Chapter 6: Middle Management Blues

The next morning, we paid a visit to Hirschfeld’s Adventurer’s guild. It was located in a much smaller building than Karelina’s guild occupied, and in spite of the early time of day, the place seemed to be in an uproar. I struck up a conversation with a nearby adventurer.

“Hey, what’s going on? Did something happen?” I asked.

“Hmm? You must be new in town, huh?” He glanced over at me, then recoiled. “Whoa there, that’s a biggun you’ve got with you! And is that little thing a dragon?”

“It’s fine, they’re both my familiars.”

“Oh, a tamer, eh? Don’t see many of you folks around. Anyway, what was I saying... Oh, right! Everyone’s freaking out ’cause the forest to the south’s been declared off-limits.”

He explained that a number of adventuring parties had traveled into the southern woods recently, never to return to town. A B-rank party that had happened to be in the area was dispatched to figure out what was going on in there, but they had returned to town at a sprint the moment the gates opened earlier that morning. According to them, the woods had become the residence of a snake monster known as a woodland tyrant python.

In spite of woodland tyrant pythons’ serpentine nature, they didn’t actually make use of any venom at all. They were just really, really big and really, really hungry. Whenever one turned up in an area, all the other wildlife—monstrous or not—tended to make itself scarce. Considering the beast’s presence, it seemed more likely than not that the missing parties had all been devoured.

“I’m impressed the scouts made it back, considering,” I commented. From the sound of things, witnessing a woodland tyrant python and making it out alive was quite the feat.

“Yeah, they got real lucky. They spotted the very tip of the thing’s tail, and had the sense to make tracks without trying to take a closer look.” Oh. That’d do it.

Another huge snake monster, though? It was starting to feel like they were drawn to me, or something—Fel had dealt with them in dungeons, and I’d seen my fair share of them in the wild as well. Just how big would a woodland tyrant python be compared to all those other ones? Fel had the highest chance of knowing, being the oldest in our group, so I sent him a telepathic message.

《Hey, Fel, do you know about these woodland tyrant python things?》

《But of course. Put plainly, their brains are as small as their bodies are large.》 Well, somebody’s not mincing words. 《I once encountered such a python that attempted to have me for a meal the moment it laid eyes on me. It had no conception of my power. It died as it lived: stupidly.》

《I’ve run into one of those things too,》 added Dora-chan. 《Same deal—tried to eat me. That pissed me off, so I used my lightning magic and rammed a hole straight through the thing’s stomach, but it still didn’t die! Spilled most of its guts out as it ran away, though, so I didn’t bother chasing it.》

Woodland tyrant pythons must have been pretty memorable for both Fel and Dora-chan to have stories about them. The fact that one of them took Dora-chan’s magically-charged tackle and managed to survive was really impressive. They’d have to have crazy high levels of vitality to slither away from a hit like that.

《You know them as well, Dora? They are tenacious, I will give them that.》 Fel explained that while he instantly slew the one that had tried to eat him, it had kept moving around for quite a long time even after he had relieved it of its head. 《There is no point in hunting them. Their meat is tough, and so gamey it hardly counts as edible,》 he added with a scowl.

《Oh, you ate yours? I sorta wondered if I’d wasted some good meat after mine got away, but sounds like not going for it was the right call after all.》

《Indeed. There are few creatures that taste worse, and you are better off for having not tried it.》 The fact that Fel knew they were gross, of course, implied that he had taken a bite or two himself. Between that and all the poisonous stuff he’d tried, he was a surprisingly adventurous eater.

In any case, considering the state of things in the guild I decided that it would probably be best to come back another time. Just as I was getting ready to leave, though, I heard a shout of surprise from across the room. I turned to look, only to find a man I could only describe as resembling an office worker on his last legs. His back was hunched, his hair was combed over in an ineffectual attempt to hide his sizable bald spot, and he was pointing directly at me.

“You!” he shouted, “You, yes, you! You’re Mukohda, aren’t you?!” He jogged over to me.

“Huh? U-Umm, yeah, that’s my name...”

