell the party as he was scared that they'd think he went crazy. The spirit that's been haunting Laios manifests himself behind him, so Marcille warns Laios not to speak with the spirit. This apparently angers the spirit as he reveals himself as the ghost who saved the party from the magician's trap back on the fifth floor. The party thank the ghost and as the spirit offers to bring the party to meet someone, Laios agrees and the party are dragged into the dungeon walls by ghostly arms. 
The party reawaken in a pristine castle town, where they're met by a farmer pulling a unicorn-driven cart. Realising that they're from outside of the castle, he tosses them farmer's outfits and drives them to the town. Along the way, the party notice that the monsters there are tame enough to be kept as livestock, which the farmer explains is because they're under orders not to hurt them, though they will attack outsiders. Izutsumi suddenly slumps on Marcille, surprising her on how docile she suddenly is. The party arrive at a farmstead, exciting the villagers who offer to let the party venture through the town. Laios, Chilchuck and Senshi all go off sightseeing while Marcille stays behind to look after Izutsumi. During this, she agrees to help 3 dressmakers try out the dresses they made, with Izutsumi also joining in. 
Category:Synopsis