Lance stood up after a few more moments of awkward silence. Reilly seemingly took in his words like daggers at her heart and was put into deep thought. They had just around an hour and neither of them truly knew where in the cave they were, meaning that they were bound to the checkpoints they had reached. With a deep stretch Lance looked out onto the path at the goblin corpses. Seemingly proud that he survived, he thought inwardly

  " Thirty damage.. knowledge.. Also.. Pan sear. Much more than a cooking ability." He thought to himself. He wondered what prompted him to even try it as an ability for harm. All he could remember was his anger, his rage, he wouldn't let those goblins take him down. Stabbed and bleeding, the slow burn on his health bar, he just wanted to hurt them, to win, to live.. to cook them alive.

  Shaking him from his thoughts, Reilly stood up and said firmly. " Teach me.. Teach me to be more useful!" Reilly's demeanor changed just slightly, with puffed up cheeks and a slight blush to her face she balled her fists.

  Lance couldn't help but think how cute she looked, seemingly in anger her war face was still so squishy.. not realizing Lance eyed her up and down only to realize she was certainly a woman. Catching himself before the stare he coughed. " Ahem* .. Well that's a surprise because.. I don't really have anything to teach you. But I guess you can follow my lead."

  Reilly crossed her arms. " You mean you just so easily killed three goblins by yourself where our other teammates gave up, came away from death's door, and all the way deep into this side of the cave and you know nothing! Stop lying. If you teach me I.. I'll give you my slime rewards!.. "

  Lance's jaw dropped but then he realized.

  "Wait.. you got a drop from the slime? Outside of the loot box?" He had realized she was the person to get the killing blow on the large slime monster.

  " Yes I have a praise tier Gacha I haven't used in my mailbox. If you teach me to be more useful I will give it to you.". Reilly frumped and turned sideways.

  Lance thought to himself that he completely forgot about his own, and checked his mailbox as well. To his surprise another notification appeared.

  "Achievement unlocked Goblin Flayer - Kill 5 goblins Solo - Reward - Goblin speech - lesser

  Lance also still had a praise tier loot drop from the other goblins he accidentally killed. He almost pressed open on it but chose not to. Considering he had barely any room in his bag and three goblins to loot, whatever he opened may end up over burdening him. Realizing the strange but useful loophole of leaving items in his mailbox he left it, and gave Reilly a cunning look. Either she realized this as well or just like the rest of the group certain things people were keeping to themselves. " Hmm, okay deal but how do I know you actually got a drop. Use it now and I promise I will. But we've only got an hour. You better add me if you're gonna get a full lesson. My in-game name is Sammich."

  Reilly typed in her menu briefly and then Lance received an alert.

  RainbowButterly sent you a friend request! Accept Y/N

  Looking back up at Reilly, even in the darkness he could see how flush she was. She went to open her mouth and say something but Lance quickly pressed yes and cut her off " So now that's out of the way. Open it."

  Reilly got quiet and then pressed through her menu a few times, then in front of them on the ground the strangest thing appeared. A small crown. Hardly big enough to fit your head the crown looked equivalent to that of a child's crown. Reilly picked it up. Hiding behind an almost stone-like expression she waved it at him while her tone grew a little upset " You can get it when we're done!.. It's a Prince Slime crown. Hmph!"

  Lance knew almost immediately she was upset that she had to give it away, she quickly placed it on her head and stepped forward to shoo him towards the goblins on the path. He went with the motions instead of fighting it and quickly got to work.

  The first goblin he killed was facedown with his axe out of its head. He held its head down and ripped out the axe from its lodging. A sloshing suction sound was made pushing Reilly to gag as she turned away. Lance took that moment to begin his lessons. " First things first, you want rewards, killing is not the only way, the enemies are treasure too. Treat them nicely. " He tugged an ear and used the axe to chop it clean off, he then did the rest of their ears the same. He looked back to her to explain. " Now with my passive skill on I can see the ingredients. I don't know exactly how I'll cook these ears but I'll take them. Outside of that, the skin and meat can be used for something, and the tongue. Other than that even the goblin bones seem useless. Their gear is too small for most of us but the leather should be saved for rope or something like my bag see?" He continued as he slowly butchered and disrobed them. With a few goblin skin strips, the ears, and tongues he called it quits. He grabbed their broken spears and the small dagger. He handed the dagger and the spear to Reilly. "These are crude and obviously pretty trash because there's no stats, but you have nothing and this is better than that. Now that we've gathered their main ingredients the rest we can just leave. But not until one last step, Do you remember it?"

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  " The gems? "

  " Exactly now if I'm right" he said as he chopped into the breastplate of the first goblin. " It should be near the heart" Lance then plunged his hand into the cavity and then pulled it back out with another meaty suction sound. In his hand a small strawberry sized gem dazzled. " Yep heart it is. So that's pretty much the basics. Always check what's left behind. Even those slimes had small cores left in the water we overlooked because of the darkness. With that I was able to make the Cave Spider Salad with Slime dressing you ate earlier, that gave us the mana and dark vision buff.... What? It wasn't bad, don't lie.."