“Huzzah! By all that is good and decent, I’m saved! The gods haven’t abandoned me after all!” he shouted as he grabbed my arm, dragging me off to who knows where, whether I liked it or not.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

I ended up seated in the combover guy’s office. Judging by the guest chair and the other assorted furnishings, I assumed it was the guildmaster’s room, which would make him...

“Allow me to introduce myself! My name is Isaac Schjerven, and I’m currently employed as the guildmaster of the Hirschfeld Adventurer’s guild. A pleasure to be of service!”

That settled it—the combover guy really was the local guildmaster. He certainly didn’t look the part, though. All the Adventurer’s guild masters I’d met up until that point had given the clear impression that they’d worked as adventurers until they were promoted to the post, but in Isaac’s case, I couldn’t possibly imagine that was true.

“Umm, nice to meet you? My name’s Mukohda,” I replied hesitantly. Isaac was absolutely beaming at me.

“Mukohda the S-rank adventurer, yes? I’ve heard all about you! That would make the Fenrir and the pixie dragon behind you your familiars, but weren’t you supposed to have a slime...?”

“Yeah, it’s named Sui. It’s right in here,” I said, patting my bag. The pat was enough to wake Sui up, and it poked its upper half out to see what was going on.

《Is it mealtime, Master?》

《No, sorry. You can go back to sleep.》

《Nah, Sui’s all awake now.》 It bounced up onto my lap.

“Perfect, perfect! I see your familiars are all just full of energy!” said Isaac. “Now then, on to business—I have a quest I’d very much appreciate if you’d take! It’s an emergency, in fact! I want you to venture into the forest south of town and slay the woodland tyrant python! Please!”

I had a feeling he was going to say that. I also had a feeling that Fel wouldn’t be into the idea, though, which posed an obstacle. I glanced over in his direction, and as expected, he was scowling.

“Absolutely not.”

“Oooh, so the Fenrir really does speak! Most impressive—and on a related note, ‘absolutely not’?! But, why?!”

“They taste vile.”

“You mean woodland tyrant pythons? Of course they would, they’re completely inedible! Inedible, yes—but their skin and fangs fetch incredibly high prices if you sell them as materials! How do you like the sound of that?! I bet I have your interest now!”

“You do not. I cannot eat them, and dealing with their stupidity is a trial I do not care to endure.” Isaac was desperate to catch Fel’s interest, but Fel just wasn’t taking the bait. He turned away with a snort, signaling that he was done with the conversation. Dora-chan, meanwhile, was putting on his best ‘not my problem’ expression. One look at Isaac’s frantic attempts to bring Fel on board was enough to convince the little dragon that he wanted nothing to do with the conversation.

“S-Surely you can’t be serious?! Mukohda, please, I’m begging you! At this rate, I’m going to take all the blame for this nightmare!” He gave up on Fel and set his sights on me next, leaning over the table between us and clinging to my shoulders like a drowning man would cling to a piece of driftwood. “Please, take the quest! Pleeease!” he wailed.

“Hey, too close, too close! Look, just calm down for a minute, okay?!” I somehow managed to push Isaac away from me and convince him to mellow out a bit. At that point he finally explained the details of his situation, and I began to understand why he was so desperate.

In short: not only were the adventurers of Hirschfeld pressuring him with all their might to do something about the serpent, the non-local adventurers who happened to be working in the area were liable to move on to somewhere they could make more money if things didn’t change soon. With fewer adventurers around, the guild wouldn’t be able to fulfill requests from merchants for escorts, which would drive them away from the town as well. To top it all off, the townsfolk were worried that a lack of adventurers could impact their safety.

The worst-case scenario was the lord of the region getting involved, and if nothing was done to address all those complaints, it wasn’t difficult to imagine that coming to pass. Isaac hung his head as he explained it all to me, his sorrow and exhaustion written all over his haggard face. He was the spitting image of a put-upon middle manager.

“Why am I taking all the heat for this, anyway?!” he whined, his gloom shifting to indignation. “Isn’t that unfair?! I never even wanted to be a guildmaster in the first place...”

“Right.” I felt obligated to reply with vague, halfhearted affirmation—maybe it was my Japanese upbringing at work. Unfortunately, that was enough to set off a burst of complaints on Isaac’s part.

