"Is- Is that really a dragon?!" One of the people in the bar asked out loud, but another one immediately tried to look at it more closely, "But how? It's metallic, but has red scales!" He exclaimed, and with a bit of a chuckle, Eisen ran his hand over Fafnir's snout.
"If you wish, you can come and take a closer look. Of course not for free, however." The old man pointed out, and with a chuckle from the other side of a room, seemingly coming from a Lizardfolk player, sounded out, "What's this, a petting zoo?" He asked, but Eisen just looked over toward him and shook his head immediately.
"No, no, of course not. And I don't wont money either, I just want a little bit of information, which I'm sure that at least one of you should be able to give me." Eisen explained to them as he took a closer step inside, although he obviously wasn't planning on sitting down and having a drink or anything like that.
After a few moments, the first of the Lizardfolk stood up and approached Eisen. He was rather tall and had a couple scars over his chest and face, and some of his scales were currently missing as if ripped out, "Well, what do you want to know about?" He asked with a grin, and Eisen looked at him with a soft smile himself.
"I would like to know where I can find the Ancient Steel Dragon Zortady." Eisen explained to them, although he was instantly met with a loud laugh.
"What, you seriously want to meet Zortady? Sorry, but he doesn't let just anyone approach him." A Lizardfolk sitting on a nearby table yelled out, and the one that stood right in front of Eisen continued explaining, seemingly just as amused by this old man's thoughts as the other Lizardfolk.
"Ancient Dragons give out trials, you know? But not all of them want to bother with interactions with others, so they just give trials to those that have already become other Dragons' Champions. And Zortady goes so far that he doesn't even let anyone meet him if they aren't a Champion already." This Lizardfolk explained, and with a bright smile, Eisen just looked back at him.
"Is that so? Good to know. Now please, tell me where he is. It seems like you all do actually know a little about him." Eisen pointed out, and while most of the people in this bar just kept laughing more and more, the one that stood in front of Eisen rather glared at him as if he was just personally insulted.
"Didn't you hear what I said? You have to be a champion already, so bugger off." He pointed out, and Eisen sighed deeply before placing his hand onto this Lizardfolk's shoulder with a firm grip. "I have a literal dragon with me, but you don't think I could be a champion?" Eisen asked with a light chuckle, "What kind of logic is that?"
To onlookers, it may have seemed like Eisen was just weirdly touchy and that's why he placed his hand onto the Lizardfolk's shoulder, but the Lizardfolk in question instantly knew what was actually going on.
With immense strength that came from this man that didn't even seem to break a sweat at using force that would take others years to even dream of, the Lizardfolk's whole body was being pushed down. It was as if his weight had increased manyfold. If the floor was made of wood instead of rock, it may have already splintered into a thousand pieces as well.
"F-Fine, I'll tell you! Just let go of me!" The Lizardfolk exclaimed slightly fearfully, and Eisen slowly released his grip and smiled at the man in front of him, "Is that so? Then thank you. Let us talk outside." The old man suggested, before immediately turning around and pushing Fafnir away from the entrance again.
And as the Lizardfolk followed Eisen outside, the others in here just seemed to be more than simply confused at what exactly just happened here.
Either way, once they were outside, Eisen already upheld his half of the deal and let the Lizardfolk get a closer look at Fafnir while they were making their way over toward an open area where they hopefully wouldn't be disturbing anyone else too much.
The Lizardfolk ran his hands over the scales of this young Dragon in front of him with a bright expression. "This is really amazing... I have never seen or heard of such a dragon before." The Lizardfolk explained, and Eisen just nodded his head.
"Of course not, he's a unique creation, after all." Eisen said, but before the Lizardfolk could even try to ask him about what he meant, the old man started asking his own questions.
"Now, I think you should be able to tell me where Zortady is, right?" Eisen asked, and with a light frown, the Lizardfolk nodded his head. "Outside of town, maybe twenty kilometers north. During the day, Zortady usually sleeps out in the open sun near a rather small oasis. But I do not know where he is during the night, sorry."
"Hmm... That's fine. Do you by chance know what Zortady's trial is about?" The old man inquired, and the Lizardfolk thought for a while before shaking his head, "I do not know exactly what it may be, although I have heard a few rumors. If they're enough for you, I can tell you about those."
