Brewing Bad (Fantasy Isekai Light LitRPG)

Lucas woke sometime before sunset, which gave him plenty of time to get ready. He bathed and shaved and even put on an awful cologne of +3 attractiveness to try to make the evening go smoother after he'd put on his dark suit and strapped on the various vials beneath it. When he was all done, he studied himself in the mirror, and even he had to admit that he looked pretty sharp.

He adjusted the collar and pressed on the places where he'd hidden his potions to make sure they were visible. Really, he was just fidgeting, though. He told himself that he wasn't nervous, but as the hour grew closer at hand, that became less and less true. Strangely, it wasn't the battle or even his impending death that he feared; it was the prospect of having to wine and dine Skylara all over again.

Doing so the first time was one of his greatest regrets, and the thought of doing it all over again made him sick. So much so, in fact, that he'd been avoiding Danaria for weeks. He'd left a note with Kar'gandin to give her should the worst happen, but even that wouldn't contain a word about this part of the battle, merely his reasons for why he did what he did.

As he stood there, he looked through his system interface for anything he might spend points on that would help, but he found nothing. There were no other relevant combat skills of damage resistance. Alchemist, it would seem, was not a very combat-oriented talent. He'd done his best to crank that up to eleven, but…

Well, he would just have to see. It wasn't even worth blowing them all on attributes and hoping for the best since he was maxing out those physical stats with potions. The battle would be won or lost in five minutes.

"Maybe if I survive this, I really will learn magic," he told himself as he went downstairs to await the guest of honor's arrival.

When he arrived at the main gallery, he made a big deal of inspecting various rooms and finding minor faults to send people scurrying. In reality, everything was perfect. He'd never been in a place this clean in his entire life. It was like an operating theatre done up in marble and gold.

Even though he knew that her identity as a monstrous wyrm of legend was a state secret, he was still surprised to see her carriage come up the gravel drive. He'd expected her to fly here in all her terrible majesty, to make a point or something.

That didn't happen. Instead, her coachman pulled in front and opened her door with a white glove to reveal the woman herself. The Duchess was a beautiful woman in her way. She was a bit voluptuous and fleshy for his tastes, but then, he'd seen her naked. Even if he hadn't, though, her dress was indecent enough by this world's standards that it left very little to the imagination.

Normally, she wore a red sequined dress to parties with enough decolletage to be scandalous. This outfit, though, was a new one, with a gauzy cloak that was the same pale pink as her terrible wings. It also had a tightly laced, red leather corset that reminded him of her dragon form's underbelly, even as it sucked her belly in, giving her an hourglass figure that was a little too extreme to be beautiful.

"My darling Mr. Blue, you did come," she said with a smile as she hiked up her hooped skirts and came up the steps on stiletto heels. "I knew you would."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," he said with a smile that he hoped was convincing as he bent to kiss her black-gloved hand. "How have you been?"

Drunk, it was a toss-up when the dragoness' favorite topic was. It might have been sex, drugs, or Lucas specifically. Sober, though, it was definitely herself. She waxed on, at length, about endless trivialities while Lucas listened and nodded attentively. She talked about problem courtiers and illicit romances amongst her friends at court while they were escorted to a sitting room to wait until dinner.

To Lucas' ears, she sounded like a child playing dress up, which, in a way, despite her vast age, she was. She was not a Duchess; she wasn't even human. Skylara had no stake in the outcome of these events. They were all her playthings, and if Lucas was her sex toy, then the other men and women in her life were even more disposable. They weren't even pawns on a chessboard. That became clear over the course of the discussion while he laughed and nodded along to some of the insane things she said.

"Can you imagine?" she chortled as she sipped her tea. "Believing it was acceptable for peasants to plead famine? That's what I told her. I told her taxes were taxes and harvest or not, she'd have to find some way to pay."

While Lucas had been aware of this sort of awfulness before at prior parties, it never really impacted him because it tended to evaporate by the time he spent any real time with her. By then, all she wanted to talk about was drugs and sex. Still, today there was no avoiding it, and really, the longer she stayed in bitch mode instead of turning into a ten-ton succubus, the better.

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If she tried to make out with him now, he'd have no choice but to play along. Complaining about the misery of others was far better, even if it made her seem more and more like a cold-blooded lizard in a human suit, which made it easier to fantasize about hacking her into bloody pieces.

