Chapter 32
『How are you doing?』
『As fine as a Frost Dragon could be after being hit by a Fireball, I suppose…』
Despite Ilyshn’ish’s grumbling, Ludmila couldn’t find any sign of injury on her companion. There were no chips, cracks or scorch marks over her body. It occurred to her that the Frost Dragon always maintained a perfect appearance regardless of whether she was a Dragon, Human or anything else. Her scales of bluish-white shimred like polished moonstones while her teeth and claws were impeccably clean and unmarred. Even her wings always seed to be arranged just right in whatever configuration they were in.
The Bards in the Adventurer Guild and those who entertained the citizens in both the Sorcerous Kingdom and the Baharuth Empire did always endeavour to maintain an immaculate and eye-catching appearance, but Ludmila had no idea how a ten-tre-long Dragon could groom herself so ticulously.
After Ilyshn’ish ca over to pick Ludmila back up, they backtracked along the Frost Dragon’s flight path until they ca across a line of broken trees. Ilyshn’ish circled the area twice before alighting in the freshly-created clearing. At the end of the snapped trunks and crushed undergrowth was Lady Aura.
“Hey, hey!” The Dark Elf Ranger smiled brightly.
“Good Evening, Lady Aura,” Ludmila couldn’t help but smile in response to her energetic greeting. “‘Cya around’, was it?”
“Tehehe…”
Ilyshn’ish looked over Ludmila’s shoulder.
“Where did the Dragon Lord go?” The Frost Dragon asked.
“Over there,” Lady Aura jerked a thumb over her shoulder.
Ludmila leaned to the side and Ilyshn’ish stretched her neck high as they looked behind Lady Aura. Arranged neatly behind her were a variety of Dragon-derived goods.
“Th-that’s not a Dragon,” Ilyshn’ish said.
“It’s a skinned Dragon,” Lady Aura replied.
“Hiiiieeee!!!!”
Ilyshn’ish ducked behind Ludmila. She scrunched herself up to reduce her profile, folding her wings tightly against her back.
“That’s a bit beyond ‘skinned’,” Ludmila noted.
“Hah? What are you talking about? When you skin sothing, you get materials – it’s common sense!”
“It’s barely been five minutes…”
“I got it all done four minutes ago,” Lady Aura puffed out her chest proudly.
Ludmila eyed the bones, at, organs, claws and teeth arranged over the space. Viridian scales piled as high as Lady Aura lay along a neatly-folded hide.
It took Ludmila about four minutes to properly field dress a deer, which she thought was respectably quick. She couldn’t imagine how anyone could so thoroughly dismantle a twenty-eight-tre-long Ancient Green Dragon in less than one minute.
“Say,” Lady Aura walked around Ludmila as she looked up at Ilyshn’ish, “isn’t she wearing…”
Ilyshn’ish scuttled sideways, keeping Ludmila between them. Her fearful eyes stayed fixed on the bloody knife in Lady Aura’s hand.
“Da Verilyn,” Ludmila said, “you’re being rude.”
“Rude?!” Ilyshn’ish squeaked, “If I drop my guard, I’ll be turned into materials in a heartbeat! That leather armour she’s wearing is dragonscale, you know…she has a red outfit and now she can make a green one. Who knows when she’ll decide she wants a white one!”
“Being on your guard doesn’t matter,” Lady Aura told her. “I’d skin ya all the sa.”
“Hiiiieeee!!!!”
Ilyshn’ish took on her Human appearance and clung fearfully to Ludmila from behind. Ludmila frowned as her now-scaleless companion pressed against her back: why did she have to have such an outrageous body? Lady Shalltear was entirely right about insisting on the Snow Elf appearance.
“She’s not going to skin you,” Ludmila said. “Isn’t that right, Lady Aura?”
“Of course not!” Lady Aura pulled out a handkerchief and started wiping her blade clean. “You’re one of Shalltear’s. You don’t see running around skinning Vampire Brides, do you?”
The Dark Elf Ranger raised the blood-soaked cloth and narrowed an eye at it, sticking out her lower lip. Ludmila reached into her Infinite Haversack, producing a Trooper’s Towel.
“Would you like one of these, my lady?”
“Wuzzat?”
“A magic item that I purchased recently. It can be used to cast a Clean spell three tis per day.”
Lady Aura took the Trooper’s Towel in hand. She frowned in concentration for a mont before its magic washed over her, leaving everything in her possession spotless.
“Ooh…I don’t have anything like this. Is it really okay to have it?”
“They’re quite convenient, so I bought several sets of them,” Ludmila pulled out more of the magic items. “Please take these for your household. Make sure Lord Mare carries a few as well: we get quite dirty doing things together in Warden’s Vale and I’m sure he ends up that way wherever he goes.”
One by one, the towels disappeared into Lady Aura’s inventory. The young Dark Elf pursed her lips with a thoughtful look, then turned around to pick sothing up.
“Here,” she held out a two-tre-long dragon horn. “Maybe you can turn this into sothing. You need to upgrade that bow especially: it’s not powerful enough to land accurate attacks at a distance.”
“I…thank you, my lady,” Ludmila received the incalculably valuable material in her hands. “I’ll see what can be done about that. Out of curiosity: have you been waiting here all this ti?”
“Not here here, but I’ve been around. Demiurge said that sothing like this would be the most likely outco, but I was wondering when you’d catch on. That dummy said you might beco all stubborn again and get eaten.”
“Wait,” Ilyshn’ish poked her head over Ludmila’s shoulder, “so you knew this would happen even before we started fighting?”
“Not until recently,” Ludmila replied. “But I had a hunch. Lord Cocytus cheated a bit, I think – the saddle that ca with the Soul Eater was a big hint.”
“Un!” Lady Aura grinned, “Hunches are the best – it works because it does! Just follow your feelings; you can think about what you did later.”
“That makes sense,” Ilyshn’ish agreed. “Thinking makes you dumb.”
It did, to a degree. One could overthink themselves to their doom, just as the Viridian Dragon Lord had. Imperial society was mired by convoluted and harmful machinations, as well.
Analysing things after the fact was all well and good, but, as Lady Shalltear and Lady Aura noted, trusting her intuition more often than not resulted in favourable outcos. Ludmila had invested the vast majority of her ti learning about the Empire and experiencing what it was like. This enabled her to act with surprising effectiveness as she felt her way through her duties.
With this being the case, what she required was the expertise to ensure that her intuition led her in the right direction.
“Aaanyway,” Lady Aura said. “You still have a job to do. Those Humans are probably panicking like crazy right now.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Also…”
“Yes, my lady?”
“Her wearing that saddle as a Human makes you two look like perverts.”
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