Chapter 187: The Dragon's Assembly

Chapter 187: The Dragon's Assembly

“We’re going to be killing a what?!” Sylvie leaned forward, hands gripping the table between us, when she heard me describe the job.

We were currently sitting in the living room of Boy’s house, a quaint little place housed in an out-of-the-way neighborhood. I sat with Erani on a dusty couch while Entismo, Aliss, and Sylvie each sat in chairs they’d brought over so we were all around the central wooden table. Boy, once we’d arrived, soon wandered over into his kitchen and brought out all kinds of ingredients, preparing something that smelled delicious. According to Aliss, he was apparently an aspiring chef.

So with the faint sound of sizzling meat in our ears, we discussed the fine details of our agreement. Entismo was apparently the one who was considered the ‘leader’ of this group—though, really, it seemed like he surrendered control to Aliss whenever she spoke—so much of my discussion was with him. Which was obviously a chore. And once all of that was done and we were sure these guys had accepted, we finally got to disclosing what we wanted these people to help us do.

Entismo chuckled nervously. “We shall assuredly necessitate a more sizable team than, er, this, correct?”

Sylvie, on the other hand, stood from her seat, raising her hands in the air and pacing around the room. “That. Sounds. Awesome! A Young Dragon! Oh man, I’ve never even seen a Dragon before!”

“How do you know it’s there?” Aliss asked, leaning forward and placing her elbows on the table.

Entismo glanced over at her and hastily nodded, setting his own elbows on the table in clear mimicry of her gesture. “Y-yes. Verily, we must verify this...verification. Of the Dragon.”

“I have a Divination ability,” I explained, doing my best to ignore Entismo’s actions. “We were in the location on another job, and I found out about the Young Dragon from that. It’s a Level 22, and lives in a specific enough location that I’m confident we’ll be able to both hunt it down and get the drop on it.”

I did still omit specific information, like where they’d be able to find it, in case they tried to go behind our backs and complete the job on their own, that way they’d still have to rely on us to actually go and kill the thing, but at this point it seemed like they were committed to doing this job with us.

“Level 22...” Aliss looked down, frowning. “Together, we’re only just barely past the minimum strength required to hunt something like that legally. You sure about this?”

“Like I said before, we have one more person who’ll be working with us,” I said. “Should even things out pretty well.”

“What degree are they?”

I paused, unsure of how to tell them that this was a monster I was talking about, not a Human.

“She’s strong,” Erani spoke up. “No need to worry. At least the power of silver, but maybe higher. Could even be low gold, in my opinion.”

“Hm,” Aliss said with a nod. Then she looked up, behind us. “Oh, Boy, do you need help with that?”

I looked back to see him carrying out a tray with several steaming plates and bowls from the kitchen. Seemed like dinner was ready.

“I-I would be honored to assist,” Entismo leapt up from his hair and quickly walked over to Boy, taking a few plates from his platter. He looked back to Aliss. “No need to fret, my lady.”

“Oh, thanks for the meal,” I said, looking down at the table as they set the dishes down.

Boy nodded at me, face ever-unchanging, and set a piece of paper down on the table, as well, turned so it faced me and Erani.

“Gloomspur meat, rarity from least cooked on left to most cooked on right. Seasoned with herbs from garden and imported salt. Salad comes on side, should eat that first for best order of flavors. Side of potatoes as well, salt and butter in dishes on plate to use on potatoes, season them to your own taste. However I recommend a half-spoonful of each. Will give you exact recipe if you like.”

“Oh, wow,” I said, reading what he said. “You didn’t have to do...all this. I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever had such a carefully-planned meal in my life.”

Boy nodded at what I said, then used a pencil to add another note to the paper. “Happy to introduce more to good food.”The inaugural upload of this chapter took place via N0v3l-B1n.

Aliss was already taking her own plates from the tray, mixing her salad with a fork, while Sylvie dumped her entire cup of butter all over her steak and potatoes, licking her lips. Entismo brought a handkerchief out of his pocket and carefully laid it on his lap, sitting up straight in his chair and eyeing the food.

“So is that why you talk...like that?” I asked. I honestly wasn’t entirely sure how to bring the topic up. It somehow felt rude to talk about, and rude to not talk about at the same time.

Sylvie laughed. “What, like the back half of a dictionary was run through the mind of an idiot?”

He elbowed her. “Simply because you do not understand does not mean I am an idiot.”

