Hot Pot (Chapter 1)
A quest to fight the Red Dragon results in a party being disbanded and a young mage held prisoner in the belly of the beast. Worried for his sister's life and to avoid spending their minimal funds, Laios convinces his remaining party members to restart their journey through the dungeon system while eating nothing but the monsters they come cross in their adventures. And their first attempt at making a meal out of a scorpion leads to a fateful encounter with a friendly dwarf who knows a thing or two about creature culinary arts.
Tart (Chapter 2)
The Touden Party reaches the second level which consists of an indoor forest. Wanting to stock up on produce before they move on, the group accepts Marcille's suggestion of finding fruits and vegetables by confronting the carnivorous plants who inhabit the dungeon forest.
"Hot Pot" contains the following tropes:
Huge scorpion and walking mushroom hot pot
- Action Prologue: The story of Laios starts with him and his party fighting the infamous Red Dragon.
- Always a Bigger Fish: Discussed. Laios explains to Marcille and Chilchuck that the giant monsters who inhabit the dungeons must prey on smaller monsters for substenence. And those monsters prey on lesser monsters or flora grown in the underground system. By that logic, there's a variety of food sources for them to eat from as they journey through the dungeon.
- Ambiguous Situation: According to the narrator, the origin of the dungeon monsters is a mystery for the ages. Were they once regular creatures who were transformed by the dungeon's dark magic? Or did they originate from hell itself?
- Birds of a Feather: Senshi strikes a friendship with Laios as he too is also a rising connoisseur of monster delicacies.
- Blob Monster: Green slime is a thing that can suffocate adventurers. Senshi mentions how they can be prepared either as food or other commodities.
- But I Read a Book About It: Initially, Laios goes by a Dungeons' Monster Handbook for advice on what monsters are edible and safe to eat. Though the book is rather outdated and doesn't have the most reliable of knowledge, as shown with the scorpion.
- Death Is Cheap: Implied. While suffocating from a slime monster, Marcille laments that this will be her first death. This suggests that dungeon adventurers can die but come back to life repeatedly.
- Dragons Are Demonic: The Red Dragon that Laios' party faces off proves to be a hell of a monster.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Senshi's shadow can be seen passing by as Marcille argues about eating monsters like common criminals.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Laios is the leader of his party who's a skilled fighter but distracts very easily. So much that he doesn't notice the Red Dragon about to eat him.
- Marcille declares that she'll be needed as the group's mage but openly complains about having to eat monsters.
- Chilchuck boasts that his trap solving skills are also of great value to the group; he also makes alot of dry and sarcastic wisecracks.
- Senshi shows himself to the party and begins preparing the scorpion unprompted like some Martha Stewart-themed "master chef".
- Establishing Series Moment: Before venturing into the dungeon, Laios proclaims to his party that they'll only eat the monsters and plantlife they come across in their adventures.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Not only does Falin, Laios' sister, save him from winding up in the dragon's jaws but she casts a spell that transports everyone out of the dungeon and back to the surface.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Laios assures Marcille that it's totally safe to eat a scorpion since that's what the book told him. He starts to vomit after a single bite.
- It's All My Fault: Laios blames himself for letting Falin fall into the frightening fangs of the ferocious fire-breathing fiend.
- Mushroom Man: The first monster that Laios group comes across is a walking mushroom. It doesn't think or talk but it can walk and scare off newbies.
- Series Goal: Laios' motivation is to find the Red Dragon and save his sister Falin before she's digested.
- Scary Scorpions: The second monster that Laios and friends eat up is a medium-sized scorpion.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After escaping the dragon's clutches, two of Laios' party members quit.
- Urban Legends: The first story told to the viewer describes how the entrance to a dungeon was opened from the ground and out appeared a withered old king. He told everyone that his kingdom was conquered by an evil wizard and cast a curse on it, turning it into a dungeon. Just before he turned to dust, the former king proclaimed that whoever defeated the wizard would inherit the kingdom and become its new ruler.
"Tart" contains the following tropes:
Man-eating plant tart
- Be Careful What You Wish For:
- Marcille begrudgingly accepts to eat any monster as long as it's edible. But she quickly shoots down the options Laios presents to her.
- Earlier, she asks if there are any fruits available. Senshi mentions that there are. They just come from several carnivorous plants.
- Big "NO!": Laios says this as Marcille burns the seeds he wanted to keep.
- Botanical Abomination: Laios infodumps to Marcille how the Shadowtail plant that entrapped her is known to stick its seeds into the victim's skin which can result in a new plant growing while causing unbearable pain to the host.
- Damsel in Distress: Marcille ends up being caught in the vines of the giant plants after Senshi interrupts her spell.
- Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: Senshi orders Marcille not to complete her fire spell as it ends up harming the fruit they want to obtain from the plants.
- Man-Eating Plant: Several plants in the dungeon forests are big enough to capture wandering travelers with the party even finding a corpse in one of them. Though it should be clarified that not all plants actually eat humans and mainly trap them to make compost.
- Never Found the Body: Defied. The party sets up the corpse by tying him to a tree so it can be discovered by future travelers.
- Shout-Out: In the English Dub, Laios mention that a duck carrying a green onion isn't going to walk on by so easily.
- Treetop Town: The second level is filled with large trees with holes that have been hollowed out so that dungeon explorers can set up camp for a day or two. Some holes even feature the basics of a grill and sleeping quarters.
Dungeon food. Eat or be eaten. There is no hierarchy to it. Just the reality that to eat is the privilege to the living. Ah dungeon food. Delicious in dungeon.
