"We're here."

Raising a hand to shade his eyes, Christoph looked down the mountain towards the ominous looking cave below. The stone edges of the dragon's den had been carved in the likeness of a gigantic maw, bringing to mind the rocky leviathan from the Plains of Manitas.

"The den of Meteor Hammer." Mimicking Christoph's actions, the smaller man stood atop a nearby boulder to match his height. "The most deadly of the four great wyrms, the beast who hoards weapons above all else. Every year, Meteor Hammer takes almost as many lives as-"

"What are you doing here?" Emilia asked, wrinkling her nose at the loud-mouthed dwarf. "Shoo, shoo."

"Hey," Edward replied, holding up his arms to fend off her haphazard swipes. "One of my shopkeepers told me you two were planning on charging into the most dangerous place in the chains! How could I sit back and watch you stumble to your doom?"

"He's here to scavenge our things if we die," Christoph said without taking his eyes from the cave. The entrance was nestled in a basin on the side of the mountain, a tiny divot when the entirety of the grand structure was considered. "The dragon will only take our weapons, right?"

"I am not!" Edward replied. "But yes, yes it will."

"So you are here for our stuff!" Pointing her finger at the dwarf, Emilia put on an exaggerated look of disgust. "Are you that poor?"

"I didn't come to steal your things!" Edward insisted. "I just came to help!"

"Don't deny it," Christoph said. "So, what do you know about this dragon, then?"

"Well it's not like you'll need any of it once you're dead," Edward replied. "Let's see... Meteor Hammer is a violent beast-"

"Monster," Emilia said. "Not a beast."

"A violent monster," Edward continued. "It'll attack you as soon as he sees you, and it'll follow you all the way down the mountain if it thinks you're worth the time."

"It leaves the cave?" Christoph asked. "How often?"

"Every couple of years," Edward said. "The dragons like to raid any of the settlements stupid enough to build in open air. They go after each other, too. Especially J-"

"So," Christoph said, "the plan is to wait here until it chases us back out, then kill us and take our stuff?"

"Of course not!" Edward replied. "I have a bet riding on the two of you!"

"It's nice to know my life is worth a wager to you." Christoph rolled his eyes. "Is gold the only thing you dwarves think about? This bet is with Robert, I assume?"

"That's right," Edward said. "Your wager's a popular topic right now, you know? You'd better watch yourselves out here. Direct interference will invalidate some of the bets, but it'll depend on the way they were worded."

"So Robert might come to do us in before we can kill this Meteor Hammer of yours, then?" Christoph asked. "No, even the king could try to sabotage our efforts here. I don't even remember how the exact words from that bet went."

"What were you saying earlier?" Emilia asked, glancing between the dwarven warrior and the cavern entrance below. "Meteor Hammer kills almost as many people as what exactly? Didn't you say it was the most deadly of the four?"

"It is," Edward replied. "But it's got a reputation, so a lot of the adventurers would rather challenge one of the others. Hauberk is popular for his armor, Spiga for his jewels and lastly, there's... Jack."

"Jack." Christoph shook his head. "How can you expect people to take you seriously when you go around naming your dragons 'Jack'?"

"Jack doesn't hoard a particular type of treasure," Edward continued. "He's the type to snatch a wagon full of gold, dump out the gold and take the wagon instead. Who knows what you'll find inside his halls?"

"So Jack has the highest mortality rate per year, then?" Christoph asked. "I've heard that the king's made a business out of raiding his den. Even if he isn't as dangerous as the others, gathering around a dragon like that is just..."

"It's hardly raiding when it comes to Jack," Edward replied. "It's more like mining, really. He scatters treasure all over his mountain, and doesn't seem to care about intruders like the other three do."

"Is he the king's target?" Emilia asked. "That sounds like cheating to me."

"Hey," Edward said, narrowing his eyes at the pair. "It's your boyfriend who set the terms of the bet. Besides, it's not like they prance around in his treasure room, you know? He's just easier to avoid, is all."

"Well," Christoph replied. "I'd imagine the nobles in charge of 'mining' the mountain wouldn't be happy to see their supplies dry up. If Zachariah has targeted Jack himself, that'll save from having to face them in the future. Still, we should get a move on if we want to keep any of Meteor Hammer's treasure."

