I glanced at the battle against hornets—close to finishing, still nothing to worry about—then back at the dragon and bit my lip.
The dragon was hesitating.
With a corner of my eye, I saw Hammerwork land on a branch near me. Like me, she was intently watching the dragon. I let her—her desire to see the plan work out was as palpable as mine.
The dragon glanced left and right, made a few jumpy (and surprisingly light for its size) steps toward the bait, stretched out its neck to look at it closer, tilted its head left and right.
A few seconds later, it hopped into the air, flapping its wings several times and raising small clouds of dust and leaves in the air. Then it landed near the bait, close enough to reach for it.
I leaned forward so far that I almost fell off my porch.
This was the closest a dragon ever got to me! Usually, the distance between us was much safer, and much less exciting.
Now, for the first time ever, the system loaded a status screen over the dragon’s head. In scale, thankfully—otherwise, I’d still have to get closer to read it.
〔Crow〕
〔Health〕: 35 / 35
〔Stamina〕: 30 / 30
〔Species〕: Mountain Jungle Crow
〔Age〕: 1859 d
〔Remaining lifespan〕: 5806 d
〔Attributes〕
> Strength: 18
> Agility: 62
> Endurance: 29
> Defense: 21
> Intelligence: 56
> Perception: 81
〔Special abilities〕
Flight III, Sound Mimicry, Fast Learner I, Pack Tactics, Claws II, Sharp Teeth II
〔〕〔〕〔〕
’W-what? A *crow*?!’
My disappointment was immeasurable, and my day was ruined.
How can something as cool as a dragon be just a *crow*?! I refused to believe it!
And on second thought, it didn’t even have a beak. Instead, it had the ’Sharp Teeth’ ability. Thus, it was *definitely* a dragon and not at all a crow!
’Nectus, shouldn’t you be more worried about its intelligence stat?’ a more reasonable part of me reminded.
Recently, it used Ambrosia’s voice instead of mine.
And it was right—I should’ve worried.
The dragon—*NOT* a crow!—made several short hops around the bait (in a very crow-like manner, despite its massive size), then finally reached out for it.
I grinned, relieved.
"It’s working out! My plan!"
The bait, of course, was made to hurt. Originally, I thought to lace it with a shitton of poison. However, I changed my mind, because this much poison was too easy to sniff out. Besides, I expected predators that swallow bees whole to have at least a *bit* of venom resistance.
So instead I made Craftsmen Bees get a bunch of sharp rocks, which were left plentifully from all the stone crafting, and hide them inside the meat.
I heard that some birds and lizards swallowed rocks to help digestion, but I was sure that even those would get the opposite of digestion from swallowing a bunch of sharp rocks.
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And even if the dragon chewed its food, it would hurt its mouth. This would surely convince it to go home and nurse itself to health instead of attacking!
However…
"What is he doing?" Hammerwork asked. "That’s not *eating*! Hey, big black bastard, we didn’t bring you food so you could *play* with it!"
I shooed her furiously.
"Quiet, Hammerwork! Thank God we are too far to be heard…"
But the dragon’s actions puzzled me, too.
Standing on the ground on one foot and its tail, the dragon lifted a pig-sized piece of caterpillar meat and shook it.
Then it began tearing off pieces of meat, only to drop half of them. It ate some, only to move to another piece of meat instead of finishing the first one.
Each time the dragon swallowed something, it was a small piece torn off with its claws.
After a few minutes of watching this strange feeding procedure, I realized what the dragon was doing.
"It picks out stone shards from the food! That dragon is smart enough to notice and *not* eat them!"
"What? But, Father, this means that we—what? Just fed it?" Hammerwork gasped. "So those flying hunters eat my sisters first, and now they eat our *food*, too?! And we *gave* it to it? Father, we must stop it! Give the order to attack, please! This hunter is small—we can kill it!"
Although they didn’t say a word, I felt the righteous anger of my bodyguards at this as well.
I grimaced.
"I doubt we could even catch up with this beast if it decided to flee. And it *will* flee. Just… just bear with me."
I kept staring at the dragon, feeling like my face was souring with each little piece of meat the beast ate, stone-free.
’Well… Dragons are majestic, powerful and *wise* beasts… And it can still fly away when it gets its fill!’
With the speed the dragon was picking out food, it took a while. So long, in fact, that the fight with the hornets has fully ended.
Proving that they didn’t need my direction, the bees recovered their lost bolas and tended to the wounded, while hornets angrily buzzed from inside their nest.
"Father," Bloodimina landed on the branch opposite of Hammerwork’s. "The battle was a glorious victory! We’ve lost a couple hundreds soldiers to the hornets by the first estimate, and more are wounded, but this is nothing to our numbers. Which are yet to be re-counted. The Warriors are tired, but their spirits are high and everybody is eager to keep fighting if we need to. You want us to fight this hunter beast you are watching?"
As if it heard our conversation, the dragon suddenly took off, carrying one last piece of meat with it and leaving behind only scattered remains of the bait. Several insects immediately lunged at them, and I knew the food would soon disappear.
"Or we can immediately start setting up the siege cordon, Father."
I threw one last glare at the dragon, hoping fervently that it wouldn’t return, and turned to Bloodimina.
"Yes. Get rid of the hornet corpses and start the siege! And let’s hope another dragon won’t interrupt us."
But inwardly, I knew already…
Now that the dragon knew where it found food once, it *will* return. I had to prepare better.