Chương 70: Chapter 68 - The Haul

"You actually hurt me!" Adriane repeated in a voice that was entirely new. Adriane started laughing wildly. Laughing? Or… Giggling? Adriane kept laughing as she wiped tears from her eyes.

"Chels," she said between chuckles.

"I haven't felt pain in almost twenty five years. That was incredible. How did it hurt me?" Chelsea held up a finger and pulled up her status screen. She focused on Spectral Javelin. Spectral Javelin lvl 9 - Create a Havoc-based soul javelin weapon that ignores the confines of the physical world. Weapon loses potency over time. (Does not count as a true weapon.)"A soul weapon?" Adriane asked.

"I've never heard of something like that."

"Neither have I," Ivy said.

"How is it level nine already?"

"The Valkyr title gives me plus seven levels to Havoc abilities." Chelsea paused.

"Oh. Oh no." The other two immediately looked at her.

"What?" Ivy asked.

"I don't think I can give Celeste control around people if she has access to this." Chelsea conjured another javelin and looked it over. The translucent blue weapon looked almost solid despite the hazy edges. Before either of them could ask what she was doing, she stabbed herself in the arm.

"Chelsea!" Ivy exclaimed. The javelin sank into her skin and vanished. Chelsea blinked and poked the spot.

"Huh. It's fine." Chelsea frowned thoughtfully.

"Well, at least she can't hurt me with it. Or us. Or whatever the proper wording is when the person trying to stab you shares your body." Adriane clapped her hands together and turned toward the treasure pile.

"Don't worry about Celeste right now." The dragon's body had shifted enough that they could finally see what it had been sleeping on. It wasn't the mountain of gold Chelsea always imagined dragons having, but it was still far more treasure than the three of them could carry.

"What do you usually collect?" Chelsea asked.

"Well, I don't have The Eyes, so I usually grab as much gold as possible." Chelsea looked over.

"Gold? The same gold coins we use?"

"They are." Adriane nodded slowly.

"And how many inventory slots do you have available?" Adriane immediately sighed and groaned.

"You're about to make me feel really stupid, aren't you?" Chelsea started to grimace before she changed the topic.

"Actually, don't worry about that. I have an experiment." Adriane groaned.

"Just point toward what you need me to do."

"Can you separate the dragon's head from the neck and remove anything interesting from inside?"

"You want to eat its brain?"

"No!" Chelsea quickly said with a horrified look on her face.

"I don't want to eat everything."

"You're a demon. That's what you do." Adriane replied with a smile. Ivy snorted.

"You kind of do try everything." Chelsea pointed at the dragon.

"If this works, I might go up another tier or two on my enhancement." Adriane considered that.

"Now you've got my attention." She turned and walked toward the dragon's head. Chelsea's eyes suddenly widened.

"Ivy!" She shouted.

"What!?" Ivy jumped at the sudden volume change.

"Come here." The elf walked over and stopped beside her.

"Let me see your stats." Chelsea leaned over and planted a quick kiss on Ivy's cheek before placing a hand against the side of her head. The familiar screen appeared. Chelsea's eyes widened.

"Oh goodness."

"What?" Ivy asked"Your strength is sixteen. And that's one of your low stats." Ivy stared with wide eyes.

"What level am I?" Chelsea leaned closer and whispered into her ear.

"Twenty-six." Ivy immediately pulled back.

"You're lying."

"No ma'am." I would never lie to you.

"Twent…" Ivy looked like she was in shock. Chelsea placed her hand back on her temple and kept reading.

"Oh, and you have a new title."

"I do?""'The Greater Dragon Slayer.'" Chelsea read out in a playfully regal tone. Ivy gasped before a grin slowly spread across her face. Chelsea laughed.

"You want to know what it does?"

"Nope!"

"You don't?"

"It says I'm a greater dragon slayer. It could reduce my stats by… all of them and I'd still use it." Chelsea couldn't really argue with that.

"We'll go through everything when we get home."

