Chapter Thirteen: Tourist Attractions
We went back to Lazy Pig’s territory, refilled our carriage with food, and headed to eastern Melromarc. We sold our food in a village crowded with adventurers. The village was flanked by a mountain range.
We took a break from business, put on comfortable clothes, and went to a local tavern.
“This place is lively,” Father remarked.
“It’s a flourishing village,” I agreed.
The word of the saint of the bird god had even reached the ears of the villagers here, so they had already heard of Father.
“The Sword Hero slayed an evil dragon on the mountain here about a week ago,” the bartender told us. “So a bunch of adventurers came by to take its treasure.”
“Oh, really?” Father said.
So Ren had killed a dragon here? Maybe he stopped by on his way over to Zeltoble.
“Should we go check it out?” Father asked me.
“Is that really necessary?”
I didn’t remember coming here in the first go-around.
“More and more adventurers are on their way,” the bartender continued. “Didn’t you know that the guild made a whole posting about it?”
“O-oh, yeah, I went to check and see for myself,” Father said. “We’re peddlers just passing through.”
“Thanks to the saint of the bird god, our village is prospering more than ever before,” the man said.
“That’s great to hear,” Father said, and the bartender left us to our meal.
When we went back outside, Father looked over at the mountain.
“I’d like to add some dragon drop items to my shield,” Father said.
“Should we head over, then?” I inquired.
“I’m thinking about it.”
“I despise dragons.”
“I know that. Sakura doesn’t react well to them either.”
Yes, because filolials are dragons’ mortal enemies, I say. And any enemy of a filolial is an enemy of mine!
Incidentally, I wasn’t very impressed by this village either.
“So a dragon’s treasure, huh . . .”
An adventurer standing nearby, who had looked like he had just gotten back from the mountain, overheard the conversation. His eyes sparkled as he immediately turned to his companions, then set out straight toward the mountain again.
“It’s like an all-out war to get that treasure,” Father said. “This town isn’t lively. It’s a war zone.”
“For an ordinary adventurer, it might be a dangerous task to recover items from a dragon’s corpse,” I said.
“Yeah, you’d need to be strong to handle it. There are strong monsters in the mountains. But you can see a bunch of people bringing back monster corpses, regardless.”
I nodded. Judging by what the adventurers were carrying, there appeared to be a wide variety of monster types up on the mountain.
“What type of creatures are dragons in this world, anyway?” Father asked.
“I haven’t the slightest clue,” I said. I knew that they were my mortal enemies, but besides that, they were nothing more than a good source for drop items and experience.
Back in Father’s village, there were a few people who knew a lot about different monsters. I would ask them if I could, but I had no idea where they were in this go-around.
“I figured that in one chief dragon’s territory, there were only other dragons, but I’m seeing people with all sorts of random monsters,” Father said.
“Good point,” I replied. There weren’t only dragon-type monsters on the mountain. In fact, non-dragon types seemed to make up the vast majority. Some of them appeared to be crosses between dragons and other species of monsters. Something about it seemed to have captured Father’s attention. Whatever could it be?
“So they say that Ren slayed the dragon here. But what kind of dragon was it? A boss class or something?”
“That very well may be the case.”
“I played games where we worked together to beat boss-class dragons, but they were huge. Are all the adventurers just ignoring the main dragon corpse?”
“Why don’t we go to the part of the mountain that is the most crowded?” I suggested. “We could probably find it there.”
“Maybe. Look, all of the dragon-type monsters that the adventurers are carrying are super small, but some of them have those giant scales that they’re showing off.”
Now Father appeared to be glancing up toward the mountain in concern.
“Are you worried about something, Father?”
He nodded. “If no one is actually bringing back the dragon corpse itself, doesn’t that inevitably mean that there’s some problem or reason they can’t? Maybe it’s already rotten. I mean, so long as there’s not an infectious disease or anything, that’s fine, but it still concerns me.”
“A disease, you say? A disease is driving people away from the dragon corpse?”
Unfortunately, I didn’t know nearly enough about dragons to confirm or deny anything that Father was saying. I really wasn’t interested.
“Exactly. I’m not sure how it would work in this world, but in works of fantasy, there are all these stories about how to dispose of a dragon’s corpse. A strange amount. I think in some of them you have to use magic or even your own life force to get rid of it. I wonder how it works here.”
“They’re living creatures. Wouldn’t they just rot?”
“Yeah, that’s what you’d think on the surface. But we don’t want a dragon zombie to rise or anything. They’re a staple of a lot of RPGs, and they’re even stronger than regular dragons.”
“I do recall there being dragon zombies in Emerald Online,” I said. “That’s what I always used to play.”
Father fell into deep thought.
But in Emerald Online, regular dragons didn’t turn into dragon zombies—dragon zombies just spawned from a specific dungeon, kind of a mid-game boss.
“Hmm. Motoyasu, didn’t you tell me before that relying on your game knowledge actually made a lot of things go wrong for you? Not saying that you’re wrong about dragon zombies in particular.”
“So why don’t we just go to the mountain and crush all of your concerns?” I suggested.
“I guess so.” Father frowned. “I’m not sure if we’ll get much out of it, but if we can use materials from the dragon corpse in our weapons, then I guess it’ll be worth it.”
Father went back over to Keel and the others, who were waiting in the carriage.
“What’s goin’ on, Big Bro?” Keel called.
“There’s a dragon corpse up in the mountain, so we were thinking about going to pick up some materials there,” Father said.
“Nice! Should we come too?”
The filolials stood up and came over to us. They seemed happy to do something new.
“I’m just worried about thieves and all of our food supply. Will one of you stay behind to watch the carriage?”
“Oink!”
Lazy Pig quickly and enthusiastically raised her hand.
“Elena, and . . .”
“So I can go, right?” Keel asked.
Father looked over at the filolials. Sakura, as always, must have wanted to accompany Father. And both Yuki and Kou looked like they had been bored out of their minds and happy to get some action. Keel had already mounted Luna.
Father pulled out a few tickets. “Let’s do a lottery. Two of you will stay back with Elena.”
Each of the four filolials took a ticket. I couldn’t help but feel a little bloodlust coming from them.
Yuki and Kou drew the bad cards.