Chapter 171 – Checking in (2/2)

”Yo, Scarlet!”

”Hey boss!”

Turning behind me as I closed in on the dungeon entrance, I saw two figures.

”Oh, didn't expect to see the two of you together.”

Standing before me was Sarah and Magni.

Sarah was originally a reincarnator that was sent to kill me, but after proving to be magnitudes stronger than she had expected, she instead gave up and willingly became my familiar as a measure to prevent her from trying anything in the future. But rather than resent me for something like that, it seemed she had turned a liking to me, though I strongly suspected that the reason for that was because of what I provided her.

”I don't have any food ready for you right now.”

”I, I don't always ask for schteev!”

”Do you?”

”You do! You do!”

”Yea!”

Alicia and Fate giggled as they pointed out her lie. All I could do was smile as the girl turned away, mumbling something under her breath.

”And so, what's going on. Or is it a secret from me?”

I turned to the other figure, a huge dragonkin the better part of twice my height and towering over his human companion. Magni, a runaway from his old clan that I beat up because of a misunderstanding. He too found himself under me due to our encounter, though I gave him up to Harja the dragonkin chieftain as an offering of peace.

”Haaa...Chieftain Harja's orders were for me to get more levels on my own time, and I found Sarah here looking to test her new...weapon?”

”Yes, yes! Look!”

Out of the magic bag which I had given the woman years ago, came out an adamantium barrel connected with a shoulder stock covered in some sort of wyvern scales. The whole thing was almost as long as I was tall.

”That's...quite the rifle.”

Looking more closely, it roughly resembled one of those old breach loading big game hunting rifles. Though the parts were made from things that didn't exist on Earth, and probably the world, or rather galaxy, that Sarah had come from. There were signs of various enchantments cast on the weapon, shows just how hard she must have worked on this iteration of her weapon.

”Isn't it such a beauty? A pure adamantium barrel inlaid with an enchantment to resist against internal pressure! The stock is made from orihalcum with a bladder made from dragon scales to generate and hold the intense pressure needed for firing these custom made bullets!”

Then she pulled out one of those bullets. Aside from the black tip, the thing gleamed with a rainbow sheen and was almost half as big as my fist.

”An orihalcum bullet with an adamantium core, enchanted to explode on impact to further propel the armour piercing core! Alternatively...”

”Ah, alright. I got it. You don't have to show me the rest.”

Sarah stopped as she pulled out five more bullets, each of a different design.

”So the two of you had business in the dungeon, and you both happened to meet up on the way or something so you figured you'd go together, right?”

”Umm, right. That's roughly it, boss.”

Magni confirmed my suspicion.

If that was the case, then it made sense. While these two didn't actually spend that much time together, they were both people who had their own goals and had reasons to regularly visit the deeper levels of the dungeon.

Magni had always been looking to grow stronger, to be strong enough not to be stepped on by his fellow dragonkin. While I pretty much screwed over his original escape from their prosecution, the act of giving him to Harja was effectively throwing him to the wolves.

But looking at him now, after over half a decade under her leadership, I didn't need [scan] to see that he had grown quite a bit. If I had an eye for dragonkin men, then I would probably be pretty flushed at the very sight of him or something.

Probably.

At the very least, his aura was nice and strong, well on the way to becoming one of the strongest of Harja's.

Sarah on the other hand loved her guns second only to the food of her home, of which for some reason she still bugged me to provide despite the fact that I had given her the recipes and she had picked up the [cooking] skill.

Aside from that, she's always been looking for ways to improve her arsenal as well as finding excuses to use her prized firearms.

It seemed like the two's objectives aligned quite well by chance, so they were on their way to the dungeon together.

”By the way, I head that the blacksmith Njordr had made an offering to you, boss?”

”An offering?”

The very notion made a shiver run up my spine.

”I paid for it properly. Though he tried to refuse it.”

Frankly speaking, there was no real way to determine the value of what he had made. There wasn't really anything comparable to it, but when I considered the price of his time along with the materials used, as well as the help he had gotten for the enchantment, I took that estimate, multiplied it, then just rounded the total off and handed him a bag of coins.

To be honest, I couldn't be bothered to count the contents of the bag, but I was pretty sure that it was more than the amount I came up with.

The weird thing was that money was pretty pointless to me. I just had too much of it. Not only raw coins, but materials as well.

And as much as I wanted to sell of or even donate most of my excess materials as I continued to dive deeper and deeper into the dungeon, the very idea of even trying to do so was stupid. I'd instantly crash the fragile economy we had managed to put together.

That said, I refused to not contribute to the economy where I could, so I didn't want to receive things for nothing.

That, and the very idea of being deified irked me, so the scythe I got being treated as an offering was pretty annoying.

”Hey, Scarlet. Can I see it?”

”You're interested in a melee weapon?”

”Not really, but maybe I can learn something to make an even better rifle if I had a look of a master blacksmith's greatest work?”

While I did wonder how much such a reference could be useful, it wasn't really something which I had any real reason to deny Sarah.

I pulled out my weapon and placed it in front of me, held out for Sarah.

The gun nut took a quick glance before grabbing the weapon's haft.

”Ack!!!”

When I let go to let her have a closer look, the scythe just leaned over, taking the woman with her. Before it could fall on top and injure her, I grabbed the weapon and stood it back on its end.

”Geez, how the hell do you even wield something like this?!”

Sarah got up and dusted herself off before having another look at my weapon. This time she stopped at touching it.

”Heehee! Mommy's the strongest!”

”Strongest in the world! Heehee!”

I gave my cute twins a quick smile before turning back to Sarah.

”Bah! I don't get it at all!”

It figured.

”It's well made, really well made. But not a single thing on it can be used on a gun.”

The gun freak flopped over, as if all the energy that powered her had suddenly ceased. It was even starting to look like maybe she would give up and go home without enjoying some test firing of her new rifle.

”Still, I'm amazed. You can wield this without any problems boss?”

”Yea.”

Just to prove it, I lifted the huge scythe up and twirled it around for a bit.

”It's almost all adamantium right? It must weigh more than I do.”

”Ah, I guess so.”

The weapon was quite large, especially with how wide the blade got near the base. And that didn't take into consideration the fact that the shaft was quite thick as well to be able to withstand the force of swinging it around. And adamantium seemed to be quite heavier than gold or lead. It probably surpassed tungsten by quite a bit, but in return there was very little that had as much raw strength. At the very least, nothing which I had so far found in the dungeon.

So what Magni said wouldn't be wrong at all.

Frankly, when I stopped to think about it, it really was insane that I could wield such a thing with such ease. But the fact that I had hardly even considered it strange showed just how much I had adapted to this world already.

It would be good if I was able to live here for a long time to come.

Ninetailed_Furball

Hi everybody! It's your usual furball! (/◕ヮ◕)/

Hope everyone enjoyed this latest chapter.

Since the last few all centred around the dungeon, I figured that a little bit of time outside was needed, as well as seeing how some of our favourite characters (aside from our vampire trio) are doing. I feel like I'm doing this a lot, but at the same time, I keep realizing how many months it's been since their last appearance.

I may have included too many characters in this story to keep relevant. (；一_一)

Though that said, I do hope that you do like most of them, even if some of them are pretty shallow.

Anyways, this will go on for a little longer before we get back to the action. (`･ω･´)

I hope that everyone's doing well, then!

See you next time! (·ω·)∩