Brewing Bad (Fantasy Isekai Light LitRPG)

'My dearest Mr. Blue,' the letter began. 'I can see now that I might have been hasty in judging you. Perhaps we can arrange a rapprochement, and in time, perhaps more will come of it. I look forward to dancing with you again soon, Dutchess Skylara.'

It was a short memo, but the calligraphy was impeccable, and it was doubtlessly written in her own graceful hand instead of her servants, like her last message. Lucas responded in kind but vowed not to send it off until tomorrow. He didn't want to appear too eager after all.

Even as he wrote that response, though, the same thought rattled around in his head that had been there ever since his dual with Sir. Tristin. How can you beat a dragon if you can't beat a knight?

It was something he asked himself all the time now. Those words came to him when he brushed his teeth and when he had dinner. They went through his mind when he was cooking up potions and practicing his blade. The encounter had been meant to make him feel better about how far he'd come; instead, it made it painfully clear about how far he had yet to go.

"It doesn't change anything," he mumbled to himself. "She's still got to die."

He might never be a hero of legends, but with potions and poisons, he could fake it for a few minutes, and really, that was all he needed. Even if he died in the attempt, as long as his efforts made Danaria safe, it would be worth it.

Heisenburgle was excited by that news but also obviously shaken. "Why are you scared?" Lucas asked. "I'm the one who's going to be cooked to a cinder if this goes wrong."

"You?" the gnome asked. "Do you really think I can just shirk off this encounter after the promise I made to Thrazelwick, lord of enlightenment?"

"Wait," Lucas answered, "You? You plan on fighting Skylara with me?"

"What do you think this has all been for?" the gnome said, gesturing to the schematics of his lance and mechanical horse that he'd been perusing. "Of course, I'm going to fight her, and it's all your fault. I could have lived my whole life happy without ever uttering those terrifying words. I'm going to fight a dragon. Thrazelwick preserve me."

"Bro!" Lucas said, slapping the gnome on the back hard enough to earn a glare. "I didn't know you cared! That's the best!"

That response turned Heisenburgle's glare into a tiny storm of overly complicated curse words, but Lucas weathered it, feeling a sudden relief wash over him. Until now, he'd been in this alone. He had no idea how he was going to distract Skylara and lance her, but if he just had to keep her focused while Hiesenburgle ran her down, well, that was infinitely more doable. They'd still probably both die, but the odds that she would, too, have just gone way up in his mind.

How do you defeat a dragon when you can't defeat a knight? He asked himself involuntarily again. With help from your friends. This time, the answer came to him quickly, and he was grateful for it.

"I'm not doing this for you!" the gnome insisted as Lucas resisted the urge to hug him just to see how much angrier he could make him. "How could you ever think you were doing this by yourself. You could never fit on my Hyperquadabulator!"

"Well, I just kind of assumed you'd build a bigger one, and then I'd—" Lucas started to answer, realizing how dumb it sounded as he said it.

"A bigger one? A bigger one?!" the gnome screeched. "Even If I could do that... Even if the first one hadn't taken eight years of careful labor and it was possible to expand it, you'd never hope to master the complex controls of mechanical transport! It's simply beyond you and your giant hands!"

Lucas fought the urge to tell him about the automobile then and instead said, "Eight years, huh? I had no idea."

"Of course you didn't!" the gnome answered smugly, crossing his hands over his chest. "While your talent grants you a superhuman understanding of one of the gnomish arts, the other will forever be beyond you! You lack the understanding to comprehend mechanics as a species."

Lucas let that one slide, too, as Heisenburgle talked about the specifications of the pistons and other delicate parts of the engine. Still, when the topic lingered a little too long, he made a note to tell the gnome all about cranes and pickup trucks if they both survived this, just to watch him squirm.

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For now, he dropped the issue and brought the discussion back to Skylara and how they were going to work together to defeat her. He was completely unsurprised that the gnome already had several plans on the subject.

"There have to be several, you see because each of the Prince's little lovenests is different. If she meets you at Balafoura, the cliffs there will hamper my charge as much as they will her flight in certain circumstances," Heisenburgle explained. "The River Palace, on the other hand, would be wide open, except for its hedge maze and the building proper. While it would be a shame to ruin such a lovely garden…"

Heisenburgle expounded on several other possibilities, which was eventually enough to force Lucas to ask what felt like a dumb question. "Dude, how many different houses and palaces does the prince have exactly?"

