We sat around another campfire, one just like the many we had already left behind on the journey into the eastern wilds. The trek back to where Hella had spotted the draconic beast was long, and then we had to find the beast again once we had returned to the area. I just hoped we would make it back before the cold of winter set in. I shivered slightly, and scooted a bit closer to the fire. Treepo grunted in my lap at my movement, looking at me, then closed his eyes again as his breathing evened out. I stroked his side as he snoozed.
“That’s when I snuck up behind her and kicked her into the pit,” Hella said with a laugh. Her urstrig, the large owl-bear subject of her story, looked up at her from behind before going back to preening herself. It was one of a number of naturally strong rank D beasts she had accompanying her for the fight. “Then we just had to stop her from clambering out. After a day of screeching about it, she finally got hungry enough to eat the bait and eventually bond with me.”
“What happened to the direfox you used to dig the hole?” Len asked, and Hella pointed at me.
“Sold it to the Guild. Pretty sure Pilus kept one of his progeny.”
“Yup.” I had paid a small fortune to Hella to go back and get a female when she brought in the male, and had raised a female kit, that I named Rika, ever since. Worth every last copper. Direfoxes were a strong rank E, and I had evolved Rika into a rank D frosted direfox. Her reddish fur had lightened to a snowy white, and she had grown to the size of a small bear, with her already-long fluffy tail doubling in length. “Wish I could have brought her with me, but I wouldn’t want her to fight, anyway.”
Treepo and the tarands aside, Hella and I had only brought natural rank D and C beasts for the fight. They were less of an investment if lost in battle than an evolved beast, and would benefit more from the experience and the meat, which we could only bring back in quantities we could transport through the forest.
Since the amount of meat we could carry was limited, we planned to feed as much as we could to the beasts that survived the battle to make the most of the carcass. Of course, I planned to double back in secret and grab the whole carcass after we started heading back, but I could not share that part of my plan with the group.
“Why’d you bring the little one, then?” Nurn asked.
I smiled down at the sleeping form of Treepo in my lap. “This guy’s been my constant companion since I was a child. He goes everywhere with me. He wouldn’t want to miss this encounter.”
Nurn frowned, not understanding, and I just shrugged. A few days into the journey I had convinced him to let me teach him how to tame, and once he got the skill, he took over the bond on his tarand. Perhaps he would come to see the beast as a companion in addition to transportation in time.
“Anyway. The pit trap is a classic, but it’s no good against beasts that can fly. You never could quite claim that alcewing bounty.”
“Pfft. Whatever,” Hella said, scoffing and leaning back. “I brought in the rhinothell and then the octophant instead.”
I glanced off to where the intimidating rank C beasts were sleeping, alongside a pair of shuggopotami that were under my control. The sandy-colored, furry not-quite-rhinocerous and the Eldritch horror that was the eight-trunked, earless black elephant from the south were powerful, no question, but the latter seriously creeped me out.
And one or both of those are almost certainly waiting for me, corrupted, at the bottom of a dungeon, if I can ever make it that way, I thought with a shudder.
“What about you, Pilus? Any memorable beast fights?” Lemora asked.
I gave it some thought, then cleared my throat. “Well, one time I did fight the rare shagloth in the jungle…”
* * *
As days of travel passed us by and we got closer and closer to our destination, I noticed Len was getting pretty on edge. I pulled him off to the side to check in with him.
“Are you doing all right?” I asked.
“I guess,” he said, jittery. “Just worried I might have made a mistake coming out here with you. I’ve got Chaser and Dasher, but compared to those monsters,” he said, jerking his thumb at the rank C beasts passing us by. “We’re just going to get in the way.”
“Many hands make light work,” I said. “Every little bit helps.”
Secretly, I agreed with him. I would do my best to keep him and his ‘bargs alive, but they were more of a liability than a help. Still, given the restrictions I was working under in order to keep my secrets, I could not exactly reject the help.
“I know you wanted to protect Freehold, but you already do that guarding the village. Why did you decide to come with?”
Len blushed slightly, then looked a bit sheepish. “I, uh, wanted to impress Hella. I was hoping… I mean, she’s just so impressive, you know? I’ve always kind of had a thing for her, but she’s away from the village so much these days.”
Huh. Len and Hella were both only a bit older than my perceived age, and both were still single, which—at least according to Rena—was unusual for people in their twenties. I knew why Hella was single, constantly setting out on adventures since she became a tamer, but I was surprised to hear that an unrealized crush was the reason for Len’s perpetual bachelorhood.
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“Well, maybe she’ll settle down after we take down this draconic beast, especially if it gets her to gold rank,” I mused. “Just… keep yourself safe. We’ve got healing draughts, but don’t take any big risks. There’s no shame in retreating and trying again if we can’t kill it.”
“Obviously,” Len said, chuckling. “I want to impress her, but I’m not an idiot. I plan to return to Freehold, a wealthy man.”
