Chapter 55: Dragon’s Rear
“Okay, I’ve had enough,” Zach said, throwing down his cards onto the hospital bed and running his hand through his wavy black hair. “I’ve got to get the hell out of here. I literally can’t take another minute of this.”
Lienne frowned. “You have to stay. The doctor said you’re not allowed to leave for at least five more nights.”
“Yeah, because that’s happening.”
Despite less than an hour having passed since Kalana left his room to venture off with Mr. Oren and Donovan, Zach was already feeling agitated, restless, and in desperate need of something more exciting or at least interesting to do. Anything was better than staying here and playing some boring card game with Lienne, Rian, and Fluffles. It was so mundane that it almost caused him to actually miss being in danger.
Be careful what you wish for, he warned himself. There’s no way you mean that.
Lienne had pulled up a folding chair to the left side of his bed, Rian had similarly pulled up one to his right, and Fluffles was sitting on the blanket across from him. Apparently, even the mighty, lighting-calling, sword-summoning, and panther-transforming Fluffles was too low level to hunt the fire wyvern with the GSG, which was amazing considering the cat, much like Zach, had actually survived a brief one-on-one against it. It was hard to believe that didn’t count as qualification enough for the raid. Although, then again, it probably had more to do with damage numbers or something, since the goal wasn’t just to survive against the beast, but to kill it, too. Not that Zach was complaining, of course. The fact that he wouldn’t have to worry about Fluffles getting killed actually came as a relief. If only Kalana had chosen to stay behind, too!
Nothing better happen to her or Gods help me, he thought.
Concerned for Kalana’s wellbeing, it was becoming increasingly more difficult to sit still, so he decided to get up and go for an aimless walk around the hospital. But before he could climb out of the bed, Rian was already throwing another hand of cards his way. And so, at the insistence of his overeager friend, Zach begrudgingly played one more round of South-Bastian poker with the three of them, which thankfully ended very soon after it had begun. Without playing for money, there was no joy to be had in this. It was just an exhausting waste of time.
“Fun game,” he lied. “But seriously, I’m done now. No more.”
“Zach angry cause Fluffles win again,” the cat said, his cards levitating in the air in front of him above the bed.
“You sure did,” Lienne told him, blowing a kiss his way.
In actuality, Fluffles hadn’t won, and the cat had no idea how the game was actually played. Even still, he insisted on being part of it. And thanks to Lienne, he was under the impression that he was winning every single round. Zach understood why she did it, of course. She found Fluffles to be cute and wanted to make the cat happy. What she didn’t understand was how this was only going to go straight to his head and inflate his ego. Though, in fairness, Zach’s own ego was pretty inflated right now. He had to conceal a smirk as he recalled, once again, everything that he’d experienced just before the three of them had come into the room.
It only just happened and it still feels like a long-ago dream.
The hour he’d spent with Kalana had reinvigorated him even more so than the light stone had. It had changed him and the way he looked at the world. Previously, gold had been his number-one favorite thing, followed by adventuring, then eating, and then sleeping. But now, though? Now, everything on the list got bumped down a slot to make room for an entirely “new” activity. Well, new to him, at least. An hour was all he’d needed to be absolutely, one-hundred-percent certain that it was, in fact, his new favorite hobby.
“Zach?” Lienne asked. “You’re zoning out. Hello?”
“Ah, sorry,” he said.
Mentally chiding himself, Zach ripped all thoughts of the time he’d spent with Kalana out of his mind and shelved it for later. There was no way he could reflect upon that and keep a straight face. As things were, he actually found it challenging enough just to believe it’d even happened at all—and more than once, too. Honestly, he was just glad he’d waited for Kalana and hadn’t given into his temptations with Lienne. It just…it just felt right.
“Something bothering you?” Lienne asked.
“I was just thinking about uh…about the regrowth treatment.”
Fortunately, she seemed to buy his excuse. “Did the treatment hurt? It looked painless to me, but without being the one who went through it, what do I know?”
