Seeing Rei take out Death Scythe, the Guild Staff Members naturally erupted into a commotion.
That said, they weren't making a fuss because they thought Rei was going to attack them with it.
Death Scythe was certainly a fearsome weapon, but anyone working at the Gilm Guild knew what kind of person Rei was.
What bothered them was the fact that the Crystal Dragon's dissection had been postponed on the grounds that they lacked the proper tools—yet Rei apparently had one that could do the job.
But come to think of it, that was only natural.
After all, the Crystal Dragon's head, tail, and right arm had all been severed.
The sheer impact of seeing the Crystal Dragon had prevented the Guild Staff Members from connecting those facts earlier, but looking at the corpse now, it was hardly surprising that Rei carried a weapon called Death Scythe.
"Rei, if you've got a tool that can dissect this dragon, lend it to us!"
The youngest Guild Staff Member called out to Rei—
And a sound that couldn't possibly have come from a head being struck—gonk—rang out through the warehouse.
"Gah... aa..."
Unable to even voice the pain, the Guild Staff Member let out a groan of agony.
Enduring the near-fainting ache, he turned his gaze toward the man who had hit him—a man in his fifties who served as the leader among the gathered staff.
"F-Foreman... what was that for..."
True to the image the title "Foreman" conjured, the man had a powerfully muscular build that belied his age.
The Foreman barked at the young Guild Staff Member, who was still wondering why he'd been struck.
"You idiot! For an adventurer, your weapon is a partner you entrust with your life! And what Rei carries is a Magic Item powerful enough to cleave even a Crystal Dragon in two! And you just ask to borrow it like it's nothing...? Have some shame!"
Rei had suspected the man was a former adventurer, but hearing that outburst only strengthened his conviction.
That was precisely why the Foreman understood an adventurer's attachment to their weapon.
Of course, that sort of thing varied from person to person.
Some treated weapons as disposable, and there were those who held all manner of different philosophies.
Even so, the most common approach was to treat one's weapon as a trusted partner and cherish it.
"Sorry about that, Rei. He's got good hands, but he's still young—naive to how the world works."
The Foreman bowed his head to Rei as he said this.
The Guild Staff Member who'd been hit was, as described, still in his twenties—no, possibly even late teens, depending on how one looked at him.
But young as he was, the fact that Worker had personally called him here meant his skills were unquestionable.
"Nah, don't worry about it. Still... why don't you give it a try? Think you can lift this?"
Rei set Death Scythe down on the floor and addressed the Guild Staff Member, who was still groaning from the Foreman's blow.
The young man couldn't quite grasp what Rei meant, and he glanced fearfully at the Foreman while clutching his head—no doubt worried that reaching for Death Scythe would earn him another hit.
"Hmph. Go ahead and try."
Perhaps because Rei had given explicit permission this time, the Foreman offered only that curt response.
With the Foreman's go-ahead, the Guild Staff Member eagerly reached for Death Scythe on the floor...
"Eh? Huh?"
He let out a bewildered sound. Death Scythe didn't budge an inch, no matter how hard he tried to lift it.
He stepped away, took a deep breath, and approached again...
"Hrnng!"
With a forceful grunt, he tried once more to hoist Death Scythe—but it refused to rise.
"Hahh... hahh... hahh... What is this thing...?"
Having held his breath in a desperate attempt to lift it, he panted heavily once the effort proved futile.
"What's wrong with you? You're young and you've got no grit. Here, step aside—let me try."
Another Guild Staff Member spoke up, glancing at the Foreman for permission.
"If you're asking permission, ask Rei, not me. If he says it's fine, I've got no objection."
"Go ahead. ...It's heavy, though."
At Rei's slightly provocative words, the burly Guild Staff Member reached for Death Scythe on the floor...
"Hrnnggghhhhhhhhh!"
With a full-throated shout, he wrenched upward—but Death Scythe stayed put.
...No. It twitched, rising just slightly.
Ohhhh!
The watching staff—especially the young man who'd failed to lift it earlier—raised voices of anticipation, but...
"No good!"
With that, the man released his grip.
He was likely the strongest among those present.
The fact that even he couldn't fully lift it left everyone stunned—and they turned looks of sheer awe toward Rei.
That said, Rei wasn't entirely comfortable being on the receiving end of such stares.
Though given that Rei's body, created using the Zephyle Clan's technology, could lift something weighing a hundred kilograms, the awe wasn't exactly unwarranted.
"Just to be clear..."
Rei casually hoisted Death Scythe off the floor with one hand.
At that display, the surrounding staff—particularly the two who'd attempted and failed to lift it—directed an even stronger gaze of reverence at him.
"This Death Scythe has an ability that makes it extremely heavy for anyone other than me and Set to wield."
Rei's explanation drew understanding nods from the staff.
That certainly explained why they hadn't been able to lift it as effortlessly as Rei had.
"So, using Death Scythe to dissect the Crystal Dragon would mean I'd be the one doing the dissecting in the end. ...Well, it does get heavy, but the weight is still within what a strong person can manage. So technically, if you really wanted to, you all could use Death Scythe for the dissection."
In practice, though, that would mean the entire staff would have to cooperate to hoist Death Scythe and somehow dissect the Crystal Dragon together.
Rei seriously doubted they could do a proper job under those conditions.
The Guild Staff Members probably understood that better than he did.
