The first battle against the Mediterranean Dragon was quite bitter.
　None of them had found anything that could be called a chance to win.
　But we didn't come back empty-handed.

First of all, they were able to identify it as the underground dragon in the lore.
　And we also confirmed that it has the same properties as the lore, and that's why we can be credible about the abilities depicted in the lore that he didn't show us in that place.
　Also, inside the specially processed bottle, tentacles separated from the guy are swirling.
　In fact, it's a tentacle that has grown further out from the tentacles.
　These two things do not lead directly to victory, but they can be analyzed for possibilities.

'Excuse me, why is the foul stone filled with magic?　There are many, many foul stones full of magic.

Tart asks curiously.

'The attributes we put in them are different. The original foul stone was filled with colorless magic as a battery and a mixture of fire, earth and wind to be most effective when bombing, but this time we have added different attributes.

Foul stones can take in a large amount of magical power. Hence, changing the magic power it can contain will drastically change its nature.

''Ah, okay. You're going to create a storm, aren't you?
''Yeah, with three hundred people's worth of wind and water magic, I can even trigger a storm... I never tried to create a storm before because the direct firepower is so low, but the lore says that the storm slowed it down, so it's worth a try.''

As he said that, he continued to put magic power into the foul stone.

'Wow, that sounds interesting. But pouring magic power into a foul stone full of foul stones in a short period of time is impossible, no matter how many rogues you have.

That's the way it's usually done.
　My [Super Recovery] is only going to increase the amount of magic power recovered by a hundred or more times.
　If I continue to pour my full strength of magic power into it, the magic power will be depleted before the foul stone is filled with magic power.

'So I hold the foul stone filled with colorlessness like this in my right hand and draw out the magic power, transforming the attributes with my body and filling the empty foul stone. With this, I can fill it with magic power without wear and tear................I need at least five foul stones to call the storm.
I hadn't even thought of that. ... but yeah, I think I can do it. Do you want me to help you?
'No, it's fine. The reason I can do this is because the magic power contained in the foul stone is mine. No matter how much Dia's control technology, converting someone else's magic power into an attribute would be tough.
'That's true but it's frustrating not being able to help you.
'No, I need you to do something for me, Dear. I'm going to explain to you what I'm up to now, so listen up. And the tart, too.

They come up to me and sit down.
　This operation can't be done by me alone.
　It takes two people.
　I begin to talk in my head, sorting through the information.

''There were a few strange things about that underground dragon when we faced it. You both saw that huge body and those worm-like tentacles growing out of its mouth, right?
Yeah, I could see it from here if it was that big.
'I blew one of them off at the base with a Wasp knife. But it regenerated in a flash.
There's nothing wrong with that. Demons can regenerate indefinitely as long as they don't crush the red heart.
Yes, that's why I've had such a hard time taking it down.
'It's not crazy to play it back. But the way it looked was odd. The tentacles that had been torn off were jumping around, and the flesh rose and grew from the section to its original length. And the tentacle you cut off looked like it was going to be fine forever.

Hearing that story, Dia seems to have intuited it, but is Tart tilting his head?

''Oh, well that's not like the demon race, is it?
I'm sorry. I'm not following the story.
To be more specific, the rebirth of the demon race is a rewind. Everything returns to the state it should be in. But the way the subterranean dragon showed the recovery, the way the flesh rose and grew, is too healthy, and there's no way the cut off flesh is in its place.

Unreasonable, conceptual rebirth is the greatest weapon of the demon race.
　But that underground dragon was not so.
　The orc demon race, beetle demon race, and lion demon race that they had defeated so far all reeled back completely in their regeneration.
　Even the arms and legs that had been cut off had disappeared at some point.
　However, only the underground dragon was different. It had only demonstrated its biological regeneration ability.