  Lance proceeded to tell her of his recipe and its ingredients though she already could guess after she saw she didn't want confirmation, Reilly dry heaved a few times and gagged but ended up not throwing up. Afterwards Lance proceeded to move the bodies off the path, what was left of them. All the while he began to explain to her how being prepared helped, knowledge from the little things. He told her that he found out about some paths that were around that could be passed if you took the easy or more available route, and the benefits of avoiding and engaging in monsters. He also commented on her diligence on meditation and that he commended her on finding the avenue where she helped the party more than they knew. She one shot the slime prince. And she healed when she could. The benefits of what he observed from her were that the slimes had a critical weakness to her electric move Spark. Lance rolled his eyes at their luck, other than that Lance had only noticed that blunt attacks held merit. Slashing a sword or piercing an arrow had no effect. They continued this way reflecting on their experiences and internalizing information for most of the remainder of their timer and promised each other to meet up again tomorrow. But that conversation got a little shaky.

  " So how do we know when each other would log in. Isn't the time crunch window sort of.. constricting?" Lance asked Reilly.

  " Well yeah I guess I didn't look at it like that. Why don't we just use UST? I'm in Japan. Where do you live? "

  " What? I’m in the US. Texas. Okay how about this, tomorrow I'm going to read the rule book, I suggest you do as well. The following day que at whatever time you did tonight, i guess twenty minutes ago. It was midnight for me. Also you speak great English."

  Reilly looked shocked.." Wait what, we're speaking Japanese."

  They both realized the game translated it for them. " Whoa that's neat." Lance said. The clocks for both of them were dwindling down to their last ten minutes. Lance decided he would share with her a secret he planned to keep for himself.

  " I know how to use the gems. Do you have any?"

  Reilly's eyes grew wide, she had yet to see any of them be used even by the other three. She had hers tucked away in a fold of her dress between her breasts, she quickly reached in and took out three small gems. " How?" she responded simply.

  " Well... Willing to eat goblin?"

  Reilly's hand closed and then reluctantly she handed them over. Lance then took out his pan, the goblin tongue and the gourd of goblin alcohol and some goblin skin. He looked around for some small vegetation with his D.I and shortly afterwards returned with some small weeds that were nuzzled next to a slow drip from above. He chopped the weeds and gave it a good whiff. It had a rather citrus note and when he licked it was also spicy like a radish. He cut the tongue into small bits and then doused it all in the goblin alcohol in the pan and gave them a good turn hoping to clean them. Next he cut a goblin skin into two square pieces about the size of his hand. Then he took one goblin ear and cut it long ways very thinly. He didn't have much to work with but meat, weeds and a little alcohol sounded like it would work out. He tossed the meat medley in the pan after laying out a bat wing, leaving out the hand size goblin skins. Finally he added his goblin gems. Leaving Reilly's on the side for the skin.

  Cook! Pan Sear!

  Quickly the meat began to sizzle and then pop. He splashed in a little more alcohol to keep it from sticking. Using his knife to move it around he then quickly threw the meat onto the wing and then added the skins and remaining gems. The flaps hit the pan with a quick sizzle splashing the almost evaporated alcohol out of the pan, the gems melted into a glaze coating the skin. After ten seconds on both sides the glaze began to caramelize, he folded them on themselves halfway and gave it a little more time. He flipped them out onto the wing and added the minced weeds for the remaining 10 seconds and again more alcohol. As the pan cooled he then scraped the pan onto the skins and then added the meat he cooked.

  " Goblinalco Crazy Tacos recipe created"

  + 8 health, - 1 luck, Scent of Goblin 1 Hour

  Grade - Waiter

  Description- A lackluster appetizer portion of goblin tendered meat rendered over a Goblin Liquor, garnished with a cave weed and crispy goblin ear rinds. Greasy oak notes with a spicy citrus finish, it pairs well with a Slime Soda.

  Lance looked at the new recipe in his menu. He had to admit he was pleased with himself. "Finally a better grade than dishwasher or busboy! Waiter though!?" He thought. Looking that it had a description he felt it at least had to be a step up, and if anything it healed so much! He picked one up and handed it to Reilly then grabbed his. They locked eyes for a second then they each bit into it.

  Lance immediately felt the crunch of the skin and ears and the spice of the cave weeds hit his tongue with impactful flavor. The greasy meat filled his mouth with a slimy texture and the back of his throat warmed with a whiskey breath heat like he had just drank a shot of alcohol. By far and large the taco was the best thing he had eaten here yet. However as the taco continued to be eaten the spice of the weed and breath of liquor grew and even though he didn't even get halfway he had to give up. He couldn't handle it and began to cough from the spicy tingling. He needed something to drink and he looked up at Reilly. Her eyes were beaming as she swallowed the last bite and licked her fingers.

  " You good? You gonna finish that?" She asked him seemingly perky and eager.

  " Uh no he.. re" He said as she took it from him and quickly devoured it. A moment later she sat back against a rock and began sweating, taking off the crown and waving it at her face with her mouth wide open. She fanned her tongue. She began to hiccup and sniffle. She was having the worst time with the spices. Far worse than Lance. He scrunched his face.

  " Hey wait a minute! You, My experience!"