Chapter 223: Chapter 191: Dragoon Princess’s Armor of Crimson Glow.

<Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Scale-Dust Size Increase], [Fire Abnormality Effect: Dread] gained. 6100 SP remaining>

<Mutation acquired. Merging [Scale-Dust Size Increase], [Fire Abnormality Effect: Dread] into unique racial skill [Dreadflame Dragon]>

‘Yeah, gliding is a non-issue, balancing is easy with favorable winds. Although, controlling it to match the power of the boosters, especially during erratic power increases and decreases, is difficult. We’ll probably get used to it over time, with more varied practice.’ An astute analysis came from Manager Mind on the control of my scale-dust boosters and the effect [Tailwind] had on my flying capabilities.

I was currently practicing my flying over a forest while my parallel minds were analyzing my training, learning the “feel” of it so we could fly more efficiently in the future. After all, this scale-dust rocket boosters plus [Tailwind] was kinda more difficult to control than just flying in general back in the Belzac forest … Still, it has been over a year ago. How nostalgic.

Now I was practicing it inside the Emerald-Flare Forest Dungeon on its ninth floor. Wind was surrounding my body like an [Air Shield], ejecting wind in whatever direction I wanted as my parallel minds controlled [Tailwind] using [Fluid Cast]. A constant stream of fire was being blasted out from the gaps of my wing’s scales, just strong enough to propel me forward at a decent pace.

With my [Bonepecker Bladeclaw Spear] that I bought from Kraftja and Ogni out and ready, I was flying and eyeing the ground like a drone. With [Detection Sensor], I was able to sense the approach of a group of signals—five dots were running rather orderly in front of a horde erratically moving behind them.

“Shit, they’re getting faster!” When I heard that statement, a group of five young men jumped out from the shade of a group of trees, with a horde of knopbries following hot on their heels. I turned my body around, following the two groups from the sky through the gaps of trees. Clutching my spear, I was biding my time through the constant shouting the boys were doing, completely frightened by the giant mushroom monsters.

That was when we struck.

A crimson flash dashed out of the bushes, a split second after the boys passed it. As they turned their heads around, a brown glow appeared on the flash’s hand, quickly constructing a large diagonal [Terra Wall] to cut off the knopbries’ sight, stalling them. As if they were lemmings, the knopbries collectively rushed towards the left flank of the wall, but that was where she waited for them.

“Wind Slash! Wind Slash!”

Two blades of wind shot out from the young woman’s hand, slicing two knopbries’ heads off. As their decapitated corpses were trampled by the horde, the young woman in crimson armor dashed forward, cutting down a third monster with her blade while her blue hair fluttered in the frantic start of this skirmish.

Dragoon Jump.

Stopping my boosters for a moment, I turned my body around, aiming my head towards the ground. Muscles in my legs began to tense up the moment I thought of this new unarmed Ability. I bent my knees as I used [Air Walk] to create a platform for my feet to stand on, readying my spear for battle in the process. Like an eagle singling out a target from above, I chose one of the knopbries in the horde as my target.

With a sonic boom, I blasted off, stomping the air with power and scale-dust boosters.

In the next second, all I could hear were death rattles and the explosion of rocks underneath my spear. Knopbies were sent flying from the shockwave of my landing, making easy targets for my partner-in-crime to cut anything flying over to her.

“Fuck!” But all I could do was curse out in exasperation.

“Hestia?” the girl in beautiful armor suddenly cried out.

I turned towards the girl, tears figuratively flowing from my eyes. “Ellaine! I broke my spear!”

I was too ambitious. Far too ambitious. In my attempt to mimic Yorshka’s dragoon attack, I thought I was copying every motion she did to a tee—I was even being original by replacing the [Wind Blast] part with my jet engine. Unfortunately, I forgot the most important part: a good spear.

Admittedly, my jump was a bit too strong. My ears were ringing a bit from that sonic boom, my body ached from the sheer physics applied with this attack, and my [Draconic Barrier] had to drain some of my mana to prevent my body from taking damage upon crashing onto the ground. All of this didn’t matter to me since my body was sturdy, but that wasn’t the case for my spear.

