We wake up the next morning and head to the address where we’re supposed to drop off the eggs.
“Hello and welcome to Vartan kingdom's main street restaurant! Would you like a table for on-two?” Asks a smiling receptionist, only flinching slightly when she realized that there was in fact a second customer who she hadn’t seen due to me being too short.
“Err, actually we’re here with a delivery from Eastern lake city, from ‘Monsters and you’”
“Ah yes, the eggs, we had just run out and were unable to make anymore waffles, you came at just the right time!”
“Wait, you’re going to eat them!?” Asks Shiona in a surprised manner.
“Well... This is a restaurant after all.” Responds the receptionist with slight difficulty. “Actually if you want you can have a small discount as extra thanks for good timing, would you like a table?”
*sigh* “Fine, we haven’t had any breakfast yet…” Responds Shiona, still a bit shocked that they’re using eggs from a petshop as food ingredients.
We pay the receptionist and we’re led to a small square table with two chairs on oppsing sides by another staff member, we’re then left alone for a bit before the waffles are finished so we decide to plan out the day.
“Well the things we came here to do was to raise our delivery and gathering ranks right? So then we should focus on those I think.”
“I agree, but also it wouldn’t hurt to get a few subjugation quests while we’re here, so we can learn the local geography quicker.”
“Good idea, after we finish breakfast we’ll head over to the guild and see what they have available.”
After having decided on our course of action we sat there in awkward silence while waiting for the waffles to arrive-
“Here you are, two whipped cream waffle plates.”
-Which they did shortly.
“This- *munch* this is pretty good.”
“Yup.”
We finish the waffles and leave the restaurant while thanking the receptionist for the discount as well as getting the quest note stamped, we then head back to the guild and hand in the quest proper.
“Yes, this quest has been confirmed as complete, here’s your reward and thank you for your hard work.”
“...” “...”
We didn’t really know what to say, we’d never seen a member of the guild actually act professional, the closest we had seen was Rico, however with him always fainting on the job that image didn’t last long. Although he had admittedly gotten better ever since the guild and the inn fused together.
‘Maybe anna has been helping him?’
We take the reward money, somewhat disappointed we didn’t seem to rank up (though it made sense disappointing things are still disappointing), and we leave for the quest boards.
“Excuse me, Plush and Shiona?”
But we’re called to the receptionist’s desk.
Also worthy to note was that this branch of the guild didn’t have booths like Eastern lake city’s guild, instead it looked more like a bar.
“Yes? What is it?”
“The guild master would like to speak with you, and if possible ask you to do a specific quest.” Responded the receptionist.
“Okay, sure. But where’s the guild master’s office?”
“Right this way sir.”
A new staff member had appeared next to us, at first he had only been cleaning a few mugs so we didn’t pay him any mind until he spoke up, he then started walking towards a door while beckoning us to follow him.
“This is the guild master’s room.”
*knock knock*
“The adventurers from Eastern lake city are here sir.”
“Let them in”
The staff member who was with us nodded once to no one in particular before opening the door and gesturing for us to enter.
“Hello guild master, we’d heard you wanted to see us?” I say right off the bat.
In front of us sat a man at a desk, the man didn’t look very special, not any particularly discerning features, he had short brown hair, no facial hair, brown eyes, neither fat, thin, nor muscled, and his face wasn’t conveying feelings of either joy, relief, anger, or anything else for that matter.
“Yes, I had received a message from Eastern lake city’s guild master that you would be arriving shortly, he’d also written how you both, *cough*, and I quote; “Weren’t as weak as you looked.”, and though I feel bad saying this but if he hadn’t included that part I wouldn’t be asking this of you.”
We had only been half listening to the guild master ever since we entered, instead we were shocked by how he was able to keep his room looking like an actual office, most everything looked neat and tidy save for a few papers on his desk which he was working on while talking to us, the floor looked clean and there weren’t miscellaneous objects laying around as though it was someone’s bedroom.
It looked like he actually cared about the public opinion.
“We were told you had a quest for us?” Responded Shiona, still a bit to surprised by how tidy everything was to take any offense from what the guild master said.
“Yes, this is a subjugation guest which has been proving to be very troublesome, you see on a hill inside of a forest not too far from here there grows a certain valuable plant, this hill however has recently been made into the residence of a dragon. I would like to ask you both to go subjugate said dragon.”
As the guildmaster said that last part he finally stopped doing paperwork and looked at us for the first time since we had entered.
