Zaku!!
Zakuzaku!!

The magic long swords let out a roar while revolving around my surroundings.
At first I thought that several of the swords would get caught in the esophagus and felt chills for a moment thinking they would stop.
But, being sliced consecutively by several tens of long sword the wounds were gradually cut open.
Even the long swords that were blocked from spinning gradually seemed to regain their power as they switched to attacking again.

The attacks from the magic long swords turned the Shadow Dragon's esophagus into tatters in no time at all.

The Shadow Dragon is roaring in pain so loudly that I want to block my ears.
Of course I don't have any arms below the elbows so I can't block them though.

And then soon after the muscles and nerves further in it's esophagus as well as it's trachea and such were all cut apart in no time at all.

The roaring of the Shadow Dragon gradually got smaller together with that and finally it went silent.

"Aaaaaa~~!!!"

Along with that momentum I cut off it's neck or body or whatever that was torn to pieces.
I quickly wanted to use {Identify} to confirm that it was dead but if it isn't dead it would be bad so I continued to attack the opening of it's wound until the duration of {Blade.Barrier} ended..
Huh?

The magic long sword stopped attacking the dragon.
This spell, was supposed to automatically attack though...

Ah, so it died!

There's still some time remaining on the effect but I cancelled the {Blade.Barrier} and used {Identify} to confirm it's death.
I look around the surroundings.

It seems we moved a bit away from where I was swallowed.

"Angela~~!!!"

I shout my loyal combat slaves name with a loud voice.

"Where are you~~~!!!"

I didn't even have the composure to confirm if the lightning bolt cage had disappeared at that time.
Well, it had disappeared though.
Before I realized the lightning bolt cages from both the 12th and 13th floors had disappeared.

I don't know how long I searched.
I'm sure it wasn't long before the pain in my arms returned me to reality though.

I sit on the ground and calmly used the spell {Regenerate}.
First off is my right hand.

A dark red lump starts protruding out from the cross-section where my arm was bitten off.
Most of my arms length had returned.
But, it's still not done.
I use {Regenerate} even more.

My right hand which was like a flesh club gradually became flat.
And then every time I use the spell something like small flesh sprouts grow outwards.
In the end I was able to confirm that all of my fingers grew back.

When I was about to switch to my left hand I realized I had already used quite a bit of my concentration.
If it's during combat then I'd do it frantically but since I'm a lot less tense I somehow was still able to manage it several tens of times.
But, I guess from losing the tension with the lack of threats in the surroundings, it becomes even more difficult to concentrate and use it consecutively.
When I was a kid I tried various things to use a lot of MP all at once but this was the reason for it.

..Even then I was able to grow all five of my fingers back on my left hand as well.
On my right hand even the regeneration of the skin is finished and there's a bit of hair growing out so it's recovered to where you can't tell it apart from the previous one.

Without waiting for the recovery of my left hand I stood up and started searching for Angela again.

I found Angela shortly after.

"Angela.."

No matter how I look at it she's dead.
She doesn't have anything below her chest.
Her right arm was bitten off from above the elbow.
But, there's not a scratch on her face.

Even though she fell from that height...
I guess because her body weight is several times less...
Or maybe thanks to her helmet.

I fall to my knees by her side and closed her eyes while taking off her helmet.
She still has a bit of warmth remaining in her body but it's clear she's beyond that point where I can do anything.

"Angela..You did a good job. You fought well. You are.."

I suddenly stop.
There's a bit more remaining on the left side of the wound to her chest and I can see something what looks like her magic stone.
If I were to carefully carry her like this it might fall out along the way. I checked the surroundings and found her lower body, there was still a knife on her thigh.

Since my knife disappeared off to somewhere I took out her knife and carefully took out her magic stone.
Strangely I didn't shed any tears.

After finis.h.i.+ng up to there I suddenly noticed my own appearance and made a bitter smile.
I'm way beyond worn out as I'm covered in the dragon's blood and saliva.
It's truly annoying but I should at least pour some water over myself.

I pour some water over myself with my armor still on and wash away the saliva.
Losing my mental vitality while my arms have been restored every time my heart beats the pain from them being bitten off causes me to feel dizzy.

Ah, I guess I should cast healing spells on them...
I still have quite a bit of MP remaining but I wonder about my HP?

..78 remaining I guess. It's been a while since I was pushed this far.
Ah, my level went up.
Hn? Since I was. .h.i.t by {Energy.Drain.Breath} in the end I guess my level went up by 2...
It had a mountain of HP and it's level was high as well after all. It even had a lot of special skills and above all for it's magic skills to be MAX...

I guess it doesn't matter.

First off is recovery.
After that, I need to return to where everyone is...
It's troublesome but I want to do something about this pain.
I use healing spells consecutively and completely erased the remaining pain.
And then I put Angela's magic stone into the survival kit I have attached to my waist and stood up.

Ah, that's right.
What about that dragonian that had become Angela's corpse?

I searched around the area and after going back to the mountain climbing path I found the naked body of Angela that caused me to misunderstand the first time.
If I remember right it was a Seibaku.Dragonian.
..After all that was the case.
The {Special Skill: Clone{Dead Body}} let's it take the shape of either the person who killed it or the last person it killed. The duration is the same number of hours as it's level.
Furthermore, I figured out that when the dragonians die they either turn to stone, melt into poison gas, or in the worst case blow up.
What troublesome things...

Ah, that's right.
I need to return to where the dragon was again...
It would be good if I can at least get a hint on how to escape from that panic though...

And I need to recover {Flame.Tongue} and the {Spear.Of.Piercing} as well...

.....................................

