Brewing Bad (Fantasy Isekai Light LitRPG)

Lucas fell end over end for several seconds before he stabilized his fall. That gave him just enough time to decide how he wanted to land but not enough time to come to grips with the fact that he was probably going to break every bone in his body. Endurance potion, don't fail me now! He thought desperately the moment before impact.

It didn't, either. Though he didn't quite stick the landing as he'd planned when he rotated to land on his feet, and he'd left a hell of a divot in the lawn where he'd made an impact, he was more or less fine. It hurt like hell, but he was able to climb to his feet, which was a win, considering he should have been a paraplegic at a minimum.

For a moment, he almost ran. Where, too, he hadn't decided. For cover? To Heisenburgle? To his lance, maybe? Lucas didn't know. His mind was racing, but it wasn't able to keep up with everything that was happening. One thing was for sure, whatever he did next, he shouldn't be running.

"I gotta make her think I'm as fucked up as she is," he grunted to himself as he looked up in the sky and saw her shaky flight. He'd done real damage to her wing, and the last thing he wanted to do was spook her.

Instead, he limped a couple steps, then made a big deal of pulling out a healing potion and flipping her off. "Is that the best you got, Sklara?!" he yelled.

Really, he wasn't even sure if she could hear him. It wasn't until when she roared, "Vermin! Your luck has run out!" and circled to attack a second time that he realized she could.

Then, as Lucas limped toward the cover of the burning hedge maze, he went through his options and hit upon one he hadn't even considered until now. The ring! He thought triumphantly, desperately hoping dragons couldn't see magic or infrared or whatever.

Lucas waited until he was in the thicker smoke near the entrance to the burning foliage. Then he activated the ring and sprinted to where the lance had fallen. He noted then that Heisenburgle still hadn't moved from the trench his impact had carved into the lawn. He was either dead or playing dead, which was a pretty prudent strategy where dragons were concerned. For now, it didn't matter which. When this was done, Lucas would help him. For now, he crouched by the lance and waited for Skylara, who was diving toward where she thought he was like a bird of prey.

He didn't move until the last moment. Not until it was far too late for her to pull up. Then, he raised the tip of the mithril-reinforced lance when she was only feet overhead, and then he stabbed her with it with all his might. The tip skittered off the scales of her underbelly for half of her length before it found purchase in a gap. Then, Lucas was able to thrust it several feet inside of her, somewhere near her intestines. On its own, it was not a killing blow. However, it would be.

Before she could fly past and yank the thing out of his hand, he pulled the trigger, and the lance roared as the sparks detonated the fire dust that powered the thing. Lucas didn't see the poison go inside of her, but he didn't get his fingers blown off either, so it was a good sign that it worked.

An even better sign was when she lost control, crashing somewhere in the midst of the flaming hedge maze, though he doubted very much that he'd been lucky enough to kill her with a single blow. Lucas looked around for another weapon but, finding nothing, decided to pursue her barehanded. He had only a couple minutes of strength left, and he had to make them count.

He ran through the burning maze, looking for her crash site, which took only a moment because the impact she'd left behind was massive. Heisenburgle might have dug a small trench with his tiny armored body, but Skylara left an impact crater. If she'd hit the nearby palace instead of the garden, she probably would have leveled it just as easily.

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Even in a place like this, though, she'd left a minor hellscape. Twelve hours ago, these gardens had been beautiful. Every flowerbed had been weed-free, and every hedge had been trimmed within an inch of its life. Now, they were nothing but kindling and ashes. The lawn, too, looked like a jet had crashed there, which was basically what had happened.

A dragon had bombed the place like some kind of jet fighter, then crashed, ruining everything that she hadn't already burned down. Even the stunning nature of that destruction didn't slow him down, though. Lucas was on the clock, and he was going to turn into a pumpkin any minute.

Skylara might have been in rough shape, but when she saw him, she still raised her head and opened her mouth to kindle one last gout of flame. Lucas still had his cloak, but even so, he didn't hesitate. He might not have a weapon, but he had something for this. He through one of the Wyrmsbane Poison Fog Flasks in her mouth like a fastball, and just as her fire began to rise, the glass shattered, filling her giant maw with green, poisonous smoke.

That led to a coughing fit that allowed him to close the remaining gap without being burned to a crisp. "You insolent whelp!" she spat as she tried to avoid choking to death. "I never should have spared you because of my affection for you."

"Affection?" Lucas laughed as he surveyed the damage. "You let me keep breathing because I was your goddamn dealer. That junkie logic is as bad as Adin's."

Skylara was in bad shape. One of her wings was broken, and the sluggish movements of her body showed him just how quickly the poison was working. If he fled now, he'd surely live, and she'd probably die. He couldn't do that, though. Probably wasn't nearly good enough to pay for her many crimes. He needed a corpse.

"Do not compare me to a mortal! I'm not a junkie. I simply indulge in the delights the world has to offer!" she spat. "Why shouldn't I? I'm a queen and the immortal ruler of these lands!"

"Immortal, huh? Weird because one of us was always going to die tonight," Lucas answered, ignoring her boasts, "and I'm starting to think it's not going to be me."

"Why did I ever let you fuck me…" she gasped, wrestling with larger issues, in complete denial of her impending death.

The lance was broken and twisted beyond repair, so instead, Lucas walked around to her broken wing and retrieved his sword. As he went, he gave wide birth to her head, which didn't lash out at him. Her leg did, though. Fortunately, the effort was half-hearted at best. Her bulk had been a formidable weapon up until now, but at this point, she was too weak to defend herself.

"Bad news, bitch," he answered with a shake of head. "The only time I was ever inside of you was right now, with this lance. I don't fuck monsters."

"But… that night, in the palace…" she murmured in disbelief as he approached her giant head. She tried to lift it, but whether that was to talk or to strike, she was too weak even for that. The poison was obviously doing a number on her, but he wasn't about to let that stop him.

"What can I say? Some people are better at faking it than others," he told her. "And you, madam, do a shitty job of pretending to be anything but a piece of shit."

"How dare you," she growled, "You can't kill me. The Prince will—" but Lucas responded by stomping on her muzzle to shut her up before leaping forward and ramming nearly four feet of poisoned steel into her eye socket. He didn't know for sure if his sword was strong enough or long enough to reach her brain, but the way that she trembled and shuddered and then lay still showed him that it was.

"I don't give a fuck what the Prince does," Lucas spat as he twisted the blade and released it. "I don't give a crap how much this nation needs you or how powerful and rich you are. You tried to burn my girl to death, and now you're paying for it."

Lucas meant what he said. There were lots of good reasons to let the dragoness live; there were almost as many reasons to let her live as there were to kill her. She'd done a lot of bad things, but he didn't care about any of that. To him, this was entirely personal. If he was a hero, it was only to Danaria.

Still, even as he finished striking that blow, as the dragon grew still, he felt weaker. When the agility potion wore off a few seconds later, he started to shake, and before he walked free of the hedge maze, his endurance failed him, too, leaving him with nothing but exhaustion and pain. It was over, but he couldn't make himself feel happy about it. Not until he checked on the gnome, at least, and maybe not even then.