"Let's go!" Emilia said, hopping down the slope with glee. "Time to go fight a dragon!"

...

"Where the hell is he, then?" Pulling his sword from the corpse of an insectoid crystal monster, Christoph waited for Emilia to slay her own foe. "How many bugs have we seen today?"

"These two... make seven?" Scratching her head, Emilia shrugged her shoulders. The bugs were the main monster type present inside the mountain, and it looked like the meandering tunnels were formed by their erratic digging. "Well, eat up."

"Yeah yeah," Christoph replied, throwing her the pack he carried. "You're almost out of food yourself, you know? We'll have to pull out soon."

"We haven't even found one weapon yet!" Rifling through the bag, Emilia made a face of realization. "Ah. Actually, I ate the rest of the food last time we stopped, so..."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"See?" Shaking his head, Christoph focussed on prying the crystal-coated areas of the bug shells free. "We'll leave now, then. There's no point in stumbling across Meteor Hammer half starved."

"We should have picked one of the others," Emilia said, sitting down and crossing her arms with a huff. "Spiga seemed nice."

"I'll buy you some jewelry after we kill Meteor Hammer," Christoph said, planting a kiss on his partner's cheek as he pulled her to her feet. Ruffling her hair, he grinned as the cat-girl's left ear flopped about cutely. "Now let's go, we can't afford to waste time or we risk losing the weapons to the King. We'll come back tomorrow and take the tunnel we passed back there on the right."

Nearly two weeks had passed since they'd begun to explore Meteor Hammer's mountain, and all they had to show for it was an ever-growing map of the dragon's lair. It seemed that the map would draw itself when they ventured off the explored path, forcing Christoph to re-evaluate it's worth. The two gold coins had practically paid for themselves already. No weapons had turned up yet, but farming the crystal monsters was more than profitable, even if Christoph did eat the most valuable parts of every kill.

"I said we should've taken the right-hand tunnel this time!" Emilia said, crawling up onto Christoph's back as he passed her by. Biting at his neck, she wrapped her limbs around him and closed her eyes. "How many more illumination crystals do you have?"

"None from the village," Christoph replied, tilting his head and reaching back to pet his girlfriend's hair. At least she didn't need him to hold her legs up for the piggy-back ride. "We still have a few from Edward, though. They'd last longer if you carried them, you know? I still haven't got the hang of replicating the enchantment yet."

"You eat enough to keep yourself from draining them," Emilia said, snuggling further into his back. "You're nice and warm."

"Warm?" Christoph paused for a moment. No, that made sense from her perspective. The mana he drained from his surroundings when he was hungry would feel like a chill of sorts to other people. "I'm glad you appreciate it."

"Ha," Emilia said. "Like you keep yourself fed for me."

"I keep you fed for you," Christoph replied. "In all senses of the word."

"And I certainly appreciate that." Grinning against his back, the beast-woman snuck her hands down into his shirt, roaming over what little of his chest she could reach from behind. "Edward isn't going to be there today, is he?"

"Of course he is," Christoph said. Putting on a gruff voice, he straightened his back. "Did you find anything today? Any treasure? Not even one weapon? Are you sure you have a map? You didn't see Meteor Hammer, did you?"

"Not even one weapon." Emilia sighed into the darkness of the underground tunnel. "Can't we find something cool for once?"

"Like a dragon?" Christoph asked. "Remember, I'm going to eat the crystals off most of the enchanted weapons we find."

"You mean the ones that store mana," Emilia replied. "The other ones are better, anyway."

"You do have an excess of energy," Christoph said. "Maybe we'll find you a bow or something."

While most enchanted weapons required 'recharging' while out of combat, there were those that drained mana from the user at the time of activation. Unsuited for storing mana over long periods of time, they were more effective in the hands of warriors like the mana-dense denizens of the Beast Forest.

"A bow?" Emilia shook her head. "Well, we need to find the dragon first, and-"

"I think I just did." Christoph held up a hand to cut the beast-girl's words short. Turning towards the wall to his left, he deactivated the illumination crystal and pressed his forehead up against the stone. Even through the stone walls of the tunnel, he could see a blue brilliance flaring as it moved. "This one's much brighter than the one I killed in the Plains."

Brighter, and bigger as well. The reverse 'shadow' that Christoph could see would dwarf the dragon he'd faced before. The shape, though...

