Someday Will I Be The Greatest Alchemist?

Dragon Dungeon, once more

「Seriously, I’m so happy I want to fly.」

Berkut was all smiles.

In addition to the spear she received as a reward from the tournament, I gave her leather armor and gloves that used plenty of dragon materials. She’s been hyped up ever since.

「Berkut, calm down. We’ll run right through instead of fighting needlessly, so concentrate on not getting hurt.」
「Okaaay!」

Berkut answered cheerfully. Will Vart-kun and Valto-kun catch up?
The cousins who were already behind seem to have the goal of becoming stronger than Berkut, but I haven’t seen them train that much.

We had come to the Demon Continent’s Dragon Dungeon from before.

「Now then, let’s keep the monster battles at a minimum.」
「「「Yes!」」」

Kaede, who had excellent detection abilities, took the lead and stepped into the dungeon.
Sophia and I were behind Kaede, Akane and Lulu-chan were in the middle, Maria and Laeva were to their left and right, after them were Berkut and Marnie, and Titan at the end of line. With this as our battle formation, we advanced at the shortest distance.

If it turns into a battle with multiple monsters that we can’t avoid, we would summon Ferryl and the other familiars to end the battles sooner.

When we finished several fights, Sophia talked about the difference between the dungeon dive last time and this time.

「The number of monsters is lesser.」
「Yeah. It’s definitely because we hunted down the monsters in the dungeon. I guess even a dungeon of dragons would take time to recover.」

Yes, our monster encounters were extremely low in the dungeon dive this time. It wasn’t completely none, but because we were making our way down using the shortest route possible in order to avoid fights. we fought so little that Berkut complained.

「Honestly, I should have put a marker on the lower floor so we could just simply teleport there.」
「It can’t be helped. Even if you had placed a marker down, the dungeon would recognize it as a foreign object so it would be absorbed after three days.」

Well, we didn’t leave a marker so all this is impossible in the first place. Moreover, if we simply teleport to the lower floors, complaints would come from our battle-crazy girls.

Baribaribari!!

The lightning attack fired from Berkut’s speartip assailed the Basilisk.

ＧＹＡＯＯＯＯＮ！！

The Basilisk’s body tensed up from the lightning, and at that definitive opening, Marnie, Laeva, Akane, Lulu-chan, and the familiars all launched their attacks.

Zudoooon!!

As Sophia and I were being vigilant of our surroundings, the Basilisk’s heavily injured gigantic body fell to the ground.

「Woohoo! I played a big part, right!?」
「……y, yeah, you did good.」

Berkut happily came to report.

There will be fewer this time, so when we have the room to do so, us high levelersーSophia, Maria, Kaede, Titan, and Iー watch over the fights as much as possible instead.

「(The poor Basilisk got so beat up that I feel sorry for it.)」
「(Yes. Well, Marnie and Laeva also want to catch up to us.)」

Opposite of Sophia and I who were whispering were Laeva and others deftly dismantling the Basilisk.

Berkut who genuinely wanted to get stronger had slightly different feelings from Marnie and Laeva who want to catch up to us.
In this world, it is understood that people who have higher levels live longer. Actually, the high levelers known as the heroes of the past all had lived long lives, no exceptions.
This applied to all races, as there had even been records of Humans and Beastkin who lived liked up to 300 years.

Marnie and Laeva’s feelings. The desire to walk even one step farther alongside us drove the girls to fight.

When we entered the lower floors of the Dragon Dungeon, the floors became wider.

「What a relief…… the swarm of monster earthworms haven’t respawned.」
「Ah, the Huge Gluttony Wyrms.」

I couldn’t stand those dragon type giant earthworms. Those huge wriggling and writhing earthworms give me goosebumps.

What came to greet us after we’ve barely fought was what seemed to be a 30m long high ranking Earth elemental dragon.

「It’s a Rock Dragon.」
「A rock dragon [1] huh…… can its scales be mined?」

GAOOOOOOON！！

The Rock Dragon’s roar hit us.
Berkut seemed to have tensed up slightly from the roar, but there was no one here that would be petrified in fright from a roar of this level.

Dogaaaaan!!

Titan started up the jetpack on his back and fired himself like a gigantic bullet at raging speeds.

The Rock Dragon’s scales which looked like boulders attached to its body were shattered by Titan’s attack, and waiting for this chance, Akane and Laeva’s magic rained down.
Marnie and Berkut attacked the places deeply gouged by magic and immediately retreated.
The Rock Dragon, which had been one-sidedly damaged beyond its imagination, tried to fight back, but its body had been robbed of freedom by Kaede’s threads.
Lastly, Sophia, Maria, and I simultaneously stabbed the Rock Dragon, dealing the final blows.

Zudoooon!

The 30m long giant sank to the floor.

「Hmm, as expected, when it’s something of this class, we wouldn’t be able to bring it down and kill it.」

「That’s not the case. Berkut, I think you all will be fine if you take your time.」

When it comes to high ranking dragons, it would take time for Berkut, Marnie, and Lulu-chan who lack power. Berkut, who was dissatisfied with this, was already a full fledged battle maniac. This girl, can she become a proper wife?

「The heart of this Rock Dragon would probably be enough for the Soma. Let’s dismantle it immediately.」
「Indeed. We might need parts aside from the heart someday, so we won’t sell this Rock Dragon and keep it in stock.」

We split up the large body of the Rock Dragon to quickly dismantle it.
Titan cracked and tore off its scales with his huge hands, while Laeva and I prepared barrels to drain the blood into. Sophia and the remaining girls butchered the Rock Dragon’s meat. The meat of a high rank dragon was definitely exquisite.

「Okay! Heart secured!」

When I harvested the heart, I immediately stored it in my Item Box to preserve its freshness.

The meat which Sophia and the girls cut up, the scales peeled off by Titan, even the dissected organs, bone, claws, and fangs were all stored, leaving only the rubble from the smashed scales and traces of blood on the dungeon floor.

「Now then, let’s go back immediately.」

Having achieved our objective, we climbed back up while fighting monsters at Berkut’s request.

Footnotes:
1. While they both said “Rock Dragon” the spelling was different. Sophia said ロックドラゴン while Takumi said – 岩竜[↩]