Dragon scales. Beyond their natural protective quality, they were a source of many common magus' dreams, the impossibility of seeing one in the modern day similarly making them difficult to get ahold of. Wyvern scales were much the same, if only just below a dragon's.

It stemmed from their possible use in rituals, or reagents in alchemy, among other things. Frankly, even Shirou himself didn't know everything about it - he was just an Enforcer, after all.

As Shirou watched Waver inspect the scales he'd brought with him, however, he could see that even the older man was not beyond shock and awe.

"How the hell did you even find a bloody dragon in the first place?" Waver held the scale up, furrowing his brows in disbelief. Beside him, Gray was staring up at the scale as well, holding up the cage in her hand for Add to see.

Behind them, Reines was busy inspecting various scales with a critical eye, looking like she was inspecting which jewelry to buy with how much she narrowed her eyes. It was sad that Shirou knew that look exactly.

"It found us, more or less." Shirou shrugged, "It'd come out of the mountains and had been stalking around the forest for a while before it found the village."

"Still, I-no." Waver put down the scale with a sigh, rubbing his eyes, "I was going to ask how you killed it, but I don't want to know." He turned to Gray, who'd been looking at him in askance. With a nod, Waver motioned to the scale.

Gray smiled as she picked up the scale, inspecting it alongside Add, a whispered conversation between them.

"At any rate, how many are you willing to part with?" Waver directed the conversation back on topic, "I can't guarantee how much I'd be able to sell these for, I'll warn you right now."

"I can." Reines spoke, not even looking at them, still inspecting the scales, "I know at least the Departments of Zoology and Lore would pay quite a bit for even just one of these. A hundred, maybe two hundred thousand pounds sterling for each scale."

Shirou barely heard Waver start coughing, too busy doing so himself. Near them, Gray had dropped the scale as if it had burned her.

That was significantly higher than he expected.

A normal Enforcer bounty could wrack up to well over twenty million pounds sterling. Looking at it like that, it might look like it was a lot. Not until you consider the expenses, the splits, and everything in between. Just for the expenses, like the bribes that they would make, it would already account for a good two million.

When it was all said and done, a single Enforcer would be lucky to get around a million pounds for each target.

That he would make that much with maybe just five scales was mind boggling. That he also had an entire dragon corpse, which likely had tens of thousands of scales, was even more so.

"Though, it might go down with the amount you have currently. Scarcity was always the main driving point for these kinds of things." Reines was either unaware of the commotion she'd caused, or was wholly ignoring it.

Shirou let out a sigh, trying to calm himself down, "Right. Right." Turning back to Waver, he could see the man was still in a state of disbelief. Coughing slightly, he tried to get the Lord's attention. It barely did, the man turning slightly. Shirou purposely avoided the dead look in his eyes.

"I'll have to check how many scales I can get." A slight nod in response. Silence.

"It'll take maybe a few days. I'll come back as soon as I get a good estimate." A slight nod in response. Silence.

"I'm…going to go?" A slight nod in response. Silence.

Shirou was out the door as fast as he could.

A thousand dragon scales. Ten thousand wyvern scales.

That was the count that would eventually solidify as the final tally he gave to Waver days later. And even then, it wasn't that he had counted every single scale. No, that was the final tally that he was willing to give for the Clock Tower, the bulk of which would be basically a peace offering to the Queen.

That being said, that only accounted for not even a single arm of Rubrasax's corpse, as well as only around a third of the wyverns.

The sheer number of scales that they'd accumulated was beyond Shirou's wildest imaginations. And that wasn't even accounting the other parts that dragons and wyverns had. Parts that Shirou felt faint at thinking the possible price for them was.

Claws, eyes, tongues, and horns. Each of them likely had a market price that exceeded that of a single scale.

Not to mention the internal organs, kept preserved by whatever lingering energy stored within the remnants of the corpses. He was certain that certain individuals would have use for wyvern hearts.

Thankfully, he didn't have to deal with the clusterfuck that would have been a dragon heart, his use of Gram having destroyed it. That was one bit of Pandora's box that he certainly didn't want to deal with.

Still, he had to hand it to the elves, they really knew what they were doing. When he'd asked if they could help with peeling off the scales, they'd gone to work immediately, with the only caveat that they get a few scales to use for their own personal effects.

He hadn't seen a reason to refuse.

So, as the elves worked with the dragons and wyverns, Shirou also watched to see what they would do with the scales. And he was sure that any magus that wasn't him would have a fit at what he saw.

The elves used the scales as, from what he could tell, aesthetics. They certainly didn't have enough scales to use as armor, not taking more than a couple for each individual, so they'd instead fastened them as some sort of symbol onto their leathers.

Hair ornaments, the shapes defined by the use of other scales to shape them. Tied onto the shaft of weapons, a symbol that hung off of spears, bows, and the hilts of swords.