“You mean you’ll actually hear me out? So, you might’ve figured this out from my name, but I’m technically the son of a noble family! A petty, middle-of-nowhere barony, sure, but still. The thing is, I’m the fourth son, so the odds of me inheriting the title are next to nil. I had to leave home to make my own fortune, and you wouldn’t believe how that turned out...”

Isaac’s whiny tangent went on for way longer than I would’ve liked, so I’ll just sum up the important parts. In short: as the son of a noble family, even with three older brothers, he was privileged enough to be sent to a school that educated the up-and-coming children of nobles, wealthy merchants, and the like. That school taught lessons on magic, sword fighting, and other practical pursuits, and many students who specialized in those areas found employment well before they graduated.

Isaac, on the other hand, had virtually no talent for magic and even less for combat. He didn’t stand a chance of securing a job while still in school, and he knew it, which led him to consider finding work in the civil services. Unfortunately, his grades were middling enough to make him question whether he could get a job in that sector either. Isaac thought long and hard about what sort of job he could definitely land that would secure him at least a moderate wage.

After a long period of research, he settled on one option in particular: the Adventurer’s guild. Their members were very vocal about how understaffed the guild was at the time—not that that had changed in the intervening years—and even with mediocre grades, the fact that he had graduated school, was literate, and could do simple calculations would make him a valuable asset by their standards.

His theory was proven correct in very short order. The guild’s upper management quickly set their sights on him. He found himself rising into positions of greater and greater responsibility with dizzying speed, in spite of the fact that he’d never been an especially ambitious man. He was finally promoted to a position as a guildmaster at the relatively tender age of twenty-eight. In retrospect, that was where his troubles really began.

The mere fact that Isaac had attended school made him more competent than any other member of his guild’s staff. He was capable of handling all the paperwork and management responsibilities of his position more or less perfectly. Since most guildmasters started their careers in the adventuring field, their organizational abilities simply couldn’t hold a candle to his. The upper echelons of the guild were well aware of that fact, and ended up using Isaac as their resident problem-solver, transferring him to serve as the guildmaster of one troubled branch after another.

When he got his first guildmaster position at the age of twenty-eight he assumed he’d be there for life, but in the end he was ordered to move to a different branch barely three years after he took up the post. The new branch he was supposed to lead was in an absolutely appalling state when he arrived. He spent two years frantically working to undo the damage their sloppy bookkeeping had dealt, only to be transferred again the moment he’d restored some semblance of sanity to their system. The same process repeated itself in his third post—Hirschfeld was the fourth town Isaac had worked as guildmaster in.

“You know how old I am now, Mukohda? Thirty-seven.”

“Huh?” For real? He didn’t look it, especially around the hairline. I found my gaze lingering awkwardly on his combover.

“You thought I was older than that, didn’t you? I don’t blame you. I’ve seen my own head... But I didn’t look like this just a few years ago! It’s the stress, I tell you! It just kept piling up, and before I knew it, I was in this sorry state...”

From the look of things, the Adventurer’s guild was about as exploitative as companies could get. Or maybe Isaac was just a special case. The higher-ups had found an incredibly useful tool in him, but were doing a poor job of wielding it responsibly.

“Hey, Mukohda, be honest with me. I should just quit, right?” He gazed at me with a look of exhausted anticipation that made me incredibly uncomfortable. “I know the pay’s not bad, I know—I’m still a guildmaster, even if all the details are messed up. But the thing is, having all the money in the world doesn’t make a lick of difference if you don’t have the time to spend it! And that’s not even starting on my social life—I haven’t met a woman in years, and I’m still single to this day! The only other people I know who’re still unmarried at my age work in the church and took vows of celibacy!”

Thirty-seven and single. Now that, I could relate to. I was still about a decade off from his age, but considering how young people in this world tended to marry, I felt a weird sort of sympathy for his struggles. Suddenly, I actually wanted to help the poor guy out.

《Hey, Fel? Dora-chan? Sui?》

《Hmm...? What is it? Have you finally finished talking?》

《Mnhh? What? Done? Are we leaving now?》

They hadn’t been listening. At all. Actually, I was pretty sure they’d been asleep. Sui was still out like a light—it was napping on my lap, not moving at all.

