121 To The North

No, I can't trick her. That won't be right. I'll give her the number Flameu told me and that's that. I'll be betraying both her trust and Flameu's if I lie to her.

With that reasoning in mind, I decided to tell her the truth.

"You misunderstand, Your Highness. I come here simply to ask for compensation."

"Compensation?" She tilted her head again.

I then told her how I ended up slaying a dragon with the alchemist and how afterward, she offered to buy the carcass from me with the condition that she, the princess, was to be the one to pay me.

"Oh, you slew a dragon, Milord?" She clasped her hands together in awe as her eyes sparkled. "That's amazing!"

Good! Good! Tell me how cool and awesome I am for beating a dragon on my own!

"I wish you could stay for tea so you could regale me with your tale." She gave me a shy smile that is so innocent yet so attractive at the same time. "I would truly love to hear about your heroic deeds. But I know you're in a hurry, so I won't hold you back."

"Oh, don't worry about it!" I promptly replied with my own smile. "I have some time to spare!"

"Really?" Her smile brightened. "That would be wonderful!"

As if on cue, our steps took us to a clearing with a small bench.

"Ah, perfect! Why don't we rest here for a bit? I won't ask for all the details. I just want to know how you fought off such a beast on your own."

The princess's mood had visibly increased, with her eyes now constantly sparkling and her steps having an extra bounce of them. I'm starting to wonder if she's actually a big fan of those stories with dragon-slaying and all that hero stuff.

She took her seat first, with me sitting right beside her. The bench was quite small so we had to sit right next to each other. My old self would be all nervous with this arrangement ("oh God I'm sitting so close to a cute girl I could almost smell her!" type of deal), but after traveling with a bunch of them, I am already desensitized to such matters. One step closer to become the cool and suave guy I always wanted to be.

I began telling her about my fight. At first, I was going to be humble, but as she became more and more enraptured into my story, I couldn't help but exaggerate and embellish my story a little.

"I was this close to being bitten by its jaws, but I dodged just at the last second. I had to hold on to the wounded elf, even if it cost me my life."

"A-and then?" The princess' fists were clenched together near her chest as sweat trailed down her forehead.

"With tears in her eyes, she said, 'O Lord Pendleton! Please leave me behind! You don't need to burden yourself with me!' But of course, I refused, saying, 'I can't just abandon a fair maiden in need, can I?'"

...Okay, that was a lot of embellishment. But I can't help it. Seeing her so excited, it made me want to ham it up as much as I could.

When I finished, she clapped loudly with tears of excitement in her eyes. "That was wonderful! To think that Miss Flameu would be lucky enough to have a brave warrior such as you as her companion!"

"Miss" Flameu? I guess she really is close to her.

"I'm not exactly her companion though," I quickly corrected her, just so I could avert future misunderstandings. "As I've said, I was just helping her out so she could cure that village. I'm an adventurer. I have no intention of staying here and becoming her bodyguard."

"A-ah, I see."

Her bright smile noticeably dimmed as she shifted her eyes ever-so-slightly downwards. Oh dammit, I just killed her excitement, didn't I?

"Well…" Her eyes locked back to mine again as she forced another smile. "I should reimburse you the fund Miss Flameu had promised. How much was it?"

"She said an entire dragon could sell from around 100 to 150 gold coins, depending on where you sell them," I answered her truthfully.

"Then, I shall give you two-hundred."

"What? Are you sure?"

"Of course!" Her bright smile returned. "The extra fifty is your payment, Sir Adventurer, for telling me such an exciting story."

Afterward, she stood up and called for by. her guards. The old man from before and a handful of other soldiers quickly appeared from the bushes. Wow, they're pretty decent at stealth, all things considered. Especially since they wore all those heavy armors.

"Call Sebastian. Tell him to prepare a payment of 200 gold pieces to him."

"W-what?! But—"

"Silence! He has done a great deed with Lady Flameu, and we are not going to pay his kindness with less."

She shut him down like it was nothing, as the normally ladylike princess turned fierce all of a sudden. I'm not complaining though. I prefer princesses that have a bit of a backbone over completely meek ones.

Probably not to the extent of Fiora though.

The old man could only obey, and he immediately scampered off, leaving only his subordinates to guard us.

"Sorry about that." She returned to her sweet self as she clapped her hands. "He can be quite the stubborn old man sometimes."

Afterward, we retreated back inside and to the study, where this Sebastian person was already ready with a bag of gold in his hand. He was the head butler of the premises. And just like the old man, he too eyed me from top to bottom in a distrustful and frankly insulting manner. And that glasses of his certainly didn't help.

