Chapter 31: Final Preparations

Mid Evening - Late Spring : Home

While waiting for mother to come back, father and I sat in complete silence.

-God this is so awkward..- The silence was simply deafening.

"Hey.. Vasilias." Father awkwardly glanced over at me. "Im.. sorry about earlier.."

Hearing his guilt filled apology, I looked over and saw Father wearing a look of defeat. "Mother is the one you should be apologizing to, not me."

He quickly lowered his gaze and stared at the ground.

-Did he seriously think saying sorry to me would do anything?- "For future reference though.." I gave him a serious look. "If you said sorry to a broken sword would it piece itself back together?"

Glancing back up at me, his face showed a bit of surprise.

"Haah.." I gave him a judgmental look as I took a deep breath. -Just what did Mother see in him to bear his kids..-

The silence quickly wrapped around us again, but thankfully not long after that, Mother returned.

-What is that?- Cresting over the treetops was Mother with a huge creature in her grasp. It was a giant bison, the biggest I had ever seen by a huge margin.

*Thud*

The bison shook the ground as Mother dropped it in front of me.

"Where did you even find this thing.." Although I didn't explore the forest too much over the past month and a half, at the very least I figured I knew what the largest creatures in the area were.

Mother gently landed next to me, brandishing her warm, motherly smile. "This guy was someone I found on the far edge of the forest a little while ago, I was saving him for a special occasion."

As I enjoyed the warm feeling I got from her smile, a heavenly scent reached my nose.

Looking back at the bison, my mouth slowly started to water.

Something I had come to realize recently was that the larger the bison, the better their meat. Their muscles would be much denser and since my jaws were so strong, the tougher meat gave a better texture. Instead of feeling like I was biting through pure fat, it felt like I was actually biting into a steak.

Desperately keeping myself from biting into it preemptively, I leaned back and looked back at Mother. "So how are we going to divide this?"

"Well, I was saving it just for you to have so.." she leaned down and nudged the bison towards me.

-I can really have all of this?- I looked back down at the bison with greedy eyes, but I quickly suppressed it. -It feels a bit wrong to have this all to myself..- "What are you guys going to eat?"

"Well there are some other bison that your father and I will have, so don't worry about us and enjoy the feast."

Mother quickly moved and carried two smaller bison from the cave entrance that I hadn't seen previously. -Where did those even come from?-

"Well, let's eat!" She gave a quick cheers before biting into her bison.

-Well..- My eyes slowly drifted back to my bison before slowly biting down into its tender flesh.

"Mm.." The taste was simply divine. Its texture wasn't chewy but was instead closer to a tender steak. -W..wow..-

My face was washed with satisfaction, I even closed my eyes to further savor the flavor of the bison.

Mother was watching me with a proud smile. "Is it to your satisfaction?"

Her voice quickly brought me back to reality. "Of course it is!" After giving a bit of thought, I leaned down and bit off a large chunk to give to Mother.

As I set it in front of her, she just stared at me, completely bewildered. "It's all yours sweetie. You don't need to share.." Selfishness and greed of a dragon was something to be expected, especially from young dragons, so me giving Mother meat shocked her.

"Well.. I'd feel bad if I monopolized this delicious meat from you, so.." For whatever reason, it felt a bit embarrassing to do.

Seeing my genuinity, she gave me a gentle smile. "Then, thank you sweetie." Not wasting any time, she leaned down and bit into the meat. "Mmmm, it is quite good.. if only we were in Bahamut though. I could've gotten some spices to make it truly incredible."

-Spices? Maybe this world's cuisine is a little more developed than I thought..- I only hoped that what she meant by spices was beyond just salt or pepper. -Although salt would indeed make this meat better..-

She quickly finished the chunk I gave her so I quickly leaned down to get her more, "Well to shift topics, how long is the flight going to be?" Although I didn't want to seem pushy, I really wanted to get to the city quickly. My thirst for adventure was swelling.

"Well, it's a little over 15,000 km to our west, so if we really book it.." Father took a moment to crunch the numbers. "It should take around 12 hours.."

