Brewing Bad (Fantasy Isekai Light LitRPG)

Lucas was still working on his final potion when Heisenburgle announced that they'd be conducting their first real test the following evening. So far, the most he'd achieved was a +4 appearance cologne that smelled foul. It wasn't even as strong as the +5 perfume he'd made the previous year for Danaria.

While that was disappointing, it was also easy to explain. As well stocked as the laboratories at Black Gate might be, they weren't built around beauty products.

Danaria. Just that word was enough to make him miss her. She'd visited him as a tiny sparrow twice in the last couple of weeks, and he'd told her that things were going well, but he'd left out the specifics because she didn't need to be burdened with that.

It wasn't the same, though. He'd proposed. She'd accepted, and he'd put a ring on her finger. Their relationship had been comically chaste this whole time, but now he couldn't even kiss her or hold her hand. Hell, he couldn't even see her, and for as long as it took to remove the dark shadow that was Skylara from over the two of them, things would stay that way.

Lucas didn't let that get to him often, but sometimes, he didn't have a choice. Still, instead of dwelling on it, he read more of Heisenburgle's books on advanced cosmetology. He'd only leafed through them the first time for experience gains; this time, he was looking for actual tips on how he could make a beauty potion worth having, since all the topical formulations he was trying seemed so weak.

It was during one of those eye-strainingly dull research sessions that Heisenburgle announced that he'd be the one to do it. That had caught Lucas off guard. He'd thought sure that when the gnome had mentioned that in passing the last time, it had been a royal we sort of thing, or a slip of the tongue, but he actually seemed serious.

"You?" Lucas asked skeptically. "Like, you personally? Not a hireling or an assistant, but you? You're the one pulling the trigger with your own hand?"

The gnome glowered at him. At first, Lucas thought he might not dignify the statement with a response, but eventually he added, "I plan to use my lance with your poison, along with the Hyperquadabulator." Heisenburgle answered matter-of-factly. "It seems a shame to have made such a wonder but to use it so rarely."

Lucas supposed that made sense. If they were going to try slaying a tiny dragon, then why not try doing it with a tiny knight?

"If I am not involved in the process, then Thrzealwick might accuse me of not honoring my agreements," Heisenburgle grumbled.

That's fair, Lucas decided. The gnome had never been completely clear on what their arrangement was, but it seemed to be more than 'If Skylara dies, your wish will be granted.' Lucas was curious, but as long as the alchemist continued to help him in his endeavor, he didn't really care what their deal was; it wasn't really any of his business. It's not like he'd been entirely forthright with Heisenburgle either.

Since the gnome was doing everything, all he had to do was supply the gunpowder and the poison, then join the small caravan of wagons that would take all of the needed equipment to where they'd conduct the test.

For his part, Lucas made the poison only half as powerful as the formulation he'd made for the actual dragon. It was still nasty stuff, but it was much weaker than the real deal. He did that because he wanted to plan for the worst. If the diluted stuff wasn't enough to kill the draconic equivalent of a crocodile, then he had to go back to the drawing board, because a red wyrm would certainly be more than twice as hard to kill.

Due to the sensitive nature of the tests, Heisenburgle conducted them with a minimum amount of personnel. In the dead of night, all the gear and animals were loaded up and taken to a fog-shrouded moor several miles away from the keep.

Then the eighteen-foot-long, half-ton lizard was coaxed from its cage and chained to the ground with two large anchors, making it clear that this would be a slaughter, and not an actual fight. That was the hardest part of the whole thing. The giant beast fought and struggled, but it had been fed a chilling compound before all of this, making its movement weaker and more sluggish than they would have otherwise been.

Lucas thought that was a little unsporting, but given that Heisenburgle was over a century old and less than a hundred pounds, a little unsporting was probably the bare minimum requirement for this. Lucas resisted the urge to tease him about how the Ice Troll had been a more worthy opponent as he watched the alchemist gear up while the few men he'd brought along began lighting the area with dozens of torches.

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"What's with the hoses?" Lucas asked.

"Those are for the cooling solution in the armor," the gnome answered. Mounting a second engine to circulate the fluid would be unwieldy. So, the horse's three-cylinder engine does that as it moves the mount forward."

Any number of objections went through Lucas' mind in that moment. You'll be stuck to the damn thing if something happens. It seems a little restrictive. Why do you need to worry about cooling for a monster that doesn't breathe fire?

