Your Majesty's money, why don't you engrave my name on it?

The address was similar to that of most churches in Ironforge, so this person must have some minor noble title, and as a collector, he must have considerable wealth. Angelita lowered her head, lost in thought.

The orc didn't think about any of that, and just continued to add as much as he could: "His house is quite big, and he has a dozen servants to take care of his residence and those antiques. His most treasured possession is a crystal cane, which is carved entirely from crystal and is as thick as two or three of my fingers!"

Iron Jaw is much stronger than a human, and two or three fingers thick is indeed a very valuable treasure.

“And that old man had a terrible temper, he was awful and foul, like a rock in a latrine,” Siti added. “He looked down on us and even initially thought we weren’t up to the task—though I have to admit he wasn’t wrong—and after we paid the deposit, he kept telling us not to damage his statue.”

However, it's unlikely they can do that anymore.

"Don't break it?" Leslaufer grabbed the statue with his large hand. "This thing doesn't even look like an antique. Annie, do you think there's some kind of magic on it to help preserve it?"

Angelita knew what Leslaufer meant; a painting hanging in their home depicted this technique. But after careful observation, she shook her head: "No, I don't see anything like it, not even a trace. Either it was placed in some kind of container before, or it's a new object that has only recently come into existence."

The three adventurers quickly and confidently assured that they had never seen any container from the beginning, and that the cat statue was placed against the wall in the Young Dragon Treasury, facing the wall, which should have been done randomly without any particular reason.

But the more it is like this, the more suspicious it seems.

“I suggest we wait for Daisy,” the druid pondered for a moment. “She is incredibly knowledgeable in some areas. You probably can’t imagine where I was in the War Zone when I came across the records of those things she casually mentioned.”

Leslaufer and his companions were naturally used to this, but they didn't point it out. After all, Bella was a clergyman, and it wouldn't be appropriate to talk about demons in front of her. As for the suggestion, the adventurers naturally wouldn't and dared not object. Ironjaw and the less seriously injured Siti quickly ran out to help clean up the bandit corpses scattered in the courtyard, while the remaining hunters were assigned to rest separately.

While Bella was out watching over the dragon, Leslaufer summoned Barbasabalone and told the little devil to call Daisy home as soon as possible.

The sun gradually sank below its zenith, and the army of fire serpents that Leslaufer had been eagerly anticipating did not appear. It seemed that the red dragon had only sent Grok and the wyvern. Immediately afterward, smoke began to rise from the chimneys of every house in the village, and the bard's distinctive voice drifted from the courtyard gates:

"Oh! A dragon!" Daisy exclaimed in surprise. "Luckily I came back early today, otherwise there would have been no dragon meat to eat!"

She turned her head and saw Bella squatting beside the dragon, busy at work: "Look who's here? Bella—why didn't you let me know? I wasn't going out today!"

The druid, who was collecting some liquid from under the dragon's stinger, heard the sound and lightly scraped the edge of the stinger with the mouth of the bottle. He stopped and turned around: "It's as if you wrote me a letter. When Raslaufer came to me, I hadn't even had time to put on my boots!"

"As for your dragon meat, forget about it. This guy might still be useful. Just collect some of its venom; you never know when you might need it."

“Dragon Venom, right? I get it, I get it,” Daisy nodded repeatedly, picked up her violin and walked into the house. “Let me see what new gadgets you’ve come up with? Is this statue?”

Leslaufer winked at her: "Yes, that's it, but we didn't see anything special about it."

Daisy held the statue in her hands. Although it was neither metal nor gemstone, it was cool to the touch. Leslaufer and Bella Marie were not quite sure about its material. Angelita knew but did not feel the need to explain. However, for Daisy, it evoked a different feeling.

“It’s a porcelain piece,” the bard raised an eyebrow, becoming even more careful. “Luckily you didn’t smash it; this thing is very fragile.”

“Porcelain?” Raslaufer looked at the poet’s hand upon hearing this. “I’ve only heard Amansa mention that elves have a tradition of using porcelain, but this stuff is really not very common.”

Thinking back, when he fought the dark elf's martial arts master last time, the other party seemed to have taken out a similar bottle, but Dobler couldn't connect that thing with this cat statue at all.

“No wonder, where have all the elves gone?” Daisy nodded. “If we transported one of these things to Eastern Inathas, we’d probably have to pay a whole cartload of broken porcelain shards… Tsk tsk, look at this cat, this color has a nickname back home, it’s called ‘Dragging a Spear and Hanging a Seal’—oh dear!”

Chapter 470 The Inside of the Statue

The poet let out a cry of alarm, and the cat statue seemed to come alive, crashing straight down onto the hard ground. Unfortunately, it was just a statue, lacking the nine lives of a real cat, and immediately shattered into pieces, the sound of its final moments echoing across the ground.

