428 The Mysterious Watcher
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And like that, we spent several hours in the market buying a lot of stuff we found interesting just because. It was nice to explore new places and do shopping without worries. I ended buying a few items I found interesting and which the dwarfs' shops didn't had, such as Spirit Stones. These were rather expensive stones imbued with elemental magic power.
They can be occasionally mined from the mountains, usually in areas with a lot of Magic Essence, I only bought a few to inspect them, as I plan to buy them from other sources or to mine them myself. We secured most of the things we really needed though, such as big pieces of metal, nails, glass, and I also purchased two furnaces which I stored inside my Inventory.
After that, we went into a foody trip and we began eating anything we found in the food stalls. I had regretted not bringing the twins with me in this small trip, as they would had been happy to eat all this food themselves. Ultimately, we ended getting back to Aquamarine's home to bring them with us to the mining.
I had also sold the rest of the potions to Merchant who gave me the highest price, all the potions were sold after just a day of getting here, it was clear they were in high demand. The merchant also told me that he didn't had any materials to make potions as they were not that common around here, but if I brought him the potions another time, he would buy them with an extra +10% bonus.
With that said, we picked up the kids and quickly flew into the mountains, leaving the old men and the old hag in the big house. Darfu wasn't a good miner apparently, and although Baldur and Balladur wanted to come, they were not allowed by Aquamarine because they were, once again, too old for this kind of work, apparently.
As we flew towards the mountain on top of the dragoons, Lucifer seemed a bit down.
"We couldn't find any substantial clues at all." He sighed.
"Yeah…"
We had looked around almost everywhere we could, there were only rumors about a Dragon Crypt in the depths of the mountain, but that was also connected to the dangerous dungeon we were avoiding for now, but that we might go explore in the upcoming days anyways. Some people said they saw dragon monsters in there in large quantities. But there was also another rumor, perhaps the only one we found could bring some substantial clues.
"But this thing about the Dragon Woman… is this real?" Wondered Emeraldine.
"Maybe it could be a survivor of your tribe, Lucifer! She might had transformed into a humanoid form." Said Partner.
"Certainly, that's a possibility, Polymorph is a Skill we learn when we reach adulthood so we can meddle more easily with smaller tribes…" Sighed Lucifer. "But we don't know anything about her."
"Well, a few things did we know." I said. "They said that she had sharp red eyes and horns, and a tail… She appears sporadically, as if she can meddle with darkness. Some had seen a girl like that wander around, but because there are so many races, they might confuse her for someone else entirely."
"Aquamarine, do you know something?" I wondered. "You've been keeping yourself pretty silent about this." I spoke to Aquamarine through my Phantom Familiar I left with her.
"Well… This is classified information so I cannot share it with anybody, but there's literally an Ancient Dragon with you guys." Sighed the woman. "This woman is indeed real, but she's very elusive. I had once met her, she had a very calm and soothing voice, and she said she was a "watcher". Apparently, her tribe lived here long ago but was slain by humans, ultimately, she remained as the last survivor, watching over as everything changed. Some said that there was a dragon with our founder, his first friend and the protector of our nation… I had thought many times that this mysterious woman might had been that dragon, but ever since then, several years ago, I had not seen her before. Also, my Appraisal doesn't work on her, she has some sort of power that cancels inspection-based skills effects."
"I see…" I said. "A watcher… We'll have to look for her some more later. Maybe if she learns that there's another Ancient Dragon here, she might willingly come to our side."
"Hmmm… Someone that can cancel the effects of Inspection-based Skills?" Wondered Lucifer. "Ugh… I think I remember somebody like this but… my mind is in shambles. My memories, as I told you before, had been dissipating over time before I was revived by you, so I am missing various ones. But at the very least, this person might be a dragon I knew."
"Oh! Then this trip might not have been as wasteful!" I said. "Maybe she's your wife? Would be nice if she survived… T-Though it would be weird to share you…"
"You're always worried about that, huh?" Sighed Lucifer. "I don't really know what I would do in such a situation either, so please don't ask me anymore. We'll see if that is even a possibility."
"I get it, sorry… I just hope it is someone close to you, meeting another Ancient Dragon would be super nice." I sighed with a smile.
"I suppose you're right." Lucifer said. "A family member would be great… We could invite her to our town and give her a better life, perhaps…"
"Hm!" Partner said. "Having a dragon buddy that is not a grumpy old man like you would be nice."
"Who are you calling grumpy old man?!" Lucifer roared angrily, as Partner began to laugh at his reaction.
"Come on you two, stop this… Especially Partner, don't say that while we are talking something serious!" I reprimanded my cute girlfriend.
"Geez…" She sighed. "I am just trying to lift up the mood. Okay, sorry." She said.
"Hmph…" Lucifer said while averting his gaze from us defiantly and angrily. He's really grumpy.
"Well, whoever that person was, we'll find her eventually." I said, nodding in confidence.
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