“No, dude,” she said, “I keep telling you, you’re using half of those words wrong.”

He opened his mouth, but didn’t say anything, after a moment just resorting to scoff and look away, arms crossed. Sylvie just kept laughing, her hands continuing to hover over the arrow in her lap.

“So,” Aliss looked to Erani after a moment of silence, “that Spell you’re using, it’s Distortion Strike, right?”

“Hm?” Erani said, looking surprised. Her voice, as always, came out as an ever-present whisper due to the Spell. “Yes, it is. Were you considering becoming a Sorcerer, too? Most non-Sorcerers don’t know it.”

“Oh, no, it’s actually offered to Wizards as well,” Aliss said. “Only after taking Demonic Pact, though, so obviously most don’t research past that point in the tree.”

“Wow, I had no idea,” Erani said. “Are you really planning on taking Pact? It seems...suboptimal. I mean, chances are it’ll do nothing. And if it does, that’s just a wasted pick. Is there something past that point in the tree that makes it worth taking a useless Spell?”

“What do you mean? If I take the Spell and it does nothing, that’s not a waste. It’s valuable knowledge—despite the Demons being able to summon themselves here, us Humans can still not summon them.”

“But it still does nothing. I mean, in a fight, you’ll wish you had something else, right?”

Aliss just shrugged. “There’s more to life than fighting.”

“I-I do agree,” Entismo spoke up. For some reason, when he did, Sylvie giggled slightly. But he kept speaking, “There’s, er, if you acquire a Spell to contribute to the knowledge of the world, that’s a, um, b-beautiful thing. Perchance. I-I have heeded your words of the Demons, Aliss, and to sneap the importance of such a thing would be, er...bad. F-fallacious! It would be fallacious. To do so.”

“Mhm.” Aliss nodded. I could see her eyes just kind of glazed over halfway through what he’d said. Then she glanced over at Boy, who was currently cleaning off his battleaxe with a rag, calmly wiping off each side, one after the other. “Hey Boy, lady Milena still needs help this weekend, right? We’re still doing that?”

He looked up and nodded to her, then went back to cleaning.

“Milena?” I asked.

“Oh, she’s the owner of the orphanage he grew up in,” Aliss explained. “The conversation just reminded me of her. She’s been getting old lately, has trouble running it by herself. We’ve been trying to help out now that we’re in town, but...y’know. There’s only so much you can do. I’m hoping maybe I can find a way to do something about that. There isn’t anyone lined up to replace her, and it’s the only place in town those kids have to go.”

“Ah,” I nodded. “Good that you’re doing that. Giving those kids someone they can rely on is a great thing. I’m sure they’ll really appreciate you being there for them once they’re older.”

The time passed and we continued making idle conversation as the sun sank behind the mountains and the moon rose above. Since Erani still needed to take breaks occasionally to let her Mana regenerate from keeping Distortion Strike active constantly, we had to come up with a couple excuses for her to leave and go out of sight for a little bit, but it wasn’t too much of an issue. I still needed to give her the Arcane Spell Crystal, so when I gave her that to Rank up Angelic Shield, she took a break to go and do that, saying she just couldn’t meditate while anyone else was around. And, of course, she actually did need to go meditate and assign her Upgrade for the Spell anyway, so that got both things done at once.

Eventually, Sylvie finished up with her preparations—at least, she convinced Entismo that she had enough arrows to last the fight and she didn’t need to do any more—and we headed off once again.

We’d informed Ainash once we got close to the place, but she said she’d meet us once we got to the Dragon, and that she’d just ensure we didn’t run into any Goblins on our way there for now. She’d gotten good at understanding their movements, so by scouting ahead and carefully instructing us where to go and what turns to make, she could easily keep us from getting spotted. And with Index by my side keeping an eye out for traps, it actually made the journey quite easy.

The group was, of course, extremely curious of my ability to be able to know exactly where every pitfall and tripwire was, and even more curious of my ability to know where all of the Goblin patrols were, but I explained it away with the same story of the Divination ability that’d told me about the Young Dragon without us ever actually fighting it.

And in much less time than it should’ve taken, we eventually got within sight of the Goblin’s main base. It looked just as I remembered, the logs all strapped together to make those uneven walls, no roof so the Dragon could easily fly in and out.

“Okay,” I whispered to the others, “things are gonna get a little hectic. But follow my lead, and we should be able to get this done. I’ll explain the plan one more time, and then we start. You all ready?”