Synthesis-type adventurers

Chapter 6 Natural Disaster Strikes

The howling night wind of the wasteland, carrying coarse sand and dust, scraped against my eardrums again and again.

With the Blacktooth Spider Queen, the final prey of the commissioned mission, dead, the cave became nothing more than a hollowed-out skeleton, with no further profit to be made.

The team withdrew from the cave and set up camp on the banks of the dry river, half a day's journey from Ruin Harbor.

The dry thorn wood crackled and popped in the fire, and the flames licked the black ash from the bottom of the iron pot.

A gray, gelatinous paste was bubbling in the pot; it was Rod's soup dinner, made with slightly moldy flour, wild vegetables, and dried black-toothed rat meat.

Kyle occupied the spot with the brightest flame, toying with the fangs he had cut from the Spider Queen's corpse. The firelight reflected on his face, giving his greedy expression a greasy sheen.

"Back in town, this tooth and the materials from the spider will fetch at least three hundred silver coins. Add to that the junk Buck scavenged... Hmph, this trip wasn't a complete waste."

Kyle casually tossed the fang up and caught it, his gaze slid with disdain toward Avira in the corner, who was trying to polish her almost ruined tower shield.

"Some people are only good for being cumbersome meat shields, and all they deserve is a little scraps. As for that logistics failure..."

His gaze pierced Rod, who was stirring the soup with a spoon.

Rod didn't look up, staring intently at the bubbling gray foam in the pot, his expression focused, but his mind was racing.

Three hundred silver coins?

Once the entries are stripped away, these things are just sections of calcified bone and shell, with no value whatsoever in alchemy or enchanting.

It's worth at most ten or twenty copper coins, and that's only if you happen to find a blind fool.

Rhodes made a rough estimate in his mind, but on the surface he squeezed out a hint of humility: "The vice commander is wise. It is my luck to be able to make a living by following you."

"You're smart to know what's good for you." Kyle snorted, clearly accepting the flattery without question.

He drew his Knight's Oath from his waist and examined the blade by the firelight: "Even a dragon would bow before this family heirloom sword of mine."

The battle in Blacktooth Cave relied almost entirely on Avira's hard work, with Kyle only responsible for the final sword strike.

It was pure luck that this sword, which was more decorative than practical, did not break.

Kyle was so engrossed in the illusory glory that he was completely unaware of the strange changes in the starry sky above him.

Just as Rod was about to ladle out the soup, his wrist suddenly stiffened.

grunt.

The broth in the pot suddenly stopped boiling.

The fire below was still burning, but the surrounding air pressure changed in an instant.

The flames, which were originally pointing straight upwards, seemed to be held down by an invisible hand, pressed firmly against the charred charcoal, and appeared strangely flat.

This is followed by a low-pitched vibration that acts directly on the bones.

The tiny pebbles on the ground began to tremble, like countless invisible insects enjoying themselves.

A strong smell of sulfur forcefully entered my nostrils, overpowering the earthy smell of the rat meat soup.

Not right.

Rod instinctively looked up.

The once pitch-black night sky turned crimson without warning, and the clouds were torn apart by the violent magic, revealing swirling patterns.

At the center of that crimson vortex, a massive, suffocating black shadow plummeted down.

It was a giant dragon.

The dragon's wingspan blocked out the starlight, and its dark red scales peeled off in the high temperature generated by high-speed friction with the air, leaving long trails of smoke.

"boom--"

The sonic boom arrived late, only exploding loudly after the earth trembled violently.

A blast of air, carrying gravel and scorched earth, swept across the area, instantly disintegrating the tent and turning the pot of wild vegetable porridge and the campfire to ashes.

Just before the shockwave arrived, Rhodes rolled over and hid behind a dented rock.

Even so, the flying pebbles still hit my back, causing a dull pain as if I had been hit dozens of times with a blunt object.

Dust and smoke obscured the view as the colossal creature carved a trench a hundred meters deep into the ground, finally halting its advance less than fifty meters from the camp.

As the smoke cleared, the cruel truth was revealed.

A fully grown red dragon.

Its body was half buried in the pile of rubble, and its dark red scales emitted a high temperature that distorted the air.

One of the dragon's wings was twisted and broken, and its head, the size of a house, lay dying on the ground. Golden-red blood overflowed from its mouth and nose, flowing like lava and sintering the surrounding sand into glassy crystals.

It remained motionless, like a mountain of corpses fresh from the furnace.

The silence lasted for three seconds.

"Cough cough..." Buck crawled out of the mound of dirt, his face covered in blood, his eyes wide with terror. "A dragon...it's a dragon..."

Kyle also got up, covered in dust, but the moment he saw that it was a dying red dragon, the fear on his face disappeared and turned into a kind of almost manic excitement.

"I'm rich..." His voice trembled with greed, and the knight's oath in his hand shook.

"A red dragon! A whole red dragon!" Kyle's eyes were bloodshot. "Dragon scales, dragon blood, dragon crystals... As long as I cut off its head, I will be the glory of the Hohenheim family! The true dragon slayer!"

He ignored his teammates who were blown away and charged forward with his sword.

"Don't go over there!" Avira's voice was hoarse.

With half her leg pinned under a broken tree trunk, she struggled to push away the heavy object, ignoring her own injuries as she shouted, "This dragon's body temperature is off! Its oppressive aura is still there!"

Years of knightly training had instilled in her a sense of impending death.

