After traveling to the western jungle and coasts, and the southern lands and desert, Hella had started exploring the eastern wilds beyond Freehold. She had grown capable enough to handle the shuggopotami of the northeast, and with the dungeon cleared to the southeast, she had further explored that region.
Once the nearby territory had been thoroughly picked over, Hella had packed up for the long haul, mounted up on her mystic tarand—which she had named Onopedra, after declaring that Horsey was a dumb name for a tarand—and disappeared into the forest while heading straight east.
Where she had, apparently, discovered a dragon.
I was excited. The draconewt I had fought in the jungle had been at least a rank C, although as that was before I had developed 3-point magic so I could only guess as to the beast’s stats while alive, and from the sounds of what Hella described, the beast she had spotted was likely at least a rank stronger.
“It was massive,” she said, almost reverently. “The size of a building. I could hardly believe it was a living creature. You hear about enormous beasts in stories, but to see one in real life…” she shook her head.
I had seen some pretty large beasts in my travels, but if I discounted dungeon bosses, only the darkwurm in the remote north really compared. Human civilization probably pushed out or killed back any beasts that large on this part of the continent. There were stories, but it was hard to tell which stories were based in truth and which were completely fictional, and the average person seemed to be no wiser.
“Did it live in water? What color was it?” I asked.
“No, it was living among trees. It was a dark green.”
So, not another draconewt. “Hmm… did it have wings?”
“I… don’t think so. I didn’t see it flap anything or fly. I just saw it moving through the forest from a distance. I got close enough to see the scales you described, but given the size and sense of power, I didn’t engage and came back to get you.”
“Good. That was the right call.”
“Can we tame it?”
I paused. We probably could have tamed a draconewt, had we found one, or another rank C draconic beast, assuming that they were essentially the same and did not have some kind of magical resistance. There was no real reason to think that they did, except for my otherworldly knowledge of dragons and the fact that they were known as a separate classification of beasts by some people.
“If it’s silver rank, probably. If it’s gold or stronger…” I trailed off.
“It looked much stronger than any silver rank beast I’ve ever seen,” Hella said, scratching her short-cropped dirty blond hair.
Rank was a good general measure for strength and power, but many other factors contributed to that, including environment, battle conditions, and teamwork, as was the case with the packs of lubargs in the area. Rather than a measure of absolute power, what rank really measured was the qualifications needed for a beast to grow.
While Hella could have tamed a rank C beast, like an alcewing or a shug, and theoretically trained them up to the point where they could be transformed into rank B in order to earn her gold badge, she was trying very hard to find a rank B beast, or “gold rank” as it was called in the Guild, in order to tame it instead. I could not blame her; even rank D creatures started out needing 1000 EXP to level up, meaning they needed 55,000 EXP in total to reach the point that they could evolve into a rank C beast. That was more than half the experience I had earned so far across my entire life, and I had been no slouch. rank C beasts started off needing 10,000 EXP to gain a single level, and as the pattern followed, they required 550,000 EXP to reach rank B. It was, by any practical measure, either not happening or a lifelong journey, assuming you could find a long-lived enough beast.
There were some animals on Earth that were basically biologically immortal, able to live for hundreds of years if not killed and eaten by another animal, or more likely, killed by human beings or from human activity. I was willing to bet that if there was a classification of beast that did not age in the usual manner, it would be the draconic beasts.
A draconewt was probably the best bet at finding and taming a rank C beast that could potentially evolve into rank B over the course of one’s whole life, and even then only by finding and hunting down countless other rank C beasts, assuming one could not find rank B or stronger beasts to fight. In that case, the tamer would really rather tame that beast, if they could. Perhaps if a tamer found a wild, long-lived beast that had already grown substantially and only needed the last level or two to push to their experience cap, it was possible in a smaller time frame.
It really put into perspective the raw power of the red magic of dungeon core crystal. That had been able to evolve an alcewing into a rank B corrupted version, a feat which requires a tremendous amount of effort otherwise. I was actually a little surprised that I had survived the encounter, in retrospect, but I supposed I had cheated a bit with purification and healing, using a new type of oxidation magic, and then hammering a spike directly into the beast’s brain. Even still, while I had gained a lot of experience for the kill, it paled when compared to the theoretical experience points that would otherwise have been needed to be earned by the beast to evolve if not for the corruption.
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Experience, as a concept, was still fairly nebulous. I understood broadly how it worked when it came to mundane experiences, and my familiarity with video games helped me come to terms with the fact that killing things earned additional experience without delving into the question of why. What was experience, anyway? I had found a way to game MP and SP. Was there something out there that would let me game EXP?
I shook off the tangent and refocused on the task before us. Given the momentous amount of work it would take to evolve a rank C beast into rank B, we had to assume that a rank B beast would be incredibly powerful, even if rank was not a true measure of power.