As I held up my ruined weapon, only the half behind my hand was in a fine condition, but the rest of the weapon, from the spear tip down to the shaft, shattered.

“That’s what happens when you drop down like that. I barely saw you fall. Of course a spear made from normal bones and a lightweight metal like andurium would break under so much pressure!” Ellaine scolded me as she continued her slaughter.

Four days. It took exactly four days, just as Grimnir had said.

After Yorshka and Saori’s students left us, our party went to Grimnir working inside the Tunging Hammer’s smithy to check up on him. There, he presented us with a fine set of armor made specifically for Ellaine. Made using a few of the rachonoid queen’s materials, my dragon scales and obsidian, and Saori’s fenrir fur, it was the epitome of what Aurora could currently produce with the materials we had.

As Yorshka not only had experience as a dragoon but also as a lifelong companion to a griffin knight, namely her husband Farron, her suggestions combined with Grimnir’s experience crafting dragonewt armor turned Ellaine’s armor into not only a work of art, but, also a piece of equipment able to elevate her defensive stats far beyond what her body could provide, perfect for her future goals.

<Dragoon Princess’s Armor of Crimson Glow: Armor made using [Molten Core Rachonoid], [Young Sunfang Dragon], and [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir] materials, fused together during the blacksmithing process with eoriant and voldunna metal. Blood of a Kargryxmor dragon was used to douse the armor pieces, granting the wearer enhanced combat stats during battle, which lends a crimson glow from the scales. Extremely resistant to any source of fire damage, although weak against water-based elements.

Intelligence Power: 257

Vitality Power: 1245

Wisdom Power: 1098

Skill: [Sundering Resistance Lv. 8] [Piercing Resistance Lv. 6] [Crushing Resistance Lv. 8] [Inferno Resistance Lv. 5] [Lava Resistance Lv. 5] [Terra Resistance Lv. 3] [Dark Resistance Lv. 8] [Water Weakness Lv. 5] [Mana Conductor Lv. 8] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 8] [Aerial Fighter Lv. 8] [Mid-Air Maneuvering Lv. 8] [Mounted Fighter Lv. 8] [Durability Loss Reduction Lv. 10] [Wind Pressure Nullification] [Explosion Pressure Nullification] [Battle Frenzy] [Sorcerer’s Power Lv. 3] [Prime Vigor Lv. 5] [Sage’s Wisdom Lv. 5]>

The armor was designed to fit a flying knight, similar to Sir Antonio’s or Ellaine’s father’s armor, but with a distinct dragoon touch courtesy of Yorshka.

Yorshka, due to her more up-front and personal fighting style, had designed her own armor to fit the image of a fully defensive paladin—made specifically for her job as a Knight of Aurena—and was meant for solo diving into a battle. She had the reflexes and strength to keep the mobility focused battle style of a dragoon despite being in heavier armor, and in combination with her silver powder increasing her defense further, it let her strike like a meteor whenever she dragoon dived an enemy

Since Ellaine was a human, lacking the natural physical stats of a beastman, Grimnir made her armor more similar to a dragoon’s while keeping the Artorian knight appeal. As such, her armor was built lighter in order to allow her to dodge attacks more efficiently while on foot.

As it was a dragoon-inspired armor, my dragon scales were added lavishly onto her suit, giving it that distinctive crimson shine. Similar to using chainmail as the second layer of protection, Grimnir created a more refined scale-mail for Ellaine to wear underneath her armor. The gauntlets and pauldrons especially looked spiky as the scales were added onto them—not fused, like the scale mail Grimnir made during the blacksmith competition, but just layered—while her breastplate had monster materials alloyed with the metal to create it, looking elegant and sleek.

The scale-mail she had flowed down to her thighs, looking a bit like a mini skirt, although Grimnir called it a hauberk. To better protect her legs, a fauld with large scale-looking tassets were added to protect her waist and thighs. Her leg armor also included pants made from troll leather—resilient against slash and striking attacks but flabby enough for elasticity to ease movements—and scale-fused alloy cuisses, greaves, and sabatons which made up her leg armor.

