The dragonian that was disguised as Angela had changed back to the corpse of a dragonian before anyone realized it after a day. I guess that means it's disguise was peeled?

Everyone was working energetically.
They formed into small groups and were coopering to pull the scales off from the dragon's corpse.
It seems you need quite a bit of strength to pull the scales off.
Just from watching I can tell it's quite the difficult job.

Everyone seems to think it's their fault they couldn't partic.i.p.ate in the combat and because of that we didn't have enough forces so Angela died.
Whether that thought is correct or incorrect there's no way of knowing now.
Whatever the case it's something that's already happened so we can't turn back time.

Since I'm just silently sitting on a rock while looking at everyone with dispirited eyes they might be feeling pressured.
They're continuing with the work without saying a thing.

It was too troublesome to dig through Zenom's bags to confirm the time so I don't know exactly how long I was sitting here but shouldn't it be about 2 or 3 hours?
I look at the ice to the side of the rock.

Angela has her eyes closed as if she's sleeping inside of a transparent and frozen coffin.

It's probably because I'm like this that everyone is giving off a depressing atmosphere.
Things are no good like this.

Ever since they recovered from their trembling state it's been over a full day since even the quicker ones have eaten anything.
I just let everyone eat the hardtack we had at that time.
Since they haven't eaten more than the bare minimum everyone is probably feeling considerably hungry.

"Hey, it's about time for us to eat. You're hungry right?"

I stand up from the stone and consciously speak with a cheerful voice.

Since I called out to them everyone gathered together and started eating hardtack.

I guess the fact that my atmosphere changed was conveyed to them or they're just paying mind to me, Zenom started talking to me in a cheerful way.

"Hey~ Al. It must have been a considerable challenge to take this thing down right? Tell me about."

I was waiting for it.

"Yeah, just listen. Angela was amazing. Even after being bitten by the dragon she still kept swinging the sword.."

I told them everything about defeating the dragon and put plenty of appeal on Angela's efforts.
The fact that I couldn't deal any major damage to the dragon with attack spells because they were blocked by it's special skill.
The fact that I stabbed it once with the spear while Angela shot it several tens of times with the rifle and blocked it's concentration every time interfering with it's spells from activating.
Just like that she took the dragon's focus away from me and became the decoy herself.
..And then, the fact that she died in front of my eyes.

I wanted to tell them about how heroically she fought.

By the time my story was finished everyone was looking at Angela sleeping inside of the ice.
Jesu who p.i.s.sed himself after just hearing the dragon's roar from the distance was even looking at her with reverence.
That's fine. Just keep up like that.

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

After our meal we spent almost a full day to tear off all of the scales of the dragon while fearing the resp.a.w.n of the dragon and dragonians.
Miduchi was successfully able to collect the heart as well.
On my end with this I could say we were able to achieve most of the objectives but there's still things remaining.

There's two things we have to do before returning.
One of them doesn't even need to be said investigating the gathering terminal and denaturation device.
The other one is searching through the dragon's nest(According to Miduchi most dragons spend their time sleeping in nests and collect treasures centered on s.h.i.+ny objects).

Sorry for getting straight to the physical evidence but I decided to first try searching the nest.
Ah, so we didn't make the same mistake as last time we split up the scales based on the sizes and then froze them once more before placing them beside the dragon.

For the time being the only monsters we've seen on this floor other than the dragon are the dragonians which we believe to be the floor guardians for the 12th floor.
But, there's no guarantee that there aren't any others so we can't let our guards down.

It was just as everyone was getting excited and ready to run straight to the summit of the mountain.
Ralpha started talking to Miduchi.
Probably because the atmosphere was heavy until now so she was hesitating to whisper.

"Hey, Miduchi. Can dragons be eaten?"
"I've heard about things like dragon steak and such.."

Heh~ Well it does have the feel of a reptile so if you wanted to eat it should be edible.

"Oh! Steak is it. Cook a bit of it for me."

Rokko who had already stood up ran straight over towards the dragon's corpse.
I guess he means to cut off a bit of meat and have Miduchi cook it for him.

"Wait just a moment, stop that. Something like dragon meat there's no way of knowing whether it's safe or not.."

Kamu told him off but Rokko continued cutting off some meat without minding it.
Miduchi glanced at me so I nodded once to her and then she approached to use {Flame Thrower} on the meat he had stabbed into the end of his sword.
Of course, when he cut it off and brought it over I already finished using {Identify} so I've confirmed there's no poison.

"Don't worry about it, first off let Rokko try eating a bit of it. It's true that we're lacking in food after all."
"I guess so. If half a day pa.s.ses and nothing happens then it should be fine."
"Hey Rokko. Make sure you only eat a single bite."

Kevin, Jeru, and Kimu said as if it couldn't be helped.
The things they're saying are quite right as well.
It's obvious that it would take a decent amount of time for searching things.
Thinking about our remaining food and we would need to return to the 11th floor where Giberuti is waiting within the next half a day.
If we can eat the dragon meat then we wouldn't need to worry about food for a short while longer.

Since he wasn't going to eat more than a single bite it seems he cut a smaller portion.
It was grilled right away.

