"Everyone, I have made my decision!" you declare, raising your finger high into the sky, drawing everyone's attention. "First, we'll pick off the bones and scales. We'll send them out to be turned into armor and weapons! We'll take the meat and cook it into meals, then store it in the pantry! And lastly! The rest of the body will be stored to be used for magic!... Also, we'll make the skull into a treehouse!"
Leona sighs with her arms folded. "It'd be a waste for a dragon this big to go to waste... fine, I'll message the workers."
Roland grins. "A treehouse, you say?" he affirms, clearly having some kind of idea.
Cervitou's eyebrows narrow. He glares at you sharply for a moment, in a very uncanny way, but doesn't say anything. His eyes are more intense and oppressive than they normally are, which makes him unsettling. Chills run down back your spine. Soon after, Cervitou looks away and disappears in an explosion of mist, most likely have gone back to wherever he always is when he's not near you.
***
Days pass. You observe as hired workers saw the limbs of the dragon apart, and then separate all of its body into smaller chunks. They rip off juicy pieces of meat, in quantities big enough to feed a village for months of harsh winter. The meat is thrown into a large kettle, as big as a house, conjured through magic. The meat is then purified of all toxins, poisons, and other things that could kill its taste, before being stirred alongside with hot water; vegetables and mushrooms, salted, spiced with various special ingredients to give it an aroma, and then further enhanced with special spells meant to create longevity.
The result is a profound soup, of bright brown color. With pieces of mushroom and beautiful, saucy meat floating within. You take but one sip from one bowl. The rich flavor and spice of the soup explodes and melts in your mouth as all of the ingredients compliment each other yet stay distinct. This is the one best thing you've ever eaten in your life. After that, you can't keep yourself from it, and you eat the contents of the bowl.
You store the soup in the pantry, and for the purposes of said storage, the pantry had to be enlarged by a building team.
The tough scales and bones of the dragon are then collected by the workers. They are stacked together and then they are sewn into tight mithril chainmail. The result is a very heavy, but extremely shock-absorbent armor that provides excellent protection against magic. The amount of damage the armor can absorb makes even hard attacks with a simple sword downright trivial.
Lastly, the organs. The eyes, the mana glands, lungs, and numerous other internal organs were cut apart by alchemists hired by your mother, then stored in jars that were placed in the storage room for future use. All except for the exsanguinated blood and heart, that you requested be brought elsewhere.
And the most interesting part of your order. The dragon skull treehouse, which now proudly hangs in your backyard. The flooring was made out of stone and pieces of dragon bone. The eyeholes serve as windows. Roland had the ingenious idea he presented to the builders, and the horns serve as the columns for additional floors of the treehouse, which are built out of ordinary materials, albeit adding more space to the construction. Regardless, because of the sheer weight of the whole thing, the tree had to be reinforced, enhanced, and supported with several runes just to keep it from collapsing and falling to the ground, therefore bringing the whole structure down with it. You and Roland began to adorn the place together with a bunch of stuff, and your golem now resides within the skull, awaiting further orders at any time.
***
One month has passed. You've waited for this day for a long time. The end of the month, when Cervitou visits. After the black mage is done speaking with his mother, you wait for him to walk past your room, then you rush outside and walk up to him.
"Cervitou, can I speak to you?" you query, walking up to him across the corridor and following him step in step.
"I am not allowed to," he replies. "Apologies."
"This is a very important matter."
He stops, then turns around to face you directly, but his mask obscured and keeps you from direct eye contact. "What is so important?"
"I need you to do something."
"Is it trapping the dragon's soul within his heart?" he asks, in a tone that suggests he was expecting this turn of developments.
"How did you know?!" you step back in surprise.
Cervitou sighs then takes out a platinum coin.
"You win, you sly bastard," he grumbles, throwing the coin to the left. The coin of bright, white color stops in midair. As you observe closely, you notice a spectral pair of fingers hiding in the darkness caught it. Said fingers have long, sharp fingernails.
The figure materializes momentarily, revealing itself to be a spirit. Dressed in elegant clothing; truly worthy of only a nobleman or a bureaucrat, with a dark blue face and white silky hair going down his head, and a mocking smile on his face. The spirit keeps grinning, then opens his eyes. "Pleasure doing business with you. If you ever want to bet–––"
"––yes, yes. Now get out of here," Cervitou interrupts the spirit. He then snaps his fingers, and with the sound of their snapping, the spirit and the coin disappear.
"How rude," Cervitou muses. "Don't need to be smug about it."
You just stare, blankly. "You made a bet I'd want to eat a dragon's soul?"
"I made a bet you
wouldn't do that, Artoria Baragar," he corrects. "I did not expect you to be such a fool, but to request me to catch and trap its soul is an even greater transgression than asking Beronica for poison to kill it and then claiming the deed as fully your own."