“Hmph. Elven, dragonewt, and human armor always have a certain artistic appeal to them, while we tazongs value each other’s armor by how much metal we can carry around.” Grimnir commented when he handed Ellaine her armor. He sounded grumpy, but without his beard he couldn’t hide his wide smile.

That was his philosophy when it came to making equipment—practically. It didn’t matter how beautiful it was if a good weapon was unable to defend its owner. With a helmet to finish it off, Grimnir was laughing like crazy once Ellaine put the armor on … only to scoff when Ellaine suggested adding a cape.

“Capes are cool” was everybody’s consensus on it since Ellaine explained her father and the other knights always wore capes with their armor. On the other hand, Grimnir kept shouting, “Capes are impractical!” to every argument. Fortunately, he still relented to Ellaine’s wish at the end of the day, but added a failsafe which could be activated using mana to detach it.

Now, to the combat specs, it was without a doubt incredible. “Intelligence Power,” “Vitality Power,” and “Wisdom Power'” were far higher than what the Black Orc’s voldunna armor gave, and as they added these stats onto the wearer’s base stats, they boosted Ellaine’s defensive stats to the point that they rivalled Saori’s and my own defensive stats. In our moderate humanized forms, anyway. The power of good equipment.

The skills, on the other hand, were mostly kept simple. Since similarly-named skills stacked with those on your Profile, if I were to wear this armor, I could practically become invulnerable to any sorta flames … Not! Grimnir explained even with two [Inferno Resistance Lv. 5] I couldn’t become immune, which meant I finally got my answer to how all of these skills stacked—multiplitically.

Well, aside from that, there was one skill that caught my eyes—[Battle Frenzy].

<Battle Frenzy: The battle will of the Black Tyrant Dragon Kargryxmor coursing through his descendant’s blood, tamed to do the bidding of the blood’s carrier. During battles worthy of the user’s focus, stats and resource regeneration will increase>

[Battle Frenzy] was a great surprise. Yorshka, who had suggested this idea, reminded me of the power of the blood of a true dragonkin, of how potent it was for alchemy. Since I already gave Saori some of my blood, I might as well double-down and give Ellaine a dragon blood boost, as well.

Now, up until now, I thought [Battle  Frenzy] was just an annoying piece of shit I had to deal with due to my bloodline. However, apparently, part of a Kargryxmor whelp’s education was to learn how to control their blood’s battle tendency and harness it for their strength.

Ever since I evolved into a [Young Sunfang Dragon], I haven’t had any issues with [Battle Frenzy] thanks to the dragon’s calmer nature. While I was able to control [Battle Frenzy] this way, this frustrating tingling never disappeared completely, so I still needed to fight. It was good to know I could turn this dreadful effect to work for me, though.

But ‘how’ and with ‘whom’ were the questions.

“Dammit.” I recovered the pieces of my spear and threw them into my storage before snapping my fingers, igniting the small amount of scale-dust ejected from my wings during the landing, flying around the area. Explosions set my surroundings on fire the moment a root spear was shot at me. “You’re not the same barkwraith, but you sure like getting set on fire, just like the other one.”

“Hestia, I’ll take care of the knopbries! Stop the barkwraith from escaping!” Ellaine shouted before swinging her sword to gut something.

I nodded before grabbing the root spear wiggling around trying to extinguish the flames from the scale-dust. I pulled on it, causing a figure to appear behind a tree and fall on the ground. It was the target of our Quest: the barkwraith of floor nine. Now that it was finally in my sight, I let go of its arm.

Pulling it back through the ground, the barkwraith severed its arm off before the flames could spread to the rest of its body. It stared at its shortened arm, unable to hide its confusion. Since barkwraiths had impressive healing, it probably was baffled that it wasn’t able to recover from the damage, but that was ’cause it was affected with [Dread Burn].

Mutations. Similar to how Saori was able to buy the Job skill [Penumbral Armament], I could finally buy [Crimson-Scaled Dreadgiver]’s Job skills from my SP shop as “mutations.” I bought both [Scale-Dust Size Increase] and [Fire Abnormality Effect: Dread] for 1500 SP each, delighted to learn that leveling up certain Jobs allowed me to acquire cool skills for SP. This really made me happy when I decided to be more stingy with it.

