Delicious in Dungeon, Volume 6: 01/07/21

Delicious in Dungeon, Volume 6 by Ryoko Kui returns to the problem of what to do with Falin. Reviving her has not played out as hoped and now she's been repurposed by the dungeon as one of the big monsters.

Meanwhile Shuro's and Kabru's parties have joined up. Tensions are running high with so many conflicting personalities and approaches to dungeon crawling. Can they come together over a meal and leave peacefully?

Frankly the front half of volume 6 was slow going. There was too much emphasis and time spent on the stories of the different parties, than on the usual find a monster (or be found by one), kill it, prepare it in an appealing way, eat it. I'm mostly invested for the delicious aspect.

The second half, though, where the parties break apart into their usual, smaller groups, is where things get interesting. While the initial party is trying to figure out what the dungeon wants with Falin and what the true nature of the magic used to revive her is, they're infiltrated by monsters who take on the appearance and personalities of party members. Each member now has two doppelgängers and it's up to Laios to sort out who the originals are.

As with the previous five volumes, this book sits on the road narrative spectrum.

While most of the books have been in the family (33) group based on the closeness of the party members, the doppelgänger plot changes the traveler type to scarecrow/minotaur (99), with the originals being scarecrows and the fakes being minotaurs. The goal is home (66), meaning guaranteeing that the originals are safe to leave the dungeon and go home (and not be eaten by their duplicates). Their route is the labyrinth (99), in that the dungeon is now transforming monsters into heroes, and in that the experience of being duplicated has resulted in the party being closer again. To summarize, volume 6 on the RNS is about scarecrows/minotaurs trying to get home via the labyrinth (996699).

Four stars

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