《This white stuff’s called tartar sauce, right? It works so well with the meat!》
I can always count on you to appreciate these things, Dora-chan. Fish and chips just isn’t the same without tartar sauce.
《This is sooo yummy, Master!》
And looks like Sui’s a fan too! Always good to see. Time for me to take a bite too. But first...
“How about a beer, Gon?”
“Oh? Is tonight a night to indulge, my liege?”
“Why not? Though we’ve got another long day ahead of us tomorrow, so only a little,” I replied. Fortunately, I picked out a few good-looking beers for myself last time I was looking for offerings for Agni. Already got them nice and chilled too! “Here we are! This is a kind of expensive one. It came in a gift set!”
I started filling up Gon’s bowl with beer...and went through three bottles of the stuff before it was actually full. E-Eh, should be fine, I guess.
“Okay, here you go.”
“Ooh! Many thanks, my liege. Let’s have a taste,” Gon said before skillfully gulping down a hearty mouthful. “Ahh! This is delectable indeed! It’s nothing like the human liquors I’ve drunk before!”
“Ha ha ha! That’d be because this stuff’s from the world I came from,” I explained.
“Might I ask for seconds, perhaps?” Gon said, nudging his bowl toward me with one of his foreclaws.
“Wait, you already finished? Okay, but like I said, not too much,” I replied as I opened up another three bottles to refill his vessel.
All things considered, it was another fun, slightly raucous dinner. Before long, I heard the front door open.
“I’m back!” Willem called out as he stepped inside.
“Oh, hey! Welcome home,” I replied.
“Drinking already, are you?” Willem jabbed. “Seems you’ve been having a proper party for yourselves while I was hard at work.”
“Well, it’s not like there was any work we could’ve done even if we’d stuck around, right?” I countered. I didn’t know the first thing about the guild’s internal business affairs.
“Fair point, I suppose,” Willem admitted.
“Are you hungry at all? We were just eating,” I asked.
“Oh? Set a portion aside for me, did you? I won’t say no to that.”
I served a plate of fish and chips to Willem as well—with a beer to accompany it, of course. It randomly occurred to me that he probably would’ve described it as ale, since that was the standard term in this world. A moment later, he proved me right.
“Ahhh! What is this ale?! It’s incredible!” Willem exclaimed after his first gulp of beer.
“I just happened to stumble across it somewhere,” I vaguely replied.
“Well, there aren’t many things I’d take over getting the chance to drink booze like this,” Willem said. He was apparently quite the alcohol lover, and seemed to be in a fantastic mood all of a sudden. “Now, I can tell that these are potatoes, but what’re those other things?”
“Oh, just try one and see for yourself! They’re good, trust me, especially if you dip them in that white sauce.”
Willem followed my instructions, grabbing a piece of fried ice dragon, dipping it into the tartar sauce, and taking a bite.
“Ooh, that is something, all right! Delicious! What is it, fish?”
“Ice dragon, actually.”
For a moment, Willem froze solid. He very slowly set his partially eaten piece of dragon meat down on his plate, then took a long, deep breath.
“I think I misheard you. It almost sounded like you said this was ice dragon meat?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“It’s every time with you, I swear! Every time! Why?!”
Why are you putting the blame on me? I’m not the one who demanded we have ice dragon for dinner tonight. You can thank those four for that.
“Does that mean you don’t want any more of it?” I asked.
“No, no, I’ll eat,” Willem sighed. He took a moment to psych himself up, then started stuffing his face. “Just another reminder that expecting common sense from you is always a mistake, I guess. I think I’m finally starting to internalize that,” he commented between bites.
“Come on, really?” I said.
“All I’m saying is that nobody who has a fenrir and an ancient dragon as his familiars could ever be totally normal. You’re barely any better than they are, really. That’s exactly why the king’s being so careful about how he deals with you, and exactly why all those nobles should be following his example. Trying to make them understand that is a losing battle, though.”
“Come to think of it, the king and queen came to watch the butchering process, didn’t they? I saw them arrive, but I didn’t even notice when they left.”
“They’re busy—couldn’t stick around forever. They headed back to the palace while we were draining the leviathan’s blood.”
Oh, really? I’d almost expected them to come over and demand that I hand over my magic swords, but apparently, I shouldn’t have bothered worrying after all.
“I bet you were expecting them to ask for a magic sword, weren’t you?” Willem asked, rather perceptively.
“I mean, yeah,” I admitted.
“There was some talk along those lines, from what I heard, but the king himself shut it right down. Seems he’s pretty dedicated to making sure you’re not driven off to some other nation.”
Some of the other nobles had apparently persisted, claiming that all the king had to do was make sure that I couldn’t flee the country, and the king had responded by reminding them of the sort of company I kept. “If keeping a leash on a man with a fenrir and an ancient dragon at his beck and call was that easy, my job would be much simpler than it is,” he’d apparently scoffed.
“Oh, and he also gave a preemptive order that nobody was to try to pressure you into handing over any of the leviathan’s materials,” Willem added.
That had apparently been the queen’s decision, in part. In her words, “Any attempt to lay claim to it could earn our whole nation the wrath of his familiars, and that is a storm we simply cannot weather. In other words, to do so would amount to nothing less than an act of outright treason, and I’m sure none of you are foolish enough to commit such a crime. Are you?”
Y-Yeah, honestly, I can’t deny it. If Fel and Gon wanted to, they really could blow the whole country away. Nice work, Miss Queen.
“So, that’s the long and short of it,” Willem said. “The king’s keeping anyone who might hassle you in check...though he isn’t doing anything to help us with the hoards of apothecaries and merchants beating at our door.”
“Have there really been that many of them?” I asked.
“More than you could know. They’ve been coming at us in droves, demanding the chance to make a deal. It’s not even the guild’s leviathan to sell yet—not that that’d ever stop them from asking for it anyway,” Willem explained with an irritated frown. I got the sense he was pretty fed up with all those businesspeople. “Hell, we haven’t even decided what we’ll be buying from you to begin with.”
“Wait. You’re not buying the whole thing?” I asked. I really only need the meat! The rest is totally up for grabs.
“Are you insane?! That’d bankrupt the whole guild, and drive us into debt afterward!”
W-Wait, really? It’s that bad?
“Don’t worry, though. Bram’s made it pretty clear that he’ll be buying as much of it from you as we can possibly manage.”
Well, that’s good to know, at least. I wouldn’t know what to do with the blood and guts and whatnot, so giving it back to me would feel like a waste. Maybe I can give some to the king and Earl Langridge if there’s too much of it left over in the end? And maybe I’ll have Sui make some elixirs out of anything I still have after that.