"That should be enough, yes. I'm going to find out soon enough, anyway." Eisen pointed out. Since he really just wanted to get a rough idea of what skill or ability he would get from Zortady, everything was fine.
With a slow nod, the Lizardfolk swiftly started to explain what he heard, "One of the things that seem important to Zortady is to have things split, sorted. This does not apply to people, of course, but when it comes to different items I have heard that he is quite intense. If it is sorting by color, size, shape, he seems to do so a lot."
With a quite surprised expression, Eisen just stared at the Lizardfolk confusedly. Did that Dragon have OCD or something? "Anything else that might be useful to know?" The old man inquired, since he wasn't entirely sure if that could actually give him a proper hint toward what kind of skill he might get after passing the trial.
After a bit of thought, the Lizardfolk scratched his leathery chin and nodded his head, swiftly telling Eisen some more rumors about Zortady. Most of them seemed to be quite in tune with that 'OCD' assumption that Eisen had in mind, so he wasn't entirely sure what exactly the trial or the actual gift could be.
He had a few possible ideas in mind, but none of them seemed all that high-tier compared to the other dragons' gifts. Anyway, once Eisen got all the information that he could get from the Lizardfolk, he chose to make his way out toward the town's northern gate now.
Sure, it was just the beginning of the night and twenty kilometers were traversed incredibly quickly, but Eisen didn't want to waste any time by getting an Inn room or something like that if he could sleep inside of the dungeon just the same.
The old man rode Fafnir through the cold desert, trying to avoid any monsters as much as he could. There were a couple of ice-types that were running around here at night, actually, even if they were still a bit different to regular ice-type monsters. They were usually just large, lethargic, and still had a desert theme to them. It was just that they gave off incredibly cold air as they were walking around.
But with the help of Eisen's element and Fafnir's running-speed, the group managed to make their way through the desert at a high speed. It took a while for them to end up finding the oasis that the lizardfolk spoke of, but once Melissa sent out her bees to search for it for them, it really wasn't an issue anymore and they managed to pinpoint it within a few minutes.
The actual Oasis actually had a couple of tents currently set on it, most likely from travelers that didn't manage to make it all the way to town during the day. There were some campfires as well, with people laughing, drinking and speaking to each other, but Eisen really had no interest in that.
"Fafnir. Open the smallest gate." Eisen told the Dragon as he helped the three monster-children off of his back, and the red dragon quickly laid down on the ground under a tree. It was pretty hard to see it because his body was nearly perfectly hiding it, but at the same time, a wooden door appeared in front of Fafnir's body.
Eisen and the others stepped inside, immediately finding themselves in a 'private room' built into the walls of one of the forest floors, the one with the giant river in it. From inside the main space itself, you couldn't spot the room no matter how much you tried to, but like this, one of the walls was basically just a giant window that gave you an amazing view of the whole floor.
Inside of there were some beds and even a couch, basically a space that was made to let Eisen and the others properly relax in the dungeon if they needed to.
"You three can head to bed already, I have to think about some stuff for a little bit first." Eisen suggested as he looked at the three monster children in front of him. They seemed pretty tired, considering that they were on the move constantly for nearly a week now, so Eisen didn't want them to have to stay awake.
Eisen's fatigue still recovered perfectly just by sleeping a few hours in this world, so he didn't have to worry about that part of things too much.
Slowly, each of them made their way into their own bed and swiftly fell asleep, before Eisen sat down on one of the couches and leaned back on it. He was pretty mentally exhausted after the trip, even if nothing really happened this whole time.
But since exactly that was the case, and Eisen spent most of his time just aimlessly killing monsters and having their mana-crystals extracted, there was a lot of time to think and reflect on some things that happened so far.
A lot of the time, the thought of 'Do I really want to know' came up, but Eisen himself didn't even find a proper answer for that. He just sometimes felt that maybe it would be easier and in the end better if he just didn't know about it.
That was a thought he had a lot, sure, but he was so close to finding more and more information. He would soon be able to work on his level-up quest and hopefully rush through all the tasks that the puzzle-box gave him after he became level 300.
It was weird. He both did, and did not want to know.