Once Lucia casted a cleanse spell on Cecil, the boy stretched and heaved a relieved sigh."Phew...it sure as h.e.l.l was disgusting while being inside that thing..."
"..."
"D-don"t talk about that anymore...it wasn"t pleasant to see you being swallowed by that thing..." Lucia mumbled.
"Hey, I"m still alive right? But yeah, I guess you"re right..."
"Mhm..."
Lucia released a tired sigh before looking around at the large body of the Night Plague. After Cecil had destroyed the monster"s heart it was now totally dead.
"What"ll we do with the remains? Most of the carapace and everything else are no longer usable after Apocalypse hit it..." Lucia said as she walked closer to the corpse.
Cecil immediately began to move after he heard her words, but before that, he took one last look at Corruption. The runes had changed into an ominous red and it was emitting that malicious aura again.
After storing the ominous weapon, Cecil made his way to the somewhat intact middle abdomen, but he remembered that his sword and spear were thrown far away by the Night Plague earlier. He immediately spread his senses out and quickly found both his weapons.
Once Cecil pinpointed their locations, he stretched his arms out and manipulated his mana to latch onto the two weapons and pulled them into his hands. Once they were in his hands, he immediately checked to make sure that they weren"t damaged, but that was an unfounded concern.
The two weapons were created from adamantium, Alterna"s strongest metal. Not just anything could damage an item created from that ore.
Lucia and Serilla were really surprised when they saw Cecil"s weapons suddenly fly into his hands from afar. It was a sight to behold and they thought he had used a spell, but they didn"t see him use his runic casting method.
Cecil did use it once before during the tournament, but many had overlooked this fact.
"Cel, what was that?!"
"Yeah, darling, how did your weapons suddenly fly to your hands like that?"
"Hm? I only pinpointed their locations, latched my mana onto them and pulled them towards me. It"s pretty simple to do!"
The two girls could only stare at him in confusion. That level of mana manipulation was anything but simple. Being able to materialize mana and have it latch and pull onto an object was not just something anyone could do.
"Now, let"s get back to business. There are still some harvestable stuff we could get from this SSS ranked monster, like the monster"s silk! Lucia, you could totally use that to make us some clothes that could also double as armor!"
Lucia was elated to hear this, but she then remembered that most of the corpse was ruined by her spell, so she didn"t have any high hopes that they"ll be able to find something still usable.
"But...will there still be anything left? I mean, the silk seemed to be easily flammable and I just used Apocalypse to attack this thing..."
"Uh oh... Ah, who cares, we should first take a look inside its abdomen. Maybe we could still find some usable silk."
"Okay...s-sorry Cel..."
"Hey, don"t be! Lulu, you saved me and even took down this monster with that one spell, there"s no need for you to apologize!"
"Yeah...but it didn"t look like you needed saving..."
"But you did so anyway, right?"
"..."
"Well, it is a pity that I can"t eat it anymore...you disintegrated its legs, head and probably destroyed all the eggs inside its two side abdomens..." Cecil said regretfully as he eyed the corpse of the Night Plague.
Hearing this, Lucia was a little grateful that she had decimated the entire corpse. She really didn"t want to cook such disgusting looking food for Cecil even if it was a request from the boy himself.
Lucia took a look at the corpse again and hid her smirk from Cecil when she saw that everything other than the middle abdomen, where the monster"s silk was located in, was practically all destroyed.
The two side abdomens innards were thoroughly destroyed. All the legs were gone, and so was the head. A third of the cephalothorax was charred to ash and the entirety of the monster"s carapace had been scorched black.
When Cecil arrived at the middle abdomen"s spinnerets, he was disappointed to see that they were also destroyed beyond repair.
"Ah, c.r.a.p...I"m not sure how spiders are in Alterna, but I don"t think we can harvest any silk from it anymore..."
Lucia who was previously smug at her work immediately deflated when she heard this. "S-sorry Cel..."
"Hey, what"d I say earlier?"
"Uhm...well..."
Cecil thought for a moment. He didn"t want to give up so easily. The Night Plague"s silk was just too precious of a material. He did retrieve some of it during the battle, but it was too little to create any sort of clothing.
"Hmm...Let"s just dissect the entire middle abdomen...who knows, we might find something."
The 3 began their dissecting operation and Yuna went back to the other adventurer parties still waiting in the forest. All the spiderlings were cleared out and since the source was now dead, no more had sp.a.w.ned.
Cecil told Yuna to tell the adventurer parties to go back to the caravan. The party didn"t want anyone to find out that they had successfully taken down the Night Plague, so they had Yuna lie and say that the previous spell was only able to scare off the Night Plague. The monster was still alive so everyone should hurry and retreat with the caravan as soon as possible.
As for Cecil"s party, they would catch up later after they took care of the spiderlings still in the area and made sure that the Night Plague was no longer chasing after them.
With their alibi set, the party quickly began their work. It didn"t take long before the entire middle abdomen was completely dissected.
It was surprising, but Cecil actually found a chamber inside the lower half of the abdomen, separate from the spider"s large silk gland, that actually had ready-made silk stored in it. This silk chamber was connected to some sort of tube that led to the other two abdomens and Cecil immediately understood what this silk was for.
The silk would be processed into coc.o.o.ns as well as being changed into the weird slime-like substance that accompanied the spider eggs when they were ejected out of the other 2 abdomens.
This find was a lucky break and Cecil immediately collected the silk. There were some near the edges of the chamber that weren"t usable because they were charred black, so he only collected the usable ones near the center area.