Many of them wore troubled expressions at Rei's words.
Confirming as much, Rei gripped Death Scythe and turned his attention back to the Crystal Dragon.
"Alright, there shouldn't be any other issues, so I'll extract the Magic Stone from the Crystal Dragon now."
At Rei's words, the staff shifted gears and gathered around the Crystal Dragon.
Exactly how to go about the dissection hadn't been settled yet.
Even so, watching Rei slash open the Crystal Dragon's body and extract the Magic Stone up close would undoubtedly prove useful for their own work later.
Under the watchful eyes of the staff, Rei readied Death Scythe.
When it came to dissection technique, these people possessed greater skill than he did.
Being observed by such experts while cutting open the Crystal Dragon's body—telling him not to feel nervous would have been unreasonable.
In truth, he wasn't performing a full dissection, just slashing open the torso to retrieve the Magic Stone, so he himself questioned whether "dissection" was even the right word for it.
"Alright, here I go."
With that announcement, Rei swung Death Scythe.
The mana-infused blade cleaved through the Crystal Dragon's torso—specifically, the area around its chest.
Huh?
Rei was struck by how much more easily the blade had sliced through than he'd expected.
But the Crystal Dragon was dead, he reasoned. It wouldn't maintain the same defensive capabilities it had while alive.
Fortunately, that worked in Rei's favor—and in the favor of the staff who would be dissecting the corpse.
Oh!
Several staff members voiced their astonishment at how effortlessly Rei had opened the Crystal Dragon's torso.
Feeling mildly uncomfortable under those reactions, Rei reached toward the corpse—and stopped.
The Crystal Dragon's corpse was, naturally, enormous.
It was lying on the warehouse floor, dead, with its tail and neck already severed by Rei's hand. Even so, there was no denying it was a massive body.
To reach inside and extract the Magic Stone from the heart, merely sticking an arm in wouldn't be enough to reach it.
In other words, he'd need to insert his entire upper body... no, potentially his whole body into the cavity.
Rei would really rather not do that.
Under normal circumstances, he would first remove organs unrelated to the heart—especially the innards—and work his way in, extracting the Magic Stone without getting particularly dirty.
But that approach wasn't available to him this time.
For one thing, he had already decided to leave the dissection of monsters—including the Crystal Dragon—to the Guild.
If he carelessly started dismantling it himself here, he couldn't rule out the possibility of ruining parts that could serve as valuable materials.
Well, the internal organs... at least the stomach, I really can't imagine being usable.
Deep Flame—a skill he could deploy through the Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor—had thoroughly ravaged the inside of the stomach.
Logically speaking, Rei couldn't see how the stomach could be salvaged as a material under those circumstances.
And yet, despite all that burning inside, cutting open the belly revealed no particular heat.
Rei had stored the Crystal Dragon's corpse in the Misty Ring shortly after killing it, with barely any time having passed.
That being the case, this Crystal Dragon was essentially still in a freshly killed state.
Despite that, here was the situation before him.
Why wasn't it hot? It was only natural for Rei to wonder.
If it were just the heat from Deep Flame, it wouldn't be strange for the Deep Flame inside the Crystal Dragon to have dissipated once I released the Flame Emperor's Crimson Armor. But even if Deep Flame had vanished, the organs that were heated—no, burned—by it shouldn't be this cold... Is it because it's a dragon?
The explanation he arrived at for the lack of heat was simply: because it's a dragon.
The fact that he could somehow accept that as an answer probably spoke to the inherent mystery of dragons.
"Rei, what's wrong?"
Apparently puzzled by Rei suddenly falling into thought while staring at the dragon's corpse, one of the staff members asked curiously.
Rei parted the sliced belly flesh of the Crystal Dragon and spoke as he worked.
"This Crystal Dragon uses a powerful Breath called Crystal Breath. To defend against it, I shoved flames generated by my skill directly into its open mouth. Being burned from the inside prevented it from using its Breath, but in exchange, it wouldn't be surprising if the stomach was burned beyond use. And since I stored the corpse in the Misty Ring immediately after killing it, the organs should still be hot—but the fact that they're not hot at all is what's strange."
At Rei's explanation, the staff members' faces displayed a complex tangle of emotions—dissatisfaction, understanding, frustration, and something close to despair all mixed together.
If this had been a monster they dissected on a regular basis, they might have simply accepted it as par for the course.
But what lay before them was the corpse of an S-Rank Monster—and a new species of Crystal Dragon at that.
It was a specimen whose full value they couldn't even begin to estimate.
With a corpse like that, they naturally wanted it brought to them in as pristine a condition as possible—but at the same time, in a battle against a dragon, preserving the body intact was an inherently tall order to begin with.
They understood that. They understood it perfectly. And yet, the frustration still welled up inside them—which was only natural for people who made their living dissecting monsters.
From their demeanor, Rei could imagine exactly what they were feeling.
But that was already water under the bridge. More importantly, during the fight with the Crystal Dragon, he hadn't had the luxury of worrying about any of that.
Looking back on it now, even with the neck, right arm, and tail severed, he figured the corpse was actually in remarkably good shape.
"Anyway, I'm going to extract the Magic Stone from the Crystal Dragon... Is there anyone who'd like to try doing it?"
Not wanting to get covered in internal organs, Rei put the question to the staff.