Chapter 101

「Ah, dammit all.」

The deep-fried fish snack in my hand broke and crumbled as it fell.

Damn, I was a little absent-minded while I was thinking about Grond.

It was great thinking about the revenge I would exact, but it was hard to control my emotions.

As I thought about it, I raised my teacup to my lips.

「Whoa, this is good!」

I changed lodging and at the new place, I drank some tea instead of resting.

The first boarding place had excellent beds, but since I didn’t intend to stay long for if I did, others might take notice.

Because of that, this place now wasn’t as great, I still had good beds brought out.

「Man, tea really is great.」

I used the roasted tea I got from the seller, and I had Minnalis make me some fish-bone chips from mackerel to pair with the tea.

You can’t say it’s a luxury but if you have those chips, they do satisfy.

Rice crackers and tea. A bit low on the totem, but Japanese love it and the combination makes you relax.

「Strange uhh? It’s a bit like brown tea, master. It smells good and is a bit bitter. It’s unfamiliar, but it is very delicious. It really is the taste of your home world.」

「The tea of the empire is black, but this is like coffee. You did well to find it.」

I shrugged and looked out at Dartlas through the window.

Dartlas was a town with a lot for trade just like Ermia.

The difference is that Ermia has magical developments also being sold along with regular things.

Also, the type of sellers you find in Ermia are totally different.

Ermia had domestic products from all around as well as foreign ones, compared to Dartlas that just had imperial and the empire’s goods.

In other words, it was a place where the two kingdoms traded.

Otherwise, there were places that produced things exchanged for the imperial goods, and Dartlas also took care of trading those things as well.

People crowded here, working with small and large businesses, and traded many goods and currencies.

Copper, silver, gold, and white silver.

A melting pot for those four currencies.

That was the shape of the place called Dartlas.

「I don’t hate it either, but I like it with a lot of milk.」

「Yeah, you can’t get it in this town but there is also stuff called matcha as well. It’s good with milk and called matcha-latte. Next time we go to the empire, I’ll take you to a place that sells it good and sweet.」

「Good, I can’t wait!」

「U, uh, master? Me too.」

「You don’t have to make that face, we’ll take you too, Minnalis.」

「Thank you, master!」

The two girls were very happy about it. I guess sweet things capture a girl’s heart in any world.

Using many known and unknown methods, we had collected a lot of information about Grond.

The first thing I didn’t know.

On the front, Grond was a good trader, everyone said.

On the back , he was very forceful and evil.

Out of everything we searched out, we found several good connections.

Grond secretly had a huge amount of bestial slaves he was sending to the empire.

When I was summoned, they used a beast slave as a sacrifice for me.

Then, Nonorik was currently used as the person who secretly made the first strike against an enemy.

Finally, he had killed the husband of a certain orphanage owner, and taken the man’s weapon as payment for the debt the orphanage had created.

「Ah, did it again.」

I broke another cracker, and it fell on the floor.

「Master, you’re like a child.」

「You spilled again. You need to be more careful with your food.」

「Sorry, sorry.」

Minnalis and Shuria could tell I was thinking about something, so they both made fun of me.

「But both of you have cracker crumbs all over your faces.」

「「Whaaa?」」

「Just kidding.」

「Ah, master?! 」「How rude!」

「Hah hah hah, yeah, I fooled both of you.」

I laughed at both of their angry and embarrassed faces and took another drink of my tea.

I was thankful for both of them. They didn’t get lost in their anger, just looked at each other and then suppressed it.

So I looked back out the window again.

What I saw out there was the dateless orphanage.

The building and garden, children playing with a young woman outside.At one time, she must have doubted that Grond had killed her husband.

Then she knew that Grond and I knew each other, at a time I left the town.

That time, she seemed shaken when she saw me again, and she smiled silently but must have been thinking something.

(…she had to have.)

I didn’t know when that was.

Through the 【Holy Sword of Vengeance], I could see there was something black and hot that was inside her.

「…」

Her important orphans, when they were drugged and have died, how much of that did she knew, how did she feel.

No, even more than that, what happened if she was still alive.

「Ah, I made a mistake staying here!」

I stuck out the remaining chips to the other two.

「…no matter what bed, I can’t sleep in a place like this!」

From then on, I didn’t break another chip.

Instead of having something in my hand, my tightly squeeze hand dripped one drop of blood.

☆

The next day after resting while partaking in the chips and tea, I went into the dungeon near Dartlas.

Dungeons like this that were hard to know the difficulty weren’t very popular, but we had agreed that this was the place. An undiscovered dungeon was the best of all, but there were none near this town.

「Finally outside! Nice to feel the sun.」

We felt the humid air of the normal cavern-like dungeon, as we stretched and breathed in the clean, sunny air right outside it.

「It’s much nicer and warmer than the light of the light moss. Are we okay in the dark? I just don’t like the humidity inside.」

「I don’t like it much either. It’s a lot easier to dry your clothes in the sun than by a torch.」

Shuria’s words caused Minnalis to deeply nod.

…Minnalis had completely become a maid.

「Well, anyway, this first part is done.」

My hand was in the bag and holding the goal, the dungeon core.

Of course, it would be big trouble if this was revealed so I did all I could to hide it.

A dungeon close to the emperor, 『The nest of goblins』had a fragment of a dungeon core I got that gave the 『Absorption Sword』 its power along with some rocks that were mixed to form something like a dungeon core.

Even though this place wasn’t popular, there were still people around.

Soldiers and adventurers managing these dungeons could be tricked by Minnalis for a short while by erasing their memories and we could press on to a place where we could use a torch safely.

Of course, normally they would think it strange but we weren’t noticed.

In addition, there were a lot of magic beasts chased in here.

If we were discovered now, there would be a sudden request to expel us. Because of this, the main amount of adventurers avoid the place, and people visit less and less, so the dungeon monsters are a bit too late to be repopulated for new adventurers.

But as a time killer, it’s definitely enough.

「This dungeon core like thing will awaken that magical storm like thing. If so then that magic tools with transport magic won’t work.」

The magic storm is a natural disaster that is special to this world and occurs irregularly.

There are different ranges and patterns, the magic essence in a place gets thicker, becomes strangely chaotic, and precise magical waves become unusable. Normal magic becomes harder to control, and anything below the mid-level magic that the magical beasts use becomes difficult to do.

That’s why places of thick magical essence are places where magical beasts live.

If you have a dungeon core, you can generate one of these magical storms. That’s why you bring one in, and keep a dungeon core with you.

In order to trap Grond, he and the emperor, no, he and the princess’ connection needs to be destroyed. If he gets recognition from Alesia, our plan is half kaput.

In order to blockade the roads and set decoys, and for the magic monsters chased in here by Sura-kichi, the magic storm needs to be explained.

There is only one problem in all of this.

「Okay, how many potions are we going to open. We still haven’t prepared everything, so I’m a little leery.」

「I’m not good with drinking MP potions.」

「That reminds me Shuria, there are a lot of people that don’t like the taste. Even so, you need to put up with it and help no matter what.」

In order to use the dungeon core and cause that magic storm like thing, you need to make sure there’s no break in magic that exceeds the amount in an unbroken dungeon core, so you have to be careful.

「Even in exchange, you can’t avoid getting overwhelmed by all the MP…」

It would be good to get through this without a lot of foolishness going down, I said in a loud enough whisper.