78: Impossible Cut.

Looking around, I observed Jen as she attempted several more times to cut into the tail. I even went so far as to try myself, but laughably, I couldn’t so much as leave an impression on the skin—let alone cut it.

In fact, I was fairly sure that if I continued, I’d end up breaking the knife rather than cutting anything.

“I don’t really want to lose the scales, but I also don’t want to anger the dragon,” Jen said, looking a bit worried.

“It’ll be hard to cook with them on. I remember Crisplet checked the drake scales, and the only way the fire got around it was by being larger than the scale itself. If this protects the meat the same way, the only place it’ll cook is the end—where it’s ripped and where the teeth marks are,” I said.

This was certainly an unexpected problem I hadn’t seen coming.

“Just a moment, I’ll get Hari. He’ll surely be able to cut it—even if not cleanly,” Jen said, before heading to the entrance to fetch Hari, who was just outside the door.

A moment later, Hari was in the room with his sword out, trying to cut the tail. He tried several methods. First, he attempted to get under a scale and cut, but like Jen, he couldn’t pierce the leathery skin underneath. He then tried to push the tip of his sword in with as much force as he could muster...

And nothing.

We worked out that we could cut into the flesh from the ripped end, but it would be a pain to do. Liane and Milo both gave it a try as well, and Liane actually managed to leave a faint scratch using her penetrating ability.

But still, nothing worked.

After about an hour of testing various methods—and still not wanting to sacrifice the scales—two adventurer groups showed up. They were greeted by Milo at the outer walls.

Something I noticed while I’d been inside: there were no entrances to the inner structure. The archway we’d come through with our horses earlier was now completely gone, replaced with a solid stone wall.

After they explained who they were, Milo created an entryway where Hari was waiting on the other side.

“Greetings. I thank you for coming so promptly,” Hari began, as nine people came into the inner circle, the stone walls closing behind them.

“Hello, pleasure to be here. My name’s Sarah,” said a tall, well-built woman, dismounting from what I wanted to call a horse—though it clearly wasn’t. The creature was reptilian, with scales instead of fur, and a much leaner frame. It looked fierce.

“This is my party—the Summer’s Breath,” she said, gesturing behind her. The others bowed politely. Their group appeared to be made up of two archers, a mage who looked to be a healer based on her robes, Sarah herself with a shield and sword like Hari, and finally a gaunt-looking man who gave off a similar vibe to how Liane used to when I first met her.

All of them rode the same scaled, sleek-looking beasts.

The second party dismounted just behind them. A short man with a large two-handed axe slung over his back approached and shook Hari’s hand.

“Hello, young lad. Name’s Greg. This here is my party—the Stone Front,” he said, nodding back at his team, which looked to be made up of two mages, a swordsman of some kind, and himself.

“I hope you’ve all been given a brief on why you’re here, and what the goal is?” Hari asked. Sarah nodded silently, but Greg spoke up.

“We got a little bit of information, but if I’m honest with you, I don’t really understand why we’re here—or why you’ve got a little fortress in the middle of the plains, either,” Greg said.

“To put it bluntly,” Hari replied, maintaining a professional tone, “a dragon made a request of my support to cook a meal. It provided the meat. If that dragon doesn’t get its meal, there’s no telling what might happen to anyone in the vicinity.”

“Right… a request from a dragon. That no one heard. Except for the boy,” Greg said, clearly sceptical.

Surprisingly, it was Sarah who spoke up.

“You must not have been there when the cat showed up inside the Guild Hall—in front of everyone—and took the boy to the dragon.”

“Yes, yes, I heard the tale…” Greg began—only to be cut off as one of Sarah’s party members spoke up.

“It was no tall tale,” said the woman, who had yet to be introduced. “I have an advanced danger sense, and that cat screamed absolute danger like I’ve never experienced before. And then the dragon… when it appeared, we couldn’t even move.”

“Yet a support—who’s of no real power—could not only withstand the pressure, but also have a conversation with it? Enough to take a dinner request?” Greg snorted, clearly unconvinced.

A couple of chuckles rippled through his party as he said it, none of them hiding how unimpressed they were with this assignment.

Greg wasn’t done. “So, what did it request? A fancy cake? Maybe a nice Buvul stew?” He laughed at his own joke.

“It requested the tail of the Storm Dragon who used to reside in the mountain,” Liane replied, her tone cold enough to cut stone.

“Nonsense…” Greg started again.

“Go inside. Have a look,” Liane said, each word dripping with venom.

Greg didn’t back down—either assuming she was bluffing or just exaggerating. He walked into the structure, took one look around, and stopped in his tracks.

“That... that could be any creature’s tail. How do you know it’s from a dragon?” he said, trying to sound composed.

Liane appeared beside him, practically whispering in his ear. “Alright, big man. Try to cut it.”

Greg’s face turned red. I couldn’t tell whether it was because of the jab at his height or the implication that he’d be too weak to make a dent. Either way, he stormed up to the tail, drew his axe, and swung it down with a loud grunt.

It bounced off. Predictably.

Though to be fair, it didn’t seem like he’d put his full strength behind it.

The rest of the group had now filtered inside to watch.

Greg scowled and squared up for another swing. His axe began to glow red, and with a shout, he brought it down again—hard.

