Brewing Bad (Fantasy Isekai Light LitRPG)

The following week, Lucas attended two more parties. That wasn't because he wanted to, of course; it was because he needed to. His to-do list was getting remarkably short, and unless he wanted to fight Skylara on her home turf or get dozens of people killed in the crossfire, he needed to woo her just hard enough to agree to meet him alone.

The first one was a bust. Not only did she not attend, but it was held at the Torvin estate, which meant that he had to deal with the contrast of Count Torvin's accusing looks and his unfailing politeness the entire evening. Part of Lucas wanted to explain the revenge he planned, to include him as an ally in the plot, but he resisted the urge.

There was little point to it. Not only was there little he could bring to the table that Lucas or Heisenburgle couldn't, but the risk of him telling the Prince or someone who would tell the Prince was far too great. The man might not execute Lucas for that, but he would almost certainly chain him to the wall of a basement meth lab for the rest of his days.

I'd only be doing it to make myself feel better anyway, he told himself as he mulled the idea most of the evening.

Still, Lucas did something he rarely did, normally, and spent most of the night dancing. This was in large part because it was the best way to escape the man's conflicted attentions, but that wasn't the only part. The blessing he'd received from his brief interaction with the divine had changed him in a number of small ways he was still getting used to, and the best way to do that was to move.

Increasing a given attribute by three wasn't exactly revolutionary, but increasing them all by three almost was. He was a little faster with his jokes than he'd ever been before and lighter on his feet, too. He would have needed a potion to get this level of grace a year ago, but after an evening whirling around the dance floor, he was almost used to it and looking forward to his next bout with Sir. Milen.

One thing he couldn't get used to, though, was how differently people treated him. Now that his appearance had increased substantially, his interactions with the elite had completely changed. So much so, in fact, that he regretted bumping that number up by two for the achievement.

Things were easier when I was ugly, he thought as he switched partners again in the whirling round, back to a beautiful redhead who was definitely interested in getting to know him better.

In all of Lucas' previous attempts at socialization, it had been easy to divide his interactions into two categories. Well, three, Danaria was so sweet that she belonged in a category all to herself. Everyone else, though, either looked at him like the garbage that he probably was or with a sycophantic intensity. The only difference between these two groups was whether they were his customers or not. Even Skylara fell into the latter camp to a large degree.

If someone wanted to get high, they were respectful or even obsequious. If they didn't know what Blue was, then looked at Lucas like the ugly, low-caste bastard he was.

Now, all of that had changed. All it had taken was a few points of attractiveness, and suddenly, people were laughing at his jokes, and women who weren't looking to get high were giving him appraising glances. Lucas didn't like it. While being a little bit smarter and more graceful was nice, he'd much rather go back to being the invisible wretch he'd been as recently as the last party he attended.

Unfortunately, that was no longer possible. Too many things were set in motion, and he had no idea where they were going to lead. I don't want to be a fucking god, he cursed silently on the way back from the evening.

Things weren't much better at the second ball he attended, at least at first. Once his prey took an interest in him, though, things improved quite a bit.

Lucas started out the night talking with some of the Prince's hangers' on, just to avoid an aggressive duchess who seemed eager to talk a walk with him through the gardens. It was only when he saw the dragoness wearing the same red sequined gown that she almost always did that he finally took to the dance floor, and less than an hour later, she followed suit.

Their interactions were limited at first, as they brushed by each other on the floor every so often during partner changes, like ships in the night. When she looked at him, it was with anger in her eyes, but that was a good thing.

First and foremost, the fact that she was even looking at him while she knew he could see her said a lot, but anger? The opposite of love was indifference, and the opposite of lust was boredom, and anger was neither of those things. It had a certain obsessive quality all of its own, and when they danced together briefly at one point early in the evening, the way she gripped his hand painfully told him everything he needed to know.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

What's a dragon to do when she wants to tear me to pieces, but then no one will be left to make her drug of choice, Lucas thought with a cocky grin.

Lucas sipped from his glass, often between bouts of ballroom dancing, but drank little as he attempted to appear listless and sullen now that he had an audience. Skylara wasn't nearly as thoughtful. She only approached him when she was approaching drunk, practically dragging him out onto the dance floor for a long slow waltz that he had to lead carefully lest she slam them into one of the other couples on the dance floor.