''Hey, that's... Are you saying that's not a demon race?
''No, I was making [Fruit of Life]. It takes a demon race to process souls in a blasphemous way. That's why they're demon race. But it doesn't seem like all of them are demon race.
Oh, I get it. So it's the outside and the inside that counts.
'Yeah, that would explain it otherwise. Maybe the demon race is in the belly of that monster. That's what happens when you combine the lore with it. It's half right and half wrong to say that the brave man rampaged inside and defeated it. The brave man would be saying that he met the demon race inside his body.......and here's the proof. I finally realized after I calmed down that there was no way they would have originally bottled it up like this and brought back a piece of meat.

I point to the tentacles that have been bottled up and are still twitching and jumping around.
　If that was really a demon race, the tentacles that were cut off would be gone and back where they should be.
　The amount that was huffed off during the battle might be that kind of thing for a short period of time, and it might be my oversight, but this guy is definitive proof.
　Of course, it's crazy to assume that the outside and the inside are different just because of that.
　But if this hypothesis is correct, then we have a chance to win.

'So you only have to ask one thing of us.
'Yeah, if the outside isn't the demon race, if you keep killing it, it should die because it can't keep up with your regeneration. Unlike the heroes, I can't stroll inside my body while being dissolved by that mucus. So I'll kill the outside and draw out the demon tribe inside my body. If I do that, I might be able to kill the demon tribe. All I ask of Dia and Tart is that I drag the underground dragon out of the den, and then kill the outside with a saturation attack of super firepower to kill the outside.......so, Tart, Dia. Use this.

Of the foul stones I have in my hand, I give most of the bombing stuff, filled with earth, fire, and wind, to Tart and Dia.
　Only two are left as my handful of cards, a big deal.

'It's my job to fish him out of the den. "It's my job to fish him out of the hole," he says, "because even with super firepower, I can't kill him if he goes underground. When he comes out of his hole, use all of it to give him maximum firepower.
Well, can you pull something that big out of a hole?
That's why I'm getting ready for you, the foul stone I'm putting my magic into right now.

No doubt it's life threatening.
　But in the sense that once you're confronted with it, it's possible.

Foulstone, Lady Dear and I are working together, oh, I see.
I understand. My role is to bring the foul stone to critical mass and calculate the placement of the foul stone for the most effective bombing, and the tart's role is to use wind magic to move the foul stone according to my instructions.
That's right.

Foul stone bombing is powerful, but the most effective way to crush it is to surround it and crush it.
　An explosion is a radial spread of power.
　In other words, most of the power will escape when used normally. However, if multiple explosions are set off to surround the target, the power is concentrated in the center and there is no escape route.
　The most effective placement of the foul stone, quickly bringing it to a critical point and calculating the timing of the explosions, was not human work.
　But with Deere's brains and sense, he can do it.

However, Deere's projectiles alone couldn't place the foul stones as calculated.
　That's where Tart comes in. Tart has thoroughly trained his wind magic and his accuracy is extremely high. He can even carry multiple foul stones to the location instructed by Dia.

''That's pretty tough. Because where the assumption jumps up out of the hole, it needs to be placed in three dimensions.
It sounds like a lot of work.

Tart and Dia look at each other.
　I know it's a hard thing to say.
　And I'm too busy blowing him off to follow them both.

'But I will,'
Me too. Um, Master Roug, please tell me. Did you order it because you thought we could?
Yeah, yeah. I figured we could do it together.
Then I can do it!

Good answer.
　It's very tart indeed.
　This isn't the end. We need to get ready to implement this plan and work out a backup plan if it fails.
　It's a plan full of assumptions. Of course, we have to have a plan for when it fails.

◇

A few hours later, I had a foul stone at hand that I had made just for this mission.
　With it, he jumped into the hole and used his wind magic.
　By doing so, he stayed at a certain altitude.
　........By the time I got here, I used my torn tentacles to verify why, in the lore, the subterranean dragons didn't like storms.

The result was terribly clear.
　This one simply doesn't like water. Perhaps its brownish-brown skin repels water, but its inner tentacles easily shed mucus when they come into contact with water.

