Chp.26: Behave like humans

The six adventurers left the guild and began strolling along the road. It was very busy, since the guild was obviously on a main road, but the people were too busy with their business to listen to what they said, and besides they knew how to talk inconspicuously. "Horzales? Is that really your last name?" Rhaegal asked Efren.

"It was our master's surname" Efren replied. "My real surname is another one, but I decided to change it years ago since Nogg has been like a father to me"

"Uh, I understand. Did you change it too?" Rhaegal asked again looking at Sarah and Carlos.

"Mind your own business" the woman grumbled. "Besides, you have little to judge. 'Neytirison'? Seriously?"

"It was our mother's name" Serengal explained. "Neytiri, I mean. Since we don't technically have a last name, we decided to use it"

"You should have used your father's one" Carlos said. "Generally in human society it is the father who gives the surname to the son"

"Of course. As soon as you find out his name, give us a shout" Corgorin grumbled, rolling her eyes in annoyance. "All we know about him was that he was an asshole who tried to eat Rhaegal, Darbi and Haku. We didn't bother asking his name as we killed him"

Despite the hatred they felt for the three dragons, Efren, Carlos and Sarah couldn't help but widen their eyes and stare at Rhaegal astonished. "Really? Did your father try to eat you?" Carlos asked him.

"It's a bad story, I don't want to talk about it" Rhaegal said curtly. "Let's focus on the mission instead. We're here to gather information, remember?"

After Maldor had managed to create a stable mental connection with the corpses, the dragons had begun to set their plan. Since what they had were only the corpses of ogres and fairies, and very often the signs of death were evident, they had used the rune of invisibility to create illusions to make people think they were human bodies. All you had to do was carry a few bottles of dragon blood and pour a few drops on the rune every few hours (if they had used the blood of an adult dragon they could probably make it last for weeks, but after discovering how powerful it was they didn't want to waste even a drop, so they had cleverly decided to use their own blood; after all, unlike their parents' bodies, theirs continually regenerated.) By doing so the dragons had been able to create perfect avatars with which they could easily move among humans without risking being discovered. The avatar Rhaegal was using, for example, was actually the body of an ogre warrior, while his sisters were instead using two bodies of female ogres (some of the ones they killed when they stormed their city), but at the eyes of humans they looked the same as them.

Having solved the problem of how to move among humans, however, the fact remained that they knew nothing of how humans normally behaved. Human culture was a mystery to them, indeed the culture of almost every newcomer was. What little information they had was from Ethan's journal that Sarpa had given them, but otherwise they knew nothing. And if they behaved in a clearly suspicious way, even using avatars, the humans would know that something was wrong. While the dragons didn't care much about being discovered, since even if the avatar was destroyed there would be no consequences for their real bodies, this would also preclude them from acquiring information on Haku's whereabouts and how free him.

Luckily, though, they had Efren, Carlos, Martha, Lisah and Sarah who could show them how to behave to really look human. Having one of them as a hostage, they had been forced to do as they asked. So they explained everything they knew about human culture: how to talk, how to eat, where to go when you needed something, where to sleep, even how to walk properly (seriously, walking on two legs was one of the craziest things dragons had ever done! It was a terribly inefficient system, preventing you from running or climbing quickly.) The dragons fortunately were good at learning quickly and as a result they had quickly assimilated all that information. During that time they had also become accustomed to the new senses when using the avatar, since sight, hearing, smell, touch and even taste were terribly limited in the newcomers' bodies. From the dragons' point of view, it was as if the world suddenly became muffled and lost almost all of its colors, sounds, and smells. It had taken them a long time to get used to using such limited senses.

And finally, they also had them explain how to use mana. They weren't able to do this in their real bodies, since they didn't have a domain yet, but their avatars didn't have this limitation. Of course, for this to work it was necessary that the avatar had a mana core and that the circulatory system was functional, but luckily many of the ogre corpses they had with them had not died of a stroke to the heart and it had taken very little to repair the damaged veins and arteries by stitching them up manually. The mana core of a dead body was not as efficient as that of a living body: if an ogre was alive for example at a level gold, despite the body having been frozen after months the amount of mana was reduced bringing it to the level silver. But luckily, the dragons knew a way to solve that problem: it was enough to make sure that the digestive system was also intact, and then drink dragon blood. Just as they did with Sarpa, they first drank their blood, thus advancing from the level silver to the level gold, which was already pretty good; and then, if they wanted to… they drank the blood of one of their parents and thus immediately reached the level adamantium. However, since it was illegal among humans to be a level adamantium without joining the military, Rhaegal, Corgorin, and Serengal had decided to stay at the level gold, the maximum allowed before having to enlist.