"What—" Bella rushed in at the sound, twisting the stopper of the bottle of dragon venom in her hand. "I've lived this long, and this is the first time I've ever heard a porcelain cat meow."

It was just a piece of porcelain. Although it was rare, it was nothing to Leslaufer and his companions. However, the adventurers were so frightened that their faces turned pale: "What... what should we do?"

Although they could no longer count on completing the mission, this was still a work of art, if not an antique, and it could at least atone for the life-saving grace shown to Reslaufer and the others. But now it was broken—

“It’s alright, it’s good that it’s broken, ‘broken is safe’,” the poet screamed the loudest, but she was also the least in a hurry. Daisy bent down and carefully plucked at the scattered porcelain shards on the ground with her violin, as if searching for something. “Broken has its advantages, for example—ah, ha!”

She suddenly noticed something, grabbed a handful from the ground, and jumped up, spreading her palms out to everyone: "Look, what's this!"

It was a huge diamond, but not flawless; its interior was dotted with numerous dark red spots, giving it a strange, deep gray hue. Calling it a blood diamond might be an exaggeration, but calling it a bloodstone would be entirely fitting.

Everyone present was familiar with blood, and now, several drops of blood plasma were trapped inside this diamond!

Mary suddenly had an expression of realization. She also squatted down, picked up a piece of porcelain, and ran her fingertip hard across the back of the shard.

As expected, a dark gray metallic sheen immediately appeared on her fingertips: "It's lead powder. This statue is hollow, and the inner walls are coated with lead powder!"

Although she was not a spellcaster, she was well-versed in how to deal with probing magic—this type of magic is usually blocked by lead, and this statue used that method!

No wonder Bella and Angelita couldn't discover the secret; their ability to detect magic was blocked by the outer surface of the statue!

“If that’s the case… then it makes sense, doesn’t it?” Ironjaw and her two companions stared wide-eyed at the diamond in Daisy’s hand. “No wonder that old guy was afraid we would break it; the mechanism was here.”

“Does that mean that the dragon also knows about this?” Hunter Ed felt a chill run down his spine. “No wonder it was chasing us… this thing must be very important to it.”

“Perhaps so,” Daisy handed the bloodstone to Leslaufer and then bent down again to gather the broken porcelain shards. “Or perhaps not.”

The crowd was puzzled, but seeing her actions, they all sprang into action, collecting the fragments that had been scattered and flying everywhere. Daisy, however, paid no attention to the other parts, focusing only on the base.

A moment later, she held a small piece of animal leather in her hand and carefully used it to prop up the barely repaired fragments of the base. But this didn't make anything happen, so she thought for a moment longer and turned to look at Bella.

"Um... it seems like it's still missing a few parts. Do you have any repair skills?"

Bella assessed the extent of the statue's damage: "It should be possible, but I must warn you, restoration magic cannot repair magical items. If there is still magic on it, it will become ineffective and disappear."

“Don’t worry about that,” Daisy waved her hand. “If I’m not mistaken, there shouldn’t be any magic on this anymore—maybe it used to, but it’s gone now.”

The druid had already taken out two magnets, ready to begin casting a spell, but stopped upon hearing this: "What do you mean by this?"

"That means it has been smashed and then restored," suddenly Raslaufer spoke up, examining the bloodstone in his hand under the magical light. "Look at this, it's a diamond, not amber."

"So the question is, how did this blood get inside? Was it formed naturally?"

The possibility is probably not high.

“And you suspect…” Bella understood, “that this blood diamond was also placed inside the statue in the same way!”

“If this is the antique dealer of Eastern Inasas, he can make his Imperial counterparts laugh their heads off,” Angelita frowned. “Destroying one work of art to save another, for whatever reason, and regardless of the difference in value, is not the proper thing to do.”

Artworks are meant to be appreciated; such secrecy suggests there's something to hide.

“Or perhaps…” Daisy walked to the side, resting her left cheek on her hand, watching Bella begin to cast a restoration spell, reassembling the pile of fragments into two-thirds of the statue, “—is this the only way to restore it?”

"Repairing magic is for fixing simple breaks or cracks, my dear Miss Daisy," the druid rolled her eyes, "and look what you've done to this!"

If it hadn't been shattered like this, she would have suspected that Daisy knew about the problem with the statue beforehand—but as she said, look at how badly Daisy smashed it.

There's no need to go to such lengths just to retrieve something from inside.

"This was a lucky accident..." Daisy shrank back and craned her neck to look inside the mostly restored statue. "Speaking of which, didn't any of you notice that it's hollow?"

“We don’t even know what it’s made of, how can we know its weight, how it sounds when we tap it, or whether it’s hollow?” Siti gave a wry smile. “Besides, we’ve been running for our lives the whole time, Miss.”