"OK." Ivy replied. It seemed she couldn't stop smiling. Chelsea was overjoyed by Ivy's reaction. She pressed her lips to that beautiful smile and Ivy was more than happy to return it. Chelsea grabbed Ivy by both sides of her head and leaned down to kiss her on the forehead.

"Congratulations on your levels." Stolen novel; please report. The two spent the next several minutes digging through the dragon's collection. Most of it was gold, though there were a few oddities mixed in. Weapons that neither Chelsea nor Ivy could lift, Pieces of armor, Jewelry, and a shield that looked far too decorative to be usable in actual combat. Chelsea was having the time of her life. Every few minutes she would pick something up, identify it, and excitedly announce what it did.

Most of it wasn't useful to them, but that hardly mattered. It was a dragon's treasure hoard! More importantly, it was treasure she could potentially feed to her enhancement.

"Alright, Chels," Adriane called out.

"The head is all yours." Chelsea perked up immediately.

"Ah! Wish me luck." She took off at a run before suddenly stopping.

"Oh! Adriane, can you remove like ten scales while I test this?"

"I'll see what I can do." Chelsea hurried toward the dragon's severed head. Now that she was standing beside it, the thing felt even larger.. Nearby sat chunks of brain matter that were still warm. Chelsea crouched down and picked up a piece. She stared at it for a moment, looked to see if either of the others were watching, then took a bite.

"Not bad," she mumbled.

"Better than human brain." She took another bite while approaching the head.

"Please work. Please work. Please work." Then she activated The Eyes. Visage of Pundukarack Required Level: 135 Mail Helm +109 Strength +95 Constitution -25 Charisma Chance to make enemy flee on strike. +25% Fire Resistance Usable Ability - Ivory Scale: Grants wearer near invulnerability for three seconds. 48-hour cooldown. Classification: Historic+1 Chelsea nearly dropped the chunk of brain she was holding. It worked. It actually worked! The dragon itself could be or… parts of it, rather.

The only downside was the size. The helmet was designed for something with a head roughly the size of a house. Putting it on wouldn't be difficult. Taking it off later would be. Chelsea immediately sprinted back toward the others. Adriane looked up from her work.

"Good news?"

"It worked!" She practically skidded to a stop. Nearby was a pile of dozens of car tire-sized scales.

"Something told me you were going to ask for more than ten," Adriane said. Chelsea grabbed one of the scales. Greater Ivory Dragon Scale Crafting Reagent Classification: Historic+1 Chelsea slowly looked up. Her eyes had become entirely too large.

"You didn't collect scales from the other dragons you killed, did you?" Adriane immediately sighed. The sigh of someone who already knew this wasn't going to be a fun conversation.

"No, Chels. I didn't know I was supposed to." Chelsea stared at the pile. Historic scales. Who knows how many are on each of these dragons and they are all gone.

"Should I start collecting dragon parts?" Chelsea slowly lowered her hands.

"Yes."

"How many?" Chelsea looked from the dragon, to the pile of treasure.

"All of them." Adriane rubbed at her forehead.

"I was afraid you'd say that."

"How much do you think a single I donno… Rare+5 dragon scale would be worth? For crafters," Chelsea asked, glancing between the two.

"I have no clue," Ivy admitted.

"Maybe ten gold each," Adriane guessed. Then her eyes narrowed.

"Wait. Why are you asking?" Chelsea slowly smiled.

"Oh, Adriane. My favorite sister. These aren't rare+5 quality." Adriane froze. Chelsea held up one of the massive scales.

"They're historic+1." The silence lasted several seconds. That put them about sixteen classifications above rare+5.

"You're telling me I've been walking past scales for years... and these are worth how much?" Chelsea's smile widened.

"I have no clue." It had been four hours since the dragon died, and Adriane was still scraping scales. Chelsea was long past worried about inventory space. The scales stacked up to fifty per slot, which sounded amazing until one remembered just how many scales a cruise ship-sized dragon actually had. Chelsea's bag had thirty slots. Adriane had sixteen. Ivy had six. That gave them fifty-two slots total, and Chelsea had already passed twenty-two full stacks of scales.

