Dungeon Café

"One espresso please.", a lady stood at the counter.

"Alrighty, please sit and I shall bring your order soon.", Yoo Mia smiled as she typed out the lady's order.

The café was filled to the brim with customers. Most were people who wore armor and swords on their hips.

"Did you hear what happed at block X?", a man spoke as he sipped on his ice latte.

"Mhm, 5 lizards killed before the hunters even arrived to the scene.", a woman sitting across of him replied.

Mia wore her usual smile on her face, and slowly turned to see her boss violently shaking a bottle of milk without beating her a glance. She already had her suspicions the moment she saw him today whipping the windows before the café opened with an hour. Everything was ready before she even arrived there. Tables wiped clean, coffee machines already buzzing ready to work, and even the second floor was wiped clean.

 Her susceptions were confirmed even more the moment she heard block X (which was coincidently Kim Yujin's residence) being mentioned in an attack last night at that moment.

"This man is truly unlucky ha…", she thought as she moved from behind the counter.

She took the lady's espresso and placed it on a serving tray. She quickly moved to the lady and placed her order in front of her, then returned to the counter space.

"Mia, one lemon and 2 chocolate cakes please!", a man spoke as he moved down the stairs.

Dressed in the same brown apron as her, with his shoulder length red hair tied in a pony tail. He wore a head band to prevent his front hair from getting in his way, which exposed his white eyepatch and scar on his left eye.

Tanaka Yoshiro, he started working at the café last summer she recalled. They grew pretty close due to how often they work together now. He is quite energetic, compared to a certain man who was now placing two new orders on the counter with an expressionless face.

Mia moved to the pastry display on her left, slid open the door and placed three cake slices on a serving tray.

"There you go, be careful.", she closed the display door as she spoke to Yoshiro.

"No worries, no more tray dropping.", Yoshiro winked at her and disappeared upstairs again.

"Maybe, he was too energetic…", Mia cringed a bit.

Nothing was going unusual that day. Many sounds filled the place all at once. The many conversations between costumers filled the place, the constant metallic noises as each order was being prepared, and the bell that announced either departure or arrival.

***

It was finally closing.

The last bell rang as an old woman took her hot chocolate cup and left.

"Ughhhh…", Yoshiro groaned as he stretched both arms," My back is killing me."

"Good work everyone.", a heavy sigh left Yujin's lips.

Yoo Mia placed the last cup on the shelf next to her. She wiped her hands dry and looked behind at the two men chatting.

Black hair, black glasses, black shirt under the brown apron. He was a bit taller than Yoshiro, maybe also more handsome than him too. He had a pretty smile that he rarely showed, he has always been like that since they were young. Kim Yujin stood there, the moonlight shining on him as he spoke quietly.

"Alright…Sure, you both heard about last night.", Yujin said," Black rooted lizards attacking people."

Mia walked over to the two men to join the conversation.

"They don't attack people unless provoked right?", Yoshiro asked.

"Yes, meaning it was most likely a mutant.", Mia replied.

"…", the three of them fell silent for a moment.

Mutants were mobs that did not look or behave like others from the same species. They started appearing about 6 months ago. The attacks and their appearance were random, making it hard to figure out where they were coming from.

"Say, do you have sample?", Mia asked Yujin.

"Yeah."

Last night, just before he left the scene, he managed to freeze a part of the roots and take it before leaving. He had his susceptions from how the monsters acted, to how they managed to double their attack range when they attacked people in front of him like the man he healed.

The owner's hand suddenly glowed yellow, and a block of ice appeared. Then, the ice was engulfed by blue flames that started to melt the block. A dead black root, about an inch long, appeared before the two people standing in front of him.

"Woah…", Yoshiro's eye was glued on Yujin's hands. "Only if I awakened like you guys…", he dramatically wiped a fake tear.

"Give.", Mia didn't even glace at the red head's direction with a deadpan expression on her face. 

Yujin handled the root to her, and she immediately began to take a closer look at it.

"It is not as hollow like the normal roots of a black rooted lizard...", she muttered to herself as her eyes turned from grey to green. "The roots are usually very empty from the insides to be able to efficiently absorb the prey's blood, which contains mana. This one is very narrow, which may have made them more aggravated and attack people due to lack of mana supply…"

Both Yoshiro and Yujin blankly stared at her as she explained.

Yoo Mia was a B-rank awakener. She had a skill, "Forest consult", a knowledge-based skill that allowed her to understand mostly plant-type monsters that were bellow her rank. Knowledge skills were a type of non-combat skills, which appeared as the catastrophe occurred 3 years ago. The black rooted lizards were a common plant type mobs, so for her to notice the difference right away wasn't much of a surprise. 

"So, this mutation made them attack people even without being provoked. They couldn't get enough food from other monsters bellow them, so they targeted humans who were much larger than their usual prey like 'earth rats'.", Mia gave the root back to Yujin who immediately froze it again.

"Also, there are traces of corrupted mana."

"Huh?", Yoshiro stared at Yoo Mia.

"…", Yujin's eyes slightly widened at Mia's declaration, "Are you sure of that?"

"Yeah, look at how it is reacting with your ice.", Mia pointed at the block, "Isn't that why you froze it to start with?"

The root was in the middle, and surrounding it was black aura that faintly floating around.

Mana was something that had its own rules, you can't compare normal elements with mana-made elements. For example, if you are thirsty and you used water type mana to drink, your thirst will still remain like nothing ever happened.

Thus, if the dead root had active mana like corrupted mana inside of it, the mana doesn't necessarily have to be frozen within the root. At that moment, it was just spreading around like ink in water. The ice block slowly turned black the more they stared at it.

"It wasn't like that when I first got it…", Yujin stored the root again.

"You probably froze the root before the mana had a chance to try to react since the root was freshly cut, but now that it was let free from your ice for a bit, it leaked out.", Mia crossed her arms. "However, this isn't our main concern."

"Corrupted mana is a characteristic of one type of control mobs, bone mages.", Yujin muttered, "Black lizard's rank is B, where bone mages are known to be around C. Bone mages cannot control anything under their rank too."

"Wait so, a mutant was controlling another mutant?", the red head rephrased Yujin's mumbling.

"That is just a suggestion, but...", Yoo Mia added, "A mutant is not supposed to be able to change ranks based on what we know…".

After all, the limit of what a vessel of a creature can absorbed from mana is determined from the moment they are born.