Chapter 79

When I teleported into the store, Hestia, who was adjusting her staff while sitting on a chair, greeted me.

"Hmm, welcome back. Looks like you've got more people with you."

"Yeah, I wanted to talk about something."

The living space of the store is quite spacious, so there's plenty of room even for four people.

"Go ahead and take a seat wherever. I don't have any tea or anything, though."

All we have are apples. I could make a golem to turn them into juice, but as I was thinking about it,

"You have something you want to talk about, right? Then I'll give it a try."

Hestia said this and headed towards the cooking area where the apples were.

"Oh, thank you. I'll leave it to you."

"Sure thing."

Leaving the tea to Hestia, I joined Dianeya and Anne at their table.

"Alright, now that we're settled, I want to ask about the rock that fell on the rabbit's place. Did you find out anything?"

"Hmm? You mean the rock that destroyed their store?"

"Yeah, actually, a similar rock fell on my place too."

"What!? Really!?"

When I said this, Dianeya stood up in surprise and leaned forward, looking at my face.

"Are you okay, Daichi-sama?! Did you get hurt or anything?"

"No, I'm fine."

"Did it damage your house at all?"

"Not really, just a big rock in the back of the yard."

If it's in the way, I can just crush it and bury it. No problem.

"That's a relief. I'm glad..."

"But why are you so surprised?"

When I asked, Dianeya rummaged through her pocket and took out a stone. It was the same strange-patterned stone I had seen before.

"Is the rock that fell similar to this one?"

"Yeah, that's it. This is the one."

"Then... I'm surprised. This object is incredibly hard."

"Harder than regular rock?"

It does feel metallic and hard.

"Yeah, I couldn't even melt it with my full-strength fire spell. When we got the rock fragments from the rabbit's store, it took twenty mages. And when we accelerated these fragments with wind magic, they had enough hardness to break through the castle walls. And yet, it didn't affect you when it fell from the sky."

Wow, I didn't realize it was that hard.

"I caught it easily with a tree shield."

"...Your house and your own defenses are really out of the ordinary."

My defenses have been honed by things like Hestia's dragon strikes and Servant Demon's fireballs. If I can detect something falling from the sky, I can deflect it or catch it easily.

"That's really impressive. I still admire you..."

Dianeya looked at me with excited, sparkling eyes. I didn't mean to do all that, but anyway,

"What is this rock? Sakura and I couldn't figure it out, and it's definitely not a regular rock."

When I asked, Dianeya looked at the stone with a puzzled expression.

"...From what we've investigated, it has a structure similar to a dragon's scale. We hypothesized that dragons might be involved."

"You mean you don't know what it is?"

"Even with magical investigations, we couldn't find a match. The research team said they would look through the literature, but..."

I see. Dianeya doesn't know either. Then we need to find someone else who does. If dragons are involved, maybe we can ask a dragon.

"Anne, do you know about this rock?"

"No, I've never seen anything like it. I didn't see anything like this in the Armed City either."

Anne doesn't know either. Hmm, then what should we do? As I was thinking about it,

"Hmm? ...Is that a part of the Star Dragon King's scale? That's a rare item you have there?"

Teacher Hestia, who had come over from the kitchen, hit the nail on the head right away.