The First Legendary Beast Master

Lotus rolled her eyes, but the argument started within seconds.

“Now, I’m standing closest, so I’m next in line. Just accept defeat and walk away.” An Overlord Ranked Dwarf who had the {Master Blacksmith} tag under his name announced.

“Your brain’s as janky as your work if you think that you’re walking away with that bracer.” One of the other smiths declared.

*Thwack*

The sound of fist hitting face made it clear how the Dwarf felt about having the quality of his work questioned. But another smith immediately stepped up to the counter.

“As they’re busy, I’ll take that bracer off your hands. I’ve got materials to trade. Totem Ranked.” He offered.

“You greasy son of a Gnome, don’t you go sweet-talking the Demon while we’re still settling an insult.” The first Dwarf insisted.

“Your mother’s a Gnome, now beat it. I’m shopping.”

The situation in front of the shop turned to an all out brawl, so Karl settled into one of the swinging chairs and pulled Dana into his lap while they waited.

From the corner of the booth, a smiling young beastkin knocked on the wooden counter.

“I’ll take one of the cleaning rings if there are any left. It took me a bit to get my boss to agree to spend the money.” She requested.

Lotus took the gold and handed over the ring, then patted the girl’s ears.

The catgirl just shook her head and smiled. “I swear it’s physically painful for a Green Dragon Cleric not to touch the fluffy things.”

Lotus nodded. “Did you know that the Green Dragon God’s largest temple in the world is in a nation populated almost entirely by beastkin?”

The girl laughed. “Oh, I don’t doubt it. It’s either among the beastkin or lost in a forest somewhere.”

Karl turned his attention to the brawl, and noticed something odd. Though the Dwarves would grab and flip each other, even go for choke holds and give a noogie, not one time did he see one grab another’s beard.

They would punch the chest behind it, but never grab the beard.

The unstated rules of the Dwarven brawls were strong.

Eventually, the city guard came to break it up, and the third Dwarf, the one who had offered the Totem Ranked materials, stood victorious over the scrum.

“Well then. Good effort, gentlemen. But today’s victory is mine.” He declared, then placed a large bag on the counter, which creaked under the weight.

Karl looked in the bag and nodded, then handed over the bracer.

There were a half dozen Totem Ranked elemental stones and a bunch of metal alloys in the bag. So, it was certainly worth as much as the bracer, and Ashbringer would be happy to see the new materials for his forge.

With the fighting over, the market began to calm down, and the last few shoppers who were hoping to get something from Karl’s stand were quickly handled.

Mostly by Ophelia because the beastkin had quickly realized that Lotus could be bribed into giving heavy discounts to those with fluffy ears.

But they did eventually sell all that they had intended to sell, and the town was now well stocked with water creation items, so hopefully they would not suffer if there was some lingering curse effects once the ground began to dry.

If nothing else, at least they now had the tools to keep the crops and the city watered.

“Well ladies, should we head off to Banar and see how they are doing? We can spend the night there, and see if there is any talk of the curse fires to go with the rain. That should tell us enough about whether the curse has broken.” Karl suggested.

Lotus nodded. “Does that mean I get to fly on Nachtia?”

The black dragon raised an eyebrow at her. “Who says I’m flying there and not taking a nice nap in the Tiny World?”

One of the Dwarves who was at the counter, buying the last remaining cleaning ring, smiled at the pair.

“It must be quite the luxury for a group to have multiple flying mounts. It certainly beats three days with a farmer’s cart to get to Banar.”

Remi smiled back at him. {Flying is a great skill. I can fly in Spirit Snake form, but I’m still too slow for travel.}

The Dwarf chuckled. “A flying snake fast enough to challenge a dragon’s travel time would be quite something. I wouldn’t feel bad about not being able to keep up with her.”

Remi laughed. {I can’t even keep up with Karl’s flying speed. He just runs through the air, but his legs are so much stronger that his sprinting is faster than my flying.}

The Dwarf nodded. “Cat demons are tricky like that. You never know what sort of hidden, sneaky spells they have in reserve.”

Remi nodded in agreement. Karl had more hidden skills than most.

Karl shrugged and then motioned for Rae to take down the stall. “Let’s get packed up, and then we can free the booth for anyone else who wants it.”

Many of the vendors switched out partway through the day when they ran out of goods. They didn’t hang around to sell the last few items, they would just pack them back up for next week, or sell the perishables to another booth at a discount and call it a day.

Then someone else would set up at the booth, or their neighbours would spread out, if nobody came forward to claim the open spot.

Here in the core of the market, the stalls were in high demand later in the day. Unlike the stalls like the part-time bakeries and vegetable dealers, their goods wouldn’t lose any quality being out in the sun all afternoon.

It didn’t take Rae long to take down their stall, and get everyone ready to move.

“Everyone, say goodbye, and we can go.” Karl announced.

That confused the group, but Hawk was up in the sky, hunting for mice who had survived the storm, and he was within clear view of the city they wanted to visit.

There were many signs of chaos outside the city walls, but most of them were farmers opening the irrigation canals, so the flooding from the storm would spread west to the regions that hadn’t been reached.

Karl opened the entrance to the Tiny World to let everyone in, then opened a Portal to Hawk and stepped through himself. The feeling of weightlessness overtook him as he watched the ground rush up at him from a thousand metres in the air.

He let himself free fall for a few moments, then activated [Swims Through Air] to stop his descent.

[You’re close enough. I’m going to keep hunting.] Hawk decided.

“I will call for you when I reach the city, so they don’t mistake you for a threat to more than their rodent population.”

Karl realized that they had just ditched the City Governor of Barukth, who would have wanted to socialize all night, in return for the favour of having broken the curse on his city, but they had enough things to do without starting tomorrow morning with everyone nursing a hangover.