“It was my fault,” Daisy nodded, carefully using the leather to wipe away the lead powder inside. “Hmm… come and see, look at this.”

Hearing this, everyone curiously gathered around, while Daisy cast a light spell, illuminating the statue and the lead-painted interior as clearly as possible: "See? Several of the inner walls must have survived being smashed to pieces several times, allowing Bella to at least retain some fragments of runes that are no longer effective."

Although Daisy called them rune fragments, the others couldn't help but think they looked more like a combination of writing and drawings, except the writing...

The group of men exchanged glances, each seeing the confusion and astonishment in their companion's eyes: they seemed to have seen similar handwriting somewhere before!

Moreover, besides von Dahl, the people they met with also included a pair of spotted cat-like siblings!

The Poppazobot family, the extinct heir Georgi!

Chapter 471 Knowing There Are Dragons in the Mountains

“Without a doubt, this is his handwriting,” Angelita rubbed her arms back and forth. “Could it be him? That cocoon of flesh and blood? He’s back, with that Dragon-Finger Fidel?”

"Aren't they in Western Inass?"

“I think… it shouldn’t be him, or at least, not the current him,” Mary leaned closer to examine it carefully. “Wait, Anne, look closely, why are these words so similar to those in his tomb?”

“A person has experienced the transition between life and death,” Bella said, recovering from her initial shock. “Even he himself may no longer be the same person he was back then. How could his handwriting still be exactly the same as it was centuries ago?”

"Even living people would probably find it difficult to maintain the same writing habits for ten or even twenty years!"

"So, you mean this might have been written while he was still alive?" Daisy straightened up, grinning without any regard for her image. "That's certainly possible, after all, he's practically an 'antique' now."

"Or perhaps the antique dealer knew in advance that his handwriting was hidden inside the statue—and perhaps more importantly, the content on it—but the collector didn't know that it had already been broken once."

The purpose of that breakage was to insert a bloodstone containing blood.

Who is it for?

“It’s best not to open it, we have no way of knowing what’s inside—it certainly won’t be just a simple, harmless drop of blood,” the bard said. “Perhaps a better way is for us to go directly to the person who might need it, or rather, the dragon.”

"Are you sure?" The druid clearly didn't believe it. "It's a dragon! Remember what happened in the Goringoton Mountains? That green dragon wasn't even awake!"

“But this one isn’t even an adult yet,” Raslaufer said, looking genuinely eager. “If it were as big as that green dragon, it would be the one hunting down these three.”

"—And it will burn everything along the way to the ground."

This theory is entirely plausible. If the cat statue or the bloodstone were truly that important, the dragon would not have allowed its minions to seize it. If it had acted on its own, Siti and Ironjaw would not have been able to leave its lair alive.

Bella tucked a stray red hair behind her ear, tacitly acknowledging the view. She seemed to have indeed spent far too long in the Land of Resistance, realizing that she was not one of those druids who could be satisfied with simply tending to flowers and communicating with nature.

She craves adventure more than a monotonous life.

As for the three adventurers, they had no choice. Especially after Daisy emphasized the word "adventurers," Ironjaw immediately agreed to go with them to settle scores with the young dragon. Next was Siti, and Hunter Ed sighed in the end and also agreed to join the mission.

Their injuries had not yet healed, so they could not join the battle—but anyway, Reslaufer and the others did not intend to.

They now have battle-hardened warriors, druids who can transform into beasts, a poet, and two young girls who are geniuses in their respective fields, plus a Deinonychus. If even such a team can't handle a young dragon, then adding the other three would be pointless.

“If that’s the case, perhaps I should go find Skadi or Duncan,” Raslaufer casually stuffed the bloodstone into his pocket. “At least we can assume that those elemental creatures and dragons are helpless against siege weapons.”

Bella and the three adventurers rested at Leslaufer's house for the night. Early the next morning, they got ready and led the defeated dragon out of the yard. Just as they were leaving, they ran into a group of villagers returning from outside the village. They were all covered in dust, carrying shovels on their shoulders and dragging hoes behind them.

“Oh, it’s Lord Reslaufer!” One of the young men saw the fully armed Reslaufer and quickly waved in their direction. “You’re going to help us wipe out those bandits, right?”

The villagers all saw the flying dragon behind them. The monster was no longer as arrogant as it had been yesterday. It had its head down, its tail between its legs, and several cuts on its wings. It could no longer fly and could only stagger behind Leslaufer and the others like a big dog.

"That's amazing! You not only defeated it, but you also subdued this beast!" For Leslaufer and his companions, who had seen real dragons, wyverns were far from being considered "dragons," but in the eyes of these villagers, they were already true dragon-slaying heroes.

