Chapter 93 - Lions, Tigers, Bears, and Naked People

Gren managed to kill a deer but he wasn't happy since Shenzi and Ahk accidentally killed the previous ones that they found. They still gave a couple thousand points but that left him just six hundred points shy of getting the last research point that he needed to research the Simple Mechanics project. "I just need to kill one more large animal. Do either you have any clues as to where they might be?" Gren didn't know how to track but hoped that there was something nearby.

"I'm not familiar with the animals that made any of these other tracks so I can't tell you how old they are. The deer ones are probably from the one you just killed." Shenzi was out of her league.

"Big animal track here. We go that way." Ahk was slowly improving her speech and it seemed like she found something. "Mother with young. Careful. Dangerous."

Gren and Shenzi followed Ahk through the forest. "Is it just me or do these marks look a lot like the ones that Annie spotted the other day?" After Shenzi mentioned it, Gren noticed the large scratches on the trees. "What did she say they could be?"

"She didn't say anything about what it could be. Just that they were made by a large monster." Gren just thought of something terrible. "Wait, if the animal is considered large by Ahk's standards..." Before he could finish his sentence, there was a loud roar that came from in front of them.

Ahk prepared her shield which made it difficult for Gren to see what it was but he knew that it was coming since the ground was shaking. Gren dodged to the side and watched as Ahk was launched back. The culprit was a large lizard-like beast with wings on its back. "Isn't that a dragon!?" Shenzi yelled out what Gren was thinking.

Gren realized that he was out of his league but set up his ballista and fired while the dragon was distracted with Shenzi's yell, aiming for the dragon's neck. The bolt failed to pierce its scales but caused it to get knocked back. Gren only had one more loaded ballista since he forgot to have Ahk reload the previous one that he used against the boar. "The scales are too tough, try to find a weakness in its defenses."

Gren enraged the dragon and caused it to charge at him. Gren threw his spear at it and rolled out of the way, narrowly dodging its bite. The spear just bounced off the dragon's snout, doing zero damage. Shenzi tried to stab it in the side but the dragon used its wings to block her weapons. Its attention was mostly on Gren but it didn't allow Shenzi to take it by surprise.

Ahk was just getting up and Shenzi was far away from the dragon so Gren launched a few explosive fireballs at it, hoping to do some damage. Other than some scorch marks, the scales were unharmed. "This thing is too tough!" Nothing was working against it and Gren was wondering if it could block even Ahk's hits?

Gren used the earth magic to lift himself up way up high as the dragon charged towards him once again. If he couldn't pierce the scales then he'd try to crush them. Besides the statue of his mother, the heaviest object in his pocket dimension was the Rat Trap XL. It was two tons of iron that came crashing down on top of the dragon's back.

The dragon roared in pain and its thrashing caused one of its wings to get caught in the trap, pinning it in place. Every time the dragon tried to move, the trap would drag against the ground. Gren landed on the ground and rolled but still took quite a bit of damage. After healing his broken leg, he watched on as Ahk used her shield to protect against the dragon's claws and tried to hack at its front left leg but couldn't connect with it.

"When I distract it, try to take out its limb!" Gren had one last ballista to fire and decided that this was the best time to use it. He needed to move to a place where the bolt wouldn't hit Ahk if it missed. "Shenzi, get behind Ahk!" The dragon's right side was the best place to strike since it would get its attention away from Ahk's position. "Get ready!" Ahk placed her shield down and gripped her axe with both hands.

Gren launched the ballista bolt and threw some flames towards the dragon's eyes. Ahk took advantage of Gren's distraction and brought her axe down upon its scaly arm. The tip of the axe dug in before the rest of the blade shattered against its tough scales. It had already received damage from previous battles and that was the axe's final straw.

Ahk jumped back as the dragon's front leg swiped back towards her. She was still hit but the thick iron on her forearms and the backwards momentum prevented her arms from breaking. With some distance gained, Ahk was safe from the dragon again. However, it was only a matter of time before the dragon would be able to free its wing from the trap.

"Strong. Too strong." Ahk seemed worried which only made Gren and Shenzi feel even more worried. "Need weapon." Gren tossed a bunch of the weapons from his pocket dimension that he had into a pile, hoping that one of them would interest Ahk. He didn't have a weapon to use either but his muscles were too weak to harm those scales so nothing would change even if he had one.

"That's pretty much all that I've got left. Use whatever you like." He would need to work on making a new weapon for Ahk while she kept the dragon busy. Just as he brought up the blueprint for Ahk's axe and was going to make it out of steel, he heard the dragon roar in pain once more.

Ahk managed to cut off the dragon's front left leg with a golden axe. Ahk seemed just as surprised as Gren was that it cut through the dragon's scales. Gren ran up towards Ahk to stop her from killing the dragon. "Wait! It's pointless if you're the one that kills it." Gren needed the points from it.

Ahk used her shield to block its mouth as Gren swung the axe towards the dragon's neck. The blade just cut through its throat like it was butter. It was an anticlimactic end to the fight and Gren felt like an idiot. All this time he looked down on the golden weapons... he had such good weapons... why didn't he find out how good they were earlier? Didn't that mean the trident held by his statue was a super weapon as well?

Gren stored the weapon away to protect it from Ahk's stare. "Sorry. That one is irreplaceable. I'll make you a new axe when we get back." Ahk was disappointed but Gren needed Ahk to keep earning points for him.

The dragon couldn't be stored due to the dirt he had in his inventory so he tossed the dirt away. Dragon meat sounded like it would be good. There was also the fact that Ahk said earlier that the dragon had its young with it. Even if he couldn't tame them, they could still be worth many points.

Following the dragon's tracks led Gren and the others to a large passage that led underground. The gate that originally blocked it was torn apart, most likely from the dragon's claws. There were a series of ornate arches above the stairs leading down when Gren entered. "I bet that there's going to be treasure in here." If this were a movie they would definitely have treasure in a temple protected by a dragon.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Gren was right. Unlike the last treasure chamber, this one was neatly arranged if you ignored the dragon eggs near the entrance. There were ingots of various metal types stacked up in neat piles. The armors and weapons were lined up against the walls. The treasure chests were lined up behind the altar. The altar with a naked girl encased in crystal was displayed in the center of the room... "Naked girl?"

"Naked girl." Shenzi answered Gren. At least he knew that he hadn't gone delusional.

There was less in this treasure chamber even though it was around the same size as the one under Newton. "Well, it wouldn't feel right leaving anything behind." Gren bought another one hundred thousand points of storage space and ran around collecting everything.

"Are you sure that it's okay to take everything? This seems like a tomb." Shenzi's old tribe placed importance on respecting the dead. Even though she didn't follow tradition, it still felt wrong to take from the dead.

"A tomb?" Gren finally realized what she meant and laughed. "You think that this is a tomb because of the crystal girl? She's still alive." The system let him know that the crystal was actually enchanted with a stasis spell. He didn't know why she was in stasis but he didn't want to absorb the crystal until his mother was awake. It would be bad if she was ill and died because of him.

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There were five living things that needed to be carried out of the temple; four dragon eggs and the crystal girl. Gren quickly created a thin sled with thick cushioning so that they could pull everything behind them. Going on a hunting trip ended up being more fruitful than he expected. That reminded him; didn't he go hunting for some specific reason?