Mucus is important to him. Mucus dissolves and evaporates what it touches, turning it into a poisonous mist, and it can also be used for both offense and defense, sliding the tip of the blade.

They also have a habit of unconsciously spitting out mucus from the inside when it's flowing, and if they continue to flush it out with water, it quickly dries up and weakens. That's exactly why I hated the storm.

Then there was one thing to do.
　The foul stone at hand is not the wind and water compound I had originally intended to make, but rather one hundred percent water.
　I threw two such fussy substitutes down the hole in a critical state.
　What happens when a foul stone containing three hundred people's worth of water magic power explodes?
　The answer is quite simple.
　The result appears before your eyes.
　An overwhelming amount of water, which can only be described as a large waterfall, filled the hole.
　Maybe the strata around here are really poorly drained, but the water level is rising in the hole, just like a dam.

.........If my hypothesis is wrong and all those huge bodies are demons, then they should just stay in the hole. Even if it's dead, it will regenerate immediately. One day, they would just have to stay in there until all the water flowed out.

But if that outside is not a demon race, but a subtribe, we can't leave it alone.
　In any case, if you die, you can't get rid of it. Well, I don't know if it's a debilitating death with all the mucus flowing out of it, or if it's a suffocation death, but it will eventually die.
　And we can't do the third option, which is to leave this place.

I heard from Meena of the Serpent Demon Tribe that the [Fruit of Life] is in the process of being made, and if the creator leaves for a certain amount of time, it will break.
　He doesn't want to let all the hard work he's done so far go to waste.
　In other words, there's only one thing to do.

"I hate you, you hate me, you've pissed me off.

A huge body jumps out of the deep hole that has become a pool.
　His chosen answer is to eliminate the threat.
　........Unlike the last time, he's not here to play, he's here to kill. I can feel the seriousness of the killing intent on my skin. He must have been really pissed off about the attack on the water.
　So my hypothesis is correct.
　Then it's easy to do.
　Let's rip off that big, useless armor and see what it really is.

The first battle against the Mediterranean Dragon was quite bitter.
　None of them had found anything that could be called a chance to win.
　But we didn't come back empty-handed.

First of all, they were able to identify it as the underground dragon in the lore.
　And we also confirmed that it has the same properties as the lore, and that's why we can be credible about the abilities depicted in the lore that he didn't show us in that place.
　Also, inside the specially processed bottle, tentacles separated from the guy are swirling.
　In fact, it's a tentacle that has grown further out from the tentacles.
　These two things do not lead directly to victory, but they can be analyzed for possibilities.

'Excuse me, why is the foul stone filled with magic?　There are many, many foul stones full of magic.

Tart asks curiously.

'The attributes we put in them are different. The original foul stone was filled with colorless magic as a battery and a mixture of fire, earth and wind to be most effective when bombing, but this time we have added different attributes.

Foul stones can take in a large amount of magical power. Hence, changing the magic power it can contain will drastically change its nature.

''Ah, okay. You're going to create a storm, aren't you?
''Yeah, with three hundred people's worth of wind and water magic, I can even trigger a storm... I never tried to create a storm before because the direct firepower is so low, but the lore says that the storm slowed it down, so it's worth a try.''

As he said that, he continued to put magic power into the foul stone.

'Wow, that sounds interesting. But pouring magic power into a foul stone full of foul stones in a short period of time is impossible, no matter how many rogues you have.

That's the way it's usually done.
　My [Super Recovery] is only going to increase the amount of magic power recovered by a hundred or more times.
　If I continue to pour my full strength of magic power into it, the magic power will be depleted before the foul stone is filled with magic power.

'So I hold the foul stone filled with colorlessness like this in my right hand and draw out the magic power, transforming the attributes with my body and filling the empty foul stone. With this, I can fill it with magic power without wear and tear................I need at least five foul stones to call the storm.
I hadn't even thought of that. ... but yeah, I think I can do it. Do you want me to help you?
'No, it's fine. The reason I can do this is because the magic power contained in the foul stone is mine. No matter how much Dia's control technology, converting someone else's magic power into an attribute would be tough.
'That's true but it's frustrating not being able to help you.
'No, I need you to do something for me, Dear. I'm going to explain to you what I'm up to now, so listen up. And the tart, too.