Still, he handed me the bag without a single word of complaint. Unlike the old man, it seemed he was intelligent enough to know he wasn't going to make the stubborn princess budge.

I gave him my thanks, merely for the sake of formality. I was then escorted outside by the knights, with the princess following along, as she insisted on seeing me leave.

Once we were at the gates, she walked up to me and said, "Milord, I shall pray for your good fortune. And if you are ever in the capital again, please, feel free to pay us a visit. I shall be delighted to hear your stories again."

"Of course, Milady." I gave her a smile and a bow.

Heh, to think that just a while ago, her eyes were all shining like a little girl… I see now that she tries to be a proper princess in public, even if it doesn't quite fit her personality.

"I also wish good fortune for you, Milady. Your company this afternoon has been most enjoyable. I shall never forget the charming smile you possess for the rest of my life."

Is that how you do it? Being a suave noble to the ladies? Keep on smiling and being respectful while adding little pick-up lines like that.

Immediately a flash of crimson appeared on her cheeks.

Yep, I think I did a pretty good job.

"Oh, you are too kind, Milord," was her only reply.

To finish my pretend play, I took her hand and kissed it, causing her blush to grow even more.

Afterward, I finally left the place for real. With the money safely stored in my bag, I could immediately make my way northwest towards Silheim, which was the largest town in the region. There, I would start asking around for where the high elf might be.

All in all, I think my first meeting with a real princess went pretty well.

Before that though, I should make a visit to the city's largest bookstore.

I need to do my research on a certain plant first.

----------

Felicia

Well, he's gone now…

I suppose I should wrap my business here quickly as well. Even if I have to wait for a bit until the heart is usable for the cure, I still have to prepare my workshop at that village.

I left the mountain soon after, taking a different route than the one those adventurers were planning to take. They actually offered to give me company, but I refused. Not just because I don't like them (or rather, their leader), but because they weren't going to make a stop at the village. That place was nameless, by the way, simply because of how insignificant it was to the rest of the kingdom.

It took me another two days to climb back down the mountain. Just the right amount of time for the dragon heart to be ready. It needed to harden a little so it would be usable in my potion, or else it wouldn't react properly with the reagents I had concocted.

When I arrived back at the village, ignoring the expected eerieness from the silence enveloping the place, I immediately made my way towards Leila's house. It was unfortunate that I couldn't use it as my makeshift laboratory, seeing how small the entire place was.

When I arrived, I was greeted by the sight of my black knight, Sir Berault, standing in the front of the house. As usual, he remained unmoved with his sword stabbing the earth he stood on, almost like a perfect statue.

Only when he heard my arrival that he turned his head.

"Milady."

"How was she?"

"Her condition is worsening. Along with the other people of this village."

"Is she sleeping right now?"

"Yes, Milady.���

"Good. Then there's no need for me to wake her up. We shall start our preparations right away. We don't have much time."

"The dragon heart, Milady?"

"Of course I've got it, all thanks to him." I let out a grin. "It should be ready now. So we can start working right away. I trust you've decided on a good place to set up my laboratory?"

"Yes, Milady. The house of the village chief should be spacious enough for our purposes, though barely."

"Very well then. We shall head there at once."

----------

We entered the house without knocking or unlocking the door. There's no point in doing either. No one would reply to the former while on the subject of the latter, no house in this village had a lock installed on its front door. Such was the trusting nature of a tiny village.

Although, I still made my way to the bedroom, where the chief and his wife were sleeping. They were still alive, thankfully enough. The old man even managed to open his eyes for a bit when he noticed me staring down over him.

"Oooh, L-Lady Flameu… Y-you're here… P-please… save my wife…"

Even at death's door, the people here still cared more about their loved ones than themselves.

"Shh," I gripped his pale, wrinkled hands and gave him a comforting smile. "Sleep now. Save your strength. I shall do as you ask."

Afterward, downstairs, in the decently large living room, I summoned my tools from my dimensional storage, after Berault moved all the furniture to the side.

And then, I began to work.

First, I filled the cauldron with water using magic and heated it until it boiled by lighting up a coal furnace I had placed underneath. Then, I took out the reagent I had made before, a specific one used for dragon-based ingredients, and poured the entire small bottle into it. I quickly stirred the water using my staff, pouring my mana at the process. This is how you do alchemy. That's why non-mages can't do it by the way, since you need to be able to perform Mana manipulation the same way mages can. Only after the mixture stabilized, I moved on to the next step.

