Now we stood still in place, surrounded by the corpses of our enemies and stained with their pink blood.
"You guys okay?" Emiliano asked everyone.
"It could be better", answered Bruno
"True," Napat added.
"Well then, after we've taken care of our wounds, let's move on," Emiliano said
"Sounds good, but what exactly do you mean by move on?" I asked him.
"Well, you've probably noticed that it's warmer near the dragon, especially around the opening of its neck. So we should set up a camp near him for the night, but we don't want to sleep next to corpses, right? So we should change our position," Emiliano said.
'Sounds good,' said Bruno
Shortly thereafter we changed our position and set off. After a short walk we found a suitable place to stay. It next to the side of the dragon's neck, not too far from the opening, from which heat continued to radiate. In addition, it offered us a suitable windbreak, thanks to the enormous size of this creature.
We then treated our wounds by rinsing them out with some water from our drinking bottles, which we happened to have with us. Due to the low temperatures we were exposed to, the water was quite icy which made the whole affair a little more uncomfortable. After we had all this behind us, we sort of cleaned our campsite and removed the snow. Neither of us intended to sleep on freezing snow. Then we all unpacked our sleeping bags. Each of us had brought one with us for the holiday. I even bought it at the last minute because Napat and Emiliano pushed me to do it. We all had plans to climb Mount Fuji in Japan and they preferred to sleep in the open instead of renting a cabin. Luckily, this turned out to be quite useful as well as beneficial.
Well, we only had a handful of things to do before we could finally call it a day. First light a campfire and find out whether the dragon or creature meat is edible. We don't have to worry about our hydration, because we can simply shovel the surrounding snow into us. I heard for every 10 liters of snow you eat, you would drink about 1 liter of water.
"Does anyone happen to have a lighter?" I asked, not expecting much.
"Yup," Napat replied
"Huh? Do you smoke?' asked Emiliano, puzzled.
"No... Do I look like I smoke?" he replied quickly.
'Hmm... A little,' answered Bruno
»Wow«, he said relatively dispassionately and added »And no one questions Can. He was the person with the knife and the baton..."
Suddenly their attention was drawn to me.
»Hey!? Don't drag me into this now. You also had a pepper spray with you, don't forget that,' I answered a little panicked to defend myself to some extent.
"Well, it's not that important," said Bruno, changing the subject.
Emiliano then nodded and agreed with him, saying, "He's right. What would have happened if we didn't have these things."
"Maybe he wouldn't have hurt himself then," said Bruno and kinda pointed at Napat.
»It wasn't my fault. Who would have thought that the wind would steer it back towards me. It even says it's windproof on the tin," Napat justified himself, showing us all the spot on the tin that said it was windproof. You could clearly see on his red face that he is quite embarrassed
"Then what you've done is even more unbelievably" answered Bruno, to rub some salt into his the wound.
And so our conversations continued. Then we divided into two groups. Emiliano and I had to take care of carving out a few chunks of flesh from the dragon, while the other two tried to processed the corpses of the smaller monsters to feed our future fire. We quickly came to the conclusion that we wouldn't try the things, because up close they just look completely disgusting and their blood is just pink, whereas the dragon's flesh and blood looked red, sane and gigantic at the same time.
Finally, after they were able to start a fire and we returned to camp with the chunks of meat, the moment of truth arrived. Until now, no one has raised the issue, or rather everyone has avoided it. Even during the preparation of the meat, which we skewered on one of the monster bones and then roasted over the fire, no words were mentioned to this topic.
'Soooo... I think it's ready,' said Bruno.
"Yup... looks like it," agreed Emiliano.
Then, in a slower, cautious voice, I asked what everyone was wondering: "So... who's going to try it first?"
Suddenly their eyes all turned to me. Their expression looks like they saw a ghost or something horrible. Despite this, it was of course relatable, that none of us would want to voluntarily play the guinea pig.