A Gamer's Guide 215 (Patreon)

I help Fr. Moonlight bring out the skinned creatures for the feast. Alongside my and Goss’ pile of forty rats, there’s also a small boar, a dog, an unskinned gobling, two drakes, a green rabbit, and a pair of worms. All and all, there are nine pieces of meat and forty rats, with the rats making up a solid fifth of the total mass presented. It is certainly a pride-inducing sight.

Since there’s actually a table for these to go onto—a large and round but squat one fit for ten house-sized dragons to sit side-by-side around—I and Goss place everything where it should go. We might have gotten a little overexcited, though, spending a few minutes too many arranging everything into a fancy pattern. However, by the time the other whelps arrive, it’s proven to be more than worth it.

Of the seventy-eight denizens of Loathe Summit, four of them are whelps. I know this because Goss was very helpful in explaining it to me. Whelps are smaller than normal dragons, still haven’t lost the dune, and have yet to fully come into their own colors and patterns. After five years, they have a coming-of-age rite where they decide which type they are and whether or not they want to remain at Loathe Summit. Most remain, some leave. Not that they can’t leave earlier than that, of course, it’s just seen as leaving the nest too early.

The other whelps in question number only three, of which two are older than Goss and one is younger. They arrive by this same order, with the two older ones arriving together and the youngest slipping inside almost five minutes after we were originally supposed to start.

And now, everyone’s sitting around the table, most people staring at me, and me staring at Fr. Moonlight, who has joined us for some reason.

“Oh Goddess of Beasts,” Fr. Moonlight begins, making me twitch in surprise. But before I can loudly ask what’s going on, I notice that all of the whelps—with greater or lesser reluctance—have laid their wings atop the table. Even though I don’t know what I’m doing, I replicate them using my one arm instead of wings. “We thank You for these creatures whose lives have been laid down for the sake of ourselves.”

There’s a pause, and I wonder if this is the part where we say ‘Amen,’ but then the dragon sitting on his right—the oldest one, introduced by Goss as ‘Kempt,’ starts talking, his blue wings rustling, “Oh God of Goblins, we thank You for this gobling, granted for our nourishment and benefit. Bring her into Your arms and let her heart be laid to rest.”

The word quickly moves to the one on his right, who is the second-oldest dragon and the same one Goss bumped into earlier, introduced by him as ‘Frey.’ Talking with routine calm, she continues the prayer, saying, “Oh Goddess of Dragons, watch over us, that these lives laid to rest may serve to strengthen us and make us stronger, so that we may one day become super big and strong.”

The dragon on her right is the youngest one, barely half of Goss’ size, and doesn't realize at first that it’s her turn. It takes Goss to elbow her in the side for her to start speaking, at which point she goes, “Oh, um, I, uh…” She gulps. I think Goss called her ‘Fink’ earlier, which feels suitable, for some reason. “G—God of, um… God of Fighting, please—”

“That’s not a real God,” Frey hisses at her with a sneer. “Do you mean the God of Duels, or the God of War, or the God of Combat, or the God of Hunting?”

Fink, who’s a pure, annoying WHITE, turns pink around the cheeks. “Um, I—I never really…”

“It’s okay,” Fr. Moonlight says from across the table. “You don’t have to. I can teach you more about the Gods later, okay?”

Seemingly holding back tears, Fink nods, unable to so much as speak.

Fr. Moonlight turns to Goss. “Would you continue, Goss?”

“Oh, yeah!” Goss says. “Oh God of…” He pauses, turning to me. “Is there a God of Humans or something?”

“Uh, well…” I recall a somewhat disheartening memory. “The god of our world is the god of love, if that’s who you’re looking for.” Ugh, it still feels kind of gross even just saying it.

“God of Love…” Goss says, his voice bearing a worrying amount of reverence. “—Right, okay! Oh God of Love, I thank you for letting there be humans. Very scaly. And I also thank you for letting me meet one. Extremely awesome.”

He stops talking. Now, nobody’s talking. I blink at him. The word has moved to me. A—ah. I gulp. “W—well, I, um…” Think, brain, think! There has to be something I can say! “Oh God of… of…” I bite my lip. You know what? To heck with it all. I might as well, right? If it’s expected of me, then there’s no reason not to. “Oh God of Pain, thank You for getting me this far. And the God of Cowardice, even though you’re a coward. And Want too, even though you’re crazy. And also Cruelty. You’re weird, but you gave me a skill, so… thanks.” I close my mouth. Now, I will talk no more. My piece is said. If you want to pry my lips open, you’ll have to get through my teeth too.

…Better bask in it, you divine douches, because I am not saying it again!

Fr. Moonlight’s simple smile pulls the wind out of my sails. “So say we all in praise of the God of Multitudes, aye.”

“”“Aye,””” the gathered dragons reply in unison, even Fink, which means that I have no other choice.

“A—aye,” I say.

There’s about a zero-point-two-second pause before Frey bodily throws herself across the table, jaws snapping at the small boar, only for Goss to leap atop the table, hissing and snarling like a wronged macaw while Fink silently tries to slide one of the rats closer using only her tail, the arrangement Goss and I worked so hard on being thrown into the air as the table turns into a gladiatorial arena.

“STOP IT!” Kempt shouts, his wings bared and his nostrils flaring. The gathered dragons all comically freeze in place, the boar half-torn between Goss and Frey. Everyone looks at him. He huffs angrily. “Can’t you even wait for Father to leave before acting like beasts?”