《I was just thinking I might wanna take on that woodland tyrant python quest after all.》

《You what? Were you not listening when I explained that their meat is abhorrent?》

《I was listening, really! It’s just, y’know, this guy—Isaac—has it really rough right now.》

《Hmph! His troubles are no concern of mine.》

《Oh, come on... Okay, how about this: if you agree to do the quest and slay the snake, I’ll make dragon meat for dinner.》 As a fellow man, I felt an obligation to play my trump card for Isaac’s sake. My familiars were the ones who had hunted the dragons and gotten me that meat in the first place, of course, but details.

《What?!》

《Dragon meat?!》 As expected, Fel and Dora-chan instantly took the bait.

《That’s right, dragon meat! How about it?》

《Hmph—in that case, I would consider it.》

《Yeah, I’m up for it too if it means dragon meat!》

《Great! I’ll tell him we’ll take the quest, then.》

《Not so fast. I said I would consider it, not that I would do it. If we are to take on this quest, you will be serving a thick cut of dragon meat. I will not allow you to buy us off with table scraps. Understood?》

《Yeah, yeah, I know. You’ll get a big, thick cut of dragon steak.》

《Good. So long as we have an understanding, we shall take the quest,》 Fel said with a smirk. Dora-chan was grinning right along with him.

A thick cut of dragon meat, huh? It felt like I’d paid a pretty hefty price for the arrangement, but for the sake of helping out a long-suffering semi-comrade, it was worth it. Isaac was so happy when I said we’d take the quest, he literally wept with joy. The poor guy really did have it rough.

I was considering slipping him some Divine Medicine: Hair Growth Power before I left. I still had three bottles on hand, and even if Lambert’s company was in charge of distribution, we were in a completely different country. Surely he and the earl wouldn’t mind? I decided to wait on that decision until later, though—the woodland tyrant python hunt was definitely the more pressing matter at the moment.

I told Isaac about the forest scorpion we ran into on our way to the town, while we were on the subject of giant, vicious monsters, and he simultaneously went pale and freaked out. According to him, the scorpion’s presence was likely the python’s fault—the scorpion had sensed the oncoming danger and fled.

That meant there could be more of them, and though it wasn’t the busiest road, it was still fairly well traveled, so they’d have to be dealt with as quickly as possible. Isaac put out an emergency quest, dispatching all the adventurers he could that were ranked C or higher to keep watch over the road into town. If he wanted to solve the problem for good, though, the woodland tyrant python would have to be eliminated.

“I hate to ask this of you, Mukohda, but it would be an enormous weight off my mind if you’d start your quest and make for the southern woods right away...” he pleaded. I’d already agreed to do the quest and he was more or less begging with all his heart, so I didn’t have it in me to refuse, even though I’d initially planned on heading down there the day after.

I asked Fel and Dora-chan, and they both replied that if we were going to go through the trouble of dealing with it, we might as well get it done as soon as possible. That made the decision unanimous (discounting Sui, who was still fast asleep): we’d head into the southern woods immediately.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

We made our way deeper and deeper into the forest.

“Sure is quiet,” I commented. “Not even any birds chirping...” The forest was so silent and still, it was sort of creepy.

《Even if there were any birds here to start with, most of ’em would’ve gotten eaten by that dumbass snake.》 “Dumbass snake”? Really, Dora-chan? Surely there has to be something better you could call it.

《Look over there,》 said Fel. I climbed down off his back and peered out in the direction he gestured toward. I could see what he was talking about immediately: a trail of small trees and undergrowth that had been flattened, almost like something had crawled across them. Even the ground itself was sunken, so whatever it was, it must have been massive.

“Is that the woodland tyrant python’s trail, you think?”

《Yes. I sense it up ahead, so there can be no mistaking it.》

“Just up ahead, huh? Seriously, though, how huge is that thing...?” The trail it had left was about a meter and a half wide.

《Looks like this one’s even bigger than they usually get,》 Dora-chan chimed in.

《Oooh, a big monster? Sui wants to go pew pew and beat it up!》 Sui had woken up over the course of the trip into the forest, and was now chomping at the bit to fight the woodland tyrant python.