"There'sss sssomething different about you," she said, slurring slightly, as they twirled slowly toward the center of the well-lit room.

"It must be my longing for you," Lucas said, trying his best to sound sincere. He lied easily enough, but lying about something this ridiculous was hard for him. "When you said you didn't talk to me, I was—"

"Flatterer," she cut him off. She didn't quite blush, but something like embarrassment crossed her features. "Longing and a look of forlorn mystery is always attractive on a man, but there's something more, isn't there…"

Lucas stiffened as he recalled her comments about divinity before. Did she only approach me because she could smell Thrazelwick on me, he wondered.

"Well, I've been working on a new cologne," he answered, finally.

"It's hideous," she obviously lied as she leaned close enough to press her bosom against him again and sniffed once more. "It reminds me of something… I think you've been ssspending too much time with that runt. Whatsss his name? Heisssen turtle?"

"Heisenturtle!" That made Lucas genuinely laugh for the first time all evening. Even though he quickly vowed to himself never to use that joke on the gnome, the image of his white-whiskered face popping out of his strange-looking plate mail appeared in his mind, and he just couldn't shake it.

"Well, he does help me cook," Lucas agreed. "Gnomes lack many things, but alchemy skills aren't one of them."

She laughed at that, "If he's so ssskilled, then why can't he make my Lwynthenll as well as you can? That'sss what I want to know. I've tried both, and hisss just doesn't compare."

"Well, surely you remember how good I am with my hands…" Lucas said even though he knew perfectly well, she remembered very little about the night they'd spent together.

That was enough to finally make her smile and look affronted, but it also engaged her in the conversation more fully. After a few minutes of almost polite conversation, where he made her laugh more than once, she said, "I'm surprised you haven't tried to poison me after what I did."

"Skylara, the stuff I make for you is poison to anyone else," Lucas said, tamping down his anger at the memory of the burning building. "How am I supposed to make something more toxic than that? I have to wear special gloves in my laboratory because a single drop might kill me."

"But your beautiful mansion," she said, trying to return to the topic at hand.

"The Prince pays me well enough that I'll have a new one built just as soon as I can decide on if I want an ocean view or a city view when I wake up in the morning," he assured her.

"And the Girl?" the dragoness asked. Lucas saw something malicious in her eyes there, and it took an act of will not to wrap his hands around her throat.

"The Parin girl?" Lucas asked, trying to appear like he'd practically forgotten her. "Do you know why that leach told you about her before you threw him from the balcony? Because I was working with his sister to rob him blind. First, we were going to take away the Viscount's wealth together, then I was going to steal hers alone."

"You were only after her for the money?" she asked, seemingly surprised by that revelation. "Should I be worried I'm next?"

"Skylara, darling," Lucas said, mastering the urge to scowl at the word as he pulled her closer. "I could spend my whole life stealing from you, and I'd barely scratch the surface. Why would I want such monstrous wealth when I could have the monster herself?"

That startled her, but she took his strange words as the compliment they were intended to be. After that, she even started playing hard to get, which he took as another good sign.

By the end of all those lies, though, he was seething internally. If he had Heiusenburgle's lance, he would have run her through on the spot. Still, he kept that anger deep in the pit of his stomach and away from his face or anywhere else the drunken dragon might have spotted it.

"When are you going to apologize for the way you've treated me?" she asked finally, laying her head on his shoulder after a long bout of silence.

"Haven't I done that already? More than once?" he asked. "I've sent you letters. I've—"

"Again," she said with a predatory smile. "Tell me again. Make me believe it, Mister Blue. Make me believe there might ever be a place for you in my bed before you die of old age."

Lucas spent the rest of the evening apologizing and flirting with the woman. Once she made it clear that she didn't want to sleep with him, he even tried to invite himself back to her place several times. All of those efforts were unsuccessful, thankfully, but they did a good job of making her feel wanted, which was the important part of the thing.

The evening went on so long that when he watched her carriage leave, he actually decided to crash at the castle, but only because interacting with Lord Torvin so recently reminded him that it wasn't always safe for him to be alone in the dark woods at night.