DAR Vol. 3 Kristoff Report 5(WN)
Kristoff Report 5 (Summary of volume 3)
This is a record of Kristoff’s recollections.
*This is a summary of the story from Kristoff’s point of view. As such, its focus might not be the main story and could include episodes not featured in the main story. It also does not include information Kristoff could not know at the point of the story.
* [Idiot] [Dumb leader] [Leader] all refer to Dietrich.
X Month X Day
One month has passed since the golem incident.
We are still in the Perdu kingdom.
After I sent the report to our homeland — the kingdom of Nereus — lo and behold, Roa and his servant beasts were confirmed as targets for surveillance.
I did my very best by hiding any information that would lead them to this, crafting a report that at first glance looked perfectly credible, but it was a wasted effort, apparently.
A young boy with a gryphon as a servant beast was enough to be considered as surveillance target, I guess, but reading between the lines of the orders we received, it was more than clear that there was a lot more to it.
I have a feeling that they already know everything we’re trying to hide.
No, it’s more like a certainty at this point.
Her Highness the Queen is that kind of person.
…now that I think about it, I’m not even sure she’s human…
The Queen uses magic spells and potions to extend her lifespan: she has been ruling over our kingdom since its inception. She routed the pirates by herself, pretty much, and built a country.
She had definitely surpassed humanity already.
I was forced to increase my pawns to collect information and monitor the targets.
I don’t want to do this too much in a foreign country though. The risk of betrayal increases too. But it can’t be helped.
The new “pawns” are people introduced through my connections in the country and people I hired locally.
Until now, everyone I hired would bill the home country for their services, but I couldn’t do that with the local hires. I had to complete all transactions in this country.
The financial burden was large, but in the golem incident we had acquired a fair amount of wealth.
The golems had apparently used a newly discovered silver mine to multiply their numbers, so just selling the silver we retrieved was enough to earn a small fortune.
We also secretly sold the mithril we collected to Coralde.
Thanks to that, I could maintain my pawns without problem and still have money to spare.
It felt unreal that we were almost penniless one month before.
Anyway, we aren’t doing much adventuring lately.
Since I had to act both as adventurer and secret agent, I finally have some more leeway.
The problem, however, is Roa.
Does that guy know what “restraint” means?
I guess the fault lies with Coralde for stirring a fire in him, though.
I take my eyes off for a moment and he’s already making heaps of things I can’t report.
A normal alchemist making super grade magic recovery potions!? He’s making potions that royal alchemists base their fortunes on like it’s nothing!!
And to top it off, he says it as casually as if he just made dinner! And I have to report about it!! How!?!
I worried one whole week about whether to report it or not!
I decided to when I heard that Coralde was going to sell them, but our home country might even start a war in order to snatch Roa away from here…
In addition, the Merchants’ Guild and Adventurers’ Guild are acting strange too.
They’re apparently concocting all sorts of schemes against Coralde’s trading company and to steal Roa’s “genius ideas”.
Some of these schemes include assassination attempts and kidnapping Roa to extract information out of him. I decided that I would let Coralde know whenever I picked up on such information. Some of the schemes included attempts to murder Coralde, after all.
Coralde himself had his sources of information, so the trading company’s security forces were taking care of all threats without problems.
The nasty gryphon and the magic wolves are always at Roa’s side anyway, so there isn’t much normal people can do against them…
The nasty gryphon also built a large underground storage space under the Coralde company.
Since it can’t leave the company’s premises it had plenty of time on its “hands”, and apparently put it to good use.
It doesn’t seem to violate any of this kingdom’s laws, but those underground facilities are definitely extending beyond Coralde’s property…
I also can’t shake the feeling that the nasty gryphon is plotting something bigger, without us knowing…
I am monitoring them, but there’s no way for me to know what they do underground, so my frustration only grows.
In contrast to the high alert level of my lifestyle, the other members are enjoying themselves recently.
The leader visits Roa’s home every day, on the pretense of acting as his bodyguard.
It just looks like he’s leeching off Roa and playing with the magic wolves, though.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw him sleeping together with the gryphon…the first time I thought the gryphon had killed him and brought him back to the nest as prey.
