Ch 119 -- Having a Little Confidence in His Disassembly Skills
We went down to the Guild's warehouse which was basically the same as the others I had been in, only much larger. Doran was the biggest city I'd visited in this country and it was a Dungeon City as well so it wasn't surprising that the Guild's monster disassembly area was larger too.
"So then, please take it out and put it here." Elland-san slapped the top of a large workbench in one corner of the warehouse. "After hearing from Rodolpho you had subjugated an Earth Dragon we immediately prepared all the facilities and equipment necessary for its disassembly and we were just waiting for your arrival. We will not waste a drop of blood as I'll personally disassemble it with the utmost care." Elland-san smiled self-deprecatingly. "I have a little confidence in my skills in that regard."
Wait, the Guild Master is going to disassemble the Earth Dragon with his own hands? He boasted he has a 'little confidence' of his abilities as a dismantler?
"Are you intending to dismantle it yourself, Elland-san?" I asked hesitantly. It didn't seem like the sort of thing a Guild Master should do. Disassembly was a craftsman's role, he had a Guild to run, surely that would take up all his time-
"Naturally! I'd never consider giving such a wonderful job to anyone else! Disassembling an Earth Dragon, who else but me could I allow to do it?"
Oh, it's like that is it? Rodolpho-san had said that Elland-san had a thing about Dragons but I didn't think it went quite as far as this, that he would usurp the task of disassembling a Dragon from the regular warehouse staff. Was the chance to do this sort of work really such a wonderful thing for him?
"The last time a Dragon was suppressed in this country was 238 years ago." Elland-san mused, a faraway expression in his eyes. "Back then I wanted to join the subjugation party but for various reasons I couldn't go with them. Afterwards I asked to assist with the dismantling, I asked again and again, but I couldn't get permission." He shrugged. "At that time I was a B ranked Adventurer. I worked hard and eventually rose to S rank but there were never any more Dragon suppressions. Age caught up with me, even long-lived Elves grow old so I retired and joined the Guild's staff. I always hoped that someday another Dragon would be suppressed and I'd be able to dismantle it at least. I've been Guild Master here for 32 years, waiting, hoping, and now..."
Ah, Elland-san? You're telling me things about yourself I didn't really want to know. Rodolpho-san said you weren't a bad person as such but well, what you just said sounds just a bit, ummm, crazy? I decided to interrupt him before he went any further so I took the Earth Dragon from my Item Box and put it on the workbench.
"Here it is Elland-san." I staggered back as the Guild Master pushed brusquely past me.
"Oh, Oooooooooooooooooooooh !!!" Please calm down, Elland-san, I thought as I watched him stare lovingly at the not-very-pretty corpse of the Dragon laid out on the bench before him.
"Th- this is an Earth Dragon!" Well, yes, that's what Fer said it was. "Oh, oh, becoming the Guild Master here in Doran was the best decision I ever made! The Dragon of my dreams, now within my reach... and the pleasure of disassembling it to come... It's a dream come true." His words scared me a little. 'Single-minded', that's the word Rodolpho-san used to describe his old Adventurer colleague back in Claire. I was tending towards 'demented' or 'hysterical' myself now having some first-hand experience of Elland-san.
At a loss for words, I requested disassembly of the Earth Dragon. "Oh, and can we get all the materials back afterwards?" Elland-san's reaction to seeing the Dragon made me suspect he might, ahem, pilfer some choice parts if he was doing the disassembly himself.
"Well it's a pity." Elland-san recovered enough to think about what I had asked and the Guild Master of Doran came to the fore again. "In truth the Guild doesn't have the budget to buy in all the materials from this Dragon anyway. It's a real shame." He looked at me perceptively and smiled.
"You were thinking I might steal some of the materials during disassembly?" He laughed. "Don't worry about that. If something like that were to happen and it became known the reputation of the Adventurers Guild would plummet. Not just that, I'd be sold into slavery or even executed in an unpleasant manner, and I value my life quite a lot." He shrugged. "Now that Mukouda-san is here in Doran it's entirely possible another Dragon will require disassembly soon. It would be a shame to lose that future opportunity by any foolish actions now."
Is that so? It sounded like he was more worried about being caught than anything. I settled for that but Elland-san continued.
