Without any retainers around to stop him, though, he wound up shamelessly begging me for one. I never would have guessed Shildris got her love of cute things from her dad. I did ask him to explore the dungeon in exchange, so it wasn’t completely one-sided. As I prepared the item for him, I thought about what color he might end up with. Silver would look cool, or maybe red. Gold would be awesome, but it was the rarest color, so I probably shouldn’t hope for that.
Instead of a bracelet, I ended up making a dagger for the king. The sheath had a really intricate floral design, gold against a dark brown background. He needed to draw the blade to summon the familiar, but once it was summoned, he could return the dagger to the sheath. It had similar restrictions to the item I gave Shildris, so I wasn’t worried about it being misused. I also ordered Bistro prepare more food in advance, and gave the king a similar basket with the dagger inside. Once I explained how everything worked, the king wasted no time trying it out.
“Come forth!” he shouted as he drew the dagger. “Huh?”
“It’s so cute!” I squealed. I couldn’t resist. The summoning went just fine, but I think I was more excited about the result than the king was.
After all, he got the pink one.
“Can I do it over?” he asked, looking more than a little disappointed.
“No way. I can’t control which color you’ll get, and it’s not fair to treat living things that way. If you don’t like it, I’ll take it back. You can just give the food to Shildris.”
If I wasn’t firm there, things could have gotten out of hand.
“I-I didn’t say I don’t like it,” he mumbled. “Th-Thank you for the generous gift.”
Honestly, I think he was secretly quite pleased, but he was probably worried about his image. I mean, this wasn’t the type of pink you could easily confuse with red—this dog was a floral, pastel pink color. The kind of pink a lot of teenage girls liked to fill their rooms with. He could look as rough and manly as he wanted, but with that at his side, I could see people questioning his masculinity. From my perspective, though, if he kept it with him during diplomatic trips or public appearances, it would probably raise his approval rating with women. Girls loved a guy who didn’t let what color their magic dog was bother them.
I sincerely hoped he wouldn’t try to get Shildris to trade pets with him, but it was out of my hands.
About a week later, Shildris and I were at the edge of the great Grimwood Lake, taking in the view. Okay, I was admiring the view, Shildris was looking around for other reasons.
“Are you sure you saw giant spiders here?”
“Hmm? Oh yeah, there’s one right over there.” I pointed right at the nearest spider, which was almost right behind her, but Shildris didn’t believe me.
“That’s just a bunch of big rocks.”
“I’m sure it looks that way, but that’s camouflage. That one’s not even half as big as the biggest one I saw.”
“Oh, come on, quit foolin’ around. Look, there’s the Lake Lord.”
It was my turn to not believe the person pointing something out to me. I gazed over where Shildris was pointing. “Huh? It looks like an island.”
“This lake has no islands. That’s the top of the Lord’s head.”
If that was true, the Lord was totally enormous. Definitely just as huge as the biggest spider, maybe even larger. Speaking of the spider, I was seriously wondering why the one near Shildris hadn’t moved or attacked. If it was really an ambush predator, wouldn’t Shildris have been a perfect target? She honestly had no idea it was there, and it was almost right behind her. I knew for a fact it was still alive, because it showed up as a living entity on my tablet’s map. For a moment, I wondered if it would show up as a rock formation if it were dead.
As I thought about it, the Lord moved closer. As it drew closer, I could tell where its eyes were. As part of my agreement with Stanrus, I’d agreed to rid the forest of the Lake Lord, or at least give it my best shot, to make it easier for them to send hunting parties deep into the woods. Shildris had insisted on coming along, and it looked like we wouldn’t have to wait very long to fight with it.
“It’s coming,” Shildris warned me.
As the Lake Lord drew closer, I readied a regular old, ordinary rock. Last time I’d fought a monster, I’d accidentally used too much strength when I threw a spell shard at it, and I’d ripped a huge hole in its body. The item had been loaded with a spell that discharged on contact, but the thing had already been fatally wounded by the time the spell went off. It was massive overkill. So since then I’d collected a bunch of small rocks for throwing at enemies. Why waste the good stuff on low-level trash mobs?
In this case, I should have considered the terrain, and the shape of my enemy.
I threw the rock I was holding at the Lord of the Lake, and one of its eyes immediately became a gory mess. The rock flew so fast, I could barely follow it. To Shildris, it must have looked like I used a magical “eye explosion” spell. An inhuman cry of agony erupted from beneath the surface of the lake, sending a huge burst of bubbles to the surface. Just beyond the churning water, the top of the Lord’s head sank deeper into the lake.
“You got him!” Shildris cried. “Hey, he’s getting away!”
Yeah, I can see that.