Chapter 1089

『Phew.』

（Master!）

『Whoa! W-What’s wrong, Fran?』

Fran suddenly hugged me as soon as I returned from the white space, rubbing her cheeks on me with big tears forming on the corner of her eyes.

What’s up with this all of a sudden?

（I want to be with you forever too. Because you’re my partner.）

『Did you somehow see what happened in the white space?』

（Nn. The Goddess of Chaos showed me.）

『Seriously?!』

So that’s the reason behind her mischievous smirk!

（Master, thanks.）

『Of course, Fran. We’ll be together forever.』

（Nn!）

Oh, the old guys were giving us strange looks. I don’t blame them, since Fran had suddenly started hugging her sword while still on top of the dragon we just killed.

『Master.』

『Fenrir-san! Um, how do I put this…』

『No need to worry about it. More importantly, Announcer-san and I are still recovering, and there’s also the matter of your system update. I guess it mainly depends on the goddess, but we’ll probably be asleep for a while longer. Take care of Fran and Urushi in the meanwhile.』

『Yeah, of course.』

『Alright, see you later then.』

I felt Fenrir-san’s presence sinking deep within. He must have fallen asleep again.

In exchange for granting my selfish desire to remain in this world, I have deprived Fenrir-san of his freedom and Fran of her chance to obtain a divine sword.

I know neither of them will blame me for it, but I can’t be satisfied with that. I need to keep doing my best for their sakes.

『Fran. For now, let’s go join up with the others.』

（Nn! Got it!）

Fran hopped off the mountain dragon’s carcass and spoke to Gamudo. The dwarf had already been healed and looked completely fine aside from his armor.

「What now?」

「Huh? Oh, you mean our future plans? Let’s see…」

Gamudo seemed taken aback by Fran acting as usual, as if she was pretending the sword-hugging thing never happened.

However, handling the post-battle cleanup was also an important task.

The main topic will likely be what to do with the mountain dragon carcass. After all, Fran and I were the only ones capable of transporting it.

We scanned around for any enemies trying to scout or spy on us, but there were no signs of people within range of my or Urushi’s perception.

「I have no need for other materials as long as I get the lion’s share of the tongue, meat, and bones. Oh, and some of the entrails would be great too.」

「Give me the brain and the heart! Oh, but maybe the horns would be better.」

「Then I’ll take the scales!」

「Can you guys hold on for a single minute? Fran’s here too, you know!」

We might be able to ask for something, but I think we should probably leave it to them this time.

「I’m fine with just a little bit of the meat.」

「No way. You know you’re practically the biggest contributor by delivering the final blow, right?」

Diaz tried to argue, but I did kinda eat the magic stone.

「It’s fine. I broke the magic stone.」

「Oh? The same ability that made those magicite golems disappear?」

「I knew it!」

Eiworth was giving us an incredibly curious stare! Meanwhile, Gamudo seemed to have half-expected this result. Even so, he probably entrusted Fran with the final blow to ensure victory against the mountain dragon.

But it’s thanks to him that I triggered Self-Evolution again, and gained some more skills too. Well, it’s still a bunch of stuff I can’t use: Earth Dragon Magic, Dragon Cry, Dragonscale Hardening, Dragonblood Pulse.

Oh, and Fran also earned the title of “Dragon Killer”. Apparently, Announcer-san never announced those due to the intervention of the gods. I only noticed when I checked our stats after the fact.

「I don’t need any materials since the magic stone is gone.」

The cute little Fran voiced her complete lack of greed. A normal adult might have told her not to worry about it and shared the materials anyways.

But not these geezers.

「In that case, give me the best piece of tenderloin.」

「If the girl revoked her claim, then the brain and heart belong to me!」

「I’ll be claiming most of the scales then! Oh, and the fangs too!」

「Hey, I wanted a fang too!」

The four immediately started arguing about how they would divide everything up. Well, whatever. It’s thanks to them I managed to self-evolve.

While in the middle of the discussion over the split, Eiworth realized something.

「Oh! They must have used a potent magic tool to summon such a powerful monster! If you let me have that, I’m willing to give up on some materials!」

「Hold it. The government will certainly be interested in something like that, so it can’t be handed out so easily.」

「Is it even possible for a mere magic tool to perform such a summon in the first place?」

「I guess summon via magic tool sounds more plausible than a summon performed by an individual.」

That’s true. Even if it required human sacrifices, I can hardly believe there is a magic tool capable of summoning a monster on the level of a mountain dragon.

That is, if we didn’t have a guess as to who might be behind it.

「The West Conquest Duke has an alchemist named Ansel working for him.」

「Hoh, I’ve heard of his name before! He should be the alchemist who rose to fame about ten years ago in the southern nations. I remember hearing about his research on curses.」

「Curses?」

「Indeed. I was interested in curses too, and attempted to study them once. In the end, I had to give up once I realized how inefficient they were. Curses are based on the power of negative emotions generated by living creatures. This power is normally weak, but can be turned into a full-fledged curse once giving a proper direction via contract or covenant. The emotions of those who die bearing a grudge against the world can be fairly strong, but requiring such sacrifices makes it incredibly inefficient.」

「I heard Ansel is also researching divine swords.」

「Hoh. It seems the direction of his research has changed quite a bit. Not surprising though, since researchers will focus on whatever is requested by their patrons.」

「But if Raydoss still employs this alchemist, doesn’t this mean they can continue performing these types of unfeasible summons in the future?」

「Damn, that’s awful!」

「This Ansel seems to be quite troublesome.」

They had sacrificed the soldiers of Shallus to summon the dragon, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Raydoss was willing to sacrifice slaves or their own citizens too.

「Hmm. Then you should leave the tool with me after all! We need to determine if there is some way to return the summon, no?」

「It’s not like you’re the only one capable of doing that.」

「That’s right, Eiworth. We can simply pass it on to Kraznel’s researchers.」

「Gnrgh! Then how am I supposed to research it myself?!」

Uhh, I guess let’s just put the mountain dragon in storage for now.