《Whoa there, no hogging the glory, pal! I wasn’t into this whole thing at first, but as long as I’m out here I want in on the snake hunt too!》

《Indeed, it is just as Dora says. I did not trek all this way into the woods to watch someone else hunt.》

《Boo! Sui could beat it alone!》

“C’mon, Sui, don’t be selfish. The three of you are friends, right? Why not get along and hunt the snake together?”

《Okaaay. If you say so, Master!》 With that settled, we set about following the woodland tyrant python’s trail. It wasn’t long, however, before Fel’s voice rang out in my mind again.

《Halt.》 We came to a stop. 《There it is. Just ahead of us.》

Fel gestured with his nose, and there, between the trees, slithered the most preposterously massive snake I’d ever seen. Its skin was mottled in a manner that really did remind me of a python.

“H-Holy crap, that thing’s huge...” I whispered. Its body was long and thin, but only by the standards of its relative scale. The thing had to be as tall as I was, in terms of diameter, and I didn’t even want to think about its circumference.

It was easily as large as the vasuki I’d encountered as a boss in Dolan’s dungeon, and even rivaled the hydra that had served as the final floor’s boss in Aveling’s. It might’ve actually been even bigger than either of them, and just looking at the thing sent my blood pressure spiking through the roof. I couldn’t stop myself from gulping, maybe just a little too loudly.

《Hey, it’s onto us!》 shouted Dora-chan. The woodland tyrant python whipped its head around to look directly at us.

“Whoa! H-Hey, is it just me, or is that thing pretty fast?” I stammered. It slithered toward us with astonishing grace and speed, and I found myself reflexively backing away from it.

《A meal stands before its eyes. Of course it would move fast.》

“Okay, but it sorta feels like it’s going for me in particular!”

《Probably means it thinks you look the tastiest out of all of us, but quit talking and start running! You’re gonna get caught in our attacks!》

Dora-chan’s warning spurred me into action, but as I turned to flee, the woodland tyrant python sensed that its prey was making a run for it and picked up the pace as well. In a fraction of a second its gaping mouth was right in front of me, so of course I shrieked incoherently before falling right on my ass. I scrambled around, trying to regain my footing, but was so hopelessly panicked I couldn’t actually stand up again at all.

《What are you doing? Hurry up and flee!》

Before the snake could make a snack of me, Fel calmly interposed himself between us.

“R-Right!” I shouted, finally managing to stand up and move away from the monster. Before I could get far at all, though, a loud, dull thud rang out as a spherical something traveling at an incredible speed smacked the woodland tyrant python right in the side of the head, sending it flying.

《Sui’ll protect you, Master!》

Oh. Fel was definitely trying to look cool, but Sui had gone and stolen the spotlight. I glanced over at Fel, and sure enough, the corner of his mouth was twitching with annoyance.

Is it just me, or have we been through this exact sequence of events before?

《Bwa ha ha ha ha, F-Fel, you were totally ready to pose it up and have your big moment, but then, then—ah ha ha ha ha ha ha!》

“H-Hey, knock it off, Dora-chan! It’s not that funny.” Dora-chan was clutching his stomach and laughing uproariously.

《But, I mean, c’mon, he just—pfff!》

“F-Fel? Sui’s still just a kid, all right? You can’t blame it for not realizing what you were going for!” Fel’s mouth twitch was getting worse, and he was starting to hyperventilate. I frantically attempted to pacify him. “J-Just calm down, okay?”

《You are to blame for this. Die.》

“What?!”

《Hey, Fel, no hogging the fight to yourself!》

The woodland tyrant python had already managed to recover and close in on us once more, its gaping maw opened wide and ready to swallow us whole. It never got the chance, though—at the same moment Dora-chan shouted, a massive pointed pillar of ice he conjured slammed into its head about halfway between its eyes and its snout, piercing directly through its jaw and pinning it to the ground.

The serpent thrashed about wildly, but in spite of its incredible weight, it was unable to dislodge itself. Its writhing did plenty of damage to the surrounding forest, though. Trees splintered all around it, coming crashing down with a thunderous roar one after another.

“Oh, crap! Aaaugh!” I screamed as I barely managed to dodge a tree that toppled into the space I’d been standing mere moments before.

