Time to Leave the Heavy Lifting to Others

The billhook he handed me was far too heavy to hold.

It was all I could do to keep it from hitting the ground.

"Master, let me take it."

Azu grabbed it from the side and lifted it up. She swung it a few times, testing its feel.

"Ah, it's a little heavy."

"I see…"

"Well then, I'll get to it."

As expected of her.

I put an apron on her to keep her clothes from getting dirty.

After that, Azu took the billhook over to the Wyvern and started butchering it according to Alhechhi's instructions.

"I am a woman of the cloth, so I cannot handle blades."

"Then make yourself useful some other way."

Elza said that and refrained from the butchering itself, sticking to assisting instead.

I tried stabbing a knife into the Wyvern's hide myself, but only ended up chipping the blade.

Like Elza, I settled for helping with hauling and other tasks.

Alexia joined the butchering with her battle-axe.

As the work progressed, blood splattered everywhere, melting the snow.

Apparently the blood had its uses too, but the sheer volume made it impossible to store, so they were discarding it.

Could an alchemist have put it to good use, I wondered.

I decided to have a small amount bottled for us.

Alhechhi's butchering speed was staggering.

Faster than Azu and Alexia combined.

The enormous Wyvern was losing its original shape before our eyes.

The thick scent of blood drifted away on the cold wind.

I examined the Wyvern's organs. Other than sheer size, they weren't all that different from other animals or monsters.

There was, however, one organ that other monsters didn't have.

The oil sac. A reservoir that stores the oil a Wyvern consumes when breathing fire.

True dragons apparently use magic for their breath, but Wyverns can't manage that.

The sac, carefully extracted under Alhechhi's direction, was a rare part, only one per creature, and apparently sold for a very high price.

I'd dropped the formalities at some point during the butchering.

He didn't seem to mind.

"I get that it's valuable, but what's it used for?"

"Several things, but armor first and foremost. Since it has to withstand its own fire, it's extremely fireproof. Beyond that, it can be used to store things that normal containers can't preserve."

"Ah, I see. That would sell."

Among the items obtainable from monsters and labyrinths, there were plenty that were difficult to preserve.

The Silver Peach I'd sent Azu and the others to fetch was one such example.

We'd managed that one by processing it immediately after harvesting, but the peach itself couldn't be preserved in its raw form.

I'd also heard of things like the Water of Life, which could cure illness just by drinking it.

Supposedly, it turned murky and undrinkable the moment you tried to draw it from the river.

If this sac could be made into an item capable of preserving such things, anyone who understood its value would pay a fortune for it without question.

There were plenty of ways to counter fire. Making it into a preservation pouch would be far more worthwhile, I thought.

That said, Alhechhi was the one who'd slain the Wyvern. It was his call what to do with it.

The hide was stripped, the meat sectioned, the organs sorted, and the butchering was done.

They cooled everything in the snow to slow decay.

Apparently Wyvern meat spoiled less readily than ordinary animal meat.

Alexia opened a hole in the ground and filled it with water using magic.

She used it to wash the blood off her battle-axe.

Azu also cleaned the borrowed billhook thoroughly.

"Having extra hands really does speed things up. It usually takes me a bit longer."

"Glad to hear it."

I removed my blood-stained leather gloves, had Alexia prepare water, and washed them along with my hands.

A slight stain remained. Oh well.

Alexia and Azu, meanwhile, had been drenched in blood during the butchering and looked rather gruesome.

"Come on, over here."

Elza performed a purification miracle on the two of them.

The bloodstains faded away.

"All clean now."

"Thank you. It was honestly pretty unpleasant."

"Mm-hm, you're welcome."

Elza puffed out her chest, even though she'd done little during the actual butchering.

A handy power. Maybe I should have asked her to use it on me.

"Hey. You've got blood on your own face, you know."

Alexia wiped the blood from Elza's cheek with her right thumb.

"Oh my, thank you."

"No hugs, please."

Elza tried to latch onto Alexia, but Alexia held her off with a hand to the head.

What were those two even doing.

With this much blood scent and meat laid out, you'd expect beasts and monsters to come sniffing around, yet there wasn't the slightest trace of any.

That was how terrifying this Dragonslayer was.

I wished I could have seen him fight.

"So how are we transporting all this? Surely it's too much to carry."

"No need to worry about that."

Alhechhi whistled, and I felt a vibration. Something was charging toward us. It crashed through the trees, and what appeared was a Dragon known as a Land Dragon.

Like the Wyvern, it wasn't a true Dragon, but a subspecies.

Land Dragons possessed endurance far superior to horses or mules, and the raw power to smash through obstacles. They could traverse any terrain with ease.

Far stronger than humans, Land Dragons couldn't be domesticated or made to obey.

Yet here was this man, casually stroking one on the head.

"Strap everything onto its back for now. Night's coming. I'll take you to my place."

As instructed, we wrapped the cooled Wyvern meat in leather bags and strapped them securely to the Land Dragon so nothing would fall.

Once everything was loaded, Alhechhi pointed down the path the Land Dragon had carved.

"Follow this path and you'll get there. I'm going on ahead."

He straddled the Land Dragon's neck, and the beast let out a roar before heading back the way it came.

"Might as well follow him… Haven't gotten our share yet, either."

As he'd said, night was nearly upon us.

The last thing I wanted was to camp out here, in this biting cold of all places.

I loaded Azu and the others onto the cart, and we set the mules running after Alhechhi.

The Land Dragon's trail had become a wide beast path, and the mules had no trouble navigating it.

Simply plowing through the brush wouldn't have made it this easy to travel.

Perhaps it was an innate ability of the Land Dragon.

The Land Dragon was ponderous in appearance, but its sheer size meant it was still faster than our mule-drawn cart.

Being chased by one of those would be quite terrifying, I imagined.