Having achieved total mana mastery and enough knowledge, the next step was to figure out where to start looking. They certainly couldn't go around asking: 'excuse me, have you seen a dragon around here?'. They had to get information in a more subtle way. Thanks to the explanations of their 'friends' adventurers, there were mainly three places to find information in the Jurao Kingdom: military offices, government offices, or guilds. Since these places had dozens of connections between the various cities, they knew everything that was happening in the realm in real time. Of course dragons couldn't turn to military or government offices, so the only solution was the guilds. There were various types, but obviously their choice fell on the guild their prisoners knew best... precisely the adventurer guild.

Becoming an adventurer would have been pretty easy, but if they were going to gather information very quickly then they would have to get everyone's attention quickly. And to do this, the best thing was a great entrance. If an adventurer suddenly arrived who was very strong right away, carried hundreds of extraordinary bounties, and accepted very difficult missions on his first day, clearly everyone in the guild would immediately take an interest in him, including the guildmaster. At that point it would have been enough to say the right words to find out something about Haku without anyone realizing that they were actively looking for him.

Therefore, the dragons had created three avatars that were sure to attract attention. They had then hunted dozens of game they knew were on the bounty list. Capturing them had been easy: thanks to Haku they knew how to kill a great basilisk, and in fact they had defeated two. On top of that they had also killed four basilisks (it was even easier since it was enough to literally scream to drive them crazy) and dozens of lions, bears, tigers and wolves. That loot would also have allowed them to solve their financial difficulties: in fact, among humans money was important, and without it it would have been impossible to disguise themselves well. Also, from what they understood, humans looked favorably upon people with lots of money. With all their prey they would get what they needed: from the bounty list they knew that a great basilisk was worth 2,000 gold coins (so a total of 4,000 since they had two) and a basilisk 1,000 gold coins (so other 4,000 since they had four), so these two animal alone would have earned them 8,000 gold coins. Added up with the other prey, it reached the over 9,000 gold coins that the receptionist had discovered she owed them.

Appearance also counted towards making a good entrance, so they had used the bone armor of the great basilisk to create their own armor: it hadn't been easy to cut those bones, but after a difficult combination of runes and magical items they had stolen from the fairies, as well as with the strength of a level adamantium avatar, they had managed to craft their armor. At that point, everything was ready. It had taken almost two months for them to prepare, but it was going to be worth it.

When it was time to leave, the dragons had decided that Efren, Carlos, Sarah, and Martha would go with them; that way, if a social situation arose that they weren't prepared for, the adventurers could step in and fix it for them. It was a risk, sure, but the dragons doubted that the adventurers would try to report them: after all, even if they revealed everything to the authorities, they would only destroy the avatars, not the dragons, who could easily kill Lisah and then go away for not be found. But Martha hadn't wanted to abandon her sister, and the dragons had therefore been happy to take a second hostage. So in the end only Efren, Carlos and Sarah had left, and Rhaegal, Corgorin and Serengal had gone with them: given that both were three, one of them would always have been next to one of the adventurers, immediately discovering any betrayal, and this would have discouraged any kind of rebellion on their part.

Technically the dragons would have preferred to kill them and carry out the mission alone, but they couldn't do it: in fact, the adventurers had gotten to know them during those two months and in the end they had asked the dragons to promise to keep their agreement. Despite initial remonstrances, the dragons had finally decided to accept, since there was still much that the five adventurers could teach them and they did not want to risk making them lose their mental faculties by torturing them. So they had promised, and consequently they should have kept that promise. So it might as well have been using the adventurers for something useful rather than keeping them captive for months to come.

And so they had come to that day. Everything had gone according to plan for the moment: they had already attracted a lot of attention and had a lot of money, so they were already on their way. "So what is the mission we have chosen to do?" Corgorin asked.

"Sister, we showed you the paper!" Serengal exclaimed impatiently.

"Yes, but I haven't read it! Come on, it was all an act! You know I don't like reading!"

