"You will pay for your ignorance. Now—entertain me with your blood and death…"
The black dragon's chuunibyou monologue hadn't even finished when it saw a black figure charging straight at it.
"Wha—"
Kiriko set a hand on the hilt of each twin sword, a faint smile tugging at her lips.
"[STARBURST STREAM]!"
Starlight flared. The blades hit in a flash, carrying bone-chilling murderous intent.
When Kiriko finally stopped, the black dragon's enormous body crashed to the ground with a heavy thud, throwing up a huge cloud of dust.
All the nearby wyverns stared, dumbstruck, at their king pinned under Kiriko's boot.
Their king…
Lost?
Their invincible king…
Lost to a mere human?
"You… you're not human at all. Who are you?" The black dragon rasped.
After taking the full "Starburst Stream," it still wasn't dead.
Kiriko blinked, genuinely surprised.
"It's nothing. I'm just a passing by Kamen Rider."
What Kiriko didn't know was that the black dragon wasn't especially tanky or unusually tough—it simply had a skill called [Dulled Pain].
That skill let it avoid dying on the spot, even after taking a fatal wound.
"DIE!"
The black dragon swung a claw viciously at Kiriko, who was still standing on its belly.
It knew there was no way it was surviving this.
But even if it was going to die, it would drag this human down with it—
Splurt!
Blood spurted from the severed limb. The claw—now chopped clean off—spun away and slammed into a wyvern nearby, knocking it over.
Kiriko calmly flicked the blood from her blade and slid the sword back into its scabbard.
In the end, the black dragon died anyway.
[Dulled Pain] could delay death—but it couldn't prevent it.
The moment the black dragon finally went limp, the other wyverns broke and fled in panic.
After that, Kiriko and Motoyasu Kitamura began searching the mountain range.
To be honest, with [Golden Rule EX+++…+++], Kiriko didn't lack for gold at all. If she really needed money, she could just activate the skill and call it a day.
She was simply curious—what kind of treasure could the Dragon Country be hiding?
A Wyvern Slayer Sword? A Dragon-Hunting Spear?
"Mother-in-law-sama, I found it—over here."
Kiriko followed Motoyasu, and it didn't take them long to reach a mountain so massive and sheer it felt unreal.
Standing before it, even they looked like tiny ants.
At the base was a cave mouth. The passage inside had been built so even a dragon could enter with ease, which made it absurdly tall and wide for humans.
Kiriko and Motoyasu lit torches and stepped in.
Once inside, the tunnel split into countless branches leading who-knew-where, but they headed straight down the largest one.
At last, they emerged into a cavernous hall.
This was probably the black dragon's lair—something like a human palace.
And there, glittering as far as the eye could see, were mound after mound of shining "treasure," piled up like little mountains.
"Th… this is…"
Both Kiriko and Motoyasu froze.
Neither of them moved.
It wasn't because the sheer scale of wealth had stunned them into silence. It was because—
"This is the dragon's treasure?!"
Kiriko stared blankly at the mountain-like piles. Some pieces were round, some square, some jagged—every last one sparkling brightly…
But none of it was gold.
None of it was gemstones.
It was goddamn glass.
That's right—dragons do love shiny things.
And glass is shiny too, isn't it?
Damn it.
There's no rule that says dragons have to hoard gold and jewels, right?
Besides, if every dragon collected gold and gemstones, where would they even get that much to loot?
This wasn't the Lonely Mountain.
In the end, the only things in this sea of glass that counted as "loot" were two eggs.
Since they'd been found in a dragon's lair, unless something weird happened, whatever hatched was definitely going to be a dragon.
Of course, there was always the possibility they belonged to the neighbor, Old Wang.
"Mother-in-law-sama, these two eggs—"
Motoyasu hadn't even finished when he saw Kiriko slip both dragon eggs into her Dimensional Bag.
They'd come all this way…
---
A/N: I mean, the former Four Cardinal Heroes once managed to make a gun, of all things. So if even one of them had read a few alternate-history webnovels, deciding to fire glass in a kiln would be totally normal.
And just to clarify: guns in this world are a total scam. Their power depends on the user—so a level 100 veteran with a squirt gun can easily face-tank a level 1 newbie holding a 98K.
T/N: yeah no excuse this time :sob: WAIT NO I WAS STARTING NEW TLS SO HA! yeah sorrrey heres the 4 chapters!
bonus chaps
100 stones -> 1 chapter
200 stones -> 2 chapters
300 stones -> 3 chapters
and so on
discord.gg/wisetl
patreon.com/wisetl