They come up to me and sit down.
　This operation can't be done by me alone.
　It takes two people.
　I begin to talk in my head, sorting through the information.

''There were a few strange things about that underground dragon when we faced it. You both saw that huge body and those worm-like tentacles growing out of its mouth, right?
Yeah, I could see it from here if it was that big.
'I blew one of them off at the base with a Wasp knife. But it regenerated in a flash.
There's nothing wrong with that. Demons can regenerate indefinitely as long as they don't crush the red heart.
Yes, that's why I've had such a hard time taking it down.
'It's not crazy to play it back. But the way it looked was odd. The tentacles that had been torn off were jumping around, and the flesh rose and grew from the section to its original length. And the tentacle you cut off looked like it was going to be fine forever.

Hearing that story, Dia seems to have intuited it, but is Tart tilting his head?

''Oh, well that's not like the demon race, is it?
I'm sorry. I'm not following the story.
To be more specific, the rebirth of the demon race is a rewind. Everything returns to the state it should be in. But the way the subterranean dragon showed the recovery, the way the flesh rose and grew, is too healthy, and there's no way the cut off flesh is in its place.

Unreasonable, conceptual rebirth is the greatest weapon of the demon race.
　But that underground dragon was not so.
　The orc demon race, beetle demon race, and lion demon race that they had defeated so far all reeled back completely in their regeneration.
　Even the arms and legs that had been cut off had disappeared at some point.
　However, only the underground dragon was different. It had only demonstrated its biological regeneration ability.

''Hey, that's... Are you saying that's not a demon race?
''No, I was making [Fruit of Life]. It takes a demon race to process souls in a blasphemous way. That's why they're demon race. But it doesn't seem like all of them are demon race.
Oh, I get it. So it's the outside and the inside that counts.
'Yeah, that would explain it otherwise. Maybe the demon race is in the belly of that monster. That's what happens when you combine the lore with it. It's half right and half wrong to say that the brave man rampaged inside and defeated it. The brave man would be saying that he met the demon race inside his body.......and here's the proof. I finally realized after I calmed down that there was no way they would have originally bottled it up like this and brought back a piece of meat.

I point to the tentacles that have been bottled up and are still twitching and jumping around.
　If that was really a demon race, the tentacles that were cut off would be gone and back where they should be.
　The amount that was huffed off during the battle might be that kind of thing for a short period of time, and it might be my oversight, but this guy is definitive proof.
　Of course, it's crazy to assume that the outside and the inside are different just because of that.
　But if this hypothesis is correct, then we have a chance to win.

'So you only have to ask one thing of us.
'Yeah, if the outside isn't the demon race, if you keep killing it, it should die because it can't keep up with your regeneration. Unlike the heroes, I can't stroll inside my body while being dissolved by that mucus. So I'll kill the outside and draw out the demon tribe inside my body. If I do that, I might be able to kill the demon tribe. All I ask of Dia and Tart is that I drag the underground dragon out of the den, and then kill the outside with a saturation attack of super firepower to kill the outside.......so, Tart, Dia. Use this.

Of the foul stones I have in my hand, I give most of the bombing stuff, filled with earth, fire, and wind, to Tart and Dia.
　Only two are left as my handful of cards, a big deal.

'It's my job to fish him out of the den. "It's my job to fish him out of the hole," he says, "because even with super firepower, I can't kill him if he goes underground. When he comes out of his hole, use all of it to give him maximum firepower.
Well, can you pull something that big out of a hole?
That's why I'm getting ready for you, the foul stone I'm putting my magic into right now.

No doubt it's life threatening.
　But in the sense that once you're confronted with it, it's possible.