“I think we should probably prepare to kill it,” I finally told Hella. “There are issues with taming it—the devastation it could cause if the bond ever broke, for one, and also the devastation to our food stores just keeping the beast fed—and while the benefits are huge, there are benefits to killing it, as well. The meat and materials alone will be worth a fortune, and if the beast is as strong as I think it is, the meat should help any beast we feed it to rapidly grow towards transformation.”
Hella sighed. “Shit. You’re probably right,” she conceded.
“Don’t worry. Given the size of the beast, even if we split up the loot more than two ways, we probably can’t even carry it all. And we can only salt and carry so much meat. Any beasts we bring can gorge on the excess, probably to the point of triggering a transformation. Speaking of, we should decide who else we’ll need for this excursion. I’m not sure the two of us can bring a silver rank beast down alone.”
Hella hummed as she started thinking about what we would need for the mission, or possibly just thinking through the rank C beasts she knew of that she would want to try evolving afterward.
In truth, I felt confident I could probably take the beast down on my own, but only using cheat magic that I was unwilling to reveal, even to Hella. I was also trying to be cautious not to overestimate my abilities. Though I had been able to kill the darkwurm by tricking it into consuming rust and then using that to decapitate the beast, it was in a magic desert, and the beast had low magical resistance. In a dungeon, beasts had high magical resistance, at least to non-purification magic. My only experience with draconic beasts involved me getting eaten, and I was hoping not to have a repeat performance of that.
* * *
In the end, the group of people heading out to subdue the draconic beast included myself, Hella, Bortag, Len the village guard, a newer hunter named Lemora, and an ex-soldier who had moved to the village named Nurn.
Rena, while an amazing tamer who could maintain a huge number of bonds with many different species, had not pursued much in the way of battle taming like the hunters and Hella had. She had wanted to come, of course, but I begged her to stay back. Someone needed to run the Guild, especially if I died.
“If I don’t come back, you’re the only one who can keep this Guild going,” I told her.
I doubted I would actually die, but I was not about to let Soren’s daughter and one of my closest friends set off to fight a rank B dragon when all she had ever killed were some rank E beasts for meat.
Bortag and Len had three proud lubargs between them, in addition to the tarands we would be riding. Hella and I had a small menagerie of beasts for the battle, as well as her mount Onopedra. Everyone was made aware that in a battle like this, there was a real risk of losing their beasts in battle, nevermind their own lives, but all three had been born in Freehold and they were determined to keep it safe from the perceived threat, which was how everyone saw the draconic beast when word had started to spread.
Lemora was only an iron rank Guild member, and had a loaner tarand for the trip, but no beast companions that could help in a battle; she was there to provide support with her bow. She was a great shot with a large longbow that had a heavy draw, but even still, I was unsure if her arrows would pierce the beast’s scales. More importantly, she was willing to make the trip, which meant an extra set of hands and saddlebags to bring back our trophies. Not many others were willing to disappear into the wild for so long on a lark.
Nurn had come out here to retire in an interesting corner of the Kingdom, away from the complications of the capital. He was not a tamer, and would ride a tarand under someone else’s control, but was willing to contribute his sword to the defense of the Kingdom, seeing the draconic beast as a possible threat, and maybe also a chance to earn some glory and profit in bringing it down.
I had tried to talk him out of it, because I was pretty sure that he was going to quickly die if he tried to stab a dragon with a sword, despite his relatively high skill and level.
“If I die, then that’s my fate,” he said with a shrug. “It was only due to my high rank in the army and long-time service that I had gained my palace guard position and avoided the war. I knew a lot of good men who died in the north. Sure, we needed the steel, but in the end, it wasn’t worth it. The barbarians are no threat.”
I agreed, awkwardly, then cleared my throat. “Uh, well, it sounds like you had a pretty good position in the army. Why’d you retire?”
Nurn sighed. “The capital is… not as peaceful as it used to be. Many of the guards were changed after an incident in the palace.” I assumed he was talking about the poisoning attempt on the eldest prince that I had heard rumors of. “I was reassigned. The new position was… fine, but not what I wanted to do with my remaining years. I never married, had no kids… decided to set out and see more of the Kingdom that I loved and protected. Almost settled in Mirut.”
I nodded. All things being equal, I would probably settle in a tropical paradise as well.
He smiled at me. “Then I heard about the things happening in the east, and ended up here. This village, it’s… special. And nice. It had the potential to bring positive change to the Kingdom, but it is the way of settlements to fall to outside risk.” His eyes narrowed, his expression hardened. “If there truly is a draconic beast to the east, it’s my duty to protect the citizens of the Kingdom from it. I won’t sit by and let Freehold fall to a monster.”
He clapped me on the shoulder and went back to preparing his saddlebags, strapping a set of spears to the tarand, and I left him to his preparations. He seemed like a good man. I sincerely hoped I was not about to get him killed.