The cavern was pitch black; only his night vision-capable sensors allowed him to see. It had a vaguely spherical shape and was perhaps about 100 meters in diameter. Despite its bowl shape, it seemed like the floor was flat-the bottom half of it had been filled in with precious items.

  Jewels of all kinds and colors, a monstrous amount of golden items, racks upon racks of glowing weapons, statues, and great works of art-all were found in ludicrous amounts in the cave. Even a small galleon equipped with bolt throwers sat atop the sea of treasure. Its sails lay in tatters, and gold flowed out of its oarlocks, now empty of oars.

  Inside, a huge reptile rested on said monstrous pile of treasure. The moment he stepped inside, one of its titanic yellow eyes with a slit black iris half as tall as he was opened. A stony rumble which promised a fiery death spoke.

  “Who are you to rouse me from my rest? To broach my hoard? To traipse upon my most hallowed barrow upon which I slumber?”

  Get a load of this sesquipedalian. Kyle didn’t answer. He simply raised his railgun and loosed a bolt of plasma directly into the dragon's skull.

  The dragon had doubtless been about to say something smug or lofty, but the impact of a plasma bolt right between its eyes sent it tumbling backwards over the pile of gold.

  When it slowly rose back up, it seemed to finally take him seriously. “There was no mana in that blast. I don’t know what eldritch abomination from the Seventh Layer allowed you to do that, but I’ll put an end to it post-haste.”

  Rising to its full height, Kyle was actually impressed. It truly was a beautiful beast-ebony black scales, beautiful golden horns and vein-like patterns, and molten red highlights. It was elegant in the extreme.

  Kyle slammed another round into the railgun's breach, and began circling the dragon. Circling a boss. This feels like a souls game…

  As his armor did the running for him, he focused on reloading and aiming. By the time the dragon was ready to respond, he had already shot another plasma bolt at its underbelly- a red shield sprang up, not unlike the one Bariyon had used against him literally the day before.

  The plasma bolt detonated with full force, shaking the roof and sending bits of rock tumbling down-but the dragon had been spared.

  Its throat started ominously glowing. Bariyon unexpectedly called out to him. “Lad, let me make a shield for you! You can reload your weapon in peace, and you should have an opening when its breath attack ends!”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Kyle did as instructed and prepared to take the hit. He didn’t doubt the armor’s ability to withstand dragon fire, but better safe than sorry.

  The dragon's throat, which had slightly inflated, contracted forcefully-blasting napalm-like fire in a concentrated stream at Kyle.

  Right before it impacted, a green shield formed in front of him. The flame sizzled furiously against it.

  When the stream ended, the shield was about to crack. But it had held out for long enough. The dragon looked at him furiously and clearly started prepping another breath weapon.

  It didn’t get the chance-Kyle slammed his armored finger on the trigger, and another bolt of plasma was flung out of the gun.

  The 3-foot-long barrel vibrated slightly, and in an instant, the plasma impacted.

  The dragon had risen on its hind non-wing limbs to shoot the flame at him. As a result, its underbelly was a perfectly poised target. In less than a second from the moment the shield dropped, the dragon’s body was consumed by a huge explosion.

  The face shot earlier had clearly been blocked by more magic somehow-but its focus had been disrupted due to the sudden attack, and it couldn’t raise a shield in time.

  As it fell through the smoke, Kyle’s enhanced eyes scanned its wound in depth. It slowly careened towards the surface of the gold pile. Because it had risen on its hind limbs earlier, the crash was titanic. A huge indent was formed in the treasure.

  A large portion of the reptile's torso was merely a huge glowing, smoking crater.

  Its face was a shocked rictus of pain, seemingly disbelieving that a mere human could bring about the end of its millennia-long life.

  ———

  Kyle clipped his railgun back to his chest, and inspected the hoard.

  “Hey, Bariyon, what…what do I do? How do I get all of this out of here?” “That’s the worst part. Your best option would be to grab the parts of the dragon that degrade quickly. They’re probably the most valuable things here. Eyes, internal organs, brain matter, all of it is incredibly valuable.”

  Kyle took out his boarding axe, and got to work. Using the axe to cut through the tough hide and scales took a while, but eventually he got inside the ribcage.

  “Don’t rush too much. Most of this will take a few days to rot, 3 at a minimum. The exception is the spleen-that will rot in a few hours. Grab that, and get it back to whatever mages guild has some kind of freezer.”

  Kyle slowly dissected the creature and eventually reached the spleen-a basketball-sized red lump of flesh.

  “How careful do I need to be with this?” “Lad, don’t worry about it. Just get it back to the city.”

  If he was going to get a dedicated melee weapon, it was either going to be a claymore, or some kind of long-hafted hammer. He searched the piles of gold, digging around occasionally.

  Just as he had been about to give up, the cataloging macro he had set up using the armor's computer pinged him.

  It had spotted the haft of a pole arm poking up from the sea of smaller gold pieces.

  Kyle grasped it with one hand and pulled. In a small explosion of gold flying everywhere, the beautiful weapon revealed itself to him.