《Grrrrrr! I shall deal the killing blow! Perish!》 Fel let out a rage-filled growl as he raised his foreleg, then brought it down with all his strength, severing the woodland tyrant python’s head with a single stroke. Which was great, in theory, but didn’t exactly have the desired effect.

“Wh-What the hell?! That thing’s dead, right?!” Even without its head, the rest of the snake’s body was writhing around as wildly as ever.

《I decapitated it, so of course it is. Worry not. This is perfectly normal for these wretched creatures. It may keep moving for a time, but it will fall still before long,》 explained Fel. He still sounded pretty disgruntled.

《Guess that wraps that up!》 added Dora-chan as he alighted in front of us.

《Aww, it’s over already? Sui never got to pew pew the snake!》 Sui sounded almost as dissatisfied as Fel. That first tackle had ended up being its only contribution to the whole battle.

《Hmph, I will hear none of your complaints. You interrupted me right at the good part!》 Fel murmured sulkily.

“Don’t take it personally,” I said, forcing a smile and patting him on the shoulder.

《Yeah, why get pissed about a small fry like that? This was just a warm up—the real deal’s still waiting for us in the dungeon!》

《I suppose you have a point. I shall channel this frustration into the dungeon’s conquest.》

《That’s more like it! Anyway, let’s hurry home and break out the dragon meat!》

《Ah, yes, I almost forgot! Indeed, tonight we shall eat our fill of dragon meat!》

《Dragon meeeat!》

I collected the woodland tyrant python’s corpse, heckled all the while by my impatient familiars, before starting the trip back to Hirschfeld.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

“We’re back, Isaac!” I called out as we stepped into the Adventurer’s guild. Isaac’s jaw dropped as he spun about to face us.

“Wh-Wh-What? But you only just left this morning! Please don’t tell me you decided to abandon the quest!”

I guess we got back so early he couldn’t believe we were already finished, which was surprising, considering everyone had been so hungry we’d stopped for lunch on the way back. We arrived at the Adventurer’s guild around dusk, but apparently that still counted as fast. Incidentally, even though everyone was super excited about the dragon meat, I managed to persuade them to hold off on it until dinner. We ended up having ginger-fried orc bowls for lunch instead.

“What? No, we didn’t abandon it. We just already took care of it.”

“R-Really?! You know you can just tell me if you failed, right?! Please don’t lie to me!”

“No, seriously, we didn’t fail! It’s dead!”

At that point Fel, who’d been listening to the conversation from behind me, suddenly loomed forward and spoke out loud with a scowl. “This man’s insolence grows tiresome. Shall I bite him?”

《Do it! Let him have it! That’ll teach him to think we could ever fail!》

“Of course you shouldn’t! And stop egging him on, Dora-chan!” The fact that Isaac couldn’t hear his provocation was no excuse.

“H-H-He wants to b-b-bite me?! I-Is he serious, Mukohda?!” Isaac was cowering before me, which conveniently meant he could use me to shield himself from Fel.

“Fel, stop saying stuff like that, you’re freaking him out. You want to hurry this up so we can go home and have dinner, right? The longer you drag it out, the later we’ll end up eating.”

《Hmph! I shall tolerate no delays. Finish your business, and let us be off.》

“Right, right. Anyway, the woodland tyrant python’s pretty big, so I think I should wait to bring it out until we’re in the storehouse.”

“I-Is it? In that case, f-follow me, please!”

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

The woodland tyrant python was stashed away in the magic bag Fel kept hung around his neck. I assumed that they’d heard a fair bit about me from the Leonhardt Adventurer’s guild, considering Fel’s presence didn’t raise a fuss even when he decided to bust out his most intimidating glare, but I still decided to err on the side of caution when it came to showing off my Item Box. It was a totally different country, after all.

The moment I pulled the snake out of Fel’s magic bag, Isaac froze in place (with the exception of his jaw, which dropped once again).

“One woodland tyrant python, as requested. I think this proves we slew the thing, right?”

