The early morning next day. The sky is clear. As expected the punctual Mazell brought his companions here on time. I, the person that actually lived in the mansion, is the one that came last. I was ‘fighting’ with the documents until late at night.

After everyone has assembled, the maid Tirulla pours us tea since it’s still early morning even though I’ve eaten breakfast. This is Elrich’s first time tasting this tea, but it seems like he liked it. As for Felix, he, as always, kept adding sugars into his tea.

“Well done, everyone.”

“You too, Welner.”

“The plan and the equipment you told us to bring really helped us.”

“You were spot on when you suggested that entering the fortress from its toilets would be the most discreet way to proceed.”

Frenssen is also present here, so I introduced everyone to Frenssen. After that I asked Mazell, Luguentz, Elrich, and Feli who had made a contribution to recapture Veritza Fortress to share their experience.

Feli said he just casually joined the battle in Hildea Plain and Veritza Fortress while laughing. Only Elrich is convinced by Feli’s words.

That being said, in the game Feli is supposed to join Mazell’s party after the battle in Veritza Fortress so there’s a slight discrepancy between the game and the reality. Well, that’s not a problem. For now, I need to verify the specifics of the battle first.

“I’m glad I can help. As for the equipment, you can use it for now . Also there are some things that I need to verify…”

What I wanted to verify is the appearance of that idiot, I mean, that eldest son of Marquis Knap, Magold. I thought he might be among the soldiers of death that fought the kingdom’s army in Hildea Plain, but apparently no one has seen him in that battle

I thought someone would definitely see him or at least his corpses in the Veritza Fortress.

“At least, I don’t think I saw someone wearing noble-like clothes.”

“Yeah, me too.”

I also told them his physical features (I’ve only saw him for few seconds so I also can’t provide too much detail though) but no one here saw someone like him. But then again, it’s impossible to expect Mazell’s party to have seen the face of every single enemy’s soldiers in the battlefield.

That guy, is he dead or alive?

“Is he bothering you that much?” Mazell asked me.

“Yeah, I got a strange feeling about his disappearance.”

I actually won’t be bothered about him if he was confirmed to be dead like a fool he is, but the fact that even his corpse can’t be found is strange. But well, since I had already entrusted Frenssen to investigate this, I can put this problem for later.

“I will investigate this on my own. Now, let’s hear your story.”

“Ok.”

After saying that, I listened to their story about fighting at the Veritza Fortress. As expected, Dreax is a living armor. Because of that, they apparently had a bit of struggle.

Rather than Dreax, I was more interested in the Veritza Fortresss’s dungeon mid-boss..

“So there was another mage in the fortress?”

“Not only did we find that there was another mage, we also found that in total there were 3 devils, excluding the Demon General.”

I frowned at Luguentz’s remark. 3? There were only 2 random encounter monsters in the Veritza Fortress dungeon.

While seeing me lost in my thoughts as I tried to recall the game, Mazell said, “One of them was killed in the Hildea Plain battle and another one was killed in in front of the stairs leading to the third floor of Veritza Fortress.”

This part is the same as the game. The difference is the third devils. It seems like right before entering the lord of Fortress Dreax’s room, Feli heard Dreax say, “When that time comes, please help me.”

What? That kind of scene didn’t exist in the game, or rather, how can Dreax, the honorable Demon Generals, request someone for help?

No wait, maybe Dreax was asking for help from his subordinates? I mean I also often asked Max and other people’s help. But that’s still strange. From what I know, all 3 Demons Generals are haughty. For that kind of Demon General to be asking someone for help?

It seems like there’s been a drastic change compared to the game that I knew. Maybe it was because Felix joined Mazell’s party earlier than the game? I don’t know. Is there any more difference compared to the game? Let’s find that out first.

“But when you entered the room, there was only the Demon General, right?”

“Actually, there were also two skeleton warriors and one living armour guarding the Demon General. None of them can converse.”

So that part is the same as the game. Hmm… that means there was another devil that escaped from that room. No, since this mysterious devil didn’t participate in the battle, I can’t really said he ‘escaped’

“Got it. Have you all reported this to the palace?”

“Yeah, we’ve done that.”

Although it might be useless to think about that mysterious devil, trying to remember about it won’t do me any harm. This world has gradually deviated from the game’s story so I should be extra careful.

“Anything else?”

“Hmm… Ah! We found a black gem.”

“I was the one who found it!” Said Felix with a smug face.

Hm… black gem?

“The same black gem that you found in the possession of the demon outbreak (Stampede)’s mastermind?”

“Yeah, though the shape was a little bit different.”

That black game is also something I never found in the game. Does that mean there’s really something in this reality that causes all these changes? If so, what?

“What’s it like?”

“Hmm… It was about this big.”

Mazell gestured with this hand. So the black game is about 2 times smaller than a fist. It’s pretty large.

“The whole gem is black. It gives out this kind of bizarre and unpleasant feeling.”

“Bizzare, huh. Can I take a look at the actual gem?”

“Sorry, we’ve already turned it into the kingdom.”

“I see. That’s a shame.”

It will be better if I can see the gem myself. Well, there’s no need to rush. I can just send a request to the palace to see it.

Elrich has been silent in the whole conversation, but he finally said, “By the way, I heard there is something you wish to show us?”

“Ah, right. Let us talk about that next.”

I always reflexively talk with Elrich politely [1] How should I put it? He always exudes the air of an amazing and competent man.

(Note: Welner always uses polite Japanese with Elrich, even in this conversation, while before when he was talking with Mazell he used casual Japanese.)

♦

T/N:

Hi, everyone, Nisarah is here! So I have some information regarding sunday’s announcement of info dump trimming:

We will not be trimming down any information which is remotely important to the storyline so please don’t worry. I mean, I, personally, also liked the info dump (Otherwise I won’t translating this novel, right?) and I also think that the info dump is one of the charm of this story,

The reason why we made a decision to trim some info dump is because we are currently facing a very issue because of infodumps. Unlike website, we can’t provide skip buttons on patreon as patreon doesn’t offer that function. In other word, if someone is reading on patreon and wants to skip the infodumps, s/he can’t do that. We are trying to strike balance between both types of readers. We have even purchased the LN of this novel and used that as a guide to trim down the infodumps. We will keep the info dump heavy feeling of this novel, but at the same time, not letting it become overwhelming. While In all senses, this change is going to increase our workload in many way (especially our editor Fleeting and Nyx, praise editor-sama!) but this is the best we can do. Let us know what you think. Thank you.