Foulstone, Lady Dear and I are working together, oh, I see.
I understand. My role is to bring the foul stone to critical mass and calculate the placement of the foul stone for the most effective bombing, and the tart's role is to use wind magic to move the foul stone according to my instructions.
That's right.

Foul stone bombing is powerful, but the most effective way to crush it is to surround it and crush it.
　An explosion is a radial spread of power.
　In other words, most of the power will escape when used normally. However, if multiple explosions are set off to surround the target, the power is concentrated in the center and there is no escape route.
　The most effective placement of the foul stone, quickly bringing it to a critical point and calculating the timing of the explosions, was not human work.
　But with Deere's brains and sense, he can do it.

However, Deere's projectiles alone couldn't place the foul stones as calculated.
　That's where Tart comes in. Tart has thoroughly trained his wind magic and his accuracy is extremely high. He can even carry multiple foul stones to the location instructed by Dia.

''That's pretty tough. Because where the assumption jumps up out of the hole, it needs to be placed in three dimensions.
It sounds like a lot of work.

Tart and Dia look at each other.
　I know it's a hard thing to say.
　And I'm too busy blowing him off to follow them both.

'But I will,'
Me too. Um, Master Roug, please tell me. Did you order it because you thought we could?
Yeah, yeah. I figured we could do it together.
Then I can do it!

Good answer.
　It's very tart indeed.
　This isn't the end. We need to get ready to implement this plan and work out a backup plan if it fails.
　It's a plan full of assumptions. Of course, we have to have a plan for when it fails.

◇

A few hours later, I had a foul stone at hand that I had made just for this mission.
　With it, he jumped into the hole and used his wind magic.
　By doing so, he stayed at a certain altitude.
　........By the time I got here, I used my torn tentacles to verify why, in the lore, the subterranean dragons didn't like storms.

The result was terribly clear.
　This one simply doesn't like water. Perhaps its brownish-brown skin repels water, but its inner tentacles easily shed mucus when they come into contact with water.

Mucus is important to him. Mucus dissolves and evaporates what it touches, turning it into a poisonous mist, and it can also be used for both offense and defense, sliding the tip of the blade.

They also have a habit of unconsciously spitting out mucus from the inside when it's flowing, and if they continue to flush it out with water, it quickly dries up and weakens. That's exactly why I hated the storm.

Then there was one thing to do.
　The foul stone at hand is not the wind and water compound I had originally intended to make, but rather one hundred percent water.
　I threw two such fussy substitutes down the hole in a critical state.
　What happens when a foul stone containing three hundred people's worth of water magic power explodes?
　The answer is quite simple.
　The result appears before your eyes.
　An overwhelming amount of water, which can only be described as a large waterfall, filled the hole.
　Maybe the strata around here are really poorly drained, but the water level is rising in the hole, just like a dam.

.........If my hypothesis is wrong and all those huge bodies are demons, then they should just stay in the hole. Even if it's dead, it will regenerate immediately. One day, they would just have to stay in there until all the water flowed out.

But if that outside is not a demon race, but a subtribe, we can't leave it alone.
　In any case, if you die, you can't get rid of it. Well, I don't know if it's a debilitating death with all the mucus flowing out of it, or if it's a suffocation death, but it will eventually die.
　And we can't do the third option, which is to leave this place.

I heard from Meena of the Serpent Demon Tribe that the [Fruit of Life] is in the process of being made, and if the creator leaves for a certain amount of time, it will break.
　He doesn't want to let all the hard work he's done so far go to waste.
　In other words, there's only one thing to do.

"I hate you, you hate me, you've pissed me off.

A huge body jumps out of the deep hole that has become a pool.
　His chosen answer is to eliminate the threat.
　........Unlike the last time, he's not here to play, he's here to kill. I can feel the seriousness of the killing intent on my skin. He must have been really pissed off about the attack on the water.
　So my hypothesis is correct.
　Then it's easy to do.
　Let's rip off that big, useless armor and see what it really is.