Less than an hour later, at sunset, dinner was finally served, and the two of them strode arm and arm toward the dining room. Lucas made an effort to kiss her then, but she resisted. "Nowhere the servants can see…" she said in a scandalized tone.

"Can you blame me?" Lucas asked, appealing to her vanity. "It's been so long. Too long. I—"

"Why, my Lord Parin," she admonished him flirtatiously. "I don't know how they do things in the lands you come from, but here, we serve dessert after dinner."

Lucas restrained himself during dinner, pretending only occasionally that it was difficult as they sat across from each other at a vast candle-lit table that was empty save for the two of them. He also restrained himself when it came to eating, but that was harder because the food was beyond sumptuous. On any other night, he would have gorged himself, but fighting on a full stomach wasn't a good idea.

That was alright because his date made up for it. It shouldn't have surprised him that she ate an inhuman amount, but it did. While he savored a few bits of the squash soup with spiced croutons, she put away a whole tureen of the stuff, and when he was served a thick slice of prime rib, she was given the rest of the platter. She was voracious.

But then, isn't that the case for all of her appetites? Lucas thought forlornly. He heard a bell toll six distantly, which meant that he still had two hours to go until Heisenburgle would be ready to make his charge.

Some part of him had wondered for a while what would have happened if he'd fallen in with her instead of Danaria when the Prince first hunted him. Back then, he'd been all about making a buck. Would he have thrown it all away to be with the wealthiest and most powerful woman on the continent? He'd wanted to believe the answer would have been no, but that doubt had always lingered like an infected splinter.

Now he knew the truth. While this monster would have been impossible for any reasonable man to love, she would have been impossible for him to even tolerate for any length of time. One or two weekend getaways would have been all it took for him to hope that fucking angel would appear and scoop him up.

The fucking angel, he thought in the midst of the fifth course. If I die, I'm going to have to deal with that prick again. That saddened him. He wouldn't just be denied a relationship with Danaria. He'd be reincarnated somewhere else as someone else. It was as final a death as he could imagine.

"What's the matter?" Skylara asked. "You're barely touching this feast that the little people have worked so hard to prepare for us."

"I'm just saving room for dessert," Lucas quipped immediately, pairing it with a gaze that he hoped was more lustful than angry.

That made her smile enough that, for a brief moment, he thought she might blush. She didn't, though; instead, she simply changed topics. "To think, I once ate the beasts raw and unspiced. I was so foolish when I was young before I learned to wear a human shape. Were you foolish when you were young as well, Lucas?"

"Was?" He asked. "I still am."

"Still are what?" she asked between more mouthfuls. "Young or foolish?"

"Both," Lucas laughed. "When I die of old age, I'll still be young to you and foolish? Well, I think I might be allergic to wisdom. It would take a hundred lives for me to fix that, at least."

"Most men are," She agreed, amiably enough as she finished clearing her plate, and the next dish was brought in.

This one was a nut-encrusted pork cutlets made in the shape of animals. Lucas selected the pig since that seemed the most appropriate, but Skylara ate the rest of the menagerie, one at a time while remarking on how she would have rathered that they'd been made to look like people.

That comment soured Lucas' appetite, but his smile was unshakable, and one at a time, dish by dish, they worked their way to the desert course. Along the way, she must have had five bottles of wine to his two glasses, but he doubted intoxication would help him much when it came to fighting a dragon, at least, the sort that alcohol inspired. He hoped that the high-potency blue he carried on him would do better.

"Ah, at last, our banquet has come to an end…" the dragoness mused as she helped herself to an assortment of fruit pies. "I wonder what we will do now…"

"Well, I believe you mentioned something about a nighttime stroll through a garden maze?" Lucas answered with a voice heavy with innuendo… "To that end, I've prepared a small surprise for you…"

As he spoke, he laid out three different vials of blue for him and three different vials for her. As he did so, he fed her some bullshit about how he'd formulated each recipe with slightly different different effects. "The stuff I made for myself is much weaker, of course, he said as he laid his three vials out, But I want to make sure it's a night to remember…"

"Oh my," she smiled briefly before turning away and fanning herself in a poor attempt to feign shyness. "I'll look forward to that as soon as I change into something more appropriate…"

"I mean, I'd be happy to help with that…" Lucas teased, but she wouldn't hear of it. Instead, she made her way upstairs to change into an evening gown while he waited there impatiently, wondering if all of his preparations would be enough.