Since my scale-dust now could prevent people from healing, I just became a hard counter against healers. With the barkwraith now distracted and distressed from its condition, I jumped over to it and grabbed its neck.

“Yo dayo.” Snap. I crushed its neck.

<Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Hellblade] has risen from [Level 5] to [Level 11]>

<Attributes have increased due to level up>

With the only rank C in this monster horde dead, Ellaine made quick work of the rank D knopbries. The young men, the guys we cooperated with for this quest, also entered the battle to help Ellaine, but she was just blitzing through everything before they could take down their first two knopbries.

<Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s Job [Hellblade] has risen from [Level 11] to [Level 15]>

<Attributes have increased due to level up>

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<Max level of Job [Hellblade] has been reached>

Jeez, there were too many of them today.

With the fight over, the dismantling phase began. I threw the barkwraith’s body into my storage, holding onto its lifeless head before prying out the mana core from within. Since treants such as barkwraiths were originally faefolk like spriggans who became monsters by fusing themselves into a tree, they had a similar core to the onnikais I used to fight against. The only difference was an onnikai acted like a parasite controlling their host body, whereas a treant’s core was like a brain, and, once it formed, the original faefolk was gone forever.

The goal of the Quest is to acquire this core. Grimnir gave me the last one we acquired but I forgot to hand it in. It’s supposedly a good alchemical item, but the Quest gives a lot of rank points.

“Lady Ellaine, we can do it. Please, leave it to us!” Once I was done, I turned around to see a young man in simple chain and leather armor scratching the back of his head, smiling as he talked with Ellaine. I believe his name was Naden.

Ellaine looked flabbergasted, opening her mouth for a second before closing it, only speaking after taking a moment to think. “… There are too many bodies. I’m used to dismantling monsters, there is no need for your worry. Nevertheless, I thank you for your consideration.”

Ellaine’s tone felt a bit condescending—the attitude she usually took towards strangers or other nobles—contrasting her more worrywart-like personality in private.

“No, no, it’s okay. It’s okay. We’ll gladly do all the work! I mean, you two ladies cleaned up the monsters so it’s just right if we do the dismantling. I mean, we couldn’t have done this Quest without the two of you. Uh, yeah!” At this point, Naden’s companion seemed to eye him anxiously. Fitting, as Ellaine was frowning.

Before the situation exploded, I stepped in to diffuse it. After everything was cleared up, Ellaine and I chose an area with the knopbries and dismantled them together.

“Your armor is dashing enough to infatuate people. Great job, your first step into becoming a fully-fledged knight,” I said.

“W-wah?” Ellaine’s head shot up from my teasing comment, flushed red. “N-nonsense. The armor does look very elegant, but I don’t think I look anywhere as good as my father or brother in their armor. In any case, it sounded more like Naden was belittling my skills as an adventurer. Even my knights were able to dismantle monsters, so I must do the same.”

Cute, I thought of Ellaine’s pout.

Even with seven people, the number of knopbries we had to dismantle took quite some time to finish, but we eventually got through them all. As we were about to leave the floor to hand in the Quest, the rest of Aurora called us. Saori, Tasianna, and Grimnir all looked sweaty and had pieces of wood on their clothing, a result of their intensive tree cutting.

I showed them a thumbs up, telling them, “Good job cutting down the trees. You guys helped us slay the barkwraith.” I then looked over at Naden and his companions, who all nodded and gave a thumbs up to my statement.

Frankly, I was just acting. The Quest for the barkwraith core was a continuous Quest in the hunter’s guild, as it was in constant demand by the alchemist guild who needed them to create catalysts. It was a rank C Quest which gave three C rank points and allowed three parties of hunters to participate in it due to the difficulty. As lucrative as it sounded, since the barkwraith was a floor guardian, it only respawned once every week.

Naden, a hunter we saved in the last backwraith attack, met us in the hunter’s guild today and suggested we team up for it, and, as our party needed rank points, we agreed. The issue was that only a single member from Aurora was needed to clear this Quest, and we technically wanted to work on Grimnir’s RV today, so we had to act like everybody in Aurora helped out with the Quest.

