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“A Little Metal Dragon…!!” Myuri muttered.
“I’m seein’ that for the first time… you know what this is, Myuri?” Orgo asked her.
“Y-Yes. I once happened to hear other adventurers talk about it. From what they said… it is a Little Dragon with skin made of iron, like an Iron Golem. And also, that it is limited to dungeons.”

Normal dragons went Child Dragon, Kid Dragon, Little Dragon, Young Dragon, Dragon… and so on. There were also some with Poison in their names.

On that note, there were numerous dragon and golem variants… the Iron Golem and the Rose King Dragon for example, which gave either multiple or higher ranked magic cores, even though they weren’t classified as subspecies. Come to think of it, demons also fell into that category, if I wasn’t mistaken.

“Does that mean they’re rare?”
“Probably… what shall we do?”

At any rate, this was likely stronger than a mere B-Rank foe.

“…Oh well, let’s give it a try either way! Myuri!” Lilo said.
“Alright.”

She didn’t hesitate to put her new magic to the test for the first time. It had put her in high spirits.

After receiving buffs of the highest level to facilitate her fire magic, she faced off against the Little Metal Dragon. The monster noticed her, opened its mouth, and was about to shoot its breath.

“Matchless Fire~~~!!”

Together with her voice, a magic circle appeared right in front of the creature’s open mouth. Before the breath activated, she finished her cast, and a beat later a beam of fire was unleashed. It shot right into its mouth.

The metal dragon took the full brunt of the attack and was blown away, but it immediately got back up. Only, during that time, another magic circle appeared above its head.

“Eat this~!!”

The shape of Matchless spells could be freely adjusted. While it usually looked like a beam, more advanced casters could use it like a maelstrom of fire. But I taught Lilo something back when she first learned the Matchless spell… That you could make it more powerful by compressing it.

A blazing light saber pierced the head of the Little Metal Dragon, who’d just gotten up and was full of gaps in his defense. Lilo seemed to judge that it wasn’t dead yet, so she shot another attack of the same kind at its flank. The creature’s supposedly unyielding iron¹ skin resisted for a moment, before being pierced as if it wasn’t there. Shortly later, two B-Rank magic cores emerged from the dragon-shaped lump of metal.

With a total of three casts, Lilo ended up bringing down a B-Rank dragon subspecies.

“Yay, woo-hoo~!”

Impulsively, she pulled Ruin into an embrace. His face turned bright red.
Three seconds later, she realized what she had done, turned just as red as him, and hurriedly took some distance.

“I’m… I’m sorry…”
“I-I don’t mind.”

Why, just how innocent are those two? That makes me doubt whether they’re really older than Mika and me.

“A-Ahem. More importantly, you managed to defeat a B-Rank magic beast… and a subspecies at that,” Ruin, with his face still red, complimented her after deliberately clearing his throat.
“He’s right. Shall we finish our training for today with this.”

Everyone – seeing how tired they were – was on board with my proposal to end things at this point.

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“What level are you all at currently?” I asked them while handing out beverages after we had gone back.
“Let’s see… we’re at level 56,” Ruin replied.
“I am precisely at level 50!” Karua added cheerfully.
“I’m at 55,” Tuhl said.

Oh-ho! They are all in their fifties now!
I shouldn’t have expected any less of my method. It’s amazing!

Then, should I bring up a new plan at this point?

“In that case, I have a proposal.”
“Huh, what is it?” Orgo wondered.
“How about… you replace your equipment?”

Everyone showed a reaction to those words.

“Uhm… what do you mean?” Ruin asked in confusion.
“Your current equipment is either stuff you already had or what I made in a hurry. To get new weapons and armor… you’d normally set out for the city and use the money you got from selling magic beast materials to buy new equipment, or make it from those materials yourself.”
“Well, that’s how it works.”

It was the same in video games. Obtaining new equipment that way was one of the charms of those games.

“Everything that’s needed for that – from monster dismantling, over item appraisal and trading, up to equipment crafting – are things I can do!”
“In other words… you want to simulate this process, Alim…?” Ruin tried to confirm.
“Yep.”

Afterwards, I told them the details. For instance… I would intentionally craft things inferior compared to what I was truly capable of, so the training wouldn’t lose its meaning.

“Alright. I guess we’ll take you up on that offer… on that note, how will you make them? Weapons and stuff, I mean.”
“Oh, I have everything I need.”

I left dinner to Mika and started the pseudo-negotiations with the others.

1. The original is steel. I changed it to iron for consistency’s sake.

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