In the end, he went with the last one, and the gnome retorted, "Just because it's not going to breathe fire doesn't mean we shouldn't test the feature! You can't expect the insulation to do all the work."

Lucas had a few problems with that response, but before he could respond, the gnome put on his helmet and then screwed it around twice, locking it into place. After that, any messages had to be shouted. So, instead of bothering, Lucas just gave him two thumbs up and stepped back.

A couple of minutes later, after some shouted instructions, the gnome pulled the starter cord on his mechanical horse, revving the engine to life with a high-pitched whine that sounded more like a weed whacker than the motorcycle he'd been expecting.

The thing made a couple of slow exploratory steps, and then shuddered to a halt as the gnome fidgeted with the leavers on the back of its neck, marking the first time he'd seen the Hyperquadabulator move. It was also the first time he'd seen Heisenburgle in armor, and Lucas took a moment to take all of that in, because if this was a sight he never wanted to forget.

The whole thing looked quite ridiculous. It was a three-foot man on a four-foot horse wielding a six-foot lance. The whole thing looked like a toy, and yet somehow, it was still menacing.

Then, suddenly, that toy sprang to life, and Hesienburgle raced around the yard in a long loop to get the speed right. As he did so, Lucas wondered whether he was wearing the armor to protect himself from the lance or if he did it to look the part of a dragon slayer. He didn't believe the coolant testing excuse for a second. However, before he could decide, Heisenburgle turned and charged the tethered beast, bringing his lance down to a killing position.

As the metal knight moved forward with ever-increasing speed, the tension mounted, and Lucas found himself gripping the moderately strong endurance potion he'd brought ever tighter. He'd brought that and an agility potion, and was ready to chug them and charge into the fray at a moment's notice if something went amiss.

He told himself that was because he couldn't afford to lose Heisenburgle, but really, somewhere along the way, he'd actually started to like the old crank. Seeing him in battle like this made him much more sympathetic to Lucas. Still, the idea of the gnome eating shit as his mechanical horse picked up speed seemed quite high as well, and he wanted to be ready in case something terrible happened.

It almost did, too. The water lizard roared and reared up on its hind legs as much as the iron collar around its neck would let it. Then Heisenburgle struck the thing's center mass, burying his lance more than two feet inside it before he pulled the trigger.

As the weapon fired, the gnome released it, which was the right move. It had found its target, and he wasn't nearly as strong as his mechanical horse's ever-growing momentum.

That was the good news. Lucas heard the muffled report of the weapon, even over the giant lizard thing's painful scratch, and he saw its abdomen bulge briefly as it was filled with exhaust gases and poison. The bad news was that as it flailed in pain, it lashed out with its vestigial wings, striking Heisenburgle, and knocking him from the saddle of his mount. That wouldn't have been so bad except that the thing kept moving for several seconds afterward, dragging him fifty feet through the mud before the Hyperquadabulator finally began to slow.

Lucas didn't worry about that too much. Once he'd seen that the old gnome was going to be okay, he focused on the lizard. It didn't make it thirty seconds. Its struggles faded almost from that first instant, and by the time Heisenburgle was back on his feet, and the men he'd brought with him were rushing over to check on him, the creature lay still.

In fact, it was so still that Lucas had no trouble approaching it, and poking it with his sword. The monster didn't react to that, or even to getting stabbed, and when Lucas pulled the lance free, there was almost no blood. That was another good sign, considering that he expected his blood to act as a hyperclotting agent.

By the time Heisenburgle had returned to his side, Lucas had popped an endurance and a strength potion and was hacking away at the thing to perform a biopsy. "Did it work?" Heisenburgle asked as he approached the thing.

"It did," Lucas nodded. "It worked fuckin' perfectly."

He and the gnome stood there, examining the remarkably bloodless exposed wound track. It was easy to see where the lance had gone in, but it was where the poison had gone that had done the real damage. On its own, the strike wouldn't have been enough. Even the detonation and air injection from the vent gases probably wouldn't have killed the beast. The poison, though, well, it was easy to see the healthy pink tissue that hadn't been soaked in the stuff and compare it to the black and blue organs that had.

The two of them debated and discussed the results for the better part of an hour before the alchemist ordered the corpse burned, and everyone started packing things away. They didn't need to, though. Lucas had his dragon killer. He was sure of it. Now he just needed to figure out how to get her alone to minimize the damage and then catch her off guard so that they could live to tell the tale.