We ate lunch and walked in a rowdy, field-trip mood… honestly, full hiking-club energy.
That’s how we crossed the forest.
Along the way, Sonya spotted two death hawks in the trees and hunted them both.
The palm-top rabbits are apparently terrifying, but Queen Sonya turned out to be a whole different category.
She took down a death hawk — a certified high-rank monster — with a single backhand.
Then, about three hours into the forest walk.
Right around the halfway point to town—
“Ah! That’s — I found something INCREDIBLE~!”
What Sonya had discovered was a dragon with a shoulder height of ten meters.
But Sonya and Maria teamed up, and after a battle lasting several dozen seconds… the dragon was a corpse.
No, really. The dragon just… lost. Immediately.
Mind you, there was light terrain destruction, the surroundings were scorched black — the aftermath said “site of a legendary battle”…
Fine, I’ll describe it properly.
The two of them dodged the dragon’s opening breath attack and closed the distance.
Then Maria grabbed the dragon’s foreleg and executed a clean shoulder throw, and as the dragon sailed through the air, Sonya ended everything with a spinning kick to its face.
The unconscious dragon then got mobbed by the two of them. Total elapsed time: a few dozen seconds. Speedrun complete.
—These two… are absurdly strong.
This dragon, by the way, is apparently called an arc dragon.
“Well, I AM from a ducal house of the succubus race. I may have fallen from grace in the demon realm, but thanks to the affection Lord Tatsuya bestows on me nightly, my mana is in perfect condition.”
“Ufufu~. Dragon is DELICIOUS, you know~?”
Naturally, the meat is coming home with us.
The bones, hide, fangs, and other materials we’ll sell off in town.
The original errand was confirming whether death hawks really trade at fifteen hundred gold, so this is… a side quest, I suppose.
For scale: a death hawk is ostrich-sized.
An arc dragon is a TEN-METER situation.
Honestly, storage was already a problem at the death hawk stage, but—
Piroriro-rin♪
[Skill: Item Box Level 10, activated.]
—went the divine voice.
“Item Box” requires no explanation. It’s THAT skill.
Since the skill level is limit-broken, capacity is so huge that thinking about free space is pointless.
Better yet: with a one-ton-per-use limit, it apparently also offers time-stopped preservation storage.
Anyway. Setting all that aside.
—I’ve always wanted to try dragon meat.
Every fantasy fan on Earth will back me up on this one.
And so, we arrived at the town.
The town itself was… exactly a medieval fantasy world, full stop.
There were skewer stalls and everything, and since we were hungry, I bought some.
“Ufufu. It’s bad. It’s very, very bad~”
“Dreadful indeed. Practically garbage, I should say.”
I taste-tested too, and compared to death hawk meat… it was inedible. Genuinely bad.
The flavor profile of half-spoiled meat grilled hard to disguise the fact.
The two ladies pushed their half-eaten skewers onto me, so in the end I ate all three sticks of garbage meat.
I could have thrown them out, I know. Blame my mother’s upbringing.
Then we reached the Adventurers’ Guild.
I surveyed the place on entry — once again, a pixel-perfect match for the fantasy-world adventurers’ guild of your imagination.
There was an elf receptionist, so we made straight for the counter.
“I’d like to sell some materials…”
“A materials buyback? What are we selling today?”
I called up the Item Box.
For reference, the opening is about 1.5 meters cubed — anything that fits through goes in, and comes out just as easily.
I hauled out a death hawk and heaved it onto the counter.
”…A… a death hawk?”
The receptionist’s mouth fell open, eyes spinning.
“I’d like to keep the meat, by the way.”
“Then… that will be one thousand five hundred gold — fifteen orichalcum plates. Ah, the butchering charge comes out as a fee. But my — hunting an S-rank monster… appearances truly can deceive.”
Hmm.
And with that, fox-eared Arisa’s rip-off fee structure is officially confirmed.
She told me she’d “deduct her fee” from the death hawk sale, and handed me seven hundred fifty gold.
Well, her case can wait. Right now, we sell.
“Also, two more death hawks…”
”…Eh? My, what a sense of humor you have, sir. Even the highest-rank adventurers don’t bag MULTIPLE death haw— wai— EEEHH?!”
At the sight of the two additional death hawks, the elf receptionist’s face drained toward blue.
“Does the guild vault even HAVE forty-five orichalcum plates… right now…?”
“And one arc dragon, additionally.”
At that, with a violently twitching expression, the elf receptionist said:
“Please keep your jokes within reason, sir. Death hawks are one thing, but an arc dragon on TOP of them — is this a triumphant return from some hero party’s grand quest…? Besides, no item box could possibly hold something that enorm—”
I produced, from the Item Box, just the arc dragon’s head.
Well — “produced” isn’t quite right. “Summoned” is closer to the mechanics.
Point is: out of my Item Box emerged the head of a giant dragon, a full meter long on its own. A genuine dragon head reveal.
”…”
The receptionist froze solid.
Mouth flapping — open, shut, open — she entered a brief state of hyperventilation.
Simultaneously, the adventurers in the guild hall began pointing at the dragon head and buzzing.
Eventually, the guild girl regained a fraction of her composure, and in a voice like a dying mosquito said:
”…That’s… impossible… isn’t it…?”
She is EXTREMELY shocked.
The two of them dropped it so casually that it didn’t register, but the arc dragon might genuinely be top-shelf dangerous.
Which would make the two who casually deleted it even MORE dangerous, but let’s not dwell.
”…The arc dragon comes to ten thousand gold, the death hawks to fifteen hundred each — a total of fourteen thousand five hundred gold coins.”
In yen: 145 million… which is, once again, ridiculous.
Then again, through the offering box it becomes ¥14,500. Thanks to the money-grubbing god, the grandeur fails to land.
—First order of business when we get home: one case of 500ml beer cans via the offering box.