《As is only natural. Few would dare to imply that we could fail a quest, and those few are fools to the last man.》

《Right? Between me, Fel, and Sui there’s no way we’d fail to take out a single snake, even if it wasn’t dumb as a brick!》 I was starting to get really sick of Fel and Dora-chan’s incessant grumbling.

“I can’t thank you enough, Mukohda! Now everyone will finally, finally get off my back, at least for the moment...” Isaac sniffled. Look, I get that you’re relieved, but having a balding old man break down in tears in front of me is really, really awkward!

“So, umm, can we take care of my pay?”

“Ah, excuse me! Your reward, of course! Seeing as this was an emergency request, the quest itself will pay 230 gold coins. That just leaves the matter of the monster’s materials—what would you like to do with them? Would you be willing to sell them all to the guild?”

The materials, huh? If the meat were good I’d ask for it, no question, but according to Fel that was very emphatically not the case. I didn’t have any particular need for the other materials either. Oh, but maybe I’ll ask for a piece of the skin? It’s definitely a rare material, and since Lambert’s technically supposed to be a leatherworker, he’d probably appreciate it as a souvenir.

I’d more or less left my hair tonic business entirely in his hands, so I certainly owed the man. I decided to ask for about a third of the skin and let the guild buy the rest. I told Isaac, and he explained that even if they fast-tracked the job, they could only get me my part of the skin and the money for the rest of the materials by the day after tomorrow, at the earliest.

“That so? Guess we’ll be staying in this town for another day, then.” No sooner had the words left my mouth than the heckling began.

《Whaaat?! But what about the dungeon?!》

《Indeed—what about the dungeon?!》

“Give me a break, guys, it’s not like we have a choice here! It’ll take that long to get the skin and the reward money, so we’re stuck, like it or not.” Fel shot Isaac a sharp glare. “C’mon, no glaring! Look at the thing, it’s huge. Of course it’d take ages to skin! Right, Isaac?”

“Y-Yes, quite! I-I assure you we’ll do everything we can to speed up the job, but I’m afraid the day after tomorrow is the absolute fastest we can possibly manage it.” Fel’s menacing stare was sending him into a panic.

“See? Nothing we can do about it, so quit asking for the impossible. I keep telling you, the dungeon’s not going anywhere.”

《Mmph! You only say such things because you have no desire to visit the dungeon in the first place.》

《Right?》 They gave me a suspicious glare, and I felt myself shiver.

“N-No, that’s not it! It’s just that, I, uhh... H-Hey, Isaac, I had a question I wanted to ask while we’re here!”

《He’s totally trying to change the subject.》

《He is indeed.》

Oh, shut up, you two.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

After wrapping up our business with Isaac, we headed back to the house I’d rented. Fel, Dora-chan, and the recently awakened Sui were all excited for their dragon meat dinner, and they weren’t exactly being quiet about it.

“It is time to make good on your word! Bring out the dragon meat!”

《Yeah, hurry up and get cooking!》

《Sui wants to eat dragon meeeat!》

“I know, I know, okay? We’ll have an early dinner, I’ll start cooking right now.” They were so impatient, they actually followed me over to the kitchen. There’d be no talking them out of it, so I decided to give in and make a bit of a show out of grilling up their dragon steaks.

I asked my familiars if they’d prefer earth dragon meat or red dragon meat, and they all simultaneously replied “Both!” I’d already promised to feed them dragon meat and didn’t feel like dashing their expectations by refusing to make both types, so I gave in and brought out lots of each, just like they wanted.

I decided to start with the red dragon meat. I cut a beautiful vividly red slice of steak, seasoned it with sun-dried salt and pepper I freshly ground using a mill, then slapped it down into a piping-hot frying pan. The steak let out an incredibly satisfying sizzle, and its meaty smell immediately permeated the room. Fel and Dora-chan’s eyes were lit up with anticipation, while Sui was quivering with what I assumed was excitement.

“I-Is it not finished yet?”

《Hurry up and let us eat!》

《Sui’s huuungry!》

The three of them just wouldn’t stop pestering me, but this was something I couldn’t compromise about. Don’t they know that half of what makes meat like this so good is cooking it right?

