"Ugh... my head..."
"..."
When I opened my eyes, a sharp pain hit me.
"..."
There was an IV in my arm, and I could faintly smell elixir on my body.
"..."
Everything around me was white, and there were curtains drawn around the bed, so this was probably a hospital room... I thought.
"Bellf...?"
"Mm... sorry."
"Bellf!"
Whether she had heard me or not, Aiz appeared as she roughly pulled the curtain aside.
Then she threw herself at me,
"Ghk!"
and with a sickening crack, I felt something in my bones break.
"What were you thinking, doing something like that?"
"I thought I had to stop it first... Sorry."
"...From now on, stay with me."
"Okay."
...So he had retreated, then.
"What about the Black Dragon?"
"It ran away."
"..."
"But... it'll come back. It looked angry."
"Hmm... and the gods?"
"In a meeting."
"I see..."
Was Excalibur... still stuck in the Black Dragon?
If so...
"Long time no see, Bellf."
"Finn?"
"The others are all busy, so I came as their representative to visit you."
"Not because you didn't feel like working?"
"Ahem... Are you feeling all right?"
"More or less."
Finn set a fruit basket beside the bed and started eating an apple.
"...Finn, did it drop any scales?"
"Black Dragon scales? If that's what you mean... I think I have about two."
"How much are they?"
"Let's see?"
"I'll give you a ship, no matter where you sell it, so sell it to me."
"...All right."
"And, are you going to buy a magic sword?"
"Huh? Of course I am, right?"
I can project the magic sword I made in a degraded state.
In other words,
"Excalibur, one-time knockoff. How much will you pay for it?"
Without Pandora, Excalibur could be made as long as I had mana.
The gods' meeting went on for quite a long time.
"Urus, I need some fire."
"[What are you making?]"
"A sword."
"[From what? You're going to make something stronger than Excalibur out of those scales?]"
"Who knows? I'm not sure myself."
When I opened the workshop door, I saw the cracked Excalibur hanging on the wall.
"Will it get stronger, or weaker..."
"[Don't tell me you're planning...]"
"There's no rule saying I can't make two masterpieces."
I swallowed the elixir I had barely managed to get my hands on, and heated Excalibur and the scales in the flames Urus had summoned.
"Interesting, you Black Dragon bastard."
The scales, like Pandora, began absorbing the flames.
I smiled and gripped the hammer.