THE MOMENT
"WAIT!" Dion rushed to put himself between Ophelia and the beast. The knight stabbed his sword into the ground and held his arms up to shield the serpent-like dragon.
"Yes?" Ophelia's spell fizzled out. She lowered her arms and tilted her head at him in confusion.
"Did you see that just now!?" he asked. "It's thinking! It's protecting its child," he said. He turned back and gestured at the two remaining snake creatures. The larger one proudly stood in front of the trembling smaller one. They remained still as if watching the knight and wizard discussing their fate.
"I don't think so...," Ophelia shook her head, then she looked around him. "WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER!?" she yelled the question in their direction, but neither of the animals responded. "Yeah, see? Nothing," she said.
"But, it protected the smaller one! It's intelligent," Dion mumbled as he tried to make sense of what he saw. It was a very clear motion. He was bringing his sword down on the smaller one and the bigger one deliberately got in the way and took the hit.
"Or, that could just be a thing they do. There doesn't have to be any intelligence behind the action if they are following their instincts; or, I guess you could say programming. Quest monsters need some variety, you know?" she smiled. "I'm glad to see you're not on board with killing indiscriminately," she added. "But, these we can kill."
"Wait," Dion shook his head. Something still wasn't right. It took a few seconds for it to finally register. He looked back at the beasts and they were still in place. Not only had they not fled, they hadn't attacked since Dion stopped.
"What's your favorite number?" he asked them. There was no answer and he turned back to Ophelia. "If they're just quest monsters, why aren't they still attacking?" he asked.
"You're in the AlterNet," Ophelia giggled. "That should be another big clue for you that they're just NPCs. You asked it to wait, so it did."