Chapter 10   – The Villains’ Preparation: Adventurer Team “Red Crows”

When I’m not getting a job from Gustav, I would order the zombies to the dungeons for expansion and maintenance and sleep with Astarte and Dahlia every day to supply myself with magic power. Sometimes, when we have female guests we would even engage in orgies.

(There were times when they agreed to it and there were times when Astarte would barge in on her own)

Whenever I had time, I would read all the books I could get from smuggling merchants or obtain things that I can use as magic catalysts.

Besides the fact that I could now sleep with women and that the scale was larger, it wasn’t that much different to how I lived up to now.

“Well, I did increase whatever I could call up or build”

“…….. and the weirdly shaped guardians at the door is one of those?”

I was a bit hurt by how honest those impressions were.

“….. Those were a golem construction experiment. I wanted to avoid having to use expensive materials so I used some timber lying about”

“Normally it would be easier just to summon a living monster… but Master Elliot is better at building his own”

“So what Eli-boy here can summon now are zombies, skeletons, and that imp that guided us here, right?”

If I could pay in magic power I could call up zombies and skeletons in a summoning.

I want to avoid killing people to replenish the zombies, it wasn’t worth it.

It seems that if I raised my power I can summon other monsters.

An imp is a low-rank monster about the size of a human child. They are creatures that would sometimes be summoned and used by human mages.

They don’t have a very high sense of self. If I were pressed to ask I’d say they’re something that’s created using magic power.

After investigating and trying lots of things, this was the first thing not undead that I was able to summon.

It was convenient that it can fly short distances and have simple conversations, but it wasn’t all that strong so I used it as a guide for visitors.

The wood golems lined up outside were for carrying things around the inn where I wouldn’t want to use zombies.

If I could use stone to make golems I wouldn’t have had a problem sending them out to fight but … stone was way too different in their ease of use to wood and I couldn’t handle them easily, which was annoying.

What I could make about now are arms that respond to set commands or legs that move by sliding – I haven’t had any success making a complete body. … Seems like being a Dungeon Master means more than just thinking up evil things.

“With more magic power you can leave off some steps and summon things more quickly. So, I think you should save up magic power and attack the surrounding villages and towns”

When Gustav wasn’t around, Astarte would promote raiding around but while attacking villages is one thing (that I’d really want to go without), with my current power I didn’t have a chance of winning against armies. Astarte understood that too.

Therefore, we patiently took the slow and steady route.

“Oh right, if in case the Church does came here to investigate, we probably won’t be able to hide it for long. We mercenaries take jobs from the Church too after all, and they have the money and power. … So, if that starts, you should assume the information has been leaked to them leaving off any personal names, okay”

“You’re so carefree about it aren’t you… Leaving this place is not up for discussion unless I can guarantee the next destination”

“Well, like I said, you don’t have to do so right away, but just be prepared for it. We mercenaries are an agile bunch but Lord Dungeon Master probably isn’t, huh … oh, right, I just remembered”

“What? A get-rich-quick scheme? Or maybe an indecent story?”

“I think you probably don’t but do you know about the incident in <Waterwheel City Abram>?”

I knew of the city called Abram, but of course I didn’t know the details about it.

To begin with, how was I supposed to know, being all cooped up in the sticks like this.

“I thought as much. Abram is one week away from here by horse, it’s a large city for these parts. It’s pretty much the home of Marquis Abram who rules the area. Well, Marquis Abram’s soon going to be an old man though. It’s the big town past the one where the people in this village used to go and buy things. The urban area holds roughly ten thousand people, but if you consider the surrounding towns and villages, it goes up to three times that … or so they say”

Thirty thousand people. This village’s former population was fifty people, and the town mother used to take me when I was little held ten times that. I’ve never seen that much people in all my life”

“Besides mercenaries, Abram has adventurers who delve into ruins and fight in a small scale. Those operate in groups of two to ten … well, not so different to small mercenary bands. They don’t only fight, but they’re jacks of all trades. There were two up-and-coming adventurer parties among those.

One of them were the ‘White Dogs’ who were good at ruin-delving.

The other one were the wannabe mercenaries ‘Red Crows’ who were used to fighting.

They don’t get along with each other, you see. They would get into quarrels at all sorts of places … but that came to an end recently”

“Gramps, that’s just city gossip … right? Or does it have something to do with this place?”

“…. Just listen until I’m done. It’s not like you’re completely unrelated.

One day, somebody bribed a tavern boy at the tavern where the White Dogs gathered and poisoned them. Then the Red Crows came in there and killed the White Dogs right in the middle of town, at a back alley though. The thief girl leading the White Dogs was on really bad terms with the Red Crows’ leader to begin with.

Most of the White Crows died, but they kidnapped some of them and went away somewhere. It was an adventurer team with lots of women after all, and the leader was one, too… Well, it’s not really a decent story, probably”

“… I wish master Elliott could be as brutal as that Red Crow leader. Though that short temper that led to what happened in the city probably isn’t needed”

Astarte interrupted him, seemingly bored. It’s a weakness of gramps Gustav that his stories always have a long prologue.

“So there were adventurer teams killing each other in the city. The guards won’t stay silent after that, right?”

“Right. The Red Crows fled the city. Probably hiding somewhere until the heat cools down.

… then, this is where you guys come in.

I introduced a merchant that’s on good terms with the White Dogs before, and they came here as well. It seems like they got killed …”

I had a somewhat bad feeling about this.

It doesn’t feel good when somebody I knew got killed, even though I didn’t have that deep a connection with them.

“Unluckily, there’s a possibility they got wind of this place from them. Even if they didn’t, you’re a dungeon relatively close by, there are some buildings left standing, and there’s nothing worse than zombies here.

Also, I heard the Red Crows’ vice leader is an honest-to-goodness mage from the ‘academy’ … even though still a young girl. It wouldn’t be strange if they chose to run away here … Yeah, I thought I should tell you that”

After saying that much, gramps Gustav washed his throat down with ale.

… by the fact that gramps deliberately told me that, it must be very likely to happen.