Zach made a slight chuckle. “It didn’t hurt at all. I’m just glad they did it today and didn’t make me wait until tomorrow.”
“I can’t believe how quick it was,” Lienne said. “They just pressed a pink stone into your eye socket and another one into your shoulder-blade and…I guess that’s all there is to it. Do you feel anything yet?”
He shook his head. “Nope. They say it’ll take a few days before I get my arm and eye back, though. But even before then, I’m leaving.”
Lienne frowned. “You’re not allowed.”
“Why not?”
“I dunno. It’s what your doctors said.”
“I’m fully healed, and there’s nothing they can do to speed up my regrowth. There’s literally no reason for them to keep me here. You guys can either help me escape or…or whatever. But I’ve had enough.”
“Fluffles help Zach escape,” the cat said.
Zach smiled at him. “Thanks, little buddy.” To Rian and Lienne, he said, “Other than my new sword, all my gear made it out okay and has already finished repairing itself. It sucks I need to go back to Fluffles’ sword—no offense, Fluffles—but I’ve got everything I need to get back at it.”
Rian coughed into his fist. “Except a second arm,” he said.
Zach chuckled. “Hey, I can fight one-handed. I’m actually more annoyed with this bandage on my face.”
The entire right upper side of his face was wrapped over and around with tape and gauze like he was some kind of mummy. Apparently, he wasn’t supposed to take it off until his right eye had regrown, or else the developing retinas could be harmed by the light from the sun or something. It had been a long-winded explanation that Zach didn’t fully recall. But the gist of it was simple: don’t expose the eye to light until it’s had enough time to form.
“So, what’s it going to be?” Zach asked. “You guys want to help me get out of here or what?"
Rian yawned. "I do, but I also don't want to get Zephyr on my ass. Look, let's just talk about it tomorrow, okay? Li and I really need a good night's sleep and we've each got these super fancy hotel rooms. So can we just shelve this for tomorrow?"
Zach grunted. "Fine, whatever."
With or without them, Zach decided he was leaving first thing in the morning. His run-in with Ziragoth had been a cogent reminder of just how weak he still was relative to the dangers that existed in this world. In order to protect both himself and Kal, he simply had to continue leveling.
As soon as he woke up tomorrow, he was leaving this hospital. Even if he had to go alone.
*****
If there was one criticism commonly leveled by the political guilds that Alex could not refute in good faith, it was the perception of adventurers as unruly, unsophisticated, discourteous, and immature rascals who often wanted to do little else but party, fight, drink, sing, and have copious amounts of sex. Truly, it brought Alex much dissatisfaction to have to concede a point on any topic to the vile, contemptible political guilds, but as one who had always believed in the value of introspection, it did not serve him well to deny the truth. On this one—and perhaps only—point, they were correct. This much became overtly obvious as what was now a level-4 apocalyptic catastrophe continued to unfold across North Bastia while these admittedly well-meaning men and women—the only people who stood any real chance of saving millions of lives—continued to behave worse than even the most recalcitrant of Alex’s high-school students. That was no exaggeration, either. Many of them literally behaved worse than teenagers.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Certainly, things had started out well enough. Donovan had given a brief recap of the situation so far, and every last adventurer in the large, spacious tent watched eagle-eyed and intently as he discussed timeframes, battle formations, and other various important details. But then things changed. After he’d finished speaking, he’d tasked Alex with giving a much more in-depth battle and tactics assessment, and it was here that their childish natures began to reveal themselves. Not all of them, mind you. Heck, not even half—but almost half. And that, put simply, was disgraceful.
There were three large projector screens all side by side towards the back of the camo-colored tent, around which all the gathered adventurers had crowded. On the leftmost projector, a multi-angled video approximately one minute and forty-two seconds in length ran on a loop, displaying the one-on-one duel that Zachys Calador had engaged in with the monster. On the rightmost screen, the longer, five-minute dustup that Donovan Iseldar had led as an extended distraction also played on repeat; given the amount of smoke coming out of the town by this point, a clear picture was simply not obtainable, though by also utilizing multiple views from both the media and witnesses in combination with a noise-reduction algorithm, enough data could be extrapolated so as to be useful. Finally, the middle-most screen now displayed a highly detailed 3D model of Ziragoth complete with labels, notes, and in some cases, open questions.