The younger whelps look away in shame, but Fr. Moonlight doesn’t seem to mind as he takes a step away from the table. “No, it’s nothing to worry about. I’ll leave you to it. I hope to see a few of you at mass,” he says. Then, he smiles, bows slightly and walks away. As I watch his back moving into a hallway, I can’t help but wonder why he doesn’t fly. Maybe it’s a matter of taste.

Even after Fr. Moonlight’s silhouette has faded down the hallway, the whelps don’t move. Kempt gives them a glare before finally sighing. “Alright. Get to it, alrea—”

Not waiting to hear him finish that word, the whelps return to their chaos, the boar stuck in a tug-o-war between Goss and Frey quickly torn in half, jaws snapping at the severed pieces of meat flying, their hands grabbing for whatever meat remains as they bat their wings at each other threateningly. In the surprisingly captivating cockfight, I’m able to use the moment to sneak away two rats and the gobling. Fink is only barely able to get hold of a single rat, while Kempt unhindered grabs one of the drakes. The rest of the meat is split between the furiously fighting Goss and Frey, who growl and fight like animals over not only the dog and drake, but also the rats, and even the two little worms.

I watch them in a kind of reverie, unsure whether they remind me more of a pair of dogs fighting or two siblings. Either way, I was able to get some grub, so I’m happy. I dig into my gobling, wondering why it hasn’t been skinned like the rest. Then again, despite saying that he was once a dragon, Fr. Moonlight doesn’t strike me as the type to enjoy looking at dead children, so it might once again be his personal preference.

After a minute or so, Goss and Frey finally stop fighting like a pair of alley-cats, settling down on either side of the table, popping rats like skittles and glaring daggers at each other. Meanwhile, the drake Kempt took has mysteriously ended up with Fink, who’s eating it with grateful care.

As I look at the whelps, Frey meets my gaze. She gives me a cautious look. “So you’re a human, huh?”

Goss almost leaps onto the table again. “Yeah, he is! And his name is Kitty!”

“I was asking him,” Frey says, rolling her eyes. “Show-off…” Eyes back on me, she looks between me, the knee in my hand, and the gobling from which I got the knee. “...Is it any good?”

I consider her words for a second, letting myself chew fully before I swallow. “Haven’t you ever had gobling?”

“O—of course I have!” she says, but her puffed-up, defensive feathers tell a different story. “I was just… I mean, that one was frozen when I found it, so I didn’t know if it’d thaw in time, and…”

“And even if it did,” Kempt says, “you didn’t know if anyone would have the guts to eat it.” Considering that he’s a dragon, I’m surprised to find so much venom in his words.

“It’s smaller than a dog, isn’t it?” Frey shoots back. “Besides, Goss would’ve eaten it. He’d eat anything.”

Despite what sounds like an insult, Goss straightens out pridefully.

Kempt, on the other hand, isn’t about to let her go for that. “Smaller than a dog, yes, but it’s still a goblin.”

“Yeah, so?” she says. “It climbed the mountain itself. Even if the country we made that pact with some thousands of years back still existed, it would still be fine.”

“It’s a child!”

“Yeah, and a goblin!”

Using my nails as saws, I pull off the gobling’s head and start chewing on the neck. The neck is kind of weird. Depending on the goblin’s lifestyle, it’s either the toughest or most tender part. In this case… “Mmm.” It’s good. While Frey and Kempt are snapping at each other about the ethics of child-eating, I turn to Goss. “So,” I say through a mouthful of meat, “you’re awfully quick to thank the gods, considering that you’re supposed to be a—”

“Fine!” Goss abruptly barks, splattering a bit of sinew from the drake he was eating. “Okay, sure, so I’m not a type seven.” Across the table, Frey and Kempt have quieted down. “What do you suppose I am, then? A type two? Type eight? You don’t even know what the types are! My coming-of-age rite is in less than two years and you expect me to retract my type now? It took me over a year to come to terms with being a type seven, and now you think I can just toss that aside, all because—”

“I think you’re a type four,” Frey says from across the table. Goss turns to her, face set in a snarl. She raises her brow at him. “What? It’s not my fault you’ve got your hate painted across your chest.”

“I do not hate other people! Not enough to be a type four, at least. I mean, come on! When I talked to Lutz, he told me that he seriously killed every single person in his city, methodically. One by one. He sealed the gates with fluid stone, and then he just… I am nowhere near that. All I did was—”

“Burn down your home village, yeah, we know,” Frey says. “Which is totally not exactly what Rew did.”

“Rew did it because he was jealous, not because—”

“I think you’re a type five.” The table turns to Kempt as one. Calm and collected, his icy blue eyes slide from Fink, to Frey, to Goss. “Like me.”

Goss bristles. His claws scrape against the table as he pulls them into a fist. “You think I’m a suicidalist? Like you and your buddy Ymir?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I think.”

“No. No. I did not kill my family and friends and everyone else because I hated myself. How does that make any sense? Nobody does something drastic enough to become a dragon because they despise themselves. Everyone knows that!” Goss exclaims with a lot of certainty for being a tween. His face twists into a sneer. “Everyone except for you and that dying skinnie, Ymir.”

Kempt’s wings flare out, his eyes widening in sheer anger. “How dare you—”

“Hey,” I say. Even though I didn’t speak loudly, my tone was enough to get them to quiet down. I wait for them to turn to me before I speak. “What’s so important about types?”