Dragon's Tale 61

“Without its tamer, the beast is going crazy,” explained Pico even as he took a step forward, standing in front of me, determined. “Run and find another place to hide. I’ll try to hold it off.” I looked at the old man, couldn’t help but respect his determination. He had raised his gladius, ready to go down swinging.

Pity that the skin of a Nemean lion was famously immune to mortal weapons.

What he was proposing was certain death, but once again, he was willing to take the risk of his loyalty to the gladiator school. How interesting, I thought, that what was essentially an entertainment organization galvanized the same level of loyalty as the army, maybe even more.

It was an impressive achievement.

I weighed the implication of staying to defend against the beast versus leaving and leaving Pico alone. Unlike him, however, mine wasn’t fueled by loyalty, no matter how much I was impressed by Pico’s actions. Ultimately, they were the people under the misconception that they owned me, with no problem of sending me to my death — like they thought that they had done against the Chimera — if the price was good enough.

No, my consideration was more selfish. Leaving was definitely an option, but not as safe as it looked at the first glance. Not only explaining my mysterious survival would be easy to explain to Antonius, but also there was a risk of the Nemean lion going wild and killing citizens.

If something like that happened, it wasn’t hard to imagine who would be blamed for the whole fiasco. The only survivor from the encounter, who was conveniently a slave.

No, staying to fight was the better option, even if that meant that I had to use my magic to kill the beast. I had no doubt that I could slip that over Pico, and worst, I could incapacitate him for a moment before doing so.

However, I had a better idea in mind, the kind that would punish the Bestiary School for daring to plot against me. I didn’t know whether they were all in it or Antony was acting on his own, but considering he was their heir, I didn’t care either way.

They dared to plot against me.

“What are you doing?” Pico said, looking at me. “You need to run!”

“Yeah, I’m not going to bet that I can run faster than a magical predator. I’ll take my chances directly.” I answered with a shrug, even as I threw my sword on the ground, ignoring Pico’s glance. Weapons were useless against the beast unless I drenched them in my magic, and in that case, I might as well shout my true profession.

No, I thought, even as the beast burst into the opening. Ultimately, I had half a dozen ways that I could kill the beast, some even including disguising myself as a mysterious sorcerer to support the army, but a question appeared in my mind. Was that the most efficient way?

After all, while I had some solid clues about Junia Patriarch House having the information I hoped, it was certainly not a guarantee, and infiltrating more houses was beneficial.

And for that, I needed more fame.

The kind that might be earned from a victory worthy of legends outside the arena.

“Just distract it for a moment,” I said to Pico. “Go stood next to the body of its master, and get its attention.”

It didn’t look like reasonable advice, earning a questioning look from Pico even after he offered to sacrifice his life uncontested. “Trust me,” I said. “It’ll be just like the Chimera.”

While he looked at me questioningly, however, I cast a little spell, making Antony’s bag float away from his body, in a location where Pico couldn’t see. Growing up as a bastard taught me never to lose an opportunity to increase my sources, and the bag of an arrogant heir certainly had some goodies that would make it worth it.

Pico nodded before going next to the body of its master, dipping his sword into the pool of blood. Smart tactic. Whether the beast was seeing the body of his master as an object of its anger or something to protect, Pico’s presence near it was clearly not to be appreciated by the lion.

It charged toward Pico, unaware of my presence, as I dashed toward it until it was too late. It tried to turn toward me, but before it could complete the turn, I grabbed its mane, dragging myself on top, my arms clenching tight around its throat.

The roar that the beast let out as it dashed toward the nearest tree was earth-shattering. From such a close distance, it would have knocked me out if it wasn’t for my magic protecting me. Still, that was a mistake, because I tightened my grip around its throat, trying to prevent it from breathing.

It felt like trying to hug a tree, hard and unyielding, but it achieved the objective. The lion tried to breathe back, only to realize it was much harder than it had assumed to suffocate a magical creature of its caliber.

Luckily, while the transformation my body was going through was an extremely inconvenient transformation that forced me to go undercover as a gladiator just so that I could identify it, it granted me with inhuman power to succeed in my objective.

A gladiator strong enough to suffocate a Nemean lion was suspicious, but not suspicious as a mysterious Sorcerer walking around to kill such a beast, and disappearing just as quick.

The Nemean lion didn’t appreciate being suffocated. It tried to slam itself against a tree. It might have even worked, but at that point, the beast’s desperate dash brought us away from the field of view of Pico. So, when it tried to use a tree to hit me, a shining magical shield was already in place, preventing its simplistic yet effective plan from succeeding.

I kept the shield in place until the beast realized that, in his crazed mind, that smashing me against the trees, again and again, was not the solution. There, I could have defeated the beast, allowing me to extract myself from the situation with the least fanfare.

But there lied the question. That whether I should just let it slide with the limited fanfare. The answer was no, not when the whole point was to get famous to get access to various patrician estates.

And what better way to do so than killing a crazed magical animal in the view of the city.

It wasn’t a perfect solution, not even close. Killing a beast belonging to the Bestiaries School would ruin their reputation, as it would imply that they had lost control of one of the magical beasts, one of the highly dangerous beasts that they famously owned.

Though, considering they already committed to killing me, it wasn’t exactly my biggest concern. Yes, the increased focus they would have on me, independent of their battle with the Dacian school, but that didn’t matter. After all, I needed the fame, and the higher my fame got, the bigger target I would become for the enemies of the school one way or another.

And if the enmity was inevitable, why shouldn’t evoke it under my terms.

I had to admit, riding a crazed magical lion, even when it was struggling to breathe, wasn’t the easiest thing I had ever done. My magical knowledge was extensive, but magic was too extensive for one person to master every aspect of it.

And beast taming was definitely not one of my strengths, leaving my strength as the only way to direct the beast to a more public location, where some people could watch my achievement. I pulled, the beast roared, launching the single most exhausting battle I had ever experienced. Not the most difficult, and certainly not the most dangerous, but certainly the most exhausting. Still, I stayed focused.

Seconds turned into minutes as the struggle stole most of my attention, so much that even the thinning forest was an afterthought. It was only the cries of the onlookers that reminded me of aim. I looked around, only to find myself near the walls of Rome, with a spectacle around me, cheers mixing with cries as people gathered.

Watching me defeat the famous Nemean lion, followed by cheers. Just to make my show even more incredible, I just suffocated the beast until it was unconscious rather than dead, adding laurels to my already legendary show.

I just hoped that I could wield the sword of the fame before it chopped me.