Dungeon hunting is fun. 

All the different types of dungeons are designed to both challenge and reward you for both strength, specific knowledge, and critical thinking skills. In other words, you get to fight monsters through some amazing terrain that isn't normally accessible like lava fields, thick lush jungles, even an ocean with beaches. The best part is definitely the treasure chests which can contain just about anything from fully forged metal armor to a bottle of water with a bunch of gold around it. Denny always loved seeing what was inside and so did the rest of us. He even counted the most chests we found in one day, our record being at 8.

Greg and I made "friendly" wager to see who could find more chests. He was going to work with a party to be more social and learn more about events surrounding us while I was heading in solo. He was going to need the help though since I was the second best at finding them behind Denny. Greg was in last since he could only find the ones guarded by monsters or ones with smashable puzzles. I particularly liked and was good at finding the ones with where you needed to put certain shapes into a bin in the correct way such that it unlocked a hidden room. 

I smiled as I thought about the treasure they could hold. I actually smiled more thinking about how Denny would love to come with us. Dungeons were always a special treat since you could only enter once a week per dungeon. It didn't matter how long you stayed but time would flow normally and when you exited the place the countdown would start.

We would get Denny back; I even had a god helping me out with it. Speaking of which the next quest had popped up early in the day.

Quest 'Blow up a building with a rat' has been given by ???

I'm sure it will be fine, there isn't even a reward listed so maybe it's optional.

Quest Update

Quest 'Blow up a building with a rat' given by ??? has been updated to include the penalty of 'EMOTIONAL DAMAGE' if Quest 'Blow up a building with a rat' given by ??? has not been completed within a week

I hesitated for a step but kept walking since there wasn't anything around slicing through some webs as I did so. I mentally clicked on the penalty to see that it reduced my strength and dexterity (basically reflexes and twitch motions with extremities) by 90% for 5 days. This was on top of the fact that any time I used these stats a system image of Denny with his head cut off by his monster form. Strength was used for standing and dexterity was used any time you moved. I would be heavily debuffed with this and I'm sure GC would just complain in the next message how I didn't do it or outright drop me for not being interesting enough.

I started running when I saw a light lion pride heading my way. This dungeon was structured like a plane with a very vast area full of patches of above head height grass almost everywhere. Going in the grass was a very good way to get yourself ambushed if you didn't have either high instincts or special monster location abilities. 

The pride was a group of D+ rank monsters that was led by a C- rank male. I may have been on the C- rank level but I didn't want to face light-based monsters, they always healed themselves and could turn invisible with enough concentration. The pride wasn't taking me seriously and had fanned out to surround me, but I was just as fast or faster with a leg gummy. 

I escaped after the male took a swipe at me with a light-based attacking skill and I juked it. It lost interest and walked away with a strut as if it had done something to me. 

I was pretty deep into the dungeon but also on an escape floor, one that could allow me to teleport out if I got to the special spot for it. I was looking for some earth element gazelles for my guild quest. I picked it out because the quest wanted their horns, and I wanted the meat for me to make the new recipe involving the dough golems.

The other monster in this dungeon were mostly light or nature based so these were the only real choice since I couldn't go further into the dungeon and using lower ranked monsters would not produce the golems as well.

With the meat being a major ingredient, I was edging towards the boundaries of my class for extra experience points. My baker class gave me bonuses to experience for food involving dough or pastries that I made but I could make anything I wanted as long as I knew how. It just wouldn't provide as much experience. Hell, even things with sugar counted since it was the basis of many desserts in baking. 

Confectioners provided more bonuses to sugar-based food, but I liked my baking class just fine. Back to the meat though, major ingredients were key indicators of the type of culinary class it would count towards. Meat would go towards butcher, chef, or rotisseur. Thankfully the recipe I was making was a meat dumpling and therefore counting with the outer part. These would be some coconut sized dumplings with space compressed meat, so I was going to need a lot of it.

I found a small group of nature apes meditating on some trees and ambushed them. I found a puzzle involving a lens and a bunch of mirrors that revealed a door in a tree. There was a small bronze chest inside so I wasn't expecting much, size and type of metal were a big tell for what you would get. I opened it for a surprise though, it was a spatula.