27 Rest and Reporting
Exactly twelve hours later, Ein woke up from his sleep. Although his body felt heavy like lead, his mana had fully recovered. More than physically, his mental burden negatively affected his current physique.
After he changed into some regular everyday clothes, Ein quickly headed towards Sophia. Even when he acted like nothing was wrong, everyone around him could feel that something was different about him. Sophia, especially, quickly noticed that he was listless.
"Mr. Rain, I heard the gist of things from your assistant. If it's hard for you, you can take a longer rest for today," Sophia suggested worriedly.
"Assistant?" Ein wondered. "Ah, you mean Lilith?"
Hearing the name, Sophia nodded with a smile.
"Yes. I should say you were quite blessed to find such a competent assistant. It's enough for me to want to have her by my side instead."
Sophia muttered with a wry smile.
It seems that while Ein was asleep, she did quite a few chores in his stead. Her efficiency was so high that no one else was even half as good as her. Not only did she work fast, but her quality of work also exceeded all expectations.
She captured a whole criminal organization while patrolling the inn and passed them on to the city guards. While having dinner, she helped the inn's chefs cook dishes that made Noble's food pale in comparison despite having no seasonings. While passing by the stable, she even healed all the horses inside. Including smaller incidents, it was way past dozens of reports.
In just a short while, Lilith's name was circulating even faster than Ein's and the others'. She became famous not only due to her achievements but also due to her outstanding beauty, which she didn't lose to the elves. There were a few drunkards that tried to hit on her due to her face, but their ending isn't something that could be nicely explained.
After hearing all about Lilith's feats, Ein couldn't help but smile bitterly. 'As expected from the most powerful demoness of hell.' Though her actions were probably in the better interest of the dungeon, Ein just let her do what she wanted.
"Thank you." Ein smiled slightly. "I'll take a break for today and resume my job tomorrow."
Following Sophia's suggestion, Ein took the rest of the day to rest. It was already dark outside anyway; nothing much changed.
While walking down the stairs, heading to the ground floor, Ein saw Lilith speaking with Nayta and Melina. Although he couldn't hear their topic, their expressions were extremely serious.
Since she was slightly facing the stairs, Lilith immediately saw Ein walking towards them at a leisurely pace. She quickly ended their discussion and ushered the two towards Ein.
"Good evening, master." Lilith bowed. Ein waved his hand at her in recognition.
"Good work, Lilith. It seems that you worked hard while I was recuperating. Thanks."
"I just did what I should." Lilith smiled brightly. "Rather than that, there are several things I would like to report. Can we go to your room?"
Since Lilith wanted to have some privacy, her topic should be related to the dungeon.
'Is it about the rescued elves?' Ein thought as he led the way back.
When the four of them entered the small room, it looked a bit cramped. Ein sat on his bed while Lilith stood in the center of the room. Nayta and Melina, who were requested by Lilith to come, were sitting by their beds, which they seldom use.
After looking around, Lilith snapped her fingers. In an instant, a green barrier covered the whole room. After a final look, she nodded her head before pulling out a pile of papers from her extradimensional storage.
"Please take this," Lilith said as she passed one copy to Ein.
Ein quickly scanned the documents. As someone who worked with a lot of paperwork in the past, he skimmed the main information from the bulk of the data presented by Lilith.
"First of all, regarding the fortifications, the dwarves are working overtime and have managed to complete the defenses around the inner circle."
Lilith flipped her document to the next page.
"The total cost surpassed our initial estimate and totaled 10,443,750 DP. Other than the construction materials, this also includes the initial cost of creating a workshop and a forge."
"10 million?!" Ein shouted. "Since when did I have such a large amount?!"
Seeing how flustered Ein got, frantically flipping through the documents, Lilith let out a small chuckle.
"On average, we earn 2.5 million DP a day. This includes the DP earned from the goblin farm, the DP from the mana generator, and the DP from selling magic items," Lilith proudly announced as she flipped to the last page briefly.
"Amazing. I was quite upset whenever I saw the DP on the catalog decrease, so I never thought we already had tens of millions of DP used as an investment."
Ein lifted his head from the pile of papers for a moment, savoring the rising feeling of great achievement he had. Still, he was feeling a bit iffy since the DP on the catalog didn't even reach four digits right now.
"Moving on..."
And so Lilith continued her reporting.
...
An hour later, the small meeting was about to reach the last item.
"Lastly, regarding the elves,"
As Lilith said this, Nayta and Melina's ears twitched visibly.
"We searched the whole forest that is within 500 kilometers of the dungeon. We found 65 small groups of elves and a dozen large groups. All in all, we saved 458 elves, with 351 females and 107 males. Two large groups refused our offer to help, so we just recorded their location and left them alone."
Ein was looking at the list of names before he noticed how Nayta and Melina seemed a bit jittery.
"Here, this is the list of names," Ein said as he passed the document, precisely folded at where the list of names started. "You can search the list for your acquaintances, at least."
"Thanks, Lord Ein," Nayta said with a heartfelt smile.
While the mother-daughter pair was looking over the list, Lilith continued.
"While searching for the elves, however, we encountered scorched traces. Based on how large the wasted area was, without a doubt, it was the Elder Flame Dragon's work."
Ein frowned after hearing this. Luckily, the two elves were focused on reading the document and didn't react to this bit of information.
"It seems like the dragon-slaying plan should be brought forward," Ein muttered as he glanced at Nayta. "I don't want them to encounter that dragon a second time."
Losing their home once was already a heavy hit to their psyche. If they encounter the flame dragon again, they will probably enter a state of panic or despair.
"Right!" Ein suddenly remembered. "I promised to be a middleman for Sophia and Count Jurim's trade with the elves."
"Trade?" Lilith asked. "The rescued elves were mostly empty-handed and more or less malnourished. I doubt they have anything to trade."
"Well, I guessed that would be the case." Ein shrugged his shoulders. "By any chance, did you pass through a farm or field with spices?"
"Unfortunately no." Lilith shook her head.
"Then, do you have any idea how we could procure the food and spices that those two nobles wish to trade for?"
Hearing his question, Lilith pondered about it for a minute before speaking. She raised three fingers.
"We probably have two, no, three choices. One, recover the elves' home from the dragon. The storages should be safe and should have enough to trade with."
She then brought one finger down.
"The second is that we trade with the demi-humans further into the forest. I detected a large settlement thousands of kilometers away from the dungeon. We can lead the trade with them instead."
Lilith brought another finger down, leaving only one.
"The third is to use DP to quickly create farm produce to trade."
Ein was puzzled. He had scanned the catalog many times, but he didn't see anything food-related there. Well, the corpses of monsters may be categorized as an ingredient for some, but that's beside the point.
"Do you mean there's a way to buy food from the catalog?" Ein asked.
"No, there isn't. Rather, we could buy magic items to help in quickly growing plants."
Farming!
Ein didn't consider producing the products himself. If they could produce food quickly, then not only the trading but the food situation of the elves should be solved too.
"Then, it's decided! We'll do the third option! We'll use the elves to farm!"
Ein excitedly shouted.
