Chapter 338

"I-I'm so sorry! Please, I beg you, d-don't eat us!"

The three-and-a-half-metre Minotaur buried her face in her massive hands and bawled, her whole frame trembling as fat tears rolled down her golden fur in streams.

Rudra stood frozen on the front steps, his right hand still hovering inches from the grip of Extortion.

'...Eat them?'

"Whoa, hey. We aren't going to eat anybody," Rudra said quickly, pulling his hand away from his weapon and holding both palms up in the air where she could see them. "We just came to talk. Literally just to talk."

"Y-you won't?"

"I swear on my life."

The giantess parted two thick fingers and peeked down at him with a watery golden eye. She glanced at Iris, then back at Rudra. Slowly, her wailing quieted down into heavy, rattling hiccups.

"Let them in, Aurocha."

The voice came from somewhere inside the house. It was deep and rough, like gravel sliding down a hill.

The giantess flinched, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and shuffled aside.

. . .

The inside of the house was as beautiful as everything else in the village. Black stone walls carved with flowing vines. A long, low table of polished dark wood. Two chairs at its head: one enormous, clearly built for a giant, and one small and sturdy.

Sitting in the smaller chair was a dwarf.

He looked older than any of the dwarves Rudra had passed on the street. His thick black beard was heavily streaked with iron-grey and braided into a single heavy plait that hung all the way past his belt buckle. He sat with his tree-trunk arms crossed tight over his barrel chest, his craggy face carrying the warmth of a tombstone.

His dark eyes swept over Rudra, flicked once to Iris, and settled back on Rudra.

"Sit," the old dwarf grunted.

Rudra and Iris pulled out two wooden chairs and sat.

Beside the dwarf, the giantess—Aurocha—gingerly folded her massive frame into the oversized chair. Even seated with her shoulders hunched, she was taller than Rudra standing up. Reaching out with trembling fingers, she picked up a porcelain teacup from the table.

The cup was the size of a mop bucket.

Clatter-clatter-clatter!

Her hands were shaking so badly that the tea sloshed over the rim and splashed onto the table.

Without looking at her, and without a single shift in his stony expression, the dwarf took a folded cloth from beside his own cup and passed it to her.

Aurocha took it with a tiny sniffle and hurriedly dabbed at the puddle.

Rudra watched this happen and felt that he had just learned something important about these two people.

"I am Durgrin," the dwarf rumbled. "Chief of the Obsidian Dwarves. Beside me is Aurocha, Chieftess of the Ravishing Minotaurs." His bushy eyebrows drew together. "And you two are the humans who strolled out of the forbidden forest and scared half our valley out of their boots."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Rudra said sheepishly. "That really wasn't the plan."

"Hmph."

Next to Durgrin, Aurocha suddenly froze mid-wipe.

She was staring straight at Rudra. The terror had vanished from her face, replaced by wide-eyed bewilderment. Her broad nostrils flared twice, and her golden eyes grew round as dinner plates.

"D-Durgrin," she whispered, tugging frantically on the old dwarf's braided sleeve. "Durgrin, he... he smells just like Her."

Durgrin frowned. "Like who?"

"The Goddess!" Aurocha slapped both giant hands over her mouth, dropping the damp towel. "He carries Her divine scent! You... wait, are you the Goddess's Muse?!"

Rudra blinked, surprised at how fast that worked once he was finally indoors. "I am, actually."

Squeak!

Aurocha let out a tiny, high-pitched noise that had no business coming out of a three-and-a-half-metre man-eating monster.

[The affinity of the Ravishing Minotaurs Chieftess, Aurocha has increased by 50!]

Durgrin's craggy face didn't budge an inch. However, very slowly, the old dwarf uncrossed his thick arms and gave Rudra a second, much sharper look.

"The Muse, is it?" Durgrin muttered. "So that explains it."

"Explains what?"

"Why my boys didn't put a throwing axe between your eyes on the street." Durgrin leaned back in his chair. "Our people do not attack the goddess's chosen. And besides..."

He gestured with one thick finger at Iris. "...the girl with you is easy on the eyes. No dwarf in this valley would throw an axe at a pretty woman. Ruining a good face goes against our religion."

Beside Rudra, Iris did not react outwardly. Her face stayed perfectly blank.

But Rudra, who was sitting right next to her, noticed that the tips of her ears had gone quite pink.

'Well, well,' Rudra thought, biting down the urge to grin. Being a man who valued his own life, he kept his mouth shut.

Rudra cleared his throat and got down to business.

He had run this exact playbook three times now. The Valiant Orcs. The Splendid Ogres. The Majestic Centaurs. By now, he had the routine down: a polite introduction, a flash of his [Muse of the Goddess] title, and then the undefeated trump card sitting in his inventory.

He reached into his inventory with complete, smug confidence.

"Before we talk," he said, "please, allow me to offer a small gift. A token of the goddess's favor."

Clink.

He set a large silver platter on the table and lifted the lid.

Shaaaaah...

A rich, fragrant cloud of steam rolled out. Sitting on the silver tray was a mountain of his signature Beauty Meat—roasted to a deep, glossy mahogany, the sweet herb glaze bubbling lightly, filling the entire hall with a savory aroma that could make a starving man weep.

Rudra leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers over his stomach, and waited for the tears of joy.

He was already counting it in his head.

'Ogres made six. Centaurs made seven. Minotaurs make eight, Dwarves make nine. Cooking Saint, here I come.'

Across the table, Aurocha leaned her massive head forward to peer into the steam.

SCREEEECH—!

Then she recoiled so hard that her enormous chair screeched backward across the stone floor.