“The reason this quest has been proving troublesome for us is that the people who would be satisfied with the reward aren’t capable of subjugating it while those who are capable aren’t satisfied with the reward,.”
“And what makes you think the quest is worth it for us then? Or that we'd even be able to kill the dragon for that matter?”
“And also can’t you just raise the reward in that case?”
“We can’t raise the price of the quest it’s due to most of the reward coming from what the adventurers can get by selling parts of the dragon, there’s no way our guild would be able to afford to purchase an entire dragon’s body, let alone at a higher price. And the reason you two will think that the quest will be worth it is because I was told by Eastern lake city's guild master you're both trying to raise your ranks in gathering quests. And although I think that Easter lake city's guild master must be overinflating your accomplishments I will admit that even if you're fast the current record for getting to Silver A rank is six months, so you should at least have enough experience adventuring to make do."
"You mean six weeks?"
"What."
"What."
“...”
“...”
*cough* “Also Eastern lake city’s guild master owes me a favour so since you work for him I’m taking the favour out of you, if you want to blame someone blame mister Manning.”
“Right, we'll be sure to remember when we get back...” Says Shiona.
“Well here’s the official quest note, now is there anything else?”
“No not really...” I say and look to Shiona.
“One thing, what do we need as proof of subjugation?"
"It changes depending on the type of dragon, however for the one we've had reports of around the hill it would be the centre fang in its upper jaw, they're shaped differently than the rest to allow use of magic."
We then leave the guild master's office and re-enter the main hall to finally look at what we could find on the quest boards.
“Griffins, hippogriffs, more goblins, orcs, giant lizards, giant rats, giant owls, giant mantises… etcetera etcetera”
“So other than the griffins and hippogriffs it’s what we’ve already seen and just giant forst animals?.”
“Seems like it. As for the gathering quests… Hey, I’m not sure but didn't most of these grow at the dryads place?”
On the gathering quest board there were a lot of quests which were asking for various fruits of even more varied colors, and since we had already seen them all we knew what the fruit looked like as well as the basic shape of the trees they grew on.
“By the way, when the guild master talked about selling monster parts, wonder what other monsters that includes…”
“Anything at Silver A rank or above.”
I turn around and see the same staff member who had been cleaning mugs and guided us to the guild master sitting the the bar table as he… cleaned more muggs.
“Err, thanks?”
“You’re welcome.”
We slowly turn around and start walking away from the eavesdropping man and leave the guild after deciding we’ll save any delivery quests for another day, or maybe later today depending on how long this would take.
Shiona take out the map from her bag.
“Hey Plush, I think we’ll need a new map, this one isn’t doing too well…”
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
Looking at the map you could see that indeed the map wasn’t in the best condition, although it hadn’t been burned at all from back during the necromancer incident it seems that the rain we passed through on our way to Vartan was enough to change it from a map to a paper with ink swirls on.
“Guess the ink the pickits use isn’t very high quality… But the Vartan guild master said the hill we needed to go to was close enough to be seen once we exit the town so we shouldn’t need t for now, we’ll get one once we come back.”
“Alright.”
We then walk back out through the winding streets and eventually make our way outside the gate, once there we look around for a short bit before seeing a large rocky hill sticking out of a forest about four times the height the tree tops a distance away and take off towards it, with how fast Shiona has gotten at flying we arrived after just a few minutes.
We landed and saw that the hill was shaped rather oddly, from one side it looked just like a normal hill yet from the side which was facing away from Vartan it had been almost completely hollowed out into a cave.
*gulp*
As we readied ourselves to enter Shiona ate one of the red fruits, something we’d discovered these past few weeks was that when she absorbed an element she also became more resistant towards it, and even I had heard of how dragons breathed fire so there were no objections from me.
*GRAAH!*
“!” “!”
Then suddenly the dragon rushed out of the dark cave it had been residing in while roaring at us, however when it saw we weren’t leaving it instead stood tall a small distance away from us with it’s head up high enough in the sky to almost reach the top of the hill watching us.
The dragon looked mostly like the ones I’d heard about, giant reptilians with four legs, two wings, it’s scales were a beige yellow color, almost like sand, it had a long tail and a long neck, and on top of that neck-
*HUUAA-*
-Was a head which was inhaling air to breath fire.
“Shiona!”
“Right!”
Once I’d shouted that I phased myself fully and saw that Shiona was bracing herself mentally, just because she knew she’d be fine against fire didn’t mean she felt fine being covered by it.
But then something happened which neither of us was prepared for.