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"No, wait. Even if we can't buy in all of the Earth Dragon, maybe some parts..." he thought for a moment. "If you agree maybe we can buy some of the Dragon's materials from you?" He really wanted a complete Dragon but he'd settle for some bits of one. If he agreed to pay us for some parts we didn't want or need then maybe he'd stay honest when temptation struck later as he disassembled the monster.
"Yes, that's OK." I said. "So what parts do you want? We want to keep all the meat but the rest of the materials we can negotiate for." I had to keep all the meat otherwise Fer would get angry. He was certain that Dragon meat was the tastiest meat ever. I was intrigued, I had tasted Orc General, Bloody Horn Bull and even Wyvern meat since I had arrived in this world. Could Dragon really be so much better than those high-quality meats?
"We definitely want the blood," Elland-san mused, "and the fangs too. I'd like to buy the innards but... Hummm, we can't afford everything so I'll have to choose. The meat is too expensive for sure so of course I'll return that to you. Please let me think about this a little more, Mukouda-san."
"That's fine." I agreed. "Once we come back after the dismantling is done we can decide together what parts the Guild wants to buy from us. We want all the meat since Fer says is's really delicious and he'd get mad at me if we didn't keep it."
"...Earth Dragon meat is delicious? You've eaten Dragon meat before?" Elland-san exclaimed.
"Well, yeah, I've been told by Fer that it tastes really good." As I said that Elland-san rushed round from the other side of the workbench and grasped my hand.
"Please, I beg you, please let me eat Dragon meat. I will pay, I will pay you anything you ask, every coin I possess, I'll sell everything I have, please let me eat some of that meat." he begged, tears in his eyes as I tried unsuccessfully to disengage my hand from his strong grip. E- Elland-san, are you really so desperate to eat Dragon you would sell everything you own? Please don't say that.
"Well, yes, I understand, please calm down." I pleaded.
Misunderstanding what I had said Elland-san said "Thank you very much, thank you very much" over and over again. I finally extracted my hand from his grip and shook it to restore the circulation. He had said he was an S rank Adventurer before he retired, I could well believe that.
"Ha, Dragon meat..." Elland-san said ecstatically, his hand stroking the Earth Dragon on the workbench beside him. When he started rubbing his cheek against its scaly skin I had to look away. This Elf-san is truly terrifying, Rodolpho-san. Your warning was not enough.
Fer, who had been pretending to be asleep as usual looked up at the tall Elf figure bussing the Earth Dragon and asked "Is that guy all right?" I didn't know what to tell him. Dora-chan added "Are all the people in this city like him?" I tried to assure them that Elland-san was a special case but I don't think I was very convincing.
"So, how long will it take you to disassemble it?" I asked, hoping he'd stop doing what he was doing. Elland-san stood upright again, blinking as his Guild Master persona took over again. He left one hand resting on the Dragon's skin though, I noticed.
"Well, let me think, umm, I want to be very careful and be sure I investigate every part thoroughly so I'd want 3 days to finish it properly." The way he said "investigate every part thoroughly" worried me somewhat. Anyway, it would be three days, apparently.
"Then I'll come back in three days. Oh, that's right, are there any subjugation requests for us to undertake in this city?"
"Ah, no. We're fine here. Remember this is a Dungeon City so we have plenty of Adventurers around." High-ranking Adventurers would tend to congregate around a dungeon so the local area's needs in that respect would be well-catered for.
Elland-san's eyes strayed back to the Earth Dragon on the workbench and I decided it was time to go find an inn to stay at for the duration of our visit to Doran. When I asked the distracted Guild master about lodgings he immediately offered to put us all up at his own home but I declined as politely as I could. It had been nerve-wracking enough just being with him for a few hours, a whole day or longer... brrr. He was actually a nice guy as long as he wasn't thinking about Dragons which was most of the time so I said we'd find a suitable inn that had accommodations for contracted monsters.
Elland-san recommended the "Labyrinth City Inn" where guests could stay with contracted monsters and told me that as a thank-you for bringing the Dragon to Doran's Guild for dismantling they'd cover our accommodation fee. He gave directions to the inn and when prompted by Fer I asked for the location of the dungeon entrance too. It seemed that Fer wanted to go there tomorrow and I was too tired to argue so I listened carefully to Elland-san's instructions before we said good-bye and left the Guild building.