“…this means,” Alex said, having begun speaking several moments prior, “that after having attacked the creature from both sides, while it is by no means definitive, we have high confidence that specific locations along its latissimus dorsi are weaker than others.”
Gesturing with his laser pointer at a specific portion of the gigantic wyvern’s spike-covered lower back, an attendant all the way across the room sitting in front of a workstation computer typed something into the keyboard at her desk, and then the wyvern’s model flipped around and zoomed in on location Alex had indicated, which was just above its barbed tail
Alex opened his mouth to continue speaking, but before he could form his next word, he was interrupted. “Hey, Al,” someone called to him. Alex vaguely recalled meeting him once before. He was a short, stocky man with so much facial hair it almost obscured his eyes, nose, and mouth. The man was beyond needing a good shave. He needed a lawnmower.
“Yes, Urnsk?”
“You got a thing for dragon ass?”
“Excuse me?”
He nodded at the screen. “Why’d you have the lady zoom in on his ass, Alex? There something you’re not telling us?”
Alex frowned, but he did not reply. He wanted to keep things on track. And so once more, he tried to speak—and once more, he was thusly interrupted.
“It’s a fair question,” a woman from Boss Rush whose name he did not remember called out. “We’re a very welcoming group of people. If you’ve got a thing for dragon ass, you can just say it. We all support you here.”
“That’s really not funny,” Alex said, adjusting his glasses. Around adventurers, a thick skin and control over one’s temper was often required. Even still, this was hardly the time or place for this kind of juvenile humor. “As I was saying,” he continued, “various locations are weaker than others. One such location—”
“Is the ass,” Reni Sarwin called out, causing everyone nearby him to guffaw.
Alex stared at him in disbelief, but even then, he chose not to make a scene of it. “As I was saying, if we attack—”
“I actually agree with what everyone else is saying,” another man he did not recognize interrupted. “This guy clearly has a thing for dragon ass. I mean look how close he zoomed in on it. He didn’t have to zoom that closely in. It’s like it was really important for him to get a nice big view of that dragon ass. No judgement from me, though. To each their own.”
Alex was not sure what was more disappointing. The fact that adventurers were actually choosing now to heckle him of all possible times, or that Donovan, the leader of the raid, was laughing along with them. Really, that was just so unbecoming of him. These people were quite literally more childish than the children he taught at school.
And yet I’m the one who gets a dressing down about pulling aggro off the tank and needing to change my attitude.
“Is everyone done?” Alex asked incredulously. “Any more quips before we actually get down to business?”
“Oh, I bet you wanna get down to business!” yet another adventurer hollered. “Open up shop on that dragon ass, am I right?”
Finally losing his temper, Alex narrowed his eyes at the man who’d yelled that out and shouted, “Keep your mouth shut unless something intelligent is going to come out of it, which in your case, is likely to happen less frequently than a Ziragoth spawn.”
With equal ire, the man who’d interrupted him said, “Hey, science bitch. If you have a problem, we can take this to Angelica’s right now.”
“I actually cannot fathom the way some of you are behaving. It’s literally beyond my comprehension. Just so we’re clear: do you people understand that millions of lives now depend on whether or not we can successfully intercept or, if necessary, evacuate Shadowfall Coast?”
His words seeming to fall on deaf ears, the crowd continued to badger him, and this continued for nearly five minutes until finally, standing up from his seat, Donovan looked at the crowd of adventurers and made a single grunt—and they all fell silent. He didn’t even actually say anything to them. He simply just grunted, and their voices fell off. It was only then that Alex realized the problem was that his fellow adventurers did not seem to respect or like him very much. This was personal, wasn’t it?
