“Huh, that could actually work.”
“Even if the hydra tries to heal, the harpoons would stay lodged inside it. And with the right setup, we could make sure they don’t fall out. It’s at least worth a try.”
“Exactly. We’ve been stuck anyway, so we might as well give it a shot. We could always try something else if it doesn’t pan out.”
They’d already survived a few battles, so they clearly knew when to bail. My idea was just crazy enough that it might work.
“In that case, we’ll need to design the tips so that they don’t come back out. Alternatively, it’d be okay if they break off inside the hydra’s body.”
“It doesn’t have to be a harpoon either. Arrows could work too; they’ve got the advantage of being long-ranged.”
I even told them about toggle harpoons that were used in fishing. Those had detachable tips that stayed in their target and wouldn’t come out easily. If you connected the tip and shaft with a loose knot and attached a separate long string to the main shaft, you could pull the whole thing back after throwing it. Then, you just had to swap out the tips, and you’d be good to go again.
“All right! The first step is to go get the weapons!”
“Yeah!”
Jin and Galatt were ready and raring to go, but the moment they turned around to leave, they were quickly drawn back in by the smell of grilled meat. They ran right back to their original spots at the grill like they’d lost control of their bodies.
“Guess we should head back too,” Mennas said.
Leena agreed. “Yeah. You don’t get the chance to eat wyvern meat every day.”
Both of them went back to their seats, reluctant to miss out.
“Tenma, if we don’t hurry, they’ll eat everything before we get back!” Gramps said.
“There’s still plenty of wyvern meat left...”
But even though I’d said that, I wasn’t entirely convinced. At the rate they were eating, we would be lucky if they didn’t scarf down all the meat I had taken out for today. I figured that we’d better have some orc meat prepped just in case, as backup.
“Come to think of it, we have to meet with the king and the others once we get back to the capital,” I said.
Gramps nodded. “Right...”
Actually, Jin and the Dawnswords weren’t the only ones who’d had a request for us today. There had been one from Karina and Arie too, regarding Amy. Apparently, there was a party at the academy coming up, and the students’ parents were invited. They’d both gotten invitations, but traveling to and attending a party in the capital meant that they’d be gone for two weeks, and that would be tough. Going to a place packed with nobles made them uncomfortable too, so they wanted to know what I thought they should do.
Since Kriss and the three idiots were all academy alums, we asked them about it. They told us that since Amy was officially part of my family in the capital, we could attend instead. Actually, it sounded like that was the only choice here.
If this were just a casual get-together, skipping it wouldn’t be a big deal. However, this party was for the whole school, and the third-years were taking center stage. Some of them wouldn’t be moving on to the upper school because they either were leaving or had failed their exams, so this party was also a graduation event—at least for most of the commoner students. The noble kids didn’t see it as a graduation party at all, though. For them, it was the perfect chance to find a potential future husband or wife.
“It was like that in my day too, although that was so long ago my experience probably won’t be too valuable...” Gramps muttered.
Back then, even though he’d had a reputation of being very talented, Gramps was the third son of a viscount with little chance of an inheritance. He’d also already been labeled as a weirdo, so it wasn’t surprising that he hadn’t been that popular. For the record, the most popular guy in his class had apparently been Lord Ernest.
“He was a weirdo too, though! But he had money and actually was royalty...” Gramps looked especially bitter about that last part. I guessed he still wasn’t over it.
“Anyway, Kriss and the three idiots think that Amy’s going to be the big draw for the nobles at this party,” I said. “That makes sense, considering her ties to us and those three, even though she’s a commoner.”
Someone who married Amy would automatically gain a connection to the Otori family and the three noble idiots. Of course, even if someone managed that, it would probably put them at odds with the royal family—Tida, to be specific. But even if Amy were to reject Tida, I couldn’t imagine him pulling anything shady against Amy’s partner because that would put his reputation on the line.
“Honestly, if Amy could just end up with Tida, that would make everything so much easier...” I muttered.
“You should probably keep thoughts like that to yourself, Tenma. If you say that in the wrong place, you’d just be asking for trouble,” Gramps warned.
I decided to wrap up that conversation before things got too far. “Anyway, there are probably going to be a few students trying to weasel their way into Amy’s heart. We’ll need to talk to Queen Maria about how to handle that.”
“We should probably talk to Amy’s mom and grandma first,” Gramps suggested. “There might be people trying to go through them to get to her.”
He had a point. We couldn’t just move forward without checking in with Karina and Arie. We decided to go pay them a visit.
But before we could leave, Jin and the Dawnswords started begging for seconds. I stuck to the plan and brought out orc meat, which earned me a chorus of boos. Once I threatened to charge them for the food they’d already eaten, they shut up and started grilling the orc meat. Satisfied, I finally headed off towards the apartment.