“Hmm—needs just a little longer,” I told them. My usual technique for cooking red meat involved searing both sides, then taking it out of the pan at just the right moment, covering it with aluminum foil, and letting it rest for about five minutes. If you get the timing right, that’s the easiest way to cook a steak to a perfect medium rare.

“H-Hey, surely it must be done by now?!” shouted Fel.

“Yeah, I think that should just about—ugh, Fel, gross! You’re drooling all over the place...”

“S-Silence! You are the one tempting me with these delectable smells, then making me wait, so you are to blame!”

“Yeah, yeah, sure I am. Sorry for the wait, food’s up!” I placed a plate with a massive dragon steak on it in front of each of my familiars, and they dug in ecstatically.

“Mmmhhh! Dragon meat truly is exquisite!”

《Yeah! It’s crazy how juicy this stuff is! Dragon meat really is as good as it gets!》

《Dragon meat’s so yummy!》

It really was incredible that simple seasoning with just salt and pepper and a few minutes in a frying pan could produce something that delicious. Dragon meat was in another league entirely, no question about it. I couldn’t imagine anything beating it. Needless to say, I grilled up a steak for myself as well—it wouldn’t be fair for my familiars to keep it all to themselves! I relished in its meaty goodness right along with them.

“I just can’t get over how good this stuff is,” I muttered.

After that simple salt and pepper start, we moved on to the usual soy-based steak sauce. I used that to cook both earth dragon and red dragon steaks, and they were both delicious, but that still wasn’t enough to sate my familiar’s appetites. I had a plan, though—I knew just the right dish to satisfy them...

“I recognize this process. You are making a ‘cutlet,’ are you not?”

《Those’re the ones you fry, right? The crunchy ones?》

《They were really tasty when we ate them with bread too!》

“Ha ha ha, guess I’ve made cutlets with a bunch of different types of meat, haven’t I? No wonder you guys would recognize it. I was thinking we’d keep it simple this time and just eat them with salt.”

“Salt alone?”

“Yeah. Meat this good can stand on its own—I think it’ll be plenty tasty with just a bit of salt. Go on, give it a try!” I presented each of my familiars with a crunchy golden-brown dragon cutlet. “Here, you just sprinkle a little on like this,” I said as I shook just a pinch of off-white salt I’d bought from my Online Supermarket onto their cutlets. The salt I’d chosen was a seaweed salt known for its smooth, mellow flavor, and was a personal favorite of mine.

《Mmmh, dang, you weren’t kidding! Just a little salt’s all this stuff needs!》

“Indeed. When the meat itself is this good, perhaps it is best to savor it with as few distractions as possible. Not bad, not bad at all.”

《It’s so tasty, even without anything else on it! Sui wants more!》

“Okay then, try it with this salt next.” The next salt I’d prepared was a yellowish yuzu salt. The slight citrusy aroma of the yuzu made it a perfect salt to pair with fried foods, in my opinion.

“Hmm, yes, this is good as well. It has a certain freshness that spreads throughout my mouth with each bite.”

《Yeah, the cutlet’s sorta oily from the frying, and this stuff works really well with that flavor!》

《Sui might like this one even better!》

As I fried up cutlet after cutlet, I felt a sudden urge to have some for myself. I waited for an opportunity, and as soon as I got the chance I snagged a piece of cutlet and popped it into my mouth.

“Ahh, hot! But man, it’s so crunchy and delicious! Yuzu salt really was the right call!” It was the perfect fit for fried food, no question about it.

“Hey, I want more! Keep frying!”

《Yeah, what Fel said! I spent all day looking forward to this, so I’m gonna stuff myself until I can’t eat another bite!》

《Sui’s gonna eat lots and lots of dragon meat too!》

They’d already eaten an incredible amount of meat between the steaks and the cutlets, but they still hadn’t had enough yet. “Fine, fine! I’ll fry up another batch, then.”

After that point, Fel, Dora-chan, and Sui just kept eating and eating. They really hadn’t been exaggerating about how they planned to eat as much as they possibly could. Fel stuffed himself so comically full that I couldn’t help but crack a smile in spite of myself.

In retrospect, though, offering them all-you-can-eat dragon meat as a reward was a terrible idea. My stock of dragon meat was a precious resource, and they took a distressingly large chunk out of it. Sucks to be me...