It wasn"t that much compared to the rest of the stored silk, but due to how big the monster was; the harvested silk was more than enough for Lucia to craft a couple sets of clothing for Cecil and the rest.
"We got so much! I could totally work with this, and do you feel that! The thread conducts mana really well and I could probably try and add a flame resistant attribute to it! This way we can eliminate the silk"s only weakness!" Lucia exclaimed happily. She was very happy to receive such excellent materials.
Lucia hadn"t only picked up cooking and quick-cast crafting during their travels, but also sewing. Cecil was always reckless during his training and fights with monsters so he would ruin a lot of his clothing.
Since Lucia wanted to save up their money, she learned how to sew and she would repair Cecil"s ruined clothes as best as she could. Through experience, she was able to get better and now she was able to create clothes for her and Cecil to wear.
She did put a stop to it while in the academy, but she would sometimes go over to Radon"s smithy and learn a thing or two from Radon"s wife who was a tailor. With her technique improved, she was now able to create some fashionable clothing that could also serve as armor if she used the right materials.
Now that she obtained very excellent SSS ranked crafting materials, she was excited to get started on making clothing for the party very soon.
"That"s good. So, I can expect something good sometime later?"
"Yup!"
"Don"t forget about me Lulu!"
"Hihihi~ I"ll make a couple sets of clothing for everyone. If I start now...it"ll take a month or so before I can finish one set!"
The party quickly dissected the rest of the body and tried to find anything else usable. The blood from the Night Plague was a little corrosive and very much poisonous, so it couldn"t be used for anything.
The only reason why Cecil wasn"t affected by the corrosive and poisonous blood was because he was constantly circulating his Ki to counteract their effects while he was inside the monster"s innards.
His Mana Burst also acted as a barrier that prevented the poisonous blood from coming into contact with his body.
Once the party found what little materials that were still usable from the corpse, Lucia quickly reduced the corpse into a pile of ashes and Cecil used his plant manipulation to clean up the battlefield to some degree and create the illusion that the monster had escaped from the battlefield.
Once the tracks of the Night Plague were created and checked to make sure everything was as authentic as it could be, Cecil nodded in satisfaction. He turned to Lucia and asked her to take them back to the campsite.
When they stepped out of the Misty Gate, the campsite had long since been abandoned and Cecil couldn"t sense anyone still inside the forest.
"Lulu, ask Yuna to come and retrieve us."
"Already did."
A Misty Gate appeared just ahead of them and the trio stepped through and appeared at the rear of the caravan.
"Phew...that was tiring..."
Silver was there to greet them in his normal, 5 meter tall battle form and not his colossal form. He quickly picked up everyone and placed them on his back.
Silver gave a low roar to his 3 masters on his back
"Good work Master and the two Mistresses."
"You too, Silvy~"
"Same to you, Silvy!"
Cecil only responded by stroking Silver"s fur. He checked up on Lucia"s condition and healed her with his healing arts before lying down on Silver"s back to rest. It was still in the dead of night and after that exhausting fight, he was totally ga.s.sed out.
Sak"arh and Kil"na immediately showed up not long after once they received a report that the 3 adventurers were back.
"Cecil and you two girls, are all of you okay?!" Kil"na immediately asked in worry.
Seeing as Cecil was asleep and Lucia was still sluggish from her lack of mana, Serilla was the one who jumped down and reported to her, "We"re fine. We managed to drive away the Night Plague, but we should hurry away from this place. Who knows if that monster will come back for revenge...Cecil and Lucia are exhausted and somewhat injured from the previous fight..."
"Yes, we should hurry away from here!"
"d.a.m.n, so that large-scale magic spell wasn"t enough to kill the monster?" Sak"arh asked anxiously. He was honestly impressed that such a young girl like Lucia was able to use such a destructive spell, but according to Serilla and Yuna, the Wanderers Party was only able to drive away the monster and not completely kill it.
"No, unfortunately we couldn"t kill it...it sensed the power of the spell and despite our efforts to hold it in place, we were only able to barely land the spell onto its body. We did manage to take out one of its abdomen so it was too scared to fight back and quickly fled."
"That alone is an accomplishment! You all have our thanks for once again protecting our lives!" Kil"na quipped up in amazement.
Even Sak"arh was astonished and could hardly believe what the young lady just said, but he knew that the girl in front of him didn"t have anything to gain from lying to them.
Well, the Wanderers did lie since the monster was already dead. However, the party didn"t want to attract attention, especially not in the Beastman Empire, but apparently taking out one of the Night Plague"s abdomens and forcing it to flee was already a very noteworthy achievement!
"Don"t worry, we"re already heading towards the farthest safe zone from this area that"s also closest to the summit, it"ll take a couple of hours for us to travel there in the middle of the night, so you guys should get some rest. The other parties will handle anything that pops out, but please help out if things get out of hand."
Sak"arh also nodded his head in acknowledgement to Kil"na words and he turned around to head back to the front of the caravan on his mount.
Kil"na exchanged a couple more words with Serilla before heading back. She sighed and leapt back onto Silver.
"Wow Seri~ you sure have your way with words now~!" Lucia teased when her friend landed back on top of Silver.
"Well, I learned from the best!" Serilla giggled as she eyed Cecil before continuing, "At least darling doesn"t lie to us, right Lulu?"
"Yeah, because if he did, I would know, and if he ever lied to me, I"ll punch him!"