Chapter 15
Sloshing green runoff.
The blue rain finally stopped after pouring down for quite some time.
Drip, drip-.
I folded up the umbrella I had opened and put it away.
Fortunately, not a single stain had splashed onto my sleeve.
“Ahem.”
“······.”
The silver-haired girl was still cradled in my arms.
Her crimson eyes stared blankly to one side.
At the spot where the master of the 70th floor had been standing until moments ago.
It was the creature that had now become the master.
“Your Highness.”
“······Good heavens.”
A corpse that had been cleanly split in half.
Through the gap where its body had been lost, its rotten entrails came pouring out.
I hadn't realized it until now, but it had died in a truly grotesque fashion.
Carmilla muttered only a few words in a daze.
“You blocked it? The dragon's breath...?”
Perhaps she couldn't make sense of the scene before her.
“Victor...”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“H-how did this happen? You stopped the breath with your bare body just now, and without a single injury...”
“Yes, I blocked it with my bare body. Without a single injury.”
“And then, with nothing more than a snap of your fingers...”
“I killed it.”
“······.”
The answer came back calmly.
Carmilla seemed unable to process the situation and went blank.
Her red eyes trembled.
“H-how...?”
She must have been confused.
Since she knew nothing of bugs, it must have looked even more bizarre through Carmilla's eyes.
I had merely snapped my fingers, and half of the dragon's body had vanished.
Blocking the dragon's breath without suffering a scratch had been an added bonus.
Her Highness was unable to continue speaking.
“······.”
Silence settled over us for some time.
The girl remained in my arms for a while, then muttered in a trembling voice.
“Victor.”
“······.”
“It makes me realize all over again that you are my trusted retainer... I-I truly am relieved...”
“Heh heh, of course. Victor, Your Highness's capable retainer, at your service. Always.”
“Mmm... I can't even begin to gauge how strong you are, or where your limits lie. Not with my abilities.”
“I feel that's an overly generous assessment, but thank you for the compliment.”
No.
I told you, I'm weak.
‘Well... after tearing a dragon apart, I suppose I don't have much room to say that.’
Once again, I had no choice but to let the misunderstanding deepen.
Perhaps her shock had finally subsided somewhat.
The girl timidly looked around.
She peered at the dragon's corpse, as if she couldn't believe it was dead.
“It was so clean...”
A lump of meat.
Its oppressive aura had dispersed, leaving only the stench of rot behind.
Even split in half, it was easily more than a dozen meters long.
I was reminded anew what an absurdly massive creature it had been.
“······I thought I was going to die without a chance to fight back.”
“Didn't I tell you? That everything would be fine.”
“I'm sorry. My trust in you was shallow. The barrier I deployed with all my strength was torn apart like paper, and the weapons I forged with Bloodcraft couldn't even leave a scratch. I thought it was an opponent we had no hope of resisting. And yet you burst such a being apart with a single gesture...”
“That was thanks to Your Highness lending me a hand.”
“Hmm? It seemed to me I was of no help at all...”
“You bought me time, didn't you? Thanks to that, the plan succeeded.”
It was sincere, without even a hint of flattery.
If Carmilla's barrier hadn't been there, I would have become a lump of meat long ago.
I would have been torn apart before I had time to prepare the clipping bug or anything else.
“As expected of Your Highness. You successfully defended against a dragon several times, no less.”
Considering this was still the very beginning of the original story, her stats were overwhelming.
Normally, she would have fainted the moment she met its eyes, let alone defended against it.
The plan had been based on trusting Carmilla from the outset.
That meant she had no reason to feel discouraged.
Just as I did when she was in bat form, I gently patted the girl's head.
“You did wonderfully. Thanks to you, I came through safely as well.”
“U-uh... D-don't pat my head so casually...”
“Please take it as a sign of my gratitude and respect.”
“I-it's rude! It undermines my pride as a pureblood.”
“Ah... I'm sorry. Then shall I refrain from doing so in the future?”
I deliberately made my voice sound regretful.
At the hint of a sulky tone, Carmilla glanced at me timidly.
“N-no...”
Kind-hearted princess.
She would fall for it whenever I acted like this.
The girl took my hand and placed it back on top of her head.
“Your Highness?”
“I shall grant you special permission... B-because you are Victor...”
“Is that so? Heh heh.”
Stroke, stroke-.
The silver hair softly smoothed beneath my fingertips.
The faint sensation brought a smile to my face.
“W-what an insolent retainer...”
“My apologies.”
The girl's cheeks seemed unusually warm.
Though she pouted her lips, she did not actually pull away my hand.
The atmosphere, which had been so tense, had returned to normal as well.
“I shall look around for a moment. It seems another door has appeared over there.”
“That is probably the passage leading to the 71st floor. Please don't go too far in.”
“Understood.”
While Carmilla was briefly some distance away.
I opened my status window and checked the messages that had piled up.
‘There are a lot of them.’
Even a quick glance showed more than ten.
