His expression softened. “I suppose we’ll leave it at that.”
“I mean, this way, you won’t have to fight any—”
I was about to tell him there wouldn’t be any monster battles, but just then something slammed into the bottom of the carpet. Our sturdy magic item quickly righted itself, but not before I let out an embarrassing sound somewhere between a scream and a yelp. The thing that bumped into us surged forward. I was in total disbelief.
Atop the large winged creature’s head was a huge hornlike crest, and at the front of its face was a sharp, beak-like mouth. Overall, it looked like a brown pteranodon, except the wings were covered in black feathers. Other than that, the whole thing was scaly and reptilian.
“That’s a carrion drake,” Hegram said, handily identifying the creature as it prepared to make another aggressive move toward us. “You sometimes see them in the Grimwood around corpses. They’re one of the largest drake species, but they don’t often hunt for themselves. This one must have been separated from its flock.”
“Whatever it is, it scared me,” I complained.
Normally, I’d just deploy my wings and fly circles around it. I could probably have plucked every single one of its feathers before it knew what was happening. Unfortunately, in that moment, I was supplying magic power to the carpet. If I flew off on my own, the carpet would go limp and fall out of the sky. Of course, I was so fast with my wings deployed that I could probably have made it back before that happened, but still, I didn’t want to risk everyone’s lives like that. Instead, I threw a single-use spell shard at it.
If you’ve played role-playing video games before, you might know what sort of item I’m talking about. In a lot of those types of games, you can either get them as monster drops or in treasure chests; some even sell them in shops, but they’re usually too weak to bother buying. Each one basically grants a single use of an attack spell, then vanishes forever. They’re meant to be helpful when you’re facing enemies with exploitable elemental weaknesses, but in a lot of games, they’re not very powerful.
In Questonicia, the item acted like a spell, and used the player’s stats to determine how much damage it did. That was just fine for a magically inclined player like myself, but for warrior classes with low numbers in the relevant stats, they were pretty much useless. That was why I had ended up with so many of them. My brothers habitually gave me all of theirs, since I could actually get some practical use out of them. My second-eldest brother, Pedro, did have a magic build, but he had the actual versions of the spells the items replicated at his disposal, so he didn’t really need them either.
Anyway, this particular spell shard was imbued with a low-level lightning spell. I didn’t really think about it before I threw it, but my stats were way higher than back when I played the game. When I hurled the item with all my strength, it flew through the air faster than a speeding bullet, hit the creature’s chest, and passed right through, tearing a huge hole in its body. Then the spell activated. Electricity spewed out of the shard as it disintegrated, frying the monster in a spectacular display of overkill.
In other words, I could have probably killed it with a regular old rock and saved myself a magical item. At least it didn’t splatter everywhere.
I held up my hand and stored the monster’s corpse in my inventory before it could fall. This effectively sent it back to my mortal realm palace. After all, it could have useful materials for crafting. Then I looked over at everyone else on the carpet, to make sure they were okay. Their wide eyes were all fixed on me in stunned disbelief.
Yeah, I need to pick up some regular old rocks.
Even Team Apple was frozen in place with their mouths hanging open. The awkward silence continued for over a minute as I looked from one shocked face to the next.
What should I say? Should I say something? They’re all looking at me like I just got off of my Martian spaceship. What are they most shocked about? The effect of the item? How easily I defeated it? The way I stored the body afterward? My clothes?
To be clear, I was dressed for my upcoming audience with royalty. The gown I was wearing was, like most of my dresses, dazzlingly beautiful. It was a lavender color that matched my hair, but with white accents and a few pretty pink flower decorations. The lavender color that made up the main body of the dress sparkled in the sunlight. It was absolutely gorgeous, but had low combat values.
“W-Wow,” I laughed awkwardly. “Who would have thought it would be so weak.” Okay, that line was lame, but I had to say something. The silence was killing me.
“W-weak, she says,” Gunzar managed.
“Yeah, she said it,” Hegram agreed.
“Weak,” Degon said. At least, I was pretty sure it was Degon. If not, it was Shuzarl. I really should have had Hammer put different designs on their helmets or something.
Roban shook his head in disbelief. “It takes a platoon of archers just to get one of those to leave the livestock alone, but—”
“Weak,” Shuzarl said (and if he didn’t, it was Degon).
Hegram and his men were still trying to process what had just happened. Team Apple on the other hand—
“Ha! As expected of Her Majesty! Why would anyone be surprised?” Ringo said smugly, as if he were the one who’d killed it in one blow.
“You were just as shocked as the rest of us, Ringo,” Pomme pointed out.
“I was merely in awe of the way the sunlight reflects on Her Majesty’s dress,” Ringo argued. “There’s no way I could be stunned to silence by the defeat of such an insignificant creature.”
“Even though none of us has ever been able to kill one of those ‘insignificant creatures’ before?” Pomme said, giving Ringo major side-eye in the process.
“Th-That’s only because they keep flying away. They’re not just weak, but cowardly as well. Leave it to Her Majesty to put one of those cowards in their place like that. Not only that, but she looked so poised and beautiful while doing it.”
“Go easy on the butter, lover boy,” Pomme chided, “she’ll slip on it.”
“Hold your tongue, Pomme!” Ringo snapped angrily.
“Come on now, stop fighting,” Mela interjected, in a valiant attempt to be the voice of reason. “Everyone was just a little surprised, even if it was for different reasons.”
Unfortunately, Ringo and Pomme kept right on arguing with each other. They did lower the volume a little at least, though, so it was more like grumbling under their breath.
“Oh, hey! I think I see it! Is that the royal capital?” I asked. Yeah, I did see something, but I really just wanted to change the subject.
“Y-you’re right. I do believe that is indeed the royal capital,” Hegram managed.
“All right!” I raised my right fist into the air. “Time to make a grand entrance!”