...

While everyone was watching with interest Rokko continued to move his mouth as he chewed it.

"Hmm. It's not bad. But it feels light and doesn't have much of a flavor."

..If you don't use any salt or pepper then I'd say that's about right.

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

We took about 2 hours to climb the mountain and found the mouth of a giant cave opened up just before the summit.
Incidentally, the gathering terminal is stabbed in on the other side of the summit from here.

Just in case I sent in Zulu and Jesu to scout things out.

After a short while of hiding in the shadows and waiting the two of them came running over.

"Master!!!"
"There's an extremely large gold nugget!!"

Hohou!
That is~ quite the harvest.
Since it seems there's no monsters hiding in the nest we decided to go take a look.

Lead by the two of them we all moved over to the nest.

The surface of the nest was round and has a diameter of about 10 meters.
It was a huge nest the size of the dungeon's halls.
And then about 100 meters inside there was a s.p.a.cious 30~40 meter in diameter room.

Inside of there was, starting with large gold nuggets that could fill both of your arms, a large amount of all sorts of metal clumps sparkling in the light.
Just from using {Identify} at a glance there wasn't very much of precious metals like gold, silver, or platinum.
However, there was things like mithril, blue mithril, orihalcon, gemo.orihalcon, adamant.i.te which no matter how you think about it sound precious, as well as tungsten, t.i.tanium, gallium, aluminum, chrome, nickel, and molybdenum all of the silver minerals that I'm already familiar with it laying around.

"Oh~"

Someone naturally whispered.
In the next moment everyone raised their voices in excitement.

However, after a short while that quieted down.
There were two reasons.

One is because my combat slaves all said, "All of these treasures belong to master who defeated the dragon. Those who didn't partic.i.p.ate in the combat shouldn't have the right to a cut." and then while I was thinking of about to react Kamu, Kimu, and the other {Saviors} all started agreeing saying, "That's right that's right."

"But, we defeated a lot of monsters up to the 11th floor..And there's this much of it, I won't even say half so shouldn't you at least split up 20% of it or so?"

And the one who complained like that was Mary but Kevin, Jeru, and Misura all said, "Stop, that's shameful! It's just as Zulu and the others said. People who weren't able to do anything but trembling don't have the right to claim any of the treasure."

"This time that's the case so give up. There's no problem~ if you just work properly then you can still earn as much as you want."

After I said that taking advantage of Mary's acting and everyone agreed.

"It's just as everyone says, Mary. In the first place we just came together with them up to here. We haven't done anything to help defeat the dragon right."

After Kuro said that Mary reluctantly withdrew.
I wonder how many of them realized that Mary intentionally complained without feeling ashamed?
I can't tell that much but at the very least thanks to Mary everyone gave up on any shameful claims and accepted it on the surface.
I thanked her from the bottom of my heart.

The other reason is because everyone started checking the status of the ores that were sparkling from the {Light} spell.

All of the sparkling metals that were believed to be silver, gold, or platinum were mostly tungsten, chrome, and nickel, which aren't worth much money at all, those took up close to 90% of it, and the precious metals such as those worth money only made up 5% of it.
The remaining 5% was made up of magic metals that while the value on them is high they take a lot of effort to sell.

"Toris, what's chrome?"
"It's a variety of iron."
"What about Molybdenum?"
"That's a variety of iron as well."
"Then..{Status Open}..Uwa..galli..um is?"
"I guess a type of mercury which is slightly more difficult to melt?"

Toris was saying whatever works. But, he still knows quite a bit so he's already obtained the position of someone who can be relied on.

"Hey Rodrick. Can this aluminum or whatever be sold?"
"It's not the extent of lead but it's a considerably soft metal. A characteristic of it is that it's comparatively light I guess? It's not something worth very much~"
"That's boring..Oh!!? {Status Open}..Cheh..It's Molybdenum again."
"{Status Open}..Ah, this is platinum!"
"Oh!! It's huge!"

Rodrick was saying whatever as well. But his words felt a bit more kind than Toris.

Right now Miduchi is making a list of all of them.

While we were doing that a single {Magic.Item} was found.
It was an unrefined long sword.

{Dragon.Slayer}
Gemo.Orhalicon Steel
Condition: Normal
Manufacture Date: 15/6/6445
Value: 1
Durability: 278241
Ability: 130-200
Effect: Octuple damage when making attacks against dragons. Also, through using the abilities of the sword, it's possible to select 1 of the following abilities up to 3 times per 1 month. 1. Negate all effects from any type of breath weapon within three meters of the sword(Duration 1 minute). 2. Negate any spells that attack the user(Duration 1 minute). 3. Gather the attention of all enemy creatures within 5 km of the user(Duration 1 hour). 4. Heal the wounds of the user(However, only applies to external wounds. It doesn't matter how many wounds there are but it only takes effect once).

The emblem of a floor guardian of Baldukk is engraved on the grip.
For some reason the blade is emerald green.
Seeing that Miduchi whispered, "Dorua**" or something like that.
I'm sure she was just trying to say dragon and made a mistake.
Incidentally the scabbard was laying around in a completely different place but the scabbard had the same emblem carved into it so it probably originally a set with this.

