In the banquet hall of Forgefire Capital, long tables were lined with various delicacies: whole roasted rock lizards, honey-soaked ribs, and the indispensable strong dwarven liquor.
The dwarves attending the banquet tore at chunks of meat, hugged ale kegs to drink deeply, stomped dance steps imitating a charge to the beat of drums, and laughed wildly and heartily.
Inanna sat quietly in the center of this vortex of revelry, out of place with her surroundings.
The previous conflict, under the mediation of the Dwarf King's messenger, ultimately did not develop into a brawl.
After returning to Forgefire Capital, the Dwarf King generously announced that, just as Badul had said, the Imprisonment Ring was a spoil of war deserved by the victor and should belong to Inanna.
If Lin Jun didn't know clearly that the messenger had been hiding in the dark observing from start to finish, he might really have thought the Dwarf King was a true-natured hero like Badul.
The boisterous banquet before them was both to celebrate the retaking of the Molten Dungeon and to see off the delegation.
Badul had long since thrown the dispute to the back of his mind; only strong liquor remained in his eyes.
He downed a cup, and No. 4 Puchi beside him followed suit, pouring a cup onto its own mushroom cap.
Whether a Puchi could get drunk was unknown, but the stool and floor were completely soaked.
The half-drunk Badul hugged the dripping wet No. 4, slurring his speech while praising its "good capacity for alcohol."
He also wanted to clink cups with Sword Saint Puchi.
Airaven actually quite liked his straightforward personality, but had absolutely no interest in pouring liquor onto his own head, so he decisively dodged.
Badul could only sway over to Inanna again, raising his cup high: "To warriors! Let those... hic... cowards all get lost!"
Not far away, several members of the Deepforge Clan had faces of iron-green, yet dared not make a sound.
Seeing this, Badul laughed even more heartily.
Inanna gently clinked cups with him.
Seeing that Inanna's cup actually contained fruit juice, Badul shook his head and muttered regretfully: "Such a brave warrior, a pity she's a woman who can't drink."
Immediately after, Badul picked up a nut-like fruit from the mountain of food piled on the table.
"Come, taste this! A real good thing from our mountains, Molten Thorn Chestnut!" He stuffed the fruit into Inanna's hand, urging her to taste it quickly.
Inanna peeled open the hard shell, revealing the fruit meat inside, and put it into her mouth. Her brow raised slightly; it was indeed a good thing. This taste was probably at the level of [Delicious LV4]!
"Very delicious." She praised politely.
"Right! Haha!" Badul swayed his wine cup proudly. "I've eaten that Delicious Mushroom of yours too; it's indeed not bad. Unfortunately, compared to our Thorn Chestnut that has absorbed the essence of mountains and rivers, it is ultimately... hehe, just a tiny bit worse!"
Just then, a wet mycelial tentacle still stained with liquor gently tapped Badul's shoulder.
Badul turned his head dizzily, coming face-to-face with No. 4 Puchi's mushroom cap.
Inanna was indifferent to Badul's comparison just now, but No. 4 wouldn't stand for it.
No. 4 curled up a table knife from the side. After struggling for half a day without managing to slice its own tentacle, it could only run to Sword Saint Puchi to borrow his sword.
Sword Saint's tentacle twitched. People around didn't even notice he had drawn his sword, but the tip of No. 4's tentacle had already been sliced off a layer.
It immediately curled up this mushroom slice and handed it directly to Badul's mouth.
This outrageous operation shocked away half of Badul's drunkenness.
"Do... do what? Let me eat this?" He stared at that mushroom slice, his face wrinkling into a ball.
No. 4's tentacle pushed forward again, its attitude firm.
Under the curious and laughter-suppressing gazes of some surrounding dwarves, Badul put on an expression of "what hasn't this old man eaten," pinched the mushroom slice, and stuffed it into his mouth.
The next second, Badul's eyes widened like copper bells, as if struck by lightning named "Delicious." His whole body stiffened, and a string of meaningless strange noises came from his throat.
"Mmph! Oh! Ohhh!"
In a moment of inattention, his foot slipped.
Under the watchful eyes of everyone, this dwarf war hero danced with joy and fell backward, plunging his whole person into a large wine barrel, splashing liquor everywhere.
Gurgle gurgle... The wine barrel tipped over, and amber liquid gushed out. When the liquor finished flowing, Badul was seen with most of his body stuffed inside the barrel, only two legs exposed outside. Earth-shaking snores were already rhythmically transmitting from inside the barrel.