"I-is that..." Her voice shook. Her eyes were wide with horror. "Is that... the flesh of a living creature?!"

Rudra's confident smile froze on his face.

"...Yes?"

"W-we don't..." Aurocha clutched both hands over her racing heart, looking ready to faint. "We could never! Minotaurs do not eat meat! Not ever!"

Dead silence dropped over the hall.

For the first time in his life, the future Cooking Saint had served one of the best cooked meat ever to a room full of giant vegans.

Rudra didn't move a muscle.

He sat there with his hand still resting on the lid of the platter and the smug smile still frozen on his face. His brain had simply stopped working. Somewhere inside it, the little counter that had been ticking up toward 8/10 slowly ticked back down to 7.

One second ticked by.

Then two.

Then five.

Across the table, Aurocha stared at Rudra's unresponsive, statue-like face and came to the worst possible conclusion.

"I-I'm sorry!" she wailed, tears springing straight back into her eyes. "I insulted the Muse! I spat upon the Goddess's sacred offering! Please forgive me! Don't curse our crops! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...!"

Bwaaaaaah!

She burst into tears all over again, great heaving sobs that made the teacups rattle on the table.

Seven seconds. Eight seconds.

Rudra was still buffering.

Then, out of the corner of his frozen eye, he saw Iris move.

Quickly hiding her surprised face, she reached into her inventory, took out a small plate with a slice of strawberry cake on it, the one he'd baked her the night before, and held it out to him with a smile.

She offered it to him the same way someone holds out a biscuit to a dog that just got kicked in the ribs.

Rudra slowly lowered his eyes to the strawberry cake.

He looked over at Iris.

She looked back at him with that smug smile and nudged the plate a little closer.

Wordlessly, Rudra took the cake.

He picked up the small fork and shoved a bite of cake into his mouth.

It was delicious. Obviously. He was the one who baked it.

As the sugar hit his body, his brain finally rebooted. Letting out a quiet breath, he set the lid back onto the silver platter, slipped the rejected meat back into his inventory as if it had never existed, and looked up at the hyperventilating giantess.

"Please don't cry," Rudra said gently. "Seriously, I'm not mad at all. I didn't check with you before pulling that out—that's entirely my fault. I'm the one who should be apologizing."

Aurocha peeked through her furry fingers, sniffling loudly. "Y-you really aren't going to smite us?"

"I don't even know how to smite people."

She let out a long, shaky sigh, her sobs finally dying down to pathetic little hiccups.

Next to her, Durgrin hadn't spared the silver platter a single glance from start to finish.

"Don't bother offering it to us either," he said bluntly. "Dwarves barely eat. We eat what the Minotaurs grow, and we're grateful for it. And we don't care what we look like."

He scratched his beard. "A dwarf's beauty is in what he crafts. Not in his face."

'Yeah, figures,' Rudra thought numbly, chewing a strawberry. 'Why would anything ever be easy?'

Suddenly, Durgrin's eyes narrowed, a genuine spark of interest flickering in them for the first time since they sat down.

"Wait a minute," the dwarf leaned forward. "You're a chef, aye? Do you brew liquor? Wine?"

Rudra paused with his fork halfway to his mouth.

"...No."

Durgrin looked at him for a long moment. Then he let out a long, heavy sigh and shook his head slowly, giving Rudra the exact look a disappointed father gives a son who just failed his third job interview.

Outside the window, two dwarves who had been eavesdropping shook their heads too.

. . .

Rudra decided to stop trying to be clever and simply told them the truth.

He told them about Stormbreak. About the goddess's coordinates, and the tribes she had asked him to find. About the Orcs and the Ogres and the Centaurs, all of whom lived in his territory now, safely, with homes and work and respect.

"I want to invite both of your tribes to come with me too," he finished. "I'll give you a place to work, all the raw materials you can use, and my personal protection. Nobody will ever bother you."

Aurocha had gone very still again.

She was staring at him with her huge golden eyes, and Rudra could see the struggle on her face. She wanted to say yes. She was physically incapable of saying no to anyone, let alone the goddess's own Muse. Her mouth opened.

"W-we would be hon—"

"No."

Durgrin's voice was flat and final.

Aurocha's mouth closed. She shrank back into her chair, staring down at her lap.

"Neither of our peoples will be stepping foot out of this valley," Durgrin said. "Not for you, Muse. Not for anyone."

Rudra frowned slightly. "Can I ask why?"

The dwarf was quiet for a moment. When he finally spoke again, the gruff annoyance had drained out of his voice, leaving something colder behind.

"A generation ago, the Minotaurs lived in the open. Out in the world, like any other people." He glanced at Aurocha, then back at Rudra. "Then the Saharan nobles discovered that a Minotaur's golden horns make a very pretty trophy. A very valuable one."

Aurocha's shoulders hunched. She didn't look up.

"They came with soldiers. And hunters. And dogs." Durgrin's jaw tightened under his beard. "We fled together, both our peoples, and we came here, where no one would follow. We built this place with our own hands. And here, no one has hunted us since."

He uncrossed his arms and laid both hands flat on the table.

"Out there, we'd be hunted. Or looked down on. Or both. In here, we are safe. That is all we want."

Rudra didn't say a word.

Beside the dwarf, Aurocha slowly raised her head. Fresh tears were slipping silently down her golden fur, though she wasn't wailing this time.

"I'm sorry, Lord Muse," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I am truly, deeply sorry."

Sitting in the quiet hall with the sweet taste of strawberry icing still lingering on his tongue, Rudra came to a very clear realization.

For the first time since the Goddess had handed him her title, being the Muse wasn't going to cut it.