Like a slap in the face. Cervitou hits you with the fact as if he were forcefully jabbing your ego with a very sharp, pointy stick. His words are a real blow to your pride, but the worst part of his statement is yet to come.
"And the audacity in your mind pisses me off," he grumbles. "First you go on, declaring you'll defeat the dragon, and then you pretend to be your own mother to do it."
"W-what?! How do you know that?! Shh! Quiet!" you jump at him, trying to cover his mouth, but you can't do so through the dumb mask. That explains its purpose. "
How. Do you know that?"
"I know a great many things, Artoria Baragar," he claims. "Ever since our meeting on the road to Mora, I've put a tracking spirit on you. It was recording your movements and your health state, as to ensure you don't die in the fight with the dragon. When I heard its report I was... stunned," he almost laughs.
"What are you talking about?" you step back and fold your arms, pouting. He's making a mockery of you.
"I'm the mighty Artoria Baragar!" he waves his arms around to add melodramatic flair to his statement. His tone is a very crude mockery of your own, feminine voice. "Look at me! I'll kill a dragon, all on my own! Except I'll use borrowed poison to do it, pretend to be my mother to scare it away, and get saved from unexpected circumstances by a black mage! I'm such a big deal!"
Cervitou's hand rests atop his mask, while he looks into the sky, or rather, into the ceiling, dramatically, like he's about to fall over. On one hand, you admire the way he acted. He could really make a career in a theatre if he wanted to. On the other hand, you really want to punch him in his stupid face right now.
"That's how you sound," he returns to his ordinary, mechanical voice. "And that's the kind of person you make yourself out to be."
"So what was I supposed to do?" you whine.
"Not challenge yourself pointlessly? Artoria, it's impossible to slay a dragon on your own at this age. The least you could have done is taken Roland, or, I don't know...
asked someone for help?"
... If memory serves you right, you
did ask that Tavish guy for help. "Joke's on you, I did! And they refused," you brood.
"That's not my point, you..." he growls, then recomposes himself. Cervitou clears his throat, preparing for what you assume to be some kind of 'reason-why-you-suck' speech that your mother so often tells you he likes to make. Every time she ever made a mistake, he would give her one such speech.
"You went out alone, without telling anyone, because you wanted to prove you can kill a dragon all on
your own. The fact is, you failed at that task horribly, and all you proved was that you are a hypocrite that couldn't do it without the help of others. Assume a scenario where:
"Beronica doesn't have any poison. You go to attack the dragon, and demons ambush you. I don't arrive to help you. And lastly, the dragon isn't stupid and visually impaired enough to believe a thirteen-year-old girl is her mother who is right now in her late thirties. You'd be crispier than a fire mage's dinner and your soul would be rotting in the depths of hell, Artoria Baragar, and that's a strong understatement."
Cervitou turns. "The reason why you suck," –– this confirms it –– "is that you tried to take everything on with strength. All these past months, you've been holding yourself up here and training your body and honing your swordsmanship without realizing none of these skills are remotely useful when fighting a dragon as large as your own house."
"What should I have done then?" you ask, more politely. In a way, you admit he might be right, but you want to know what he would have done.
"First of all - asked for help from more experienced hunters, and told your mother. Second of all - explosion magic."
"What," you ask dryly.
"Explosion magic," Cervitou repeats. "With enough experience, you'd blow his head into bits while he was still sleeping."
"Yeah, but I wanted a treehouse from his skull."
"Then the heart," he says.
"I'm going to eat it, though," you say.
"Nuh-uh. I never agreed to bind anyone's soul into anything. Black magic like that is something I shan't partake in," he shakes his head dismissively, trying to show his disappointment at your choice. Cervitou breaks eye contact and looks away. "And now if you'd excuse me, Artoria Baragar... I have places to be. Like the trial about the staff that I stole to save your life."
That's a mean example, in your opinion. You did ask Beronica to help, that's true, but you never asked him to go to the extent of stealing a magical staff from some important people. That was all on him. Then again, with the numbers of demons you saw that day, it does seem quite appropriate that Cervitou would use such an artifact. Demons are no joke, and an army of demons is serious business above serious business. An army of demons hunting a specific person, however, is the king of seriousness.
You get lost in thought for a moment, and not liking where it takes you, you look at Cervitou and sigh. "Maybe you're right..."
Cervitou turns around and begins walking away. Midway to the stairs, he stops, turns and adds one last bit of information before continuing down the stairs. "Then the throat!"
[] Stop him.
[] Let him go. The dragon soul isn't worth it.
[] Let him go. You'll find another black mage, just as capable, who can perform the ritual. Cervitou is thankless.
Calendar: 1005-02-30
Time: Noon