Heisenburgle paused and counted for a moment before answering, "Thirty-one, but most of those are smaller, like his lovenest he locked you away in for a couple of weeks. If we focus only on palaces and manors, the answer is fourteen."

"What does anyone need that many houses for?" Lucas asked.

"Well, some are vacation homes," the gnome shrugged, "that get used every year or two, and most of the rest have some connection to the royal line or other ceremonial purposes."

Lucas tried up how much the staffing alone must cost on those things. Suddenly, the Prince's pleadings of poverty in the face of Skylara's toll rang a lot more hollow to him. If you added in the costs of maintenance and furniture… well, it seemed like a huge waste to Lucas. Before, he'd kind of hoped that wherever they fought Skylara, they didn't do much collateral damage. Now, he kind of hoped they burned one of the royal mansions to the ground, just like Parin Manor. As long as no one died in the process, he'd count that as a win.

Still, despite Heisenburgle's insistence that each of his plans was different, they all boiled down to something like, 'Get her relaxed and high somewhere where I can charge in at maximum speed and kill her in a single strike.'

Lucas would have a sword, of course, and his potions, but the fact that he wouldn't have to do all that and pull a lance out of his ass calmed him immensely. Now, the hardest part of the whole thing would be enduring the faux courtship for the next week or so until he could get her alone.

Fortunately, he didn't have to wait long. He had time to send her two scrolls full of lovely dovey bullshit that should have rightfully gone to Danaria before the next ball, and after that, well, he didn't think any more would be necessary because she was all over him that night.

From the moment she arrived, she spent almost all of her time dancing with Lucas, and while the Prince's face was practically unreadable at these things, Lucas saw that even that cold-blooded prick was surprised. For his part, Lucas did his best to reciprocate, which required drinking more alcohol than he was comfortable with. Partway through the night, he actually had to take a Curative Potion to make sure he didn't give himself alcohol poisoning.

He needed the wine, though, almost as much as he needed to kill the busty dragoness because her repulsiveness was the only thing more powerful than his need for vengeance. They made small talk and flirted. They even kissed, much to his regret. He practically hoped his system would castigate him for it, but that hateful little achievement stayed at one; it seemed that it only counted each new woman he was unfaithful with.

Lucas counted every transgression, though, and as they whirled together around the floor, he vowed to clean the slate properly and soon. Still, by the end of the night, she was all over him, and it was only his insistence that he had to be back before the moon set to make her next batch of Lwynthenll that kept her from taking him home with her.

"If you would have told me earlier, we might have had a Liaison in the stables or the gardens," she mused as the night came to an end.

"I would have if I'd only thought of it," Lucas insisted, feeling dirtied by his words. "But if you're willing to accept a slight delay on your next shipment for just a day or two—"

"No, your laboratory will have to come before my own needs, but just for tonight," she insisted, obviously smitten. "I'll expect you to make it up to me soon, though."

"Of course," Lucas agreed, "But it will never come soon enough. I cannot wait for the next ball to see you again. Where should we meet?"

"Well, you could come to my manor, I suppose," she said, clinging to him. "But that is so far from your laboratory, and unlike me, you cannot fly. Perhaps I'll borrow the Prince's River Palace for the weekend. It's lovely this time of year."

"I've never been," Lucas said, pretending as if he'd never heard of the place. "What's it like?"

"Oh, it has these beautiful widows… ten feet tall at least, and they look out at the gardens which stretch to the river and…" she paused. "Tell me, my dear, have you ever chased a beautiful young woman naked through a hedge maze?"

"Never," he said with a hungry grin while he tried not to picture the aging dragoness' voluptuous body.

"Well, then this weekend, you will," she said with a smile. "This weekend, we'll impose a strict curfew on the servants after dinner, and then we'll make the world our playground…"

Lucas went back to Blackgate that night, grateful that he was going back alone, but he was determined to take a scalding bath and scrub his skin raw to get the smell of horny dragoness off of him as soon as he got back. After that, he would tell Heisenburgle, and they could make arrangements. They had three days to get everything set up because there was no way he was going to do this twice; if they blew this opportunity and didn't kill her, he was going to have to kill himself to avoid spending a whole weekend with her.