Stewed Cabbage (Chapter 8)
The Touden Party happen to find their way back to Senshi's home base, where they're attacked by golems. To the party's surprise, these golems belong to Senshi, who uses their earthly constitution to grow healthy vegetables and crops, which the party uses to make a hearty green meal.
Orcs (Chapter 9)
While the Touden Party attempts to sell their extra crops to a seedy bar of unwanted adventurers, the place is wiped out by a band of orcs. Senshi, knowing the orcs, saves the party by offering to make the tribe a meal. Despite tensions between humans and orcs flaring up, a large bread-based feast helps them overcome their differences, and brings the party one step closer to finding the Red Dragon.
"Stewed Cabbage" contains examples of:
Stewed cabbage and turnip salad
- And Then What?: After Laios asks why Senshi goes through so much trouble keeping the dungeon bathrooms clean, the dwarf brings up a variety of 'what if' scenarios over who would take care of the bathrooms if not for him.
- Boring, but Practical: Discussed. Marcille wonders why Senshi doesn't want to use magic for cooking but Senshi brings up the fact that using magic would be a crutch and doing things by hand will keep the senses sharp.
- Call-Back: While peeling potatoes, Chillchuck grimaces about being the expert at 'peeling things'.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Senshi keeps the Golems alive because, other than them being perfect gardens for his vegetables, they also keep the other monsters in-check.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: When "fighting" the Golems, Senshi attacks them in specific points while removing the dolls used to bring them to life. It's soon revealed that he was the ones who kept them alive.
- Fluffy the Terrible: Senshi has given the golem names; Taro, Chiro and Saburonote .
- Haunted Castle: The narrator describes the Golden Castle as a symbol of glory and wonder. But after the corruption of the Mad Mage, it's now become a hollow, abandoned dungeon level where monsters lurk about in the shadows.
- I Ate WHAT?!: Marcille almost pukes when she learned that Senshi uses the waste from the restrooms as fertilizer for his vegetables. Chilchuck points out to Marcille that's just natural, even on the surface.
- Improbably Predictable: Marcille refuses to teach Laios how to create golems as she and Chilchuk know exactly what he'd do with that knowledge.
- Improvised Golems: The Golems that exist in the dungeon world are made of dirt and other soils. Senshi loves them since they're basically self-growing gardens that can maintain his veggies while also fighting invading monsters and travelers.
- Nature Is Not a Toy: Discussed. Senshi explains to his friends that the dungeon monsters who inhabit specific levels have their own ecosystem from which they gain and maintain their food and area of living. If other monsters, or even other adventurers, were to interfere with their method of living, then the monsters would be forced to invade other levels to survive, thus disrupting the habitat of those monsters and creating a cycle of potential destruction.
- Nobody Poops: Defied. Marcille goes to use the little elf girl's room and the narrator mentions how there are bathrooms established throughout the dungeon system for adventurers to use.
- The Symbiote: Senshi explains that the Golems don't mind having vegetables grown on them since their roots can be used to maintain their dirty bodies. In turn, the Golems protect them from non-dwarf scavengers while giving them the water and nutrients they need to grow.
"Orcs" contains examples of:
Freshly stolen vegetables with chicken in stewed cabbage, best with stolen bread
- Bait-and-Switch: Before accepting being taken prisoner by the orcs, Senshi demands that they don't throw away a jar of fermented yeast. He then explains that by using the yeast along with the bags of flour the orcs are carrying, they can make lots of bread with it. The others are annoyed that he wasn't thinking of an escape plan.
- Big "WHAT?!": The heroes give a big what after Senshi requests that the Orcs let them hang out in their tribe for the night.
- Change the Uncomfortable Subject: Downplayed. While Zon and Marcille are arguing over the racist history involving humans and orcs, Senshi tries to get everyone to focus on making their bread. Though this has less to do with keeping the peace and more because he really wants that bread.
- Children Are Innocent: Zon's son doesn't harbor the hostility his father and the rest of his people have against humans and urges Zon to share bread with Laios and the others.
- Exact Words: Zon allows the Touden Party to make their bread like they wanted. But he never said anything about them eating it afterwards.
- Fantastic Racism: There exists palpable racial tension between humans and orcs, as in response to the orcs attacking and raiding human settlements, humans have driven them further down the depths of the dungeon. Zon argues that their raids are retaliation for having their homes taken from them, while Marcille counters that the humans attack orcs because they pillage and steal first. Interestingly, this trope is played with by having the orcs call other adventurers (whom they have a particular disdain for) savages for their greedy and wanton exploration of the dungeon (which results in the orcs losing even more of their home, causing them to raid and pillage more).
- Foreshadowing: In the previous segment, Senshi comments on how the dungeon ecosystem can turn to utter chaos if monsters from one level were to move to another, forcing those monsters to flee to other levels because of the lack of food and space available. Zon explains that the unusual activity of the Red Dragon has forced his orc tribe to flee from their original homes leaving them no other choice put to pillage other dungeon levels to survive.
- Get Out!: The creepy tavern bouncer orders the Touden party to leave when they try to trade vegetables.
- Humans Are Ugly: Two orc women comment on how horrifying Marcille looks.
- Humans by Any Other Name: This episode marks the first instance of the term "Tallman" being used to describe the story's equivalent of real-life humans, as Zon identifies Laios specifically as a tallman, while using "humans" to refer to the party as a whole.
- Irony: The shop's employees and patrons deem Senshi's vegetables to be worthless and yet out of everyone, Senshi's party are spared from the Orc attacks because they want the vegetables.
- Jerkass: One of the shop employees reacts very rudely to the group upon realizing they want to sell vegetables to them, even having them be kicked out.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Zon is the leader of a tribe of orcs who have no problem slaughtering a bar full of adventurers, and threatens to kill Marcille when she argues with him. However, he is (with some prodding from his son) willing to share the meal the party helped make, and he seems sympathetic enough to Laios' goal of saving his sister that he tells them where the Red Dragon is, despite not wanting humans to come near his village.
- Moral Myopia: Zon keeps bringing up the fact that humanity have persecuted the Orcs and drove them to live in the dungeons. An angry Marcille calls him out by arguing that, had the Orcs never raided other settlements, people wouldn't have retaliated against them.
- No Name Given: The chief of the orcs and his son are not given a name in-story: the former is revealed to be named Zon and the latter Bahay in supplementary material.
- Not Helping Your Case: Zon's grim and violent attitude only adds to Marcille's negative view of him.Zon: You've got guts elf girl. I like you. I'm gonna throw you in the fire myself!
Marcille: See?! The only thing you know how to do is violence! - Our Orcs Are Different: Orcs in this setting are characterized as "revisionist"-style, having sympathetic reasons for pillaging and attacking and a strong sense of community. Their appearances are based on pig-like depictions of orcs in the earlier versions of Dungeons & Dragons, with orc children having stripes similar to baby boars.
- Skewed Priorities: Senshi cares more about making bread than saving the party from the clutches of the orcs. Justified, since he knows them personally and the cooking not only saves their lives but gives them a lead on the Red Dragon's location.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Marcille, Chilchuck and Laios share this sentiment when they learn that Senshi makes deals with Orcs.
"Opinions may differ, but we can all agree, we get hungry. Delicious dungeon food brings food together. Delicious in dungeon."
