novelraw Chapter 19 : The Ryūju of Belgona the Tyrant Dragon
Chapter 19 : The Ryūju of Belgona the Tyrant Dragon
Even after Sario departed from Demon World Planet Boran, I kept hunting monsters. Being alone made the loneliness bite deeper, and my thoughts drifted to Earth more often than before.
「I want to go home, but I don't even know where Earth is.」
I had no memory of the solar system's location. Without coordinates, I couldn't return. I'd tried searching the Planetary Information Net's stellar database using the types of planets in our solar system, but that turned up several hundred matching stars.
I gave up looking for Earth and fell into a daily cycle of heading out to hunt. That day, too, I bagged a Berserk Boar on Siska Grassland and came back, only for Vezetta - the person in charge of the Purchasing Department - to tell me the Center Head wanted to see me.
I converted the Berserk Boar to cash, then went to the Center Head's office. Inside, a middle-aged Werecat man sat working behind an enormous desk. The Center Head was a Werecat male who apparently went by Mujīka Dessero.
「I'm Zen Jingūji. Was there something you needed?」
After studying me with those feline eyes for a long moment, the Center Head told me to sit.
「I've reviewed your achievements. Based on them, I've determined you're more than capable of hunting beyond Siska Grassland. You're promoted to Rank F.」
My rank had gone up, which meant moving to a higher floor in the Guest Tower. He handed me two new card keys. Once I finished the move, I was to return the old ones.
「Thank you.」
I didn't know it at the time, but getting promoted within three months of registering with the Toryū Ryōhei Guild was rare, by all accounts. Most spent about a year hunting on Siska Grassland, and even the fast ones ground through half a year at Rank G.
I was the exception, and the reason was simple: I'd been slaying Berserk Boars one after another - monsters considered difficult to take down at Rank G.
A Rank G mage could manage small insect-type monsters at best and had no hope of dropping a Berserk Boar in a single hit.
「Your Piercing Particle Bullet packs an abnyarmal amount of punch. How is that even pawssible?」
He'd apparently watched footage of my battles recorded by the Achievement Collection Badge.
「Isn't that normal? When I was fighting monsters in space, I needed at least that much power or I couldn't even kill a Space Clione.」
What I'd been using back then was Particle Strike, but Piercing Particle Bullet worked on more or less the same principle.
「Oh? You've fought space monsters. No wonder your Tactical Magic Techniques hit so hard.」
That confused me. When I asked the Center Head to elaborate, he explained that the normal progression was to fight ground monsters first, hone your skills, then graduate to space and take on space monsters.
Even at the same threat level, space monsters were tougher, he told me. However, since space monster carcasses that yielded no Ryūju sold for next to nothing, Toryū Ryōheis hated hunting Space Clione and Space Jellyfish. Too much effort for too little pay.
I was now Rank F. My hunting grounds were the Black Forest Belva to the east or the Kirimasu Mountain Range to the southeast. Belva's forest was home to dinosaur-type monsters, while the Kirimasu Mountain Range harbored ape-man types.
「Hmm - how am I supposed to transport what I kill?」
Black Forest Belva and the Kirimasu Mountain Range had no roads a Hunt Car could travel. Toryū Ryōheis rode Hover Bikes through those areas, from what I could tell. So the question of hauling prey back puzzled me.
Digging through the Planetary Information Net turned up something interesting. Most Toryū Ryōheis called in guild-affiliated transport teams to carry their kills. The shipping fees were steep, though.
One other method existed, and for an Earthling like me, it was beyond anything I could have predicted. If you killed the threat level 3 Tyrant Dragon Belgona that inhabited Belva's forest, extracted its Ryūju, and had it processed, you could craft a device called an Isō Storage.
An Isō Storage secured storage space in an alternate dimension and makes it possible to put in and take out items. That said, an Isō Storage made from a Ryūju of Belgona's caliber was called an Isō Box, and its capacity was equivalent to a space roughly twenty meters long, wide, and tall.
The crafting fee ran five million Credits, of course, but it was well worth making. Provided you had the strength to kill a Tyrant Dragon Belgona.
The Tyrant Dragon Belgona was said to be a massive, fifteen-meter-long bipedal monstrosity resembling a dinosaur. Its Ryūju sat in the center of its chest, so you had to bring it down without destroying that spot.
A fifteen-meter monster, huh. Could I kill it with Particle Strike…… No, the explosion from Particle Strike might shatter the Ryūju. I turned the problem over in my head as I walked back to my Guest Tower room.
Using my Smart Glasses to search the Planetary Information Net, I researched Isō Storage. Demand ran high for such a useful item; purchasing one outright cost tens of billions of Credits at minimum.
If Credits and Japanese yen held equal value, tens of billions of Credits seemed absurdly cheap. But that was Earth's sense of scale talking. Isō Storage was expensive, certainly, but far from rare within the Sector Alliance.
I wanted one. I decided to kill a Tyrant Dragon Belgona and claim its Ryūju. If I was free to tear it apart, I could probably win - but that would destroy the Ryūju too.
I scoured the Planetary Information Net for a better approach. I found a site called the Basic Mage Course that introduced fundamental techniques for mages.
It covered Particle Strike and Piercing Particle Bullet, and I discovered both were part of the Three Great Basics of Mages.
Three meant one remained. I looked it up: it was a technique that shaped Bosoru particles into a chakram-like ring blade and launched it. It went by the name 『Particle Strike: Circular Soaring Blade.』
The next day, I drove out to Siska Grassland to test the new Tactical Magic Technique. Launching a ring of Bosoru particles at high speed, I found the flight path refused to stabilize. I decided to add spin. Whether it was the gyroscopic effect or something else, the trajectory steadied.
I practiced over and over and over, until I grasped the knack of sending the ring a 『Particle Circular Soaring Blade』 exactly where I aimed it. With my accuracy improved, I gradually increased the flight speed. First, I pushed it to the speed of sound. My Tenshiryoku packed enough power to accelerate a small spacecraft, so this was child's play.
The Particle Circular Soaring Blade at sonic speed cleaved a tree roughly fifty centimeters in diameter clean in two.
Could this cut through a Tyrant Dragon Belgona? No - according to the information I'd found on the Planetary Information Net, Belgona was as tough as solid rock.
As a test, I launched a Particle Circular Soaring Blade at a boulder about two meters across. It sliced thirty centimeters in and vanished. Not enough. Time to push the speed higher.