Second, I brought out the heart, placing it down on my working table. It was perfectly still, unlike when I first obtained them. And it was exactly how I wanted it to be since that meant the heart was ready to be processed.

Then, I took out a vial and sprinkled its contents all over it. It was necessary or else the blood would escape the heart when I cut it, which would ruin the entire ingredient. Afterward, I took out a large knife, and with it, I cut it into multiple tiny pieces, all roughly the same size as each other. If I didn't do this, it wouldn't blend properly into the mixture.

And then, I dropped them all down into the cauldron, causing a mass of bubbles to appear on the water surface. Good. This means the synthesis is proceeding as expected.

It was just the start of my work. The cure was still ways away, through many difficult steps that took me many sleepless nights to devise. These people were lucky the plague had hit Keirnes first, or else I wouldn't know how to make their cure. The lives lost to said plague were to never return, sacrificed for me to be able to formulate the cure.

Such was the limits of alchemy. Thousands of illnesses, yet so few were curable.

The only true solution was to transcend death itself. And that's what my necromancy is going to achieve.

I don't care how long it takes, and how many corpses I have to perform my research with. One day, I will achieve my dream. I will surpass all the necromancers throughout history and become the very first human to achieve immortality. And then, I shall spread that blessing to the entire world.

And the fools who stand in my way? Sacrifices for the greater good.

------

Hugo

It took me 11 days of travel to reach Silheim. Once again, I opted to use my Wind Step instead of taking a carriage or buying a horse, even though I very much had the money to afford both (though I still couldn't quite do the latter).

And since I was heading north, the air naturally began to grow cold. It was winter after all. Back at the south, it was still pretty chilly but there wasn't any snowfall except for up at the mountain. But here? The snow rained freely almost every night.

I wonder if that rare plant can survive in a weather like this.

The northern region was filled with forests. So much so that a lot of the kingdom's income and trade came from the logging activities taking place there. Unfortunately however, forests are a dangerous place to be in this world, since monsters thrived there. That's why there are also a decent number of adventurers who use the region as their base of operations as jobs to act as guards for loggers are common. And most of the time, they don't even need to do anything other than just standing around.

My plan was to go to the Adventurers' Guild there and ask around for the high elf. I could even post a request asking for her information. You could do that with the Guild. Sooner or later, an adventurer should bump into her, and then I would know where she currently was.

Hmm? How long would I stay if I don't get anything on her? Now that's a good question. Maybe a week? Two weeks? Or even a month? I'm still not sure if I were to be honest.

Oh, I can also try to find out where the plant she's looking for is located. I believe the name Flameu mentioned was "The Silver Creepingbell". It's a really rare plant to the point that not many even knows it exists. I had to buy the thickest, most expensive encyclopedia on plants just to find its information. And what I got was terribly unsatisfactory. It only said that you could only find it deep inside forests, and how it was really rare. Like, what? That doesn't help me at all, does it? I already know all of that!

I can post a request for it on the Guild as well, but I think it's easier to ask around for the high elf instead. If she's looking all around the region for it, then she should be seen by other adventurers going into the forests. With her unique appearance, they should remember meeting her clearly.

The town of Silheim was in many ways similar to Keirnes. Both were frontier towns and both had quite a decent number of adventurers around. Silheim however was just a little bit smaller. And a lot colder, at least in this time of a year. And wood was the dominant building material, a display on how cheap wooden planks must be in a region whose well-known for its logging.

As I walked through the wooden gate, I was soon greeted by the sight of woodworkers, transforming logs of wood into said planks. The tools they used weren't that different from the tools a woodworker would use back in my old world, though obviously, they didn't have any electrical stuff. They still had saws, axes, chisels, etc. I imagine this town was used as the place where the industry processes the raw wood into usable form. Or rather, the town grew organically from it as a result.

I made my way to the town's Adventurer Guild. Since it was in the middle of the day, the place was pretty empty, giving me the ability to make the beeline straight to one of the receptionists. Of course, since I was making a request, I headed to a different receptionist than the one adventurers would use.

"I'm here to post a request," I said to her. "I want to find someone."

She didn't respond immediately. The middle-aged woman was busy reading her book.

"Umm, hello?"

"Wait a sec. I'm right at the good part here."

Seriously? Where's your professionalism, lady?

Thankfully, it didn't take long until she closed her book and turned her lazy eyes towards me. With a sigh, she said, "Alright. Your description please."