This time, something happened. But not what any of us expected.

The axe cracked.

Greg stared in disbelief, looking from the damaged weapon to the unscathed tail.

“This… this can’t be,” he muttered.

“Well, little man,” Liane said coolly, “you satisfied it’s a dragon tail yet?”

“Maybe your swordsman there wants to give it a go.” She looked pointedly at the swordsman, who immediately shrank back behind one of the mages.

Honestly, Liane was terrifying when she was like this—and I was incredibly glad she was on our side.

Greg appeared at least somewhat humbled. Sarah and her party didn’t say anything; they simply stared at the scene wide-eyed before Sarah quietly asked Milo,

“Where can we store our Drakhal’s?”

Milo nodded and slipped outside to help with the stabling. One of Greg’s party followed, likely to store their own horses.

Greg remained where he was, still staring at the tail in front of him. It was almost comical—it towered over him. To be fair, it was taller than me, too.

Liane broke the silence, turning to the swordsman.

“I will ask—if you think you can cut it, please try. We haven’t made a mark on it yet. Just… preferably don’t break all your weapons.”

She gave a look over her shoulder. The swordsman simply shook his head.

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

“I have an idea,” Liane said. “But no one’s going to like it.”

Hari perked up. “Let’s hear it. I really don’t want to go back to town to find a butcher who might not even be able to touch the damn thing.”

“We know the cat helped take this down. You can even see the cuts in the tail’s underside,” Liane said, pointing. “So maybe… Trev cooks some drake as a bribe, brings Lily here, and asks her to slice it in half for us?”

Greg looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Who’s Lily? And why would she be eating drake? You can’t eat drake.”

“The shadow cat,” Liane said flatly.

Greg blinked. “The cat’s got a bloody name? Who names a goddamn shadow cat…”

He mumbled to himself, clearly not coping well.

With a sigh—and no better ideas—I approached the tail and stored it away. Greg yelped in fright and stared at me.

He really was a bit jumpy.

“You might want to step back a little,” I said, as he backed away—his eyes never leaving the spot where the tail used to be.

A moment later, I pulled the drake out of storage. It was slightly larger than the tail and took up most of the room.

“Tha… That’s—” Greg didn’t get to finish his sentence before Hari cut in.

“Everyone else, come back outside. Let’s discuss watch and guard duties, you as well Greg, enough entertainment.” he called, getting everyone’s attention—and pulling their stares away from the giant, headless drake now resting where the tail had been.

Greg followed the others out, though his eyes never left the drake. His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. Liane stayed inside with Jen and me, examining the massive creature.

“This one we should be fine to cut, right? What size piece do we need?” Jen asked, looking over at me.

“I was thinking two large steaks,” I said. “That way, if the tail’s not ready, I’ve got a backup. It won’t be perfect, but it’s got to be better than nothing, right?”

“Hmm. I think if Lily doesn’t show tonight, we try to find someone in town who can cut the tail,” Jen replied. “You’ll have to stay out here though, Trev.”

I just nodded. “Let’s go with two big steaks from the same area the Monster Knacker already started at?”

Jen got to work, and I sat down next to Micca, who had been quietly observing the entire thing.

“That thing’s huge. I know you mentioned you had it, but I never realised just how big it actually was,” she said, staring at the drake.

“What’s crazy is every scale is worth a gold or two,” I said with a laugh.

Her eyes widened. “That’s ridiculous.”

It took Jen about half an hour to cut two very large steaks from the drake. Satisfied with her work, she’d also removed several of the scales. Since they no longer counted as part of the creature, I couldn’t store them—so she tucked them away in her own storage.

Once she’d climbed down from the creature, I stored it again, leaving the two steaks out.

I decided to mix things up a little. Since this was just for the cat—and no one else should be touching it—I wanted to see if I could scrape off a little bit of the salt crystal that nearly fried my mana channels and use it on the steaks. I added some garlic grass, onions, and a mix of two dried herbs just to give it some regeneration.

I had minor success with the Pyrrhosite crystal, scraping it with the back of my knife. It was harder than expected, but a small amount came off onto both steaks. Hopefully, that would be enough?

On one of them, I would also use the spider essence I made yesterday—I felt like Lily would appreciate the stealth bonuses that came with it.

I went to Crisplet, but immediately—despite my minor fire resistance—was blasted back out of the oven by the heat. It was far too hot to enter right now. Crisplet had done an amazing job.

Thinking of a solution, I remembered the rolls I had in storage—they both had fire immunity as one of their buffs. After taking a couple of bites, I slowly approached the oven again. This time, it just felt like a soft, warm breeze.

I gave Crisplet some more Treant wood before placing both steaks on the stone floor. They sizzled the moment my hand left them.

I really needed to ask Milo how fire immunity actually worked, because it was such a bizarre sensation—standing inside a giant oven and not being affected. But more importantly, how were my clothes not being affected by it?

By the time the steaks were nearly finished, the earlier drama and disbelief seemed to have settled—for now. Several people from all three parties were sitting inside the building, relaxing during their off-watch. The room was filled with the smell of roasted meat.

I really hoped this would work—and that Lily would show up.

Because if not, I honestly had no idea how we’d get the meat out of that tail without digging it out bit by bit.