"Hie..hie~"

When I returned to where everyone was Miduchi was still in a state of panic sobbing to herself as she had her sword drawn.
Even after realizing that I was the one approaching she didn't let go of the scimitar tightly gripped in her hand.
After hugging and talking to her she seems to have calmed down a bit and finally sat down.

Everyone else was more or less the same, I had no way of helping them.

I guess it helps just that they barely didn't recognize me as an enemy.
You could say Miduchi was a bit better off just being able to stand on guard with her sword.

Incidentally, when I read it from the status of the dragon it seems that it stacked {Special Skill: Howl.Type III} on top of {Special Skill: Fear.Aura.Type II}.
According to that even the faster people(higher level) to recover would take at least almost a full day. The slower ones(lower level) could take up to a day and a half so I had no choice but to leave them like this.
Eh? Of course, I tried doing everything I could.
But, none of the spells I know were effective.

Since the {Identify} window that appears in my eyes is written in j.a.panese all of their {Condition} fields say {Panic}.
If it was in English or the {Common.Language} then I feel like it would be written in a different way.
Since the {Condition} of {Fear} is strange in j.a.panese after all...
It must be grouping both {Fear} and {Panic} together as {Panic}.

I checked the time on the clock Zenom was holding and it's only been about an hour since we first heard the {Howl} of the dragon.
I feel like I was fighting for a lot longer but I guess that's about it.

It couldn't be helped so I went back up the mountain again and froze the dragon's head in a large piece of ice that wouldn't melt very easily.
Next I checked inside of it's body and searched for Angela's abdomen.
The crushed and broken rifle I shot into pieces with {Stone Cannon} and threw away.
In regards to the dragonian's corpses I gathered what I could together and then froze them so they wouldn't rot as well.
Since they explode, turn to stone, or become poison gas it was too troublesome to search for the magic stones so I just left them alone.
Additionally, I discovered my right hand but it's not like there was anything I could do with it after collecting it so I just burnt it using the spell {Flame.Thrower}.

I wanted to give Angela a burial on the surface so I recovered all of her remains and froze them.
I thought about returning above to where Giberuti was waiting but it would take several hours to make a round trip and in the worst case if monsters attack during that time then I feel like even a single goblin could wipe everyone out.

It couldn't be helped so I continued to wait near everyone.

.....................................

Year 7447, Month 12, Day 17

Close to the evening Miduchi, Zulu, Zenom, Ralpha, Toris, and Bel regained themselves in that order.
Each of them came to apologize for being useless.
But, it couldn't be helped so even if it bothers them it's troubling.

"It can't be helped so even if you let it bother you at this point there's no way of recovering from it. Rather than that, I'd prefer if you level up so nothing like this happens again."

After I said that they made apologetic faces.
I just told them not to worry about it but I guess this can't be helped.

"Where's Maruso?"

Miduchi asked.

I lowered my head with my legs still crossed and let out sight before taking Angela's magic stone out of my survival kit and just replying, "She's here."

Everyone was shocked at this and kept silent.
Miduchi and Ralpha stretched out their trembling hands to check the status of the magic stone.

"Dear..that hand..."

Miduchi was surprised after noticing that my hand seemed unnatural.
It seems everyone noticed it.

"Yeah, it was bitten off by the dragon. Soon after that I used the spell {Regenerate} to restore it so there's no problem. Though my gauntlet is already completely useless.."

I replied while putting away Angela's magic stone and gave out a new order to everyone who's probably shocked.

"Angela's corpse is frozen up there near the corpse of the dragon. Putting aside the dragon, there was a number of dragonians that are like the children of dragons and humans together with them so first gather the magic stones from them."

Even if it's insignificant I pushed a job onto them as it's necessary to focus on something else.

Miduchi who was on her knees in front of me holding my hand stood up and said, "Everyone, let's go."
..Yeah, I leave it to you.

Shortly after the six of them went up the mountain Kamu, Rokko, Gwine, and Basutoral started to wake up from the panic as well.
Just the same they came to apologize for being useless but I drove them away saying to quickly go up and help with gathering the magic stones.

..Putting that aside, exactly how many hours are they going to take to gather the magic stones from the dragonians?
I put them all together so they stand out so there's no way they could have missed them.
Since Miduchi is there it shouldn't have taken much work for her to remove the ice as well.
Though a bit of it was shaved off with the {Howl} she's long since recovered all of her MP.

Kuro and Mary regained themselves.
In terms of time it's already close to midnight.
The surroundings are the same brightness as usual though.

"Al..Sorry."
"I'm sorry.."

The two of them are embarra.s.sed about being useless today so they came to apologize to me.
Just the same as the others I told them that we lost Angela so there's probably that as well.

However, that~ wasn't their fault.
It's no ones responsibility other than my own.
If I think back on it now I'm glad I had left the {Loincloth.Of.Daring} for evaluation.

If he still had that then there's a good chance I would have even lost Zulu.

In that sort of meaning you could say we defeated the dragon with the least sacrifice.
..Gaining the t.i.tle of {Dragon.Slayer} in exchange for a single combat slave isn't that great.

Right~ Angela...
..d.a.m.n it.

Several tens of minutes after the three of us started going up the path.
We ran into everyone who was in the middle of working.

Everyone was praising the dragon for it's size and the huge pure white magic stone they took from it.
The magic stone wasn't as large as I thought it would be.
The value when using {Identify} is 1,234,567 so even selling it's about 10,000,000 I guess.
It's outstanding for the value of a single magic stone but I feel like it's a bit of a disappointment as well.
But, judging from the numbers lined up there's no mistake it's the magic stone of a floor guardian.

..These fellows, so they were spending time tearing off the scales from the dragon?
Angela's corpse is still frozen.

I sat down by it's side and watched as they continued to peel off the scales.