While Jeanne and the others sat drinking tea, a series of suspicious maneuvers were quietly unfolding on another part of the flight deck, far beyond their line of sight.
A group of crewmen pushed a heavy trough of raw meat in front of the landed wyvern. They held their breath, waiting in silent anticipation to see how the colossal beast would react once it swallowed the bait.
The wyvern looked down at the slabs of meat, then turned its gaze toward the men standing before it. The soldiers felt its eyes narrow into a cold, predatory slit. Yet, for some reason they couldn't fathom, the creature refrained from tearing them apart on the spot, settling instead for a fierce, intimidating glare.
A collective sigh of relief passed through the group. Though the soldiers believed that a flagship like the Gastrell had little to fear from a single wild beast, standing directly beneath those slitted yellow pupils made them feel as though they had been dropped into an ice pit, shivering from the inside out.
Ultimately, the creature lowered its massive head and devoured the meat. Hidden deep within the muscle fibers was a lethal dose of heavy tranquilizers—several times the amount required to knock out a grand land beast—intended merely to put the monster into a brief slumber.
They had no desire to harm it permanently. The Victorian researchers simply wanted to extract a few blood samples and pry off a scale or two, hoping to unlock the secrets of this unknown species.
Yet, after watching the beast for what felt like hours with specialized gear on standby, the men saw no sign of drowsiness. If anything, the creature seemed more alert and energetic than before.
"What is going on here? Did you idiots mix up the sedative with a stimulant?" an officer demanded, rounding on the soldier beside him. He had good reason to suspect these fools had pulled the wrong vial from the medical stores.
To make matters worse, the officer got the distinct feeling the beast was mocking them. Though it uttered no sound, the sheer disdain in its eyes was unmistakable.
To be openly mocked by a wild beast inside his own base of operations pushed the officer's blood pressure to the boiling point. It was a humiliating insult he found impossible to stomach.
"N-No, sir! That can't be!" the panicked soldier stammered, terrified of facing court-martial for an honest mistake. "We used standard heavy tranquilizers—over ten times the recommended dosage! Any ordinary creature would have suffered immediate heart failure from that much..."
Desperate to prove his innocence, the soldier pulled out the empty glass vials. Sure enough, the labels clearly marked them as high-grade military sedatives. Seeing the empty containers, the officer forced himself to regain a shred of calm.
He looked at the empty bottles, then back at the massive dragon lounging comfortably on the deck. Gritting his teeth, he snapped another order. "Double the dose! Feed it more! I refuse to believe this thing can't be put to sleep!"
Having already come this far, quitting empty-handed was out of the question. He was willing to risk everything on a bolder gamble.
"Sir, if we raise the dosage any further, we risk killing the creature outright," a quieter officer interjected, breaking his silence. He harbored no affection for the monster, but he worried about the political fallout for the Duke. "If the guests' mount dies aboard our warship, no amount of diplomacy will clear our name. Besides, His Grace ordered us to keep this operation strictly covert. That's why we waited until the two women were escorted away."
"That thing is a walking nightmare, not some standard laboratory subject!" the lead officer hissed, blind to reason. "Instead of worrying about a cardiac arrest, you'd better pray it doesn't decide to take flight and turn this deck into an inferno!"
Ignoring all further objections, he ordered the men to bring out another batch of laced meat.
This time, their efforts appeared to bear fruit. The monster's heavy eyelids fluttered, its massive head slumping lower and lower until it finally collapsed onto the steel deck, dead to the world.
"Merciful heavens... what a monster," the officer muttered, wiping away sweat that wasn't there. "If we had used a drop less, this entire attempt would have gone up in smoke."
Even with the beast apparently unconscious, he proceeded with extreme caution. After testing its reactions for a considerable time, he finally signaled the research team to move in with their tools.
"Where on Terra did they manage to find a creature like this?" one researcher muttered, pressing a handheld power saw against the beast's flank. Sparks showered across the steel plating, yet the blade failed to leave so much as a scratch on the thick scales. "It's like trying to cut through solid star-metal!"
As for taking a blood sample, the idea was rapidly turning into a fever dream. If a heavy industrial saw couldn't pierce the outer hide, a hypodermic needle didn't stand a chance.
"This organism... it defies every law of biology we know," a soldier gasped, finally managed to pry loose a tiny fragment of a scale. Grinning with triumph, he turned to share the news with his team—only to find every single man frozen in place, staring past his shoulder with expressions of absolute terror.
Their faces were drained of color, paralyzed by a creeping dread that made the soldier's blood run cold. Something was standing directly behind him.
Stiffly, he turned his head inch by inch.
A massive, glowing amber eye was fixed on him, unblinking and devoid of warmth. The sheer, suffocating pressure of its gaze crushed the air straight out of his lungs.
He tried to scream, but no sound escaped his throat. He could only stare in horror as a blinding sphere of concentrated fire condensed deep within the monster's open maw.
A split second later, a massive fireball roared toward him. Yet, before it could incinerate the crew, an invisible force surged forward, deflecting the blast into the open air. The resulting explosion thundered across the sky, echoing loudly enough to reach the quiet tea table on the upper deck.
"It seems your men have been rather busy while our backs were turned," Jeanne remarked with a calm smile, gazing toward the distant plume of smoke. She had a very good idea of what had just transpired. "While I understand natural curiosity toward unknown creatures, isn't this taking things a bit too far?"
Wellington's aged face twitched with a flash of genuine embarrassment. To claim he knew nothing of the plan would be an outright lie; his men would never have dared to tamper with a guest's mount without his tacit approval.
Yet he hadn't expected them to fail so spectacularly. Hadn't they assured him they could handle any unexpected complications without making a scene?
"Ah... it appears my subordinates have committed a foolish blunder and agitated your pet," the Duke offered, scrambling for an excuse to salvage his dignity. "They can be dreadfully clumsy when left to their own devices. No matter how often I discipline them, the lesson never seems to stick..."
It was a clumsy excuse, but it was all he had. To suffer such a disgraceful setback on his own flagship was humiliating enough, but now he faced an even greater dilemma: how was he supposed to handle the two women sitting across from him?
While the Duke pondered his next move, a breathless guard hurried up to the tea table, whispering a hasty report into his ear. Jeanne and Talulah, possessing far sharper hearing than ordinary folk, caught every single word.
To their surprise, the foolhardy crewmen hadn't been incinerated after all; someone had stepped in to save them at the last possible second.
The guard finished detailing the embarrassing failure, leaving the Duke to face his guests once more.
"Take those fools away and deal with them according to military law," Wellington ordered with a dismissive wave of his hand, though a visible weight lifted from his brow.
At least no blood had been shed on his watch.
Jeanne and Talulah exchanged a brief, knowing glance. They both knew exactly who had intervened to suppress the wyvern's murderous wrath.
Apart from Jeanne herself, there was only one person on this warship capable of commanding such absolute authority over a dragon-blooded creature: a true Draco.
It seemed the Duke of Iron's connection to Dublinn's leader ran far deeper than either of them had anticipated.