They fought like that before, and now they sleep together? While I’m scared even being in the same room…
The good thing about that behavior, though, is that he doesn’t spend as much time chasing skirts.He doesn’t drink much too. Both very positive effects.
I explained to the leader about Roa’s situation and the home country’s plans. Being too friendly with Roa would definitely create problems in the long run, but the leader already saw him as a companion, so he couldn’t easily sever such ties.
When the time comes, I would have to take the ungrateful role.
Cornelia is training day in, day out.
She’s a musclehead after all.
Considering her family, though, there’s nothing else she can do.
Apparently, she’s teaching Roa about physical reinforcement magic and how to use a knife, and enjoying it a lot.
It’s a pleasure to train a beginner, I know that too. Too bad I don’t have the luxury to do it these days.
She’s also interested in beauty and cosmetics, though. I know that she’s asking Roa to create all sorts of things and buying them from him. Probably cosmetics that not even nobles could get their hands on.
Bernhart is immersed in magic.
He takes what the gryphon teaches him and shuts himself in his room to analyze and experiment.
Since Cornelia doesn’t say anything, I guess he hasn’t collapsed yet.
X Month X Day
In these apparently peaceful days, eventually one issue turned up.
The Adventurers’ Guild teamed up with the nobles to crush Roa once and for all.
More precisely, they ordered him to join an inspection expedition to the Citadel Dungeon, located to the north of Perdu.
The Citadel Dungeon was ruled by a pack of gryphons and is surrounded by all sorts of undead monsters: needless to say, it is a very dangerous place.
It would be a miracle to come back in one piece.
Basically, they were ordering him to die.
Because of the nasty gryphon’s meddling, though, Roa accepted the request.
If the gryphon and the magic wolves go with Roa, he’ll probably be okay, but I’m still worried.
The leader is worried too….which is okay. *Worrying* is perfectly fine…
…wait, we’re going together?
…you want to kill us all!?!
Once again, our dumb leader proves his dumbness.
After we returned to the inn I tried convincing him, but the idiot didn’t change his mind.
Afterwards I tried persuading Roa to withdraw from the mission, but nothing.
Why are they both so stubborn!?
Besides, when I tried convincing Roa the nasty gryphon threatened me…it can’t get any worse, can it.
X Month X Day
I was thus forced to make the necessary preparations to enter the Citadel Dungeon area. Things weren’t easy, however.
That area is monitored by several countries and each country was assigned a different route to access it.
In other words, we would have to take the Nereus route, while Roa would go the Perdu route. We couldn’t travel together.
No matter what we did, we could regroup only once we arrived.
The authorization request is rather complicated too.
I suppose it’s inevitable, since it concerns the country as a whole, and, because of that, I was robbed of the majority of my remaining energy and sleeping hours. The country even added all sorts of conditions for giving us the authorization, making things even more complicated.
We had to make preparations for the travel too.
Negotiations and travel preparations were my role, but I had my limits too!!
When it comes to this kind of paperwork, the other party members are all useless.
Cornelia and Bernhart helped a little, but the dumbass, the cause of it all, did nothing at all.
Being the party’s representative, he signed documents. That’s it. I’m not even sure he read what he signed.
I was thus forced to do most of the work myself, but at the end of it I was exhausted and frustrated to the limit.
I’m going to smack that idiot’s face!
I’m going to wipe that goofy smile off his dumb face! After all the work you gave me!
I want to think that it was inevitable for me to make such decisions.
X Month X Day
During the trip to Citadel Dungeon, I had a fight with the idiot. I kind of bullied him too.
The trigger was nothing special.
After punching him I felt somewhat lighter.
He punched back, but I felt refreshed nonetheless.
Thinking about it now, it’s impossible for me to punch the leader in the face. If we fought seriously it would be a one-sided beatdown, for sure. He was just that much stronger than me.
Maybe he felt bad and held back? Or he let me hit him?
Then he punched back, so I wouldn’t feel bad about it?
Or maybe I’m thinking too much?
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