"You mean you're almost illiterate..."

"It isn't true!"

"Oh, really? How do you spell 'esopolomatic'?"

"Why the fuck should I ever write such a word!? I'm not even sure if it exists! Did you invent it now?"

"Keep calm!" Rhaegal exclaimed. "We'll think about the mission later, now we have to find a place to spend the night. Remember, we have to behave like humans, so now we have to look for an inn". He looked at Efren: "What do you say, 'cousin'?"

Efren nodded. "I think that any person who has just arrived in the city would look for an inn. Even if it is still noon, if we arrive too late we may not find any free rooms"

"Maybe I know one!" Carlos said. "I came to this city some time ago. I hope that place is still there, it was beautiful!"

Carlos led the group in front of a large building with a 'Golden chicken' sign printed in large letters above the door and a chicken symbol next to it. When they entered they found themselves in what looked like a tavern, full of tables where to eat and with a strong perfume coming from the kitchens. Along the walls there were some stairs that probably led to the rooms. They were greeted by a middle aged lady who was cleaning one of the tables. "Hello, how can I help you?"

"We want a place to sleep" Rhaegal replied. "We would like to stay here"

"We have many free rooms. However, I must warn you that no room can accommodate more than two people" the lady replied.

Rhaegal glared at Carlos: he surely knew it since he'd been there before. Staying there would have created a problem: each of them had to always stay next to one of the three humans to keep an eye on him. Rhaegal had hoped to be able to stay in a six-person room, but this place only had rooms for two. Which meant they would have to split into groups of two. But in doing so, one of the boys would have to share a room with one of the girls, and from what Rhaegal knew among humans it was considered unseemly for a man and a woman to sleep in the same bed without having a strong bond. Consequently going against this tradition would have created suspicions and attracted rumors which would have made their search more difficult. If instead he agreed to behave according to human customs, he would have had to rent a fourth room and either Efren or Carlos would have slept alone, without his being able to control them.

He was already thinking about how to politely apologize to the lady and find a plausible excuse, but Corgorin suddenly grabbed Carlos' arm and hugged him: "No problem! My boyfriend and I just wanted to share a room! Right, honey?"

Carlos almost spat saliva at that proposal, but before he could say anything Corgorin squeezed his arm so hard that she almost stopped the circulation. Carlos understood that it was better to play along. "Of course! I couldn't spend even a second away from... this magnificent flower!"

"Oh, forgive me! I didn't realize you were engaged! Congrats boy, you've found quite a wonderful woman!" the lady exclaimed. "Each of the rooms gets a silver coin every night. Breakfast and dinner are included in the price"

"We take three rooms for ten days" Rhaegal said, handing the lady a gold coin. According to the Jurao Kingdom's economic system, one gold coin was worth thirty silver coins, so it was enough to pay for ten days.

The lady took the money and promised them that the rooms would be ready by that evening. The group left the inn and as soon as they were outside Rhaegal put a hand on Carlos's shoulder and squeezed it. "Did you know it?"

"I assure you I didn't remember!" the man exclaimed, turning pale. "And I won't do anything with your sister, I promise!"

"Oh, and why not?" Corgorin asked clinging to him and looking at him with a winking smile. "Did you hear that lady, I'm a wonderful woman... you don't mind being my boyfriend, right, my dear?"

If a woman had rubbed against him like that Carlos normally wouldn't have had any complaints, but since he knew that what he was looking at was actually a corpse controlled by a psychopathic dragon he couldn't help but shudder. "But... you don't say anything!?" he yelled at Efren and Sarah.

In response, the two looked away, as if they didn't know him. "Sorry Carlos, but you brought it on yourself" Sarah said with no emotion in her voice.

"Hear that? Everyone approves! So? Shall we make tonight our first night as a couple?" Corgorin asked winking even more. Carlos almost fainted at that prospect, and Corgorin burst out laughing: "Pfff! Alright, we'll think about it tonight. Now let's go and fulfill our mission!"

As they walked Serengal approached Corgorin: "Sister, do you really want to do something with that guy? He doesn't even have horns... and personally I don't even know how human mating works"

"Me neither. Come on, do you really think that's my type? Look how ugly he is! No scales, no tail, no horns! He's awful!" Corgorin answered with a grin. "I just want to have some fun. It's his fault he's in this situation, so why not tease him a little?"