"Shut up, you stupid woman!" Kyle said without turning around. "Trying to steal the credit? This beast is too weak to resist! It's mine!"

His steps were unsteady and hurried as he lunged towards the mountain of flesh.

Rhodes lay motionless behind the rock.

His gaze pierced through the chaos, locking onto the red dragon.

[Analysis of Vision] Enabled.

In an instant, a scarlet warning box flashed wildly in the center of the field of vision, its color even more glaring than dragon blood.

Adult Red Dragon

State: Extreme anger, near death/last gasp

Entry:

[Last Stand (Orange Epic)]: A final counterattack before health reaches zero. Forcibly locks onto the attacker, temporarily increasing all attributes by 50%.

[Ember Dragon Breath (Orange Epic)]: Accumulating (98%). Remaining life force is transformed into a fan-shaped destructive breath. Coverage: 120 degrees in front, radius 80 meters.

[......]

……

Grass!

Rhodes' pupils suddenly contracted.

This is practically a chain reaction bomb!

Orange Epic.

This was the first time Rhodes had witnessed an entry of this caliber since his transmigration, yet it was now engraved on the Grim Reaper's scythe.

80 meters in radius...

Rhodes quickly estimated the distance by visual inspection.

He was only about 50 meters away from the giant dragon; this was a certain death situation.

unless……

Rod's gaze swept toward the dry riverbed five meters away to his side.

The river is narrow, but the deep channel in the middle of the riverbed, carved out by erosion, is filled with murky water that is bottomless.

At this moment, Kyle had already rushed to the front of the dragon's head.

He raised the ornate sword high, his face contorted in a grimace, and roared with maniacal laughter, "Die! Taste the blade of the Hohenheim family!"

Rhodes then squeezed every last bit of potential from his Iron-level body, crawling and tumbling towards the river on all fours.

"thump."

The moment he entered the water, Rod took a deep breath and desperately tried to burrow into the silt at the bottom of the river.

ashore.

Kyle's sword tore through the air and struck the scales above the red dragon's eyelids with tremendous force.

This was the fatal weakness he envisioned in this behemoth.

Stab it in, shred its brain, and then glory will be bestowed upon you.

However, reality is colder than steel.

"when--"

Accompanied by an absurdly crisp snapping sound.

The Knight's Oath, which Rhodes had assessed as "brittle as paper," shattered into several pieces the moment it came into contact with dragon scales that were as hard as diamonds.

The broken sword tip spun out and sliced ​​open Kyle's proudly handsome cheek.

Kyle gripped the bare hilt of the sword, his greedy smile freezing on his face, turning into a comical blank stare.

It's broken?

A masterpiece worth a thousand gold coins, a treasured sword passed down through the Hohenheim family... and it just broke like that?

In that instant when the air froze.

The lifeless red dragon opened its eyes.

Those were vertical pupils, like molten gold.

Despite its murky, dying struggle, it was filled with a contemptuous disdain for the ant poking it with a toothpick.

"call……"

The dragon's mouth opened slightly, and the sound was like the bellows of a hellish furnace being pulled.

Kyle didn't have time to scream, or even to regret it.

Orange light surged from the depths of the dragon's throat, filling his entire field of vision.

The intense, cone-shaped flames, hot enough to melt rocks, instantly engulfed Kyle, followed by Buck and his followers, the ridiculous pile of spoils, and also covered the area where Avira was located.

The world is now reduced to nothing but white and red, enough to blind the eyes.

At the bottom of the water, Rod clung tightly to the roots of the water plants, pressing his body as deep into the mud as possible.

Even through a two-meter-deep layer of water, the river surface boiled and bubbles surged wildly upwards under the scorching heat of the dragon's breath.

The originally icy river water turned scalding hot within seconds.

If the deep trough hadn't accumulated enough icy cold water, Rhodes would have been a pot of boiled human flesh soup by now.

My lungs are running out of oxygen, and my chest is burning with pain.

Rhodes gritted his teeth and remained motionless.

I don't know how much time passed; maybe a few seconds, maybe a few minutes.

The dragon flames outside are rapidly extinguishing.

This breath of dragon's breath burned away the dragon's last breath, and also burned away almost all the vanity of this adventure team called Anvil.

Until the oppressive force that made one's soul tremble dissipated, until the boiling water above their heads subsided.

As his consciousness began to fade, Rod loosened the waterweed that was about to break and surfaced.

wow-

He burst out of the water, gulping down the scorching, burnt air.

The riverbanks are gone; all that remains is a scorched, glassy wasteland.

Where Kyle stood, only half of the molten metal sword hilt remained, along with a pool of black ash that resembled a human figure.

Not even bone fragments were left.

Buck, who was not far away, was in an even worse state. He remained in his fleeing posture and turned into a charcoal sculpture. With a gust of wind, he collapsed into a pile of black slag.

The fates of the other members were no less dire.

The red dragon remained in its head-raised, breathing-out posture, completely dead.

The dark red scales faded to ashen gray, and the magic was exhausted.

Rod wiped the mud off his face, a forced smile creeping onto his lips.

The money for the return trip has been covered.

No, it's not just about travel expenses.

He climbed ashore, his boots sizzling as they stepped on the smoking ground.

His gaze swept across the edge of the battlefield, and behind a red-hot, deformed tower shield, he saw a huddled figure.

Not quite dead yet?

Rod raised an eyebrow, his right hand instinctively reaching for the boning knife inside his boot.

If you're going to touch a corpse, you have to do it thoroughly.