There was a guild rule that stated that everybody who accepted the Quest had to participate in it, and any who didn’t, would be disqualified from the rewards. This rule was there to prevent nobles or rich adventurers from hiring people and having them do all the work to artificially increase their adventurer rank. It made sense, but we had to work around it for today.

Without breaking the rules, Saori, Tasianna, and Grimnir began cutting down trees to anger the barkwraith, luring it into a location for us to ambush it. Unfortunately, a group of knopbries seemed to have detected Naden and his friends and lured the barkwraith to them, which caused the whole situation in the first place. I had the feeling Naden’s party had terrible luck just like ours.

Once we handed the Quest in, everybody gave their report about what happened and handed in the two barkwraith cores. The guild, who knew what happened to Naden two weeks ago, believed us and divided the reward among everybody without any issues. With the money divided, Aurora celebrated having acquired six C points.

Rank-wise, this helped Ellaine reach Rank D as a hunter while Saori, Tasianna, and I were about halfway through to C rank. We also learned that Grimnir was already rank C and already had 30 C rank points towards becoming a B rank hunter, which required him to have 70 points. Our overall party rank was still D, but it was good to have another rank C hunter like Grimnir in the party.

“Thank you very much for the help, today! Uhm, also, thank you for saving my life the last time we met! I hope we can work together once again!” Naden said all of this to Ellaine, acting like his party’s representative.

“Thank you, but Hestia is our party leader. Please, give her your praises.”

“O-oh …”

Poor dude.

Once our adventurer business was dealt with, we returned to Grimnir’s RV and moved it outside the city. Since Grimnir was a member of our party now, he wanted to renovate it to create space for everybody. Given that we already had acquired not only the ore and the logs from the Sarlenzia Trading Company, but we also had the two barkwraith bodies, the trees from floor nine we just cut down earlier, and also the treant wood we acquired after the felgheist nightlord battle, we definitely weren’t lacking in materials.

“I’m not too sure what you lasses want, so give me your ideas. I’ll try to add them into the blueprint.” Grimnir placed the blueprints for his RV on a table in the middle of the forest.

Us girls had simple demands.

“We need a larger sleeping space. I don’t think we can create enough space for individual rooms, but it should be enough for us girls to have some privacy. I think you would agree some breathing room would be nice, too, Grimnir. An RnR room would be great, too.”

“The RV itself is far too small. We can’t make the wagon too wide so let us add another floor. We can use the lower floor as a working area while we can commute upstairs. Could we not make it a bit longer, in addition, technically it is also your smithy, Grimnir. It would be a shame to abandon the shop aspect.”

“We need area for everybody’s specialties. A kitchen with a bakery, a study, an area for our garden, a tinkering workstation, an alchemy station, oh, we mustn’t forget a space for Lady Hestia to practice her singing. I also agree we require some room just to relax more. I would also love a space to store my tea leaves.”

“… This might sound obvious, or not, but am I the only one who believes we must add a proper bathing room? Even a shower would be adequate. If this is supposed to be our home, we require the necessities to live not like commoners. We must make do with what an inn provides us, but not inside our place of rest.”

Normal demands, like I said.

Grimnir massaged his temples. “… Haaaaaa, this will be a lot of work.”

As Grimnir presumed, we had to completely renovate everything. The wagon was designed for two dwarf men, so it had very little room left for us four girls. Since Grimnir needed his smithy and runesmith workbench—especially since he hadn’t finished Ellaine’s runes yet—and Ellaine needed an artificer station, our only choice was to expand the RV upwards and make the bottom area larger in general.

The issue, of course, was that we had to make it large enough to fit inside a town and city. Usually, the main streets would be large enough for any wagon to move around, but Saori wanted to turn the wagon into a restaurant, alchemy shop, and a smithy. Since the permit costs at the guild were based on the size of the wagon, we couldn’t make it too large.

On the other side, Tasianna, Ellaine, and I wanted a livable and comfortable palace. When we returned home from work, we just wanted to relax. However, since I was an idol, the wagon had to be maneuverable. We needed to travel from one area to the other in a quickish fashion. The more concerts I could perform, the happier I would be.

