Treasure Hunting Time

Looking at the dead dragon's remains, Rhode breathed a sigh of relief as a wave of weakness washed over him.

To maximize his magic's power just now, he had poured out nearly all his mana, and blocking the dragon's breath earlier had also consumed a fair amount.

Now he couldn't squeeze out a single drop more.

Serie, standing beside him, noticed the fatigue on Rhode's face and lowered her head, lost in thought.

For some reason, Rhode felt a chill run down his spine.

Across from them, Som and the others jogged over.

The shockwave from the violent explosion had left them even more disheveled.

The lucky ones, like Norn, had spotted the beam of light and ducked behind a large boulder in time, escaping mostly unscathed.

But Som and Erik had it rough.

They were both knocked to the ground, tumbling several times, and when they got up, they were covered in dust from head to toe.

Still, their disheveled state couldn't dampen their excitement. They approached the dragon's corpse and examined it closely.

"Ah, what a shame—it's all in pieces, and these scales are basically useless now," Som sighed as he looked at the scattered remains. He had hoped to use the scales to craft a simple shield.

He didn't know any advanced forging techniques; at best, he could rely on the innate Dwarf craftsmanship in his blood to do some basic processing.

But now, that plan was shot. He could only collect a few tiny scales as keepsakes.

"Speaking of which, now that this thing's like this, is there any usable material left?" Erik asked curiously, staring at the dragon's head, which was only half intact.

"At the very least, we need to collect the dragon blood," Norn said.

He pulled a simple waterskin from his backpack, trying to gather the blood still pooled in the corpse, but the leather waterskin was burned straight through by the dragon blood.

It seemed that even dead, the dragon's blood was terrifyingly hot.

Now they had a problem.

Norn frowned. Without dragon blood as a material, he couldn't make ink that wouldn't fade. Worse, the spilled blood was visibly evaporating before his eyes, which pained him deeply.

"Any ideas, Serie?" Rhode asked, turning to her. He didn't want all their efforts to go to waste.

Serie shook her head, indicating she had no good solution, but then, as if something occurred to her, she spoke: "We could check its lair. Dragons have a habit of hoarding treasures. Maybe we'll find what we need there."

Without hesitation, the group hurried toward the lair deep in the valley.

The spacious cave was filled with ores of every color, but the most eye-catching sight was a pile of gemstones stacked like a small mountain.

Mixed in were a few gold coins, which, from their design, looked a lot like the ones Amuro had given him.

"I'd guess that dragon used these gems as its bed," Norn speculated after examining the pile's shape.

"Wouldn't that be uncomfortable?" Erik asked skeptically.

The gems were all different sizes, and just looking at them seemed uncomfortable. He wondered what strange hobby that dragon had, using them as a mattress.

"Who knows? My knowledge of dragons is only hearsay," Serie said.

Walking at the front, Serie bypassed the colorful ores and gems and headed to an inconspicuous corner, where a number of armor pieces and weapons were scattered.

But all of them were rusted and worn, clearly never maintained. Some were even half-destroyed, basically unusable.

"What are these?" Rhode noticed the gear too, stepping closer to ask.

"Elven bows, Dwarf armor, Winged race longswords—these are the equipment of people who died at this dragon's claws," Serie said.

She picked up an elven longbow, her fingers tracing the faded emblem on its body. Time had long since rotted away the bowstring, leaving only the frame, made from special wood.

"Should we take them?"

"No." Serie set the bow down. "Pointless. Not as good as magic."

She was just a little wistful. If these elves had used powerful magic instead of these feeble bows, would the outcome have been different?

But unfortunately, not every elf could use magic.

Elves who couldn't learn magic either became powerful monks like Kraft or archers, which at least gave them some combat ability.

"Then let them rest here," Rhode said.

He gave up on rummaging through the pile of gear. Mostly because, at first glance, it was all junk—nothing worth digging through.

As the saying went, anyone who got killed by this dragon probably didn't have great equipment to begin with.

The kind of story where an adventurer wielding a legendary holy sword gets wrecked by a dragon, and then the holy sword ends up in his hands—Rhode figured that wasn't happening to him.

Besides, what would he even do with it?

It wasn't like he was going to run around like some white-bearded old man, waving a staff in one hand and a holy sword in the other.

Just then, Som, who had been digging through the gem pile, suddenly found a faintly glowing Metal Box: "Huh? How did this end up here?"

In theory, this place should be all gems and ores. Som had been hoping to find some valuable materials, but instead, he'd stumbled onto something like a treasure chest.

This was a palm-sized silver-white box. Rhode tried to see what was inside but found it completely impossible to open.

"Magic seal?" Serie sensed the magical traces on the box. "Let me try."

Serie took the metal box and directly used the simplest, crudest method—forcibly breaking the magic seal on it. With a soft click, a crack split open along the box.

Inside was a small piece of ore. Everyone exchanged bewildered glances, completely unable to understand what charm this pitch-black rock could hold to deserve being stored in a sealed box like this.

They asked Som, but he also said he had never seen this kind of ore before.

With that, they had no choice but to put the stone away for now and free up the box to collect dragon blood.

The box, made of special metal, could just withstand the temperature of the dragon's blood.

Everyone left the dragon's lair. Rhode picked up a few beautiful gems. The dwarf Som stuffed a large bag full of precious ores—despite his forging skills being utterly terrible, who knew why he needed so many ores?

As for Erik, he hoisted a bag stuffed with gems and grumbled, "So, can these gems actually be traded for anything?"

"No idea. We'll have to try and see."

Norn didn't take much—just picked a few gems and gold coins to pocket, forming a stark contrast with Erik.

As for Serie, she took nothing at all.

She looked down on everything in the dragon's lair. She simply wanted to accomplish the feat of slaying the dragon.