At long last, it was time for the leviathan to be processed. The guild informed me where the project would be carried out shortly before it was set to begin, and as expected, they’d ended up choosing the plains outside the capital. Willem’s prediction had been spot on. What I found when I arrived at the plain, however, was something I was a little less prepared for.
“Oh, wow. Now that’s a crowd...”
A veritable army of Adventurer’s guild members and associates were already hard at work by the time we got there. Much to my astonishment, there was even a seating area set up nearby featuring some very fancy-looking chairs.
What am I even looking at...? I thought, stunned by how much bigger this endeavor had turned out to be compared to what I’d been imagining. All I’d wanted was for them to butcher the thing, and I seriously couldn’t understand how it had all gotten so blown out of proportion. I spent a good long while staring around in utter bewilderment...
“Oh! You finally made it, huh?”
...until Willem, who’d gone off on his own earlier that morning, caught sight of me and came over to say hello.
“Guildmaster...” I muttered.
“What’s got you looking so perturbed, Mukohda?” Willem asked.
“Well, I mean...what’s that all about?” I asked, pointing at the lavish seating section.
“Oh, that?” Willem casually replied. “That’s where the king and queen’ll be watching from.”
“It’s whaaaaaat?!”
“Come on, don’t give me that! An opportunity to see a leviathan in person is a once-in-a-lifetime event, and that’s only if you get very lucky! It’d be a miracle if people didn’t take an interest in the butchering of a monster like that.”
“Okay, but the king and queen? Don’t they have something more important to be doing...?”
“You can’t be serious. You know they’re here for you as much as they’re here for the leviathan, right? If a fenrir, an ancient dragon, and the adventurer they serve are taking part in something like this, then there’s no way the king could ignore it. And that’s not even starting on the gifts you gave them! You got their attention after that, no question about it.”
Ugggh! I really should’ve toned those gifts down after all!
“Seems a lot of the local nobles asked to watch as well. Hence, well, all that,” Willem added, gesturing at the seating again. Apparently, that was why the seats were so over-the-top fancy.
Oh, no. A whole crowd of nobles is gonna be here? Seriously...? I sighed deeply.
“Suck it up and deal with it. This is what you get for dropping a damn leviathan on our doorstep,” Willem said as he patted me on the shoulder.
You’re not wrong, but if I had it my way, we never would’ve done this at all. Don’t blame me, blame the people who insisted that we had to eat the stupid thing, no matter how much trouble it would take to make it happen.
I shot Fel, Gon, Dora-chan, and Sui a glare and got a flat “What?” from Fel in response. They had no idea what I was mad about.
Just then, I spotted a figure off in the distance. Whoever it was, they were sprinting in my direction at full speed, waving their arms in the air like a maniac.
“Mukohdaaaaaa!”
“Oh, boy. Here we go... That’s Elrand, all right,” I groaned as I confirmed that the figure was exactly who I’d feared it would be. I felt my eye twitch involuntarily.