That was over eleven hundred historic ivory serving platters. Chelsea stared at the growing piles of scales, gold, gear, and dragon parts scattered around the cavern and felt something twist painfully inside her. They were going to have to leave things behind. There was absolutely no way they could take all of the scales. There had to be over twenty thousand on the thing. Then a thought struck her so hard she nearly gasped.

"Adriane!" Adriane stopped prying another scale loose and looked over.

"What?"

"Can I borrow your bag?" Adriane's posture immediately changed. She clutched the bag closer to herself.

"Why?"

"Does it have a level requirement?"

"Chelsea." Adriane groaned.

"I promise I'm not going to look through it. Personal space," Chelsea said quickly.

"I am a big proponent of personal space. I will not go digging through your things. I just need to test something." Adriane still looked reluctant, which Chelsea understood completely. Adventurers probably treated inventory bags the way people back on Earth treated phones. Asking to borrow one was basically asking to hold somebody's entire private life. Chelsea pointed toward the cavern full of treasure.

"If my enhancement multiplies the number of inventory slots by tier, then your bag might not stay at sixteen slots when I'm wearing it. If it works the way everything else does, sixteen could become one hundred and sixty." Adriane looked down at the bag, then at the treasure.

"Oh." Her grip on the bag loosened, though only slightly.

"If this works, we may be able to leave with a lot more." Adriane tossed the bag down to her, still watching Chelsea as if she expected her to immediately start pulling out underwear or secret murder tools. Chelsea slipped the strap over her shoulder and opened it. One hundred and sixty slots appeared.

"It worked!" Nine slots were already taken up by various pieces of gear, Tali's urn, and something Chelsea immediately pretended she had not seen. An adorably ugly stuffed animal. Chelsea kept her face perfectly still. There were questions there. Many questions. Why did Adriane have it? How long had she had it? Did the terrifying Silver Sword secretly like cute things? Chelsea carefully moved her attention away from the stuffed animal and checked her own bag. All thirty slots were still available.

"Oh, Ivy," Chelsea called in a sing-song voice. Ivy looked up from where she was inspecting a pile of jewelry.

"What?"

"Can I borrow your bag?" Ivy handed it over without hesitation. Chelsea put it on and checked. Sixty slots. Two hundred and forty slots total. That was enough to carry almost all the gold, all of the equipment, a respectable number of scales, but not nearly all of them, and a large portion of the dragon meat. Chelsea almost felt like crying. Instead, she took a bite of the dragon heart. Then immediately frowned.

"Oh." Ivy looked over.

"Good?"

"No. Sadly not at all." That was deeply disappointing. It wasn't awful, exactly, but she had expected something incredible. Instead, it was just dense, heavy, and strangely bland.

"Human is better," Chelsea muttered, setting it aside. Ivy made a faux gagging face. Chelsea ignored it and turned toward the dragon's head. There was one last thing to do.

"Okay," Chelsea said, pointing toward the massive skull.

"I need you to break the head." Adriane looked at her. Chelsea quickly added, "But not so badly that it shatters. Treat it like one of my gear pieces. Broken, but still one piece." Ivy slowly turned toward the skull.

"How is that going to fit you?"

"The first effect of my enhancement makes all equipment fit me perfectly. It identified as a mail helm." She shrugged. Ivy looked at her with surprise.

"Why not try? It's also Historic+1." Ivy let out a slow breath and looked back toward the enormous dragon skull.

"It is insane to even think you could put on something historic. Let alone something historic that's roughly the size of the guildhall."

"Technically, I can't put on historic gear," Chelsea said. Ivy bumped her with her hip, knowing where Chelsea was going. Chelsea smiled.

"But I can put on broken gear." She gestured toward the skull.

"And so can you." Ivy stared at her for a moment longer before shaking her head.

"You are very scary when you're excited." Chelsea was already looking at the skull again, eyes bright.

"I know."