-Oof.. that's quite the flight.. but I guess it is a really long ways..- "Is there anywhere we need to stop on the way?"

"No, but we can stop to take a breather if you need it."

"Would it be possible for me to carry you and Ilios so we could.. make a better pace?" I had the idea to use it as practice for speed control with my recently tuned thruster magic to get there far faster.

"I don't see anything wrong with that.. as long as you can control the flight and not fly us into a mountain." He wore a joking smile.

"Haah.. that was over a month ago, Father." Although a bad joke, I couldn't help but smile a bit.

"Haha, I know, I know. I was just poking fun."

Seeing Ilios walk up and bite into the bison, a question popped into my head. "So, will you just shrink like Ilios?"

"No, my temporary form is much stronger than my shrunken form at that size.."

-Ahh well.. I guess I just need to be extra careful then..- "Okay then. Let's plan for that."

After that, we continued to eat for a while and casually discussed things like directions on how to get there and a bit of magic theory.

It wasn't long before we had all finished eating. -My lord, that bison was heavenly..- "So when are we going to leave?"

"Well since you're the one flying, whenever you feel rested enough to make the flight.. as long as it's within a few days."

"In that case, I'd like to get there somewhat soon so let's-"

"Hold up Vasilias.." Mother quickly interrupted my plans. "You need to change your.. attire for your humanoid form first.." She spoke with an unusual urgency.

Her urgency stemmed from the fact that dragons in their humanoid form would always make and use clothes that looked luxurious, even for nobles, but not me. I wore grey sweatpants and a casual shirt in my humanoid form. -It's what's most comfortable..-

But comfort in clothes didn't seem to matter in this world since it was all about functionality or appearance. The examples Mother gave for what I should wear, although they looked quite good, they were very stiff and rather uncomfortable looking. -Could I just change around the materials to make them more comfy though?-

To test my idea, I picked the best looking one that looked like assassins creed clothing. It was white with purple accents which went well with my black hair and purple eyes. [1]

I wanted to wear black, but according to Mother, that made me look 'too much like an adventurer', so instead of arguing, I just went along with it. -It's not like it looks bad.. just a bit flashy for my taste.-

As I changed to my humanoid form and made the clothes on myself, I changed around the materials to mix in cotton and polyester. It simply made the entire outfit 1000x more comfortable. -The tight fit is quite nice but.. I should probably strengthen it if I can..-

To fix the issue of it ripping if I moved too quickly, I wove in thin, unnoticeable threads of titanium. -That should work..- "So is this everything I need before we go?"

"Ah! One last thing!" Mother quickly ran into the cave before returning with a tiny platinum coin in her hand. "This will be your allowance for the trip, so spend it wisely."

Although it was only a single coin, it was a platinum coin that was something worth around 100 gold. (around $1,000,000 USD)

I froze for a moment seeing the coin. -THIS IS MY SPENDING MONEY?! What am I going to do.. buy a mansion?!- It was a sum of money I could barely fathom, be it in my past life or this one.

-Well I guess dragons have a different sense of wealth after all..- I glanced towards the cave entrance and envisioned Mother's giant pile of coins and treasure. The pile was a conglomeration of gold, platinum and royal gold coins and countless treasures.

Even though it was part of my instinct as a dragon to desire a hoard of treasure, Mothers pile was incredibly intimidating. -How many billions of dollars would that even translate to..-

"Haah.." I glanced down at the small platinum coin laying in my palm. -Can I even call this being born with a gold spoon anymore?-

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[1] - Look up 'Assassin's Creed Brotherhood Ezio' for something similar, just white and purple instead of red, no hood and no shoulder plate. (A bit more formal looking as well)

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Currency System:

1 Royal Gold (Rose Gold) = 100 Platinum = $100,000,000 USD

1 Platinum = 100 Gold = $1,000,000 USD

1 Gold = 1000 Silver = $10,000 USD

1 Silver = 1000 Copper = $10 USD

1 Copper = 100 Tin = .01 USD

Chapter end