It was odd, to say the least, to know that each one would be worth a small fortune in his world, whereas the residents here would use these scales so freely.

His confusion must've shown on his face as Tuka took notice of him with a tilt of her head.

The blonde was helping with managing things along, having taken over from her father after he took a break. From what he could tell, she was being trained in eventually joining the rangers along with Hodor, and a good chunk of that was getting experience with leadership.

He nodded internally. Yes, he could see that the girl, who was significantly older than him and yet acted just like a teenager sometimes that he almost always forgot, needed the experience. Something like this would be a good post.

"Lord Emiya!" She smiled as he walked closer. Hearing her, the various other elves called over with their own greetings, Shirou returning them with a similar smile, though his features colored back to confusion when he saw one of elves taking a break using a wyvern scale as a whetstone for his sword.

Seeing where he was looking, Tuka let out a quiet 'ah' of understanding, "You must be wondering why we're doing this, Lord Emiya?"

"I must admit, I am curious."

"Hmm." She put a finger to her lips as she furrowed her brows in thought. If Shirou was to describe it, he would call the entire thing 'cute as hell'.

"Do you have any dangerous animals in your world, Lord Emiya?"

"Plenty." That was an understatement. When you consider everything that was hidden from the public, then his answer would have been very different.

Ignorant of his internal thoughts, Tuka continued, "Dragons to us are just that. Dangerous animals, yes, but animals nonetheless. And while a red dragon is rare, it's still just a dragon."

Just a dragon.

Those three words, said so nonchalantly, shed some light on the entire situation.

Wyverns and dragons. Back home, the Age of Gods ended, and with them, disappeared more or less every Phantasmal on the planet. In doing so, the materials that these Phantasmal produced became rarer and rarer, until they were nigh unheard of in the modern day.

This was not his world.

This place was a world embroiled in the Age of Gods. Dragons and wyverns still roamed the land. Hell, wyverns were given for soldiers to ride. That should have been the indication that wyverns weren't rare.

They were the opposite. The wyverns here were treated like horses. A tactical advantage, but easy enough to acquire.

This was a place that balked at the idea of a dragon, not in 'this is an awe-inspiring monster from myth', but in 'this is a dangerous animal that is going to threaten my life'. Both of them do inspire fear, but the latter was much more common to feel.

Even the way that Tuka spoke of Rubrasax was an indication. That the dragon was a red one. They knew of dragons to the point that they actively knew which colored ones were the rarest.

Everything he'd seen then made a bit more sense. The scales could be seen as trophies, a reminder of what the elves had been through. They used the scales as efficiently as possible, with what little they'd decided to use at least.

"I see." Shirou nodded his head. And he did. The value of the scales to the Mage's Association was that it was a good material, from a time long past. Here, that value was highly diminished, as Phantasmals still walked among mortals.

Maybe if he was someone else, if he were a proper magus and not a third rate, he would've been more worked up. As it was, he knew that different peoples valued different things. The elves just valued dragon and wyvern scales a lot less.

That being said, if they had experience with the scales, then maybe some help wouldn't be too out of the question, "Is there anyone here who knows how to smith with dragon scales then?"

No matter how little or how much value was put into the scales, they were still tough enough to withstand everything short of an anti-dragon Noble Phantasm. He wasn't going to let that opportunity slide.

A few hours later, he was finished talking to the elven blacksmith. An older man, despite him looking to only be in his forties. They had talked about designing some new pieces of armor, resembling the armor he already wore. And while he didn't exactly have a knack for how it would look once it was finished, he trusted that the smith would make do.

You don't become a smith for a village of elves if you didn't have experience, after all.

Regardless, that still left him with a massive problem as to what to do with the rest of, well, everything. The wyvern corpses could be handed over to the JSDF - they certainly already had a lot of them to work with already so trying to deny them that was a moot point - as well as help them with the scale extraction by teaching them a bit.

The only problem was the very fact that he'd been avoiding Hazama in the first place.

He knew that the man was likely dealing with a lot right now, not in the slightest bit helped by unceremoniously dropping the dragon corpse right near the base. He was also likely getting accosted by the JSDF's higher ups to get samples from it.

Normally, Shirou would just hand over some scales to get it over with. The issue with that is that he had no idea just what the governments and research divisions would do with it. The wyverns were already out the window, but a dragon was of a different scale.

And that wasn't even considering the various magi that would inevitably hear of non-magi having access to said scales. It would be a bloodbath, with them trying to steal the scales from the JSDF. Even if it were to be uncommon, there would still be a couple of bad apples that would cause too much trouble, and ones that he would likely be unable to stop.

In short, he was stuck.

He sighed. Well, he'd figure it out. There was still much to do. With any luck, he might be able to finish before the month ends.

A/N: If you like what I do and want to support me, check out my P-atreon at P-atreon•com(slash)Almistyor.

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