Out of the dragon’s scaly maw came not fire, but drool.
*FWOOSH*
“OH COME ON!” Shouted Shiona as she tried to avoid the water which had within a fraction of a second turned from drool into a broken water hydrant on crack aimed right at us.
“Water!? Really!?”
Shiona had to take off into the sky in order to avoid the almost industrial strength water jet, making her have to use both her wings and talons to balance herself in mid air, this made her unable to grab another of the fruits to at least make the water jet deal less damage when it hit, though both of us doubted she would escape unscathed even if she absorbed the water energy fruit.
Thinking it would be best to get the dragon to stop before it was given the chance to actually hit her with the water beam I ran up to it and prepare myself to phase through it while dragging anything that felt important with me when I come back outside on the other side.
“!”
*SLAM*
“Plush! Are you alright?!”
“I’m fine!” I respond.
In front of me stood the sand colored water spouting dragon.
And between us stood another dragon.
A purple dragon.
The same purple color as the spells which the necromancer was able to hit me with.
‘Honestly, what is up with out luck today?’
As Shiona was flying in the air trying to outmaneuver a seemingly endless supply of magically brought forth water from one dragon I had to jump around to dodge claw swipes and bites from the other while we both tried to think of how to do this.
I had tried to simply go underground however when I did the purple dragon turned its focus towards Shiona until I came back up and started distracting it again.
I tried to phase my hands into one of its feet before it could raise it again only to be met with the same sensation as if I had been trying to walk through a wall without any sort of skill, I then had to jump back to not get hit by its other front foot which it had slammed down where I had been standing.
The dragons now stood back to back with me and Shiona being on opposite sides of them, because of this I was able to see how it was going for her, she was still flying around frantically however the dragon seemed to have learnt the way that Shiona dodged his beam and was slowly but surely aiming closer and closer.
*SLAM*
I had to jump again to avoid another stomp of the purple dragon, this time I jumped back towards it and tried to encase it’s foot in a solidified shell, however with a loud *CRASH* The shell was fractured and split into hundreds of pieces as if made out of glass before vanishing completely.
I tried to remember all the skills I possessed.
What would be able to help me now.
What hadn’t I thought of.
I tried to simply cut the dragon using Hunting Claws, however it only made the now hardened claws start forming cracks until I released the skill.
I tried Lulling Touch, however as expected due to the nature of the skill there was no way for someone as small as me to affect someone as large as this with this skill.
I didn’t even bother trying Revenant Reconnaissance. Falling asleep now really wouldn’t help me.
Then what else did I have?
‘Trickster's Sleight is way to fatiguing for me to be able to create anything game changing before fainting.’
A loud *CRUNCH* was heard when I dodged the dragon’s attempt to bite me as it instead bit a boulder which was behind and turned it into gravel.
‘Intangible Influence? On what? The dragon itself? And what would that do? Its feet were so large compared to me I’d be able to pull it at most a millimeter below the ground.’
*SWISH* Sounded the very air around us as I dove underground to avoid a claw swipe before coming back up again two a second later.
‘Risen Apparition then? It’s easier to use than Trickster's sleight, though I still don’t know how to use a small illusion to help right now…”
And then suddenly I had an ide- *CRASH*
My train of thought and my preparations were then interrupted as the dragon finally hit me, causing me to be sent flying into another boulder, then with a *thud* which was much to soft for the grave situation I bounced off of the boulder and landed face down on the ground in a cloud of dust which had been kicked up by all the commotion.
Whatever it was that allowed me to see through things when I phased through them didn’t seem to work for the dust so I could only see a vague silhouette of two dragons, one turning towards the other as they started focusing on the same target.
That was when I put my plan in motion.
The purple dragon seemed to have gotten too used to fighting creatures of flesh and blood, creatures that could bleed out and die from just minor blunt trauma if it hit in the right place.
The purple dragon was walking towards the sandy dragon who was somehow still shooting at Shiona, however they had become arrogant.
The purple dragon moved slowly.
‘Why hurry when we’ve already won?’ Was probably the thought which was going through it’s mind right this moment.
Though it probably sounded different in over-sized lizard speech.
It was then that I struck, now that the Purple dragon though I was dead and was moving slower I could fill up on as much energy as I wanted, both from energy jellies as well as the books new page, and once I felt I was back in tip top condition I dove underground and moved to right under the sandy dragon.
And I dove into it.
Through the sandy dragons feet which had yet to leave the ground once after it started firing its water beam I went inside of it, inside of its ribcage.