"Hey," Christoph whispered to his partner. "Edward never told me Meteor Hammer was a biped."

"Eh?" Emilia blinked, but she couldn't see anything in the cave's pitch-darkness. "It's two legged?"

"That's right," Christoph replied, eyes wide. "Like a giant lizard-man. He did say they call it the Fist of the Dragon, didn't he? I can't tell how close it is, but it should be big enough to..."

"Big enough to what?" Emilia asked. "Is it bigger than the trees-"

"Shhh..." Christoph went stiff, slowly lowering his companion to the floor so she could stand on her own. On the other side of the wall, Meteor Hammer had stopped to turn towards the tunnel they were in. "I think it can see us."

A minute passed as the couple stood in silence, and then another. Christoph tensed as the dragon tilted its head back and forth, and Emilia stiffened in reaction to his own movements each time. Finally, the great wyrm took a step away from the wall, and Christoph sighed in relief as it began to turn away. A moment later the dragon's movements reversed, and Christoph's eyes went wide as he recognized the motion.

"Move!" Pulling his partner along with him, Christoph reactivated the glowing crystal to light the way as they ran. "It's coming!"

"What's coming?" Racing along beside her former slave, Emilia followed him deeper into the tunnels, the dragon behind a wall to their right as they went. "Why are we running?"

"Just run!" Christoph yelled. "We have to get to the side before-"

The dragonslayer's words were interrupted by a deafening blast, a wave of compressed air and dust knocking the duo off their feet as the mountain seemed to shift around them. Blinking her eyes, Emilia clambered back to her feet to see that the tunnel had collapsed behind them, a crack in the wall allowing light to stream through. Pulling her partner to his feet, the beast-woman felt her fur stand on end as the stone behind them began to move. The tunnel hadn't collapsed at all, the dragon's arm had simply resembled a rock face through the cloud of dust.

"It punched the wall," Christoph said, moving back towards the gigantic fist that blocked the passageway toward the outside world. The stone cracked violently as meteor Hammer withdrew his hand, and the couple came to a halt in front of the gaping hole the dragon had smashed in the side of the tunnel. "We hadn't even explored a fraction of this place..."

Meteor Hammer was large enough to stand among the trees in the Greater Paw, but even he was dwarfed by the absolute vastness of the mountain around him. The gigantic stone walls rose to the skies above, culminating in a volcano-like opening that seemed designed to frame the midday sun. The sunlight was blinding after the hours they had spent underground, and the couple had to shield their eyes as they readied for the great wyrm's next strike.

"If it punches with the right again, run left," Christoph said. "If you try to run away from the punch it'll just swing further around. Running past it is the only option we have."

"Christoph..." Emilia took a step back as Meteor Hammer rose to its full height, reptilian head leaning backward in preparation for its next attack. "It isn't going to punch again."

"A breath weapon?" Christoph hadn't heard anything about a breath weapon! "Shit."

Grabbing Emilia by her midriff, Christoph threw her over his shoulder and rushed away from the hole in the wall. If they had the skimmer, they might've been able to pour mana into the shields and ride out the attack like that. But now... if Meteor Hammer attacked with fire or magma, there was no way he could protect Emilia like this. It was all he could do to run and hope that they made it clear in time.

In the end, no flames came roaring along the length of the tunnel. No magma splashed over them as they fled. Instead, the very air seemed to rend and split apart with a cracking noise to rival the punch the dragon had thrown before. Dust rose in the tunnel once again, and when it settled, Christoph turned to see a figure illuminated by the sunlight pouring through the demolished wall.

"Meteor Hammer?" Christoph shook his head, blinking the dust from his eyes. Placing Emilia back onto the ground, he drew his sword as the figure stared him down. "It... shrunk?"

"It shrunk?!" Drewing her knives, Emilia's eyes widened as she saw the dragon standing there. "This pressure..."

"Calm down," Christoph said, stepping in front of her with sword drawn. "This is nothing compared to Bastias or Manitas. We'll chip down his health and take off his head."

A moment later he slammed back against the passageway's wall, crystal bones cracking as he hit the floor. Pushing through the pain he saw Meteor Hammer slowly straightening from his new position at Emilia's side, blood joining the dust that covered the dragon's right arm.