“Unless I’ve done something in a previous life that I can’t recall, I’m starting to think some of you have a problem with me.”
“I do,” Reni Sarwin admitted, raising his hand.
This surprised Alex, as he barely knew the man, though he was quite close with Donovan. “And what would that be?”
“Other than you being an annoying prick?” he asked with a snicker. “It’s the fact you’re only twenty four, but you act like you know everything, you try to boss around everyone you meet, and you treat other adventurers like they’re children from your school."
As a shocking number of people nodded along with him, Alex decided to double down. “Many of you act like children from my class,” he said. “So I suppose I’m only falling into old habits. Now do you want to get on with business or don’t you?” When no one spoke, Alex resumed. “Good. As I was saying, the location here”—he shined his laser pointer—“on the lower back seems to be slightly less armored. But even more importantly than location of attack is going to be damage type. We’ve determined that swords and other slashing weapons are highly ineffective against Ziragoth, and fire-based magic and abilities are not only ineffective, but may in fact heal the boss. Under no circumstance is anyone to use fire. Ice magic seems to be our best bet right now.”
Sighing at the fact he’d had to expend so much energy just to express a single thought, he asked, “Does anyone have any questions? Serious ones only.”
There were a surprising number of raised hands, and this time around, Alex did not think they were poorly intentioned. Nevertheless, as he began to take inquiries from the adventurers gathered around him, he was once more reminded at how embarrassingly unfocused some of them were. This became clear from the very start, as he called upon a woman with puffy green hair and a bizarrely large nose ring.
“So, how do you think he moves like that?” she asked. “It’s obviously an ability, but does it have anything to do with the smoke?”
“What smoke?” Alex asked her. “Are you talking about the diving attack at fifty-seconds in?”
“Huh?” she asked, raising her right eyebrow. Then, quickly after, she shook her head. “Oh, uh, no. I’m talking about Zachys Calador. How do you think he’s doing that?”
“I have no idea,” Alex said, “and as much as I’d like to know that as well, it’s outside the scope of this raid. Any other questions?” He pointed to a green-haired man wearing a steeple hat. “Yes?”
“You know the kid, right? You ever see him do that thing with the shield before?”
Alex sighed. “Please. Keep your questions about Ziragoth. Does anyone here have any actual Ziragoth-related questions?”
To both his dismay and aggravation, every single hand went down. These people really were something else. Honestly, he did not begrudge them their curiosity into the profound, and uncanny abilities that Zachys had displayed. Truly, it was a spectacle far outside of the ordinary. Even so, they were all about to enter into a very dangerous situation, and these kinds of distractions were doing no one any good.
“If no one has any questions about how to specifically confront the dragon, then we should begin to make our way towards Shadowfall Coast. Like Donovan said, we’ll need to begin constructing a fortification designed less to contain but more to divert the dragon once the battle begins. We only have two-and-a-half days—at the most—before it reaches our interception point just outside of the city.”
“Yeah, uh, I actually have a question I forgot to ask,” grunted a burly-looking man towards the opposite end of the tent. He was wearing a pair of ripped jeans and equally shredded tank-top. Alex could not tell whether they were regular, ordinary garments or crafted equipment designed to appear as such, like his lab coat.
“What is it?”
“Do you mind if, instead of Alex, I call you Dragon-Ass-Oren?”
“Yes,” Alex replied, speaking barely above a whisper as rage coursed through his veins. “Yes, I mind.”
“All right, so I won’t do that then.”
Filling with contempt for some of these morons, Alex turned his back to them and allowed Donovan to take over. He did not let their words get to him, though. All he cared about was saving as many lives as possible. He didn’t need these utter imbeciles to “like” him. He only needed them to perform adequately. The whole ordeal made him wonder if perhaps Zachys had a point. Their methods were designed to produce the strongest adventurers—which it succeeded in doing—but also those of the highest moral character. That part, it seemed, was lacking. At any rate, he took a seat as Donovan once more began to speak. Hopefully, these idiots had learned at least something of value.