The sandy dragon realized something was wrong the moment I entered it, kinda hard not to when all of the touch receptors in your foot suddenly go off, both the ones on the surface and the ones deep inside.
However it was far too later as I solidified the blood inside its heart, making it unable to pump blood and oxygen throughout its body, causing it to slowly suffocate and die.
A minute passes.
Three minutes pass.
I felt the entire dragons body shake as it hit the ground, however I kept my hold, I wasn’t going to let it get up just because I wasn’t being careful.
Five minutes pass.
Eight minutes pass.
And once ten minutes pass I release the solidification, slowly at first to see if the heart will start beating again, but when I see it stay as lifeless as ever I release it fully and get outside the dragon’s corpse.
whatever allowed me to see through stuff seemed to only work on what I was currently phased inside, so when I was right in the middle of the ground I could see through the organs I touched but not the skin, so I had no idea what was going on outside.
“Took you long enough.” Was the first thing I heard as I came out of the sandy dragons side.
“Sorry, I have no idea how long it takes for a dragon to asphyxiate so I had to be on the safe side. And are you okay?”
At first when I came out of the sandy colored dragon I had been looking back towards it to make sure it wasn’t moving but now I turn towards Shiona and see her sitting with white feathers on top a frost covered purple dragon, some places of it even having chunks of ice stuck to it, while petting Litly who had been hiding in her bag all this time.
“Yup, as soon as I could get a different attribute I was just fine, turns out these guys really are just like lizards, cold blooded and everything.”
She pushes herself off of the dragon with one of her wings, lands on the ground and puts down Litly who runs up to me and wags her tail almost like a dog.
“Now what to do about these guys. That book wouldn’t happen to be able to store something as large as this would it?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never tried.”
‘Book? is it possible?’
When I ask it this the book gets off of my back and opens fully, I don’t see what page it opens on due to it glowing brightly though I assume it’s on the inventory, a huge number of blue hands then reach out of it, even more than back with the goblin corpses, and they all start grabbing at the sandy dragons corpse, however even when they're all holding onto various parts of the corpse they seem unable to budge it.
"Ehm... Maybe we can help by taking the dragon apart into smaller pieces? You used to help your father at the butchery right?"
"Well, we can try, but I have no idea how to dismantle lizards, let alone dragons..."
Suddenly almost all of the blue arms let go of where they were holding and grabbed at one of the dragons wings instead.
"I think it's telling me where to cut it... But honestly I don't think I can, I wasn't able to pierce the other dragons scales at all, no matter what I did..."
Says Cy suddenly from withing the book.
'Really? But then why couldn't you have said so earlier when I needed it the most!?' I thought angrily.
'No, don't... don't worry about it, I overreacted without thinking. But back to the point.'
A single blue arm let go of the dragon and came back to me, out of the palm of the hand cam what looked like a knife.
'This is?'
I took the knife from the blue hand and it went back to the dragon.
Well, I call it a knife but in my hands it was the size of a short sword, so it looked like I was holding an oversized cooking knife.
I moved over to the dragons corpse and wearily tried to cut the dragon, prepared for the weapon to bounce off of it or right out shatter, however the moment it touched the dragons body I could hear a *sizzling* sound as the part of the blade which touched the dragon started glowing white and began cutting through the dragons scales quite literally like a hot knife through butter.
After the entire wing had been cut off I could even see that the scales which had been cut through had been melted like cheese in an oven while everything inside had the color of normal raw meat, as though the apparent heat of the blade had been a lie, and the blue hands which held the now detached wings quickly put it inside the inventory befre coming out and grabbing onto another spot on the dragon.
After that I continued cutting up the dragon with the guidance of the book and the magic cooking knife, once I had gotten through the scales everything and into the meat of the dragon everything went much slower, the knife seemed to only work it's magic on the scales so until I started working on the other dragon it was just a really sharp knife. At least t was better than a dull knife though.
After a while Shiona left to start gathering a bunch of ginseng so that we would be able to depart as soon as I was finished with this, and thanks to the book's guidance it didn't take as long as it should've so a few hours later I climbed out of the ribcage of the skeleton that used to be the purple dragon, quickly phased myself to get the blood off of me and let the book store the last piece of the second dragon.
Only the sand colored dragon had a centre fang like the guild master had described so I assumed this was the one that had been seen while the purple one must've been staying inside the cavern.
Shiona came back with a bag full of beige roots and put them on a pile which had even more of them, I had the book store all of them and we departe back to the city.