Puchi—
No. 4's short leg stepped on Badul's butt. It puffed up its round mushroom cap, put several tentacles on its hips (if that counted as hips), posing like a victor—nothing could be more delicious than a Puchi!
Inanna, who had been watching from the side, finally couldn't hold back and covered her mouth to chuckle.
The surrounding dwarves were stunned at first, then erupted into even louder roars of laughter. The noisy atmosphere of the banquet reached a new peak at this moment.
When Badul woke up from his hangover, the delegation had already left Forgefire Capital and embarked on the return journey.
Although the people had left, the ripples had not settled.
The entire Forgefire Capital became lively. Craftsmen and laborers of all clans were busy preparing for the comprehensive retaking and redevelopment of the Molten Dungeon.
During this period, a small interlude occurred—the Deepforge Clan Leader's residence was burglarized.
The thief did not break into the heavily guarded treasury but swept the outer hall and the Clan Leader's private study clean.
Precious jewelry, rare rune stone slabs, and even the Clan Leader's staff inlaid with a small piece of pure S-grade magic crystal... all vanished without a trace.
The scene only left behind cabinets turned into a mess and the Clan Leader's face, iron-green from rage.
If it were ordinary times, this would be enough to become headline news shaking the whole city.
But nowadays, everyone's thoughts were tied to the redevelopment of the dungeon. Aside from the Deepforge Clan jumping around in chaos over this, not many outsiders truly cared.
...
In the delegation team, inside Inanna's carriage.
Knight Puchi extended a mycelial tentacle, probing into a certain gap connecting his mushroom cap and torso, rummaging with rustling sounds. Subsequently, several items were tossed onto the soft-cushioned seat one by one.
An S-grade magic crystal only the thickness of a finger, a night-luminescent pearl emitting soft radiance inside the carriage, and two metal ingots of unknown variety but clearly good quality...
"These things... where did they come from?" Inanna widened her eyes, curiously picking up that warm night-luminescent pearl.
"Picked them up," said Lin Jun, who hadn't attended the banquet.
...
This trip was a full harvest.
Of course, not referring to the scrap metal picked up from the Deepforge Clan side.
The Clan Leader's staff was actually only inlaid with such a tiny S-grade magic crystal. Poor ghost!
The true harvest was still the seal and the Fire Elemental Lord.
Needless to say about the Fire Elemental Lord; right now, this thing was like Inanna's Pokemon. Just by activating it through the Imprisonment Ring, a part of it could be released.
Although after releasing it, the Fire Elemental Lord couldn't be forcibly controlled, as long as Inanna opened her mouth to seek help, how could this guy whose core was dyed pink refuse?
Of course, given that the Fire Elemental Lord's indiscriminate high-temperature field currently could only be ignored by the blessed Inanna, how to avoid harming friendly forces in actual combat still needed careful deliberation.
The other thing was the seal of the Imprisonment Ring.
On this trip, Lin Jun had originally intended to get a sealing method to bring back and control that Ice Elemental Lord in the Northern Territory, to avoid it continuing to lower the temperature and affecting the Puchi Fortress's development.
Who expected the dwarves to have no sealing jutsu at all, only an instruction manual regarding parts of the Imprisonment Ring's functions?
But fortunately, Lin Jun actually had an extra Imprisonment Ring on hand.
That water elemental in the Tidal Sanctuary, which vanished into the mist without even showing its face, left a damaged Imprisonment Ring in place, which Lin Jun picked up.
The damaged area wasn't large. Later, he could try repairing it by comparing it with the Fire Elemental Lord's ring. After repairing it, he could stuff the Ice Elemental Lord inside.
At that time...
Holding two great Elemental Lords in hand, in the present where the Sword Saint had already "fallen," Inanna's strength could probably contend for the throne of "Humanity's Strongest Combat Power"!
Looking at Inanna, who was currently rubbing her cheek against a Puchi and barely touching the threshold of Diamond Rank relying on the nourishment of the Water of Life.
Thinking from another perspective, humanity's future... was probably a bit worrying.
...
Time rewinds slightly, to when Inanna was still inside the dungeon.
"Are you serious?" Vera, with a Puchi on her head, gripped the shoulders of the adventurer in front of her tightly with both hands.
"Really, really! An Elf beautiful to that degree, I wouldn't see wrong! Hiss... Vera, calm down a bit, you're grabbing me a bit painfully..."
(End of Chapter)
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