Chapter 277
After several hours of tracking that day, Haruto finally cornered his quarry at its nest atop a snow-covered mountain more than a thousand meters above sea level.
It was a Red Mirror Dragon.
Its scales resembled polished crimson mirrors and could nullify or repel many forms of magic, making it one of the most troublesome prey Haruto had encountered since entering the Northern Plateau.
In the end, he had been forced to use a Food Technique to pierce its heart directly.
The enormous dragon crashed onto the mountaintop, the impact shaking loose a broad sheet of snow and triggering a small avalanche down the slope.
Haruto landed beside the dragon, which was still twitching faintly.
Even before processing it, he could clearly sense the abundant mana contained within its flesh. His Gourmet Cells stirred pleasantly inside him, obviously satisfied with the quality of the ingredient.
Haruto immediately began considering how best to cook it.
The dragon loin would be perfect cut thick and seared over high heat.
The tendons would need a long, slow braise...
Realizing that he was beginning to drool, Haruto wiped the corner of his mouth and stored the Red Mirror Dragon inside the Gourmet Restaurant.
Then he turned toward the cave on the summit where the dragon had built its nest, intending to search it for any unexpected treasures.
Before he could move, however, Haruto suddenly stopped.
His head snapped upward.
The skies above the Northern Plateau were usually astonishingly clear.
And there, impossibly high above him, a vague black silhouette was moving steadily across the sky at an almost leisurely pace.
"A monster flying that high?"
Haruto narrowed his eyes, his interest immediately piqued.
Even the Red Mirror Dragon he had just hunted normally flew at altitudes of only a little over a thousand meters.
The shadow above him was far beyond the height ordinary monsters—or even most mages—could ever hope to reach.
Anything capable of flying so calmly at that altitude could not possibly be ordinary.
Perhaps it was another extraordinary ingredient.
Without hesitation, Haruto activated the flying magic he had grown increasingly proficient with and shot toward the distant silhouette.
The higher he climbed, the thinner the air became.
The temperature dropped sharply, while fierce high-altitude winds cut against his body like blades.
Haruto ignored all of it.
His eyes remained fixed on the shadow overhead.
As he continued ascending, the tiny black speck gradually expanded in his vision, slowly revealing an enormous outline.
By the time Haruto had climbed to nearly ten thousand meters, he could finally see the creature in its entirety.
His breath caught.
It was a dragon.
A dragon more than a thousand meters long.
Its body looked as though it had been carved from flawless white jade. Each individual scale was nearly the size of a house, reflecting the sunlight with a soft yet weighty luster.
Its wingspan exceeded even the length of its enormous body.
Yet those wings did not flap even once.
The dragon simply drifted forward like a floating continent, carried effortlessly by the high-altitude currents.
Its horns curved like winding mountain ranges.
Half-lidded golden eyes gazed ahead without the slightest trace of savagery, holding only the peaceful indifference of a creature that had witnessed the passage of countless ages.
"Is that... a Skyvein Dragon?"
Haruto immediately recalled a passage he had once read in Frieren’s collection.
It had come from an ancient bestiary, so old that even Frieren herself had only ever encountered descriptions of the creature in historical records.
The Skyvein Dragon was a legendary dragon species said to possess a lifespan approaching eternity.
From the day it was born, it spent its entire life in the upper reaches of the sky.
Only when a Skyvein Dragon finally reached the end of its lifespan would it descend to the earth.
And wherever its enormous body fell, a new mountain range and forest would eventually rise, its remains giving birth to fresh life.
The bestiary had specifically noted that although Skyvein Dragons were classified as monsters, they were extraordinarily gentle.
They never attacked other creatures without provocation.
Supposedly, one could even land directly on their backs without drawing any response.
Haruto wanted to approach more closely, but he had already reached the maximum altitude his flying magic could reliably sustain.
With no other option, he released Charizard.
"ROAR—!"
The moment Charizard appeared, it looked up at the colossal dragon blotting out the sky and let out what was clearly intended to be a challenging roar.
Haruto could not help feeling that the roar lacked some of its usual confidence.
He patted Charizard reassuringly, then climbed onto its back.
"Take us higher."
Charizard nodded and beat its wings, continuing upward until they reached the same altitude as the Skyvein Dragon’s back.
The moment Haruto saw what lay across that enormous spine, he froze again.
A thriving forest grew atop the dragon.
Tall trees rose from its back with dense green crowns, while shrubs, moss, and other low vegetation filled the spaces beneath them.
Haruto could even see narrow streams winding between the trees, glittering beneath the sunlight.
"Charizard, land up there."
He patted the Pokémon’s neck.
Charizard folded its wings and cautiously descended toward the Skyvein Dragon’s broad back.
The dragon showed no reaction whatsoever.
Haruto jumped down and planted both feet on its body.
Beneath him, he could feel an extraordinarily faint vibration accompanying the dragon’s flight, almost like the pulse of the earth itself.
Naturally, the first thing Haruto did was crouch down and examine the dragon as a potential ingredient.
The result was deeply disappointing.
The Skyvein Dragon’s flesh was as tough as bark from a thousand-year-old tree.
Its muscle fibers were thick as rope and possessed absurd resilience.
More tellingly, Haruto’s Gourmet Cells did not react in the slightest.
"What a shame."
"I thought a legendary dragon would make a legendary ingredient, but this is practically inedible."
Haruto shook his head and completely abandoned the idea of treating the Skyvein Dragon itself as food.
Then his gaze shifted toward the forest growing across its back.
The disappointment in his eyes immediately vanished.
Interest surged back in its place.
Skyvein Dragons spent their entire lives flying through the heavens without ever touching the ground.
The soil accumulating across this creature’s back had likely formed over countless ages from weathered scales and shed skin.
Its water came from cloud moisture condensing across those vast scales.
The seeds of its plants might have been carried upward by powerful air currents hundreds or thousands of years ago.
And here, nearly ten thousand meters above the earth, those plants had not merely survived.
Over immeasurable spans of time, they had evolved into a completely independent ecosystem unlike anything found on the surface.
Everything here was unique.
There was nowhere else in the world where these ingredients could possibly exist.
Haruto entered the forest with growing enthusiasm.
The air carried a cool, faint sweetness mixed with the scents of vegetation and rich soil.
It felt completely different from the harsh wilderness of the Northern Plateau far below, almost as though he had stepped into another world entirely.
Sunlight filtered through the canopy in scattered patterns.
The forest was so quiet that the only sound was the faint whisper of air flowing past as the Skyvein Dragon continued its endless flight.
Haruto examined every plant he passed, the light in his eyes growing brighter by the minute.
On a fallen tree trunk, he eventually discovered clusters of translucent mushrooms.
Their rounded caps resembled solidified clouds, plump and almost weightless in appearance.
When Haruto touched one, it released a delicate fragrance reminiscent of the clear sky after rain.
He carefully plucked a single mushroom and tasted a small piece.
The flesh dissolved almost instantly on his tongue.
Its flavor was extraordinarily light, yet the pure freshness unfolded in layer after layer, leaving a long, clean sweetness that lingered far down his throat.
Even more remarkably, Haruto could feel a gentle current of mana entering his body.
Some of the mana he had consumed during his ascent immediately began recovering.
"Now this is good."
Haruto’s eyes lit up.
The mushroom possessed an exceptionally pure savoriness with virtually no distracting flavors.
It would be perfect for clarifying a delicate broth.
Paired with Red Mirror Dragon meat in a clear hot pot, the combination would be outstanding.
Haruto carefully harvested every mushroom growing across the fallen log.
Then he gave the newly discovered ingredient a fitting name.
Cloud-Marrow Mushroom.