Chương 375: One Last Thing...

The members of the organisation headed by Ergonip once again gathered for a meeting. I wasn't certain how long it had been since my little ventures outside the tower. I had been spending most of my time getting upgrades with Mari, working in the Mindscape, training with my family, and spending time relaxing with my lovers. I wasn't concerning myself much with outside events. I was doing my best trying to grow stronger, getting more and more upgrades, doing everything I could think of to try and gain new forms.

I was even giving a lot of time toward developing new techniques with my knightly form. Hell, I was even trying to train things I didn't even suspect could be trained before… Ever since my visits to the Deep Dream, though, I had gained a new pile of crystals in the Gravescape… The system crystals were helping Nara tremendously, and this would help us assert our influence over the System Fundamentalists completely down the line, but the Deep Dream had also gifted me with a bunch of crystals.

It seems that whenever a group deals with something specific, they'll just have a stash of appropriately themed crystals lying somewhere… In any case, these crystals were split up into several categories: Sleep, dream, and nightmare. … Well, they were apparently more than that, but they had just cited synonyms of those three words. I suppose such is the struggle of the magical elements.

Any word someone can think of can be plopped down in front of the word 'magic', and they would definitely be correctly naming a magical element that did exist. I don't envy the poor bastards who made the mistake of taking an interest in making elemental encyclopedias. They must either love the infinite grind, or profoundly hate the life choices that took them to such a dark place.

In any case, I had feasted on those things and devoured them within just a few days following my acquisition of them, and lo and behold, I had felt the tingle of a form progressing toward being unlocked. Of course, that form was definitely the second part of the 'Nightmare Form'. I hadn't forgotten that the version I currently owned was but one piece of the puzzle. I bet the next part is another round of Nightmare Plague…

But if I do this, Leton will definitely take action–I highly doubt he couldn't find me if he wanted to, considering that he had built a robot capable of tracking me down in the past. He could absolutely send many more SHLADs after me if he felt like it. I swear… If you want to kill me, Leton, then just go all out. You and I both know that I won't be staying put forever.

What will you do if I just leverage the fact that you are going to die of old age eventually and wait for you to be out of the picture this way, mmh? … Well, in this regard, he knows that I would never do this, I guess.

"Now that everyone is here, we may begin" Ergonip's voice pulled me out of my reveries. The skeleton was tapping his bony fingers against the wooden table that every member of the organisation was sitting at–It is still flabbergasting just how much liveliness this literal corpse can project. His eyes were ignited with dark flames today, though.

"Alright, alright… Everyone will show what they got–Right now!" They all pulled a variety of items onto the table, and it soon became clear what was happening. Ergonip himself grabbed something that had seemingly been placed next to his chair–It was a freshly severed monkey hand. A left hand, to be precise. I could tell at a glance that its flesh value was quite high despite it being smaller than the average human hand. It didn't give me any special sensation, though.

It was just the hand of a creature rare or special enough to warrant its flesh having more worth than most. This must be the left hand of a Wish-Twisting Monkey, right? That's one of the ingredients the organisation needs to accomplish its mysterious goal–So mysterious that Leou was simply unable to tell me about it due to a restriction imposed on all members of the group.

Lady Sahhi Dest Salamandia casually snapped her fingers, causing her two followers to pull off the curtain on something behind her, revealing the huge, disembodied head of a hydra. The golden scales reflected light in a most gorgeous manner, but more importantly–The hydra wasn't dead. The head was still stirring, its eyes watching attentively.

The golden head of a hydra was another required ingredient, and one that was certainly amongst the most difficult to obtain on account that hydras with a golden head were well-known to be pretty much unkillable, especially since their other head would regrow by double the amount whenever severed, whilst the golden head was reputed to be invincible… That last part had been proven wrong.

Salamandia didn't elaborate on how she accomplished this feat, but knowing her own draconic origins, it wasn't too hard to imagine that she was simply higher on the draconic echelon than the hydra whose head she had brought. If I had to guess, she annihilated the other heads and body of the hydra in one fell swoop, and somehow found a way to prevent the seemingly unkillable creature from regenerating…

I once heard that cauterisation was a trick that wouldn't work against this particular kind of hydra, but I suppose the flames of a more powerful dragon might just be able to do the trick. Or maybe it was an authority thing. Salamandia is a sapient being, whilst the hydra appears to be more bestial, so she might have just asserted her dominance over it with a display of power, and therefore rendered it into a passive state. I don't know enough about dragons and whatever to know how they operate.

I only know the stories about knights and dragon princesses. Do you mean: Knights, dragons, AND princesses…? Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators! No. Where do you think Leton got the idea to get with a draconic monsterfolk? This… I guess it does explain it…

Although the little dragon lady was trying to appear nonchalant, she was obviously feeling very smug about her haul and emitted quite the amount of upset-type emotion when no one said anything about her amazing retrieval of such a legendary object. I whispered something to Leou swiftly.

"Oh… Magnificent haul, Sahhi!"

