Chapter 118: Home Again (1/2)

“Finally!” Vainqueur rejoiced upon reaching the coast and seeing the ocean. “At long last!”

After days of flying nonstop through the desert, the sight of clear water filled him with boundless joy. Watching the sun setting on the water had never felt so pleasurable.

“This is the inner sea east of the V&V Empire,” Manling Victor said, riding Gorynych with Knight Kia behind his back. “We’re almost home.”

“Is Your Majesty sure they do not want to tackle that dungeon quest yet?” Knight Kia asked, a bit disappointed. “While definitively fishy, we need more levels and magic items.”

“My hoard calls me,” Vainqueur said. This journey had exhausted him, especially the last stretch. “I may be a tireless, beautiful dragon, but I need to feel the warmth of my gold under my claws.”

Also, the hoards of Icefang and his crew were left unattended. If they had no next of kin to claim them, then he would recover them himself. A rival’s memory should never get in the way of profit.

“I say we should do as many difficult quests as possible,” Knight Kia argued. “Maybe look for artifacts like the legendary [Plot Armor]. Wouldn’t that help against Odieuse?”

“You are surprisingly enthusiastic today,” Manling Victor said. “You’re usually more… I dunno, nonchalant?”

“Remember what I told you in Daltonia?” Knight Kia asked, the chief of staff nodding. “I finally have a purpose again, and I’ve never felt more pumped. I could clear dungeons all by myself!”

“Well, since I can cast eighth-tier spells now, I can finally learn decent teleportation spells,” Manling Victor said. “We can easily do this quest after putting our more important affairs in order.”

“Indeed, since a Dragon Conclave’s buffet is the organizer’s responsibility,” Vainqueur explained, Manling Victor’s skin turning white. “Minion, you fed everyone in time for my Bragging Day while I ruled a desert, instead of the verdant minion utopia it is today. You can manage.”

“I think Your Majesty is a bit optimistic, but… well, we have a teleportation network and a Tarasque food supply now. I’ve also received a [Scarlet Study] report telling me that the Agarthans successfully transported the beast to the Dodocare.”

Knight Kia made a strange face. “Can a Tarasque reproduce with dodos?”

“Yes!” Vainqueur nodded.

“No,” Manling Victor replied, ever pessimistic. “Or at least, if they can, I pray that I never see the deed in action.”

Speaking of a buffet made Vainqueur even hungrier. “I demand a feast of cattle!”

“Gorynych hungry too,” the zmey complained. “Gorynych hungry enough to eat himself!”

“There’s a Nagastan trading post nearby,” Manling Victor said, pointing west. “We can resupply there.”

“They have colonies that far west?” Knight Kia asked, crossing her arms. “I would have thought that Barin would have assimilated the area already.”

“Nagastan managed to establish a trading route through the dusted remnants of the Sablaris Empire,” Manling Victor said. “From what I understood, it causes tensions with the local powers like the Eversun Empire, who interpret these trading posts as prelude to military expansion. I suppose the plague probably delayed a full-out conflict in the region.”

Vainqueur cared nothing for manlings' squabbling, and neither did his stomach. “Friend Victor, find me a cow soon or we shall call upon Knight Kia’s service.”

“Me?”

“I don’t think she can summon any food,” his chief of staff said.

“She is a minion,” Vainqueur reminded Manling Victor of the food chain. “If we do not find food soon, we will have to make a sacrifice to avoid starvation.” Since she was the least valuable minion of the group, he would rather start with her than with Gorynych.

“What does that mean?” Knight Kia asked, oblivious to her duty. “Victor, what does he mean?”

“Oh, nothing!” Manling Victor replied hastily. “Let’s just find that trading post!”

Thankfully for the [Paladin], it didn’t take long to locate it. The owners had built a large brick house on a cliff, near a sandy road and a pen full of goats. The place could probably welcome dozens of manlings, but lacked any dragon accommodations.

Was it too much to ask for a lava bath?

After everyone landed, startling the goats, his minions climbed down from Gorynych before knocking on the door. A decomposing ghoul with a rounded hat opened the door, immediately noticing Vainqueur. “Oh, two dragons at once!” he said with a gruff voice. “That’s a first.”

“Where is the other?” Vainqueur glanced around, ignoring Gorynych.

“Have you come for healing?” the innkeeper asked. “If so, please fill out your afflictions in our document.”

“Wait, I recognize this voice,” Knight Kia muttered, “Nestor?”

The ghoul squinted, before quickly recognizing the [Paladin]. “Lady Kia? Is that you?”

“Nestor, you crusty old ghoul, it’s been years!” Knight Kia smiled at the undead. “How have you been?”

“You know him?” Manling Victor asked,

“He was a crusader back when I fought during the Century War,” Kia said. “Best archer I ever knew!”

“That feels like a lifetime ago,” the ghoul said, before whistling at Vainqueur. “Then, you must be the famous V&V Adventurer Company!”

“Certainly, the words of my deeds pale before my magnificence!” the emperor boasted proudly.

“Well, either they say you’re heroic champions of freedom, or a greedy warlord bent on conquering countries for a nickel. It’s odd, it’s always one extreme or another. Sorry I didn’t welcome you properly, the place is a mess.”

“What are you doing here in the middle of the desert?” Knight Kia asked him, perhaps hoping to get a discount. ”I haven't seen you since the last battle with King Balaur.”

“I retired from adventuring, and Nagastan’s naga lords pay me a small fortune to maintain this trading post,” the undead replied. “I mostly service the few adventurers or merchants brave enough to cross the desert.”

“Wait, you’re a ghoul, a carrion eater,” Manling Victor stated the obvious. “How do you feed in the middle of nowhere?”

“Let’s just say I don’t accept tabs,” the ghoul replied with a crooked smile. “In your case though, since you got Lady Kia on your side, your stay is free. There are sick people in most of my beds though; infected merchants I’m trying to keep alive.”

“You are a healer?” Manling Victor asked.

“I am a capped [Innkeeper]. Thanks to my class and personal Perks, my inn can heal almost anything. HP, SP, status effects, petrification, mutilations...”

“Wait, how does that work?” Manling Victor pushed. “We pay for a bed and we grow back arms?”

“You need to pay for a bed and have eight hours of sleep in it, and you’re healed at the end of the stay,” the ghoul explained. “With the plague going on, I have become the de facto hospital.”

“Can you cure dwarf addiction?” Vainqueur’s head perked up. “Asking for a minion.”

The ghoul made a strange noise, before disappointing the dragon. “I can’t cure either addictions nor the rare [Stockholm Syndrome] disease. I can heal [Enthrall] though.”

“You can cure total mind-control, but not alcoholism?” Knight Kia squinted.

“I don’t make the rules, Lady Kia. Anyway, that nasty plague resists magical healing, even my own perks. But since I can refresh everybody’s HP every eight hours, at least I can keep the sick alive until we find a cure.”

“I will cast [Full Heal] on them,” the [Paladin] offered, but much to Vainqueur’s confusion didn’t ask for a fee first.

“That would help a lot, but please be wary with them milady,” the innkeeper replied. “The infected look normal for days, and then they start spraying infected blood everywhere.”

“Oh, is that how diseases work?” Vainqueur pondered curiously. He had always wondered how that mammal birth defect happened. “Sometimes, I wonder how you minion species managed to survive on your own.”

“Come to think of it, dragons are immune to diseases, and I developed a resistance to them when I leveled up in [Monster Knight],” Manling Victor said. “Maybe there’s something to explore there.”