As you would expect from a runesmith, Grimnir had a way to solve this. There was a rune called [Utility Rune: Featherweight] which decreased the weight of an object, allowing the RV to not slow down from its capacity. Only issue was the material costs for this rune.

“Hmph. We need to purchase some equerochs to transport the wagon. Two, at least. That will increase the price,” Griminr determined. Since he couldn’t afford any horses due to his financial situation before he met us, he was stuck inside Cedaraille regardless if he wanted the molten voldunna core or not.

“That is a non-issue.” When it came to money, Saori wouldn’t allow excessive spending. She summoned her garm’s, eyeing them mischievously. “Consider this training everyone.”

Her garms, on the other hand, weren’t thrilled. Sure, they might sacrifice their lives for Saori without question, but all four of them had a sense of pride as rank C monsters. They found the very idea of acting like beasts of burden abhorrent, but they couldn’t argue back once Saori doubled down.

“All five of us have a way to generate income, however, you four do not. Hunting does not count as all five of us can do it ourselves. Combat is not the only duty you have as a member of this pack. Either accept Hestia’s [Hestia’s Retainer] title or work in a rotating shift to move the wagon.”

The garms chose the latter option. I did not feel in any way offended. Not at all.

It took us a whole week to finish the RV. Adding another floor, crafting the furniture and workstations, smithing any metal equipment, decorating, and finally, making sure the plumbing system worked. We still had to remove the waste ourselves, but it beats doing everything in a bush.

As everybody stared proudly at our combined handiwork, I couldn’t help but reminisce about what we did the past week. As the students’ finances were not supporting us anymore, we had to move out from the fancy inn, and ended up deciding to camp next to the RV. All five of us worked until it became night, only taking toilet and meal breaks in between. Everybody wanted to finish the RV, so we gave it our all.

Grimnir wanted to leave Cedaraille since he’d been staying there for months, Ellaine mentioned she was severely late to her first two weeks at the royal academy, Saori wanted to plan out my idol career, Tasianna wanted to set up her garden, while I wanted to reach Griffonpeak to hand Aurena the black orb. Of course, I also needed to apologize to her. She hasn’t answered me back yet, but considering I literally screamed at her, I didn’t exactly expect her to respond.

Then again, she’s a goddess. Some harsh words from me shouldn’t be that hurtful … Right?

As we were about to leave, Tasianna noticed a fae speaking with her. As her expression turned grim, she turned to me, “Dragonslayers! A spirit just informed me that a dragonslayer has reached the hunter’s guild!”

Thankfully, Tasianna made the amazing choice to become a fae whisperer. Thankfully, the RV was finished.

Goodbye, Cedaraille, goodbye.

---

“Broken horn, green scales, lightning element. It was causing trouble in the Lecartiglio Duchy for a while, and we tracked it down to Greenveil. Have you seen it, Ma’am?” A burly man in scaled armor spoke with a receptionist of the hunter’s guild. Despite his scarred face, he was speaking courteously.

“A dragon? N-no, I haven’t heard any rumors from the adventurers. Sir, is this dragon a threat?” The receptionist looked at the men before her with anxiousness, cold sweat slowly forming.

During the rachonoid raid, she had heard of a dragon appearing and fighting the giant rachonoid queen, but it disappeared quickly after the battle. Some say the dragon transformed into a small girl while others mentioned it returning back into the dungeon. None of the rumors had any weight behind them, but if a dragonslayer had appeared before her, maybe the rumors of the dragon were real.

Dragonslayers were not only ambitious people but also daredevils who were mad enough to challenge dragonkins, living fortresses of scales and mana, and willing to risk the ire of the dragonewts and levianewts. A dragonslayer was a respectful and honorable profession amongst hunters, but it was despised by anybody related to a dragonkin.

“No, no, there is a misunderstanding.” However, these men weren’t dragonslayers. The armor they wore included scales, but none of them were from a dragonkin, whether true or lesser. “We are just normal hunters. Rank A, but normal, I swear. Also, it wasn’t a dragon, it was a wyvern. It had a high level in [Identity Blocker], as we couldn’t appraise it, but from the power it displayed, it was definitely a high level B rank or a low A rank.”

The dragonslayers weren’t the ones pursuing Hestia.

An old acquaintance was.