They were all messages announcing quest completions.
Since I had cleared a major one, the miscellaneous ones must have come tumbling in along with it.
‘Shall I check only the important ones for now?’
I brought up the screen.
Ding—!
[You have defeated the master of Purgatory's 70th floor, ‘Undead Dragon’.]
[You have completed the main quest ‘Conquering Purgatory's 70th Floor’.]
[You have acquired the exclusive weapon ‘Dragon Scale ×1’.]
These three were the most important, if nothing else.
They included the reward that had been my original objective.
When I clicked the screen, something appeared above my hand.
Plop-.
“Oh.”
It was light.
A thin plate with a fairly weighty appearance.
Yet despite its appearance, it was light.
I could barely feel its weight, as though I were holding a feather.
Ding—!
[Dragon Scale]
-Category:Exclusive Weapon
-Grade:A-
-Condition:Corrupted, Unrefined
-Description:This is a corrupted dragon scale. It may prove useful if it undergoes the refining process.
“Perfect.”
It was exactly as I remembered from the original.
A dragon.
No matter how degraded it had become as an undead, its original stature was not so easily erased.
A scale from a species counted among the strongest—and rarest—of all living creatures.
Even in the original, it was a rare item obtainable through only a handful of routes.
‘I shouldn't judge it by its grade alone.’
The grade was A-.
It was probably because of the <Corrupted> and <Unrefined> attributes.
But in terms of its actual value, it was worth more than an S-grade piece of equipment.
It had especially remarkable synergy with my mask.
‘Corrupted, unrefined... I only need to erase those two attributes.’
As I idly fiddled with the scale, Carmilla, who had by then returned to my side, asked:
“Is that the weapon? The one you said you were looking for, Victor?”
“Yes, that's right. I entered the 70th floor to obtain this.”
“Hmm... No matter how I look at it, it doesn't look like a weapon.”
“Then what does it look like to you?”
“To my eyes, it looks like a scale. A rather disgusting one, with a murky aura mixed in...”
“It looks the same to me. Though that will change once I process it.”
“Process it?”
Carmilla tilted her head.
“You mean to process a dragon's scale?”
“As it is, it would be difficult to call it a weapon.”
“So you'll refine it. The scale was a material, not a weapon.”
“Put simply, yes.”
“But I am puzzled. A dragon's scale cannot be an ordinary item. Would it not be difficult to refine it recklessly? You would also need to procure the skills and materials required for refining. Those would not be easy to obtain, either...”
“You needn't worry about that.”
I already had them prepared.
I opened the quests that had been cleared incidentally.
Ding—!
[You have completed the mini-quest ‘A Little Courage’.]
[You have completed the hidden quest ‘What Matters’.]
[You have completed the hidden quest ‘Hero of the Reversal’.]
[You have completed the hidden quest ‘Purification’.]
.
.
.
Notifications piled up thickly.
This was still the early part of the story, and my stats were fixed at E-rank.
Even so, I had cleared the 70th floor in that body without a single injury.
In addition to the main quest, numerous side quests had been completed as well.
‘I can take care of everything with the rewards here.’
The supplies needed to purify and refine the scale.
They were provided as rewards for the quests above.
Ding—!
[You have completed a total of 13 quests.]
-Reward:Holy Water×8, Thin Mist×1, Unrefined Scream×4
The rewards were stored in my inventory.
With these alone, refining the scale would be completed with a single click.
Combining these with the scale would transform it into a complete weapon.
‘It will take a little time to finish it, though...’
But in my current situation, there was no weapon better suited to me.
As with the other rewards, I stored the enormous scale in my robe.
I had accomplished all of my intended objectives.
This was a clean haul.
“Shall we head back soon?”
“That is music to my ears. Perhaps because I expended too much blood, I am finding it difficult even to remain standing...”
“You've done well. Once we return to the dormitory, we'll replenish your blood.”
The scene on the 70th floor had been reduced to utter chaos.
Just as we were about to leave the underground behind.
“······Hmm?”
“Victor? Why have you suddenly stopped?”
“No. I thought I felt something like a gaze...”
“A gaze?”
“Yes.”
“Is it not merely your imagination? We clearly confirmed that there was no one here.”
“I suppose so.”
I awkwardly agreed.
Perhaps being in such a gloomy place had made me unnecessarily jumpy.
I tore my gaze away from the empty air I had been looking up at for a moment and resumed walking.
***
Meanwhile.
The girls' dormitory.
“Eek, eeeek...!”
Tearful blue eyes.
Black hair spilling across the bed.
A girl was trembling violently, her shoulders shaking.
She had pulled the blanket over herself all the way to the top of her head, as if terrified.
“O-our eyes met...! H-how? That has never happened before...”
Ragged breathing.
Incomprehensible sounds.
“H-he noticed me...! I'll die, he'll kill me, he'll silence me...”
Alice's tears fell one after another.
"Sniff, wh-what am I going to do..."
The girl's trembling did not stop for a long while.