..So this is the 13th floors..Just as I was thinking that.

"Oh!! This is..{Status Open}..Ooh!!?"

It seems Henry found something.
He respectfully handed it over to me.

{Utility.Ring}
Ruby.Gold
Condition: Normal
Manufacture Date: 19/6/6445
Value: 1
Durability: 30
Effect: Recovers 1% of HP every 1 hour. Also, deploys a spell-based defense layer along the entire body of the user which reduces the penetration of all physical attacks towards the user by 20%. Furthermore the user won't receive any negative influence from external temperatures. Finally it makes the user extremely difficult to root similar to the {Freedom.Ring}.

Hmm. This is quite the impressive ring.
..Ah, this is probably the treasure from the floor guardian of the 13th floor and the long sword is probably the treasure from the 12th floor.

Though I don't know if the dragonains brought along the {Dragon.Slayer} to attack this floor on the year 6445, month 6, day 19 but in any case that dragon probably killed the dragonian that was equipped with the {Dragon.Slayer}.
Though I don't know if it was in this place or not.

Judging from the dates, the dragonians probably left the 12th floor several days before that.

I'm sure they can't use the teleport crystal so they probably flew over...
Well, whatever.

Hn?
That is...

It was halfway buried under the metal ores so I didn't notice it until now but I'm sure it's a shrine.
Not to mention it's the huge type like the one on the 8th floor.

I'm curious what's inside of it.
Obviously I tried going beside it.
Though I don't know if the door of the shrine is open or not.
The metal ores are extremely heavy so I'm sure it wouldn't collapse.

I climbed up all at once and went to where the door of the shrine should be.
The door of the shrine wasn't open because the metal ores were in the way.

I called over Zulu and my combat slaves and had them move the metal ores.

There was a single gem-like object in the shrine.

Judging from the shape it almost looks like a magatama.
The size wasn't anything great.
At best about the size of a child's head I guess?
I gently stretched my hand out.

{Gem}
{Agate}
Condition: Normal
Manufacture Date: 16/12/7447
Value: 1
Durability: 10

Hmm.
Since it doesn't have an {Ability} or {Effect} field I guess that means it isn't a {Magic.Item}?
Just in case I tried using {Detect.Magic} but I couldn't feel any mana.

"What's that? Show me."

Ralpha asked so I handed it to her.

"It looks like a {Magatama}."

Miduchi, Bel, Rodrick, and Toris all checked the status and started debating as if they knew about it.
Incidentally the people from Orth just glanced at it and seemed to lose interest.
The price of agate changes based on the patterns on it but there's a large difference in price.
However, it's still generally one of the gems with a lower value.
At best you could get a slightly better price for the same weight in base metals.

But, well, there's some room to think about it.
There's a lot of things that come out from shrines which seem to be a miss from a glance.
This is probably one of those as well.

But, it came out from this specially made large shrine.
It's said that George.Rombert the First founded his kingdom from the treasures he obtained in the dungeon.

There's no way you could suddenly found a country from gold, silver, and treasure just 10 people can carry back right.
Even defeating a dragon the amount of precious metal you get has it's limits.
It seems like there's a decent amount of it but even if we were to sell all of the silver, gold, and platinum here it would at best about 1,000,000,000.
With just that much...

Until Rombert Kingdom was founded supposedly this area was flooded with self-governed territories run by small lords.
He must have found something that let him bring them all together.

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

Year 7447, Month 12, Day 18

After that we continued searching and found a hallway further inside of the large room.
Since the hallway was buried in metal ores as well it took us a while to find it.

The size of the hall was at most 2~3 meters in width and height.
It zigzags further inside.

I had a combat slave hold a stone with {Extended Light} cast on it and investigate inside.
After all or you could say it's just as expected but about 100 meters ahead there was a room and a teleport crystal enshrined there.
It seems we'll be able to carry back the metal ores without that much trouble.
Even then no matter how you look at it the amount is something we can carry in one or two trips.
In order to carry out everything here even mobilizing all of the {Slaughterers} it would probably take over 1 month.

The fact that we defeated the boss of the 13th floor, a dragon, is a secret for a short while.
I guess we'll slowly carry out the metal ores a bit at a time, the precious metals, and finally the dragon's head.

..After that is investigating the gathering terminal and denaturation device.
But, that, I wonder if you can get in from outside?
If I were that {Vampire Lord} I would have made it so you can't get inside.
The inside was still closed and there were a lot of doors we couldn't do anything about.
Air-lock? Hatch? I don't know if it has them but if it's locked from inside then there's nothing we can do about it.

Even then it's necessary to investigate just in case.
We walked steadily through  the forest and went nearby it.

Looking from outside it's almost like a giant building.
Incidentally, I couldn't use {Identify} on it.
Just as expected, we were able to find something like a hatch.

But, also just as expected we weren't able to open it.

Ah, nothing at all happened to Rokko after eating the dragon so while it wasn't very good we all ate the dragon steaks.
Miduchi said if we eat it there might be some kind of effect but nothing good or bad happened to anyone.