The moment I was led to our guest room in the earl’s house, I dove straight into bed.
“Ahhh... I am beat,” I groaned.
《Are you okay, Master?》 asked Sui, who was currently perched atop Fel’s back. The slime hopped onto the bed as well and extended a little tendril to gently slap my cheek with, probing me for signs of life.
“I’m fine, Sui,” I replied, reaching out to give it a pat. Sometimes it felt like the slime was my one and only source of comfort in this world. “I’m also exhausted, though, so how about we just go to sleep?”
《Okaaay,》 Sui said.
《Kinda sucks that we didn’t get to take a bath, but I guess that’d be weird in someone else’s house anyway,》 Dora-chan said. 《We can take one tomorrow, right?》
“Yeah, we should be able to. We’ll say our goodbyes to the earl tomorrow and go rent a house, like we usually do.”
I’ll drop dead from stress before the trip is over if we don’t! I’d met way too many bigwigs on the first day alone, and my mental stamina was already totally depleted. The fact that Fel and Gon had insisted on running their mouths from the very start to the very end certainly hadn’t helped with that.
“Ready my bedding at once,” Fel commanded.
“And mine as well, my liege!” Gon added.
I swear, those two have no clue how much trouble they cause me! Are all legendary beasts like this? I gave Fel and Gon a sullen glower, which Fel responded to by telling me to hurry up.
“Okay, okay! Just a second,” I grumbled. I heaved my poor, worn-out body upright again, pulled Fel’s and Gon’s bedding out from my Item Box, laid it out on the floor, and watched as they happily settled down for the night.
“I don’t think I could sleep without this anymore,” Gon said.
“Indeed. Remarkable, how bedding such as this is all it takes to provide a sound night’s sleep,” Fel agreed.
Look at them, chatting away without a care in the world. Those two, I swear... And the fact that they’re not trying to give me a hard time almost makes it worse.
Just when we’d finished a nice dinner with the earl’s family and I’d thought I was out of the woods, they had to go and start talking about the leviathan. The earl had latched on to the topic immediately and started questioning me about where I’d gotten my hands on a monster like that. It wasn’t a full-blown interrogation or anything, but it also didn’t feel like I’d be able to get away with being vague and deflecting the question, so I ended up telling him the entire, unvarnished truth.
I started by telling him how we’d gone to—and cleared—a dungeon in the cluster of small nations right across the border. Then I moved on to explaining how the leviathan was that dungeon’s final boss, and how it had left its own massive corpse for us to collect as spoils in lieu of any drop items. I even told him about how we were hoping that we’d be able to get the thing butchered while we were in the capital, so by the time I was done, he knew pretty much the whole story.
When I’d finished with my explanation, the first thing the earl did was let out a very lengthy sigh. Thankfully, though, he set me loose for the night and had me guided to his guest room right afterward. I heard him muttering something about how he “had to report this to the king” as we parted, but I decided that I’d just go ahead and leave that to him. Thanks for that, Earl Langridge!
I already had a plan worked out for the leviathan corpse. Assuming I was able to get it successfully butchered, I’d decided that I would offer the materials that would be harvested from it—and maybe even a little of the meat—to the king and the earl. For now, though, it’s definitely time for bed. Nighty night!