"Hehe… It's nothing, it's nothing… Business as usual for me" Salamandia beamed with positivity brightly enough for me to feel it. Next, Godgrod, the giant, golden-furred minotaur, dropped a heart onto the table. It was so large that even with his enormous hands, he needed to lift it like a farmer would have to carry a heavy bag of grain–The table somehow didn't break as this oversized blood-pumper crashed down upon its surface.

"The heart of a Devil-Eating Troll! I had trouble finding that one. I had to swim to somehow get to an island to find its lair. We fought for six months before I was finally able to tear out its heart, dismember it, and scatter the pieces into the ocean for the marine creatures to take care of!" The minotaur cracked his neck with a rather mild expression compared to what he had just said.

"It doesn't crack into my top ten favourite fights, though. The exchange of blows wasn't too bad, but it was annoying how he kept summoning hordes of lesser devils. The fight was only so long because he kept retreating and slowing me down to regenerate. He probably only got to eat devils by chance. That fucker wasn't that great of a fighter" If I weren't in my 'Base Form', I would be furiously blinking. What kind of fights had this guy gotten into, exactly?

And how was the continent not split in half as a result of them? How come I had never heard of a battle maniac, giant golden minotaur before if he got up to such nonsensically lengthy fights on the regular? How old did he have to be for his previous fights to somehow not be mentioned in any of my history classes? I could tell he wasn't just making things up, as Ergonip nodded along and even added his own pieces.

"I do see how that would stop it from making it into your top ten. I doubt it even is in your top fifty, judging by how that troll fought" The dusty skeleton was speaking as if he knew for a fact that no lies had been spoken. Just how strong is Godgrod? How does he compare to the well-known old swordsman of the Vomhargon family? I have so many questions… I didn't want to interrupt things, however. So I instead brought my attention to Millikilli, the small fairy with a rose for a head.

With a wave of her minuscule hand, she made three items float over to the table.

"The two high-grade dungeon cores we need, alongside the Lost Liver of the Hero-Eating Ogre" The little fairy was very casual about it, and while the liver was something that had already been removed from its owner long ago and was thus not something requiring a fight to obtain, the dungeon cores were more eyebrow-raising.

From what I know, high-grade dungeon cores are pretty much guaranteed to be sapient beings, and when a dungeon core has such a level of intellect, it will almost always choose to self-detonate rather than be collected intact. Indeed, I could tell that those cores were still 'alive' and aware. Is that cute little thing also some unfathomably powerful being or something? It wouldn't be too surprising, actually… In any case, Leou and I had brought several other ingredients before already.

The eye of a Star Gazer, fifty grams of Blood-Cursed Wood, as well as a drop of ichor and a drop of blood from a Devil Prince when I distracted Hyotrask. However, Leou had actually found another one of the necessary pieces…

"I've got the one-thousand-year-old virgin woman secured at the tower""Oh, you managed to get one? Whenever I find an elven village and ask to bring me their virgin women, they always panic and start running all over the place" Godgrod spoke with genuine confusion. He really did seem not to see why a giant minotaur showing up and demanding virgins could make people panic…

"Of course they are going to start running, you big idiot. If you do it like that, there is only one logical conclusion people can come to…" Salamandia shook her head, but the minotaur really wasn't getting it.

"What is that conclusion?"

"That… That you want the virgins for yourself?"

"Why would I want them for myself? They are elves, and I am a minotaur. The only virgin I could want is a female minotaur""You're such a precious giant dumbass""Thank you" The exchange was most bizarre. I guess I had never really seen these people actually exchange outside of plotting to gather materials before…

"Let's put aside the fact that Godgrod doesn't understand what other minotaurs are usually up to. We are closer than ever to reaching our goal, but we are missing the final component-" Millikilli spoke up, and Ergonip finished her sentence:"-The crown of the Last Molten King" The skeleton used a tone more serious than I had ever heard from him.

"This is a delicate one. I've been trying to negotiate to get it, but they simply will not budge. This crown is not just a legacy to them. It is a powerful weapon. They won't give it away for any price" The skeleton looked around the table, prompting each member of the organisation to speak. Lady Sahhi Dest Salamandia was the first, and she shook her head immediately.

"Vulcania will definitely never budge. The Last Molten King was her husband, and that crown is the most important memento she has of him""Could you not use your influence? Vulcania is a dragon, after all" She shook her head even wider at this remark from the skeleton.

"Vulcania is staying inside of the Molten Kingdom, and as you know, it is located in a separate realm with only one entrance. She has total dominion and advantage there–Not to mention that even outside of it, she would beat my ass with ease. That woman is no joke. In size alone, she's the biggest dragon currently alive. That I know of, at least…"

"... I can't help with this" Godgrod spoke next, huffing hot air out of his bovine nostrils.

"I went to this realm before. The dragon woman won, and she banished me from ever entering again. Even if I could get in, I have not grown strong enough to face her, and even if I had, she can fly too high for me to reach and crush me with her volcanic breath" The minotaur was quite clear about this, and Millikilli straight-up refused to get involved.

"I'll die if I do as much as enter this place. Way too hot" Ergonip and I had our not-eyes meet. I won't be able to escape this one, will I?