Dorgo’s Business

  We left Philly’s laboratory and returned to the drawing-room.

  The laboratory was filled with too many things and was a mess.

  This made it unsuitable for a lot of people to gather and talk.

  But then again, the drawing-room was also not very large.

  When we arrived,

  “I’ll put on some tea!”


  Milka said as she ran out of the room.

  Nia and Luchila followed after her.

  Dorgo said,

  “I am sure that Kathe has told you some of it, but I wanted to give you a detailed report.”


  “Hm?”


  What was he talking about? I had no idea.

  I looked to the side. Eric and Goran also didn’t seem to know.

  “Oh?”


  Kathe was also tilting her head to the side.

  Dorgo saw this and continued.

  “Well, first of all, allow me to congratulate you on forming the Ancient Ruins Protection Committee.”


  “Yes, thank you.”


  Eric bowed.

  Kathe had at least told him about that.

  “The dark ones are becoming more active. And so the fighting between dragons and dark ones have increased.”


  “Fighting?”


  “Yes.”


  Dorgo nodded. Then he spread out a map on the desk.

  It was a very detailed map. There were red marks all over it.

  “These are all of the places where battles between dragons and dark ones have taken place.”


  “There are quite a lot.”


  “Yes. There are twenty in all.”


  I wasn’t sure if that was a lot or not. It was hard to decide.

  But it was probably a lot, given that there shouldn’t be that many dragons.

  Just then, Milka and the others brought in the tea and snacks.

  “Thank you.”


  “No, no!”


  They looked a little embarrassed as I thanked them.

  “Yum!”


  Kathe exclaimed after taking a sip of tea.

  Dorgo watched this and seemed like he was about to say something to her.

  “Thank you!”


  But Milka looked very happy, and so he let it go.

  Instead, he bowed in front of my apprentices.

  “It is very delicious. Thank you so much.”


  “Oh, it’s nothing!”


  Nia said with embarrassment.

  After that, we returned to our conversation.

  “It was yesterday. I was hunting down dark ones as revenge for attacking the palace of the wind dragon king…”


  “Dad, so that’s what you were doing…”


  Kathe muttered. Dorgo glared at her but didn’t say anything.

  “And I found something that I could ignore.”


  And then Dorgo took it out of his bag and put it on the table.

  “This…”


  I said with surprise. Dorgo nodded.

  “I knew that you would recognize it Ruck. Yes, it is an Evil God idol.”


  “Philly, do you recognize it?”


  Philly had been making them when her parents had been taken hostage.

  The head of an Evil God had been summoned then, and I killed it.

  “But I only made one Evil God idol…”


  “I see.”


  “This one is clearly much more detailed than the one I made.”


  Philly talked a little more politely when she was around Eric or Dorgo.

  “Well, you were forced to make it. This one was likely the work of passion.”


  “I agree with you.”


  “And it is made of the Fool’s Stone?”


  “Yes.”


  Philly declared. And so it must be right.

  “So we should probably assume that they have no shortage of Fool’s Stones then.”


  I said. And Eric and Goran nodded.

  “Yes. It is practically confirmed now.”


  “Things have become quite dangerous.”


  Dorgo put his hand in the bag again and took something else out.

  “And I also found this…”


  “Groof!”


  Grulf howled just as Dorgo put it on the table.

  It did look familiar.

  “Is that…a forbidden ham?”


  “…Ham?”


  Dorgo looked at me oddly.

  They called them forbidden hams in the Mendilibar Kingdom.

  “In our country, we call them forbidden hams.”


  “I see. In that case, you also know what they are used for?”


  And so I told Dorgo what I knew about them.

  They were cursed tools. We had found one in Kabino’s house.

  While they looked like ham, they were made of the flesh of holy beasts and had blasphemous curses cast on them. They were used to break through the barrier around the capital and to summon Evil Gods.

  In the kingdom of Mendilibar, even owning one could result in the death penalty.

  “We see these forbidden hams as incredibly dangerous.”


  “So they had an Evil God idol and a forbidden ham at the same time. That means…”


  “They were probably going to summon an Evil God.”


  Their plans were moving very quickly.

  Dorgo said,

  “But it would take an immense amount of curses to actually summon an Evil God.”


  “That’s true.”


  There was likely to be an increase of humans who are attacked by dark ones.

  We would have to be watchful.

  “And that is why the dark ones have targeted dragons.”


  “The dragons?”


  “Yes. We are stronger than humans and have lived longer. This means that they can gather much more curses from each of us.”


  Apparently, there was another reason that dragons were being attacked by the dark ones.