Back in the era when elves and dwarves were the main characters, a "dragon slayer" could even become a king based on this achievement alone. However, as dragons and giants became increasingly rare in the world, the standard for dragon slaying was lowered again and again. Even killing a den of kobolds could be considered "dragon slaying," so the value of this title naturally became lower and lower.

But now, they've seen a wyvern with their own eyes! Does that count as a dragon? Of course it does!

"What have you all been doing?" Daisy interrupted the villagers' praise, pointing at their clothes and the shovels and hoes. "You don't need to be this disheveled to farm, do you?"

Besides, this should be the time when they are in the fields.

“It’s not farming, it’s farming people!” The young villager wiped his face, leaving three obvious marks. “You guys just dumped the bandits you killed yesterday outside the village. That won’t do! We’ve discussed it and decided it’s better to bury them somewhere far away. Even if they turn into skeleton zombies, they won’t be able to harm our village.”

If the corpses aren't handled properly, similar incidents might occur again. Adventurers often don't care about this, but the villagers live here, and they have to consider the consequences. Although they don't know where to dispose of the corpses to prevent them from becoming undead, and it's impossible to bury a band of bandits in the time-tested village cemetery, they can at least throw them some distance away.

As for where they might "come back to life" and start roaming around, causing havoc... that's none of their business.

“Wait for us to come back,” Bella said, frowning slightly. She had actually forgotten about it. “Take me to send those villains off on their final journey, and you won’t have to worry about this anymore.”

She revealed her holy emblem, and after recognizing her as a follower of Edas, the villagers were overjoyed. However, instead of trying to keep Bella, they urged everyone to hurry up and drive away the "bandits" who no longer had Goliath and the dragons as their leaders.

According to them, this saves them from having to "see someone off" twice.

Chapter 472 Am I My Own Servant?

"That guy named Grok is dead."

Within the smoldering rocky lair, a dark red eyelid rolled up, and a vertical pupil, the color of ashes after a fire, suddenly opened, coldly surveying the space scorched red by the flames.

"'Big Tooth' didn't come back either."

The owner of the eye rolled over and got up. Its size, which was about two and a half meters long, did not seem very intimidating. In fact, according to its own innate comparison, it was probably considered relatively thin among its peers.

Although it had never actually seen any other red dragons of the same age.

The young dragon surveyed its lair, surrounded by fiery serpents whose bodies shimmered with heat, coiling and protecting the entire nest. Ever since those ungrateful adventurers stole its treasure, the young dragon had altered the patrol routes of these elemental creatures to make it easier to spot adventurers.

At that moment, as it opened its mouth, the fire snakes stopped, raising their forequarters and hissing as if in response to the young dragon's words.

But it's all meaningless—they can't speak at all, and they can only understand the Firefowl language, which is common to elemental creatures. Even after they grow up, they can only speak this language.

They do not possess the powerful vocal organs and extraordinary intelligence of dragons.

But these creatures, utterly incomparable to the dragon, were the young dragon's only remaining family in this world. It sighed, coiled its body again, and lay down once more on the softened stone surface.

It didn't know where it came from. The moment it hatched, all it found around it were countless obsidian eggs, each about two feet tall. These eggs couldn't hatch a red dragon, only these fire serpents. Newborn, it was weak and hungry, yet even soil and rocks to eat were scarce. If the fire serpents hadn't shared their eggshell fragments with it, it would likely have starved to death in that hellish place it later learned was called the Endless Burning Hell—the territory of a powerful elemental lord in the fire elemental plane.

Looking back now, it was really lucky that we weren't discovered and arrested.

Its arrival here, having left the Fire Elemental Plane, was entirely accidental: a fire giant took a liking to these fire serpents and attempted to raise them. The adult fire lizards fought back fiercely, but although they failed to gain the upper hand, they happened to attract a giant spirit named Sunak. As the giant and the spirit clashed, a rift in space was torn open, and Sunak, who had long been fed up with the extreme environment of the Fire Elemental Plane, immediately escaped with some of the fire serpents and eventually descended upon this place.

The material plane was indeed hundreds or thousands of times better than where it was born. Not only was its survival problem quickly solved, but it also gathered some subordinates, one of whom even had the blood of a fire giant. The young dragon believed that this could at least be considered a revenge against the fire giant over there.

But now, it senses that he is dead—dead on his way to retrieve the treasure for himself.

An inexplicable sense of irritation began to grow wildly in the underdeveloped red dragon's heart. It stood up again, chased its own tail around three or five times, and finally gave up on this meaningless behavior, plunging headlong into its treasure room.

There, a mirror was placed in the corner. Its surface was as black as ink and did not reflect light at all. Next to the mirror was a hole that had been filled in—half of the body of some unlucky thief had been neatly and cleanly bricked into it.