The assumption was that the beast’s scales would be at least as valuable as the draconewt scales I had sold in Roko, if not significantly more valuable. The draconewt scales had been an excellent material for lightweight armor, and with the price of steel rising, I was hopeful that these higher rank dragon scales would be even sturdier and thus even more valuable. If not, depending on the rank of the beast, I also promised to buy any salted meat for a really, really good price. The Guild was wealthy and I was not upset to share that wealth with people who put themselves out to help.
I clapped Len on the shoulder and pulled Horsey back to check our rear. So far, no beasts had been suicidal enough to take on our group, but I still liked to check that we were not being stalked by something, or that if we were, see what the beast was and maybe tame it to help the coming fight.
* * *
It was hard not to stare in awe once we found the beast.
Being from Earth, I was used to seeing things of a larger scope than the locals. I thought that knowing about animals like blue whales, I would be immune from surprise at seeing the beast Hella had simply called “the size of a building.” After all, the houses in the village were relatively small.
The heft of this creature made the darkwurm seem like a lightweight. The draconic beast was not just tall or long. It was properly massive, as in, it had serious bulk to it. The ground trembled when it took a step. It was a small hill brought to life. I did a full appraisal using my double-advanced 3-point magic and was able to learn as much about the beast as I could had I tamed it.
It was also a full-on dino. That is, of the “terrible lizard” variety, not a big prehistoric bird. And it had levels.
Dracosaur (Lv 3)
HP: 876/913
MP: 126/126
Status: none
EXP: 27638/300000
“How ancient is this thing?” I muttered. It would have earned over three hundred thousand experience just to reach Level 3, plus what it had earned since. I can probably get rid of the idea of multi-star gold badges for the Guild. No one is ever evolving a Rank B beast or beyond.
The dracosaur had a wide, stout body not unlike a Brachiosaurus, except without the long neck, and the large head that did stick out of its front was much more carnivorous-looking, as one might expect from a dragon. However, like a sauropod, it had big wide feet and a weight that limited its mobility, as well as a big powerful tail trailing behind it.
“So. You can’t tame it?” Hella asked.
I glanced at the woman incredulously. “Maybe if I fed it infused meat every day for the rest of my life, but even then, I have no idea. Not sure I want to get close enough to that thing’s mouth to find out.”
Partly, my concerns had to do with the fact that it was draconic. I had almost no real information about why and how they were considered different from regular beasts. Perhaps it was the size of the beast that was putting me off, and that taming it would only be moderately harder than taming a normal rank C. A smaller rank B beast would certainly feel less intimidating, assuming they existed beyond evolving a rank C. I could no longer even picture what a rank A beast would look like besides a world-ending kaiju, although I would bet that if a true dragon existed, it was one. Any assumptions I had made about further ranks, like rank S, had evaporated in the face of what we already faced.
“Hmph. So I guess we kill it.”
“If we even can,” I grumbled.
Once the group snapped out of our stupor, we maneuvered ourselves through the environment until we found a rocky area for me to use for projectiles. I was taking the role of magic support in this battle, launching boulders at the building-sized beast, to try and bludgeon it into submission.
Lemora, Hella, Len, and Bortag were going to stage themselves from other angles, to separate the attackers and split the dracosaur’s focus with their arrows.
“Nurn, are you sure you want to get close to that thing?” As a front-liner, once he had launched his spears at the dracosaur, he intended to actually try and stab the damn thing with his sword.
He took the question seriously, then nodded. “It’s large, and strong, but seems slow. If I can damage its legs enough and stop it from moving, we’ll have a better chance at ending it.”
I nodded, but privately thought the man must be out of his mind. If not for the fact that I had cleared a rank B dungeon in the past, I would assume fighting up close and personal was a death sentence. “If we can take it down and it’s immobilized, we can get at the eyes, and ears… if it has any. It’s huge, and we probably can’t sever the head from the neck, but it’s still a living creature like any other. If we can break through to the brain, we can kill it.”
We parted, and I started preparing stone cannonballs and javelins from the rocks nearby. Once I was relatively certain my comrades were out of sight, I started pulling some additional materials from my inventory. I added sharpened iron tips to the piercing stone projectiles, hoping that could be enough to break through the scales, as I did not think stone would do the trick. I also tipped some javelins with quartz and hematite tips with 4-point magic and diamond tips with 8-point magic, unsure what would work best to pierce the scaled hide. It was a small addition that should, overall, go unnoticed, particularly when things started to get hectic.
Once I had shaped enough projectiles, I drank an MP potion to top myself back up. I had given my teammates enough time to get into their own positions. The fight would begin when I hurled the first boulder.
Better make it a good one, I thought with a grin.
I pulled a huge stone out of the ground, a boulder that was easily as big as a shug and weighing a comparable few tons. It was a feat I never could have accomplished before double-advancement. Tossing this, at speed, would cost a good chunk of MP, but I did not need to throw it hard and fast at the beast.
Rather, I floated the boulder up and forward. The cost was not too bad until it was some distance away, and then the cost started adding up. I gave it one last magical push for a chunk of MP, and let gravity do the rest.
The boulder picked up speed before crashing hard into the backside of the dracosaur. The beast lifted its head and bellowed, loud enough that I almost took a step back. I braced myself through it, then got to work. The battle had begun.