A Dragon's Curiosity

“You are really giving these to us?”

Jihu Blacktalon could hardly believe the words of the elf in front of him.

Gifting each of them two leader [Yellow Banded Loam Monsters] for weapon maintenance and such costs was the same as tossing ten gold coins into the bowl of a beggar, it was way too much.

Nevertheless, the group members around Veilia and Jihu cheered at the prospect of getting an unexpected windfall of merit points.

Together with the two gifted monsters, the team formed around the sturdy young man Jihu stood to earn around two hundred merit points from the regular monsters and two and fifty points from the five leader types they had.

Each member could expect roughly fifty five merit points after the distribution. That was enough to get new weapons, armor and still have some left over for potions and pills related to aura cultivation.

Veilia Sternbloom and her team of eight similarly had a sudden surplus of merit points, with two hundred merit points from the regular [Yellow Banded Loam Monsters] and another two hundred from four leader types, giving each young lady a budget of around fifty points to spend.

The smallest team, the five friends who grouped up, also enjoyed two hundred merit points from their share and another one hundred and fifty points from the gift and the sole leader type that they were given earlier.

On the warrior excursions before this, it was already considered a huge windfall if they managed to get double digits in merit points, and suddenly every member of their team had seventy points for themselves after the small scale monster surge.

Lastly, Nisha’s team still had the greatest wealth to spend with the smallest number of members.

Despite giving away six bundles of merit points, they still retained two hundred points from the regular monsters and six hundred points from the twelve leader types that they had left.

Nisha, Unico and Lisa earned at least two hundred and fifty merit points each, and that was a conservative estimate.

“Yes, you did us a great favor and did not hesitate to stand by a fellow student, so this is considered your fair reward. Please, do not refuse.”

Nisha firmly insisted on the bonus she gave out.

While it was perhaps possible for her team alone to repel the monsters and that the elf had slain the majority of the leaders, she also remembered a lesson that Luthais had given her in the period before she enrolled in the academy.

The conduct and morality of an individual often spoke louder than words about their character and face, it never hurt to behave in a fair and benevolent manner.

Hogging all the points for their team might give them a bigger share to spend, but they already had gigantic amounts of merit points.

It was a far better use of the bodies the dragon gave away to express her stance towards the other teams, or if word spread and the other students had apprehensions and negative impressions about their team, no one would step forward to support them in the future in case they got into another dire situation.

And just like Lord Dharnas had told her, the atmosphere turned around and the glances the other students gave the elf and her friends became really passionate.

Jihu Blacktalon shook his head and gave himself a deprecating smirk, he schemed and plotted to gain a bigger share of merit points, yet someone else readily gave away the much sought after points.

He had already acknowledged that he was not as good as someone else, yet now he felt entirely inferior.

The muscular youth nodded in thanks and took away the gift, working together with his followers to gather and prepare their share of [Yellow Banded Loam Monsters].

Veilia Sternbloom similarly did not experience many good emotions when she accepted the leader types, although she was not in a situation where it was appropriate to have a bad attitude either.

Her followers and friends cheered similarly to the boys next to them and fought to snatch up as many bodies as possible, getting ready to skin and strip apart the useful parts from the rest.

Leather, tendons and some of the teeth and bones were the useful parts of a [Yellow Banded Loam Monster].

Cutting off the tail counted as proof for slaying the monster, but the full value of merit points was only given out for the usable parts, which were partly given to the local adventurer’s guild branch and mainly used as materials for crafting classes back at the Academy.

The small party of five sent one of their members to thank the elf and took away their share as well.

All participants of the small scale monster surge expressed their thanks in their own way and had a much more positive image of the perpetrator now.

“Pack everything up soon, there will be a carriage coming soon to pick us up.”

Silas no longer bothered to hide himself and jumped down from the top of the stone formation.

As a teacher, he awed the students to no end and basked in their admiration.

To get a position at the Royal Academy, one had to have a cultivation above the third rank, which also meant every single instructor had the qualifications to become a knight or serve as a court magician.

Under the orders of an honored personage, the students worked extra hard to clean up the area next to the narrow stone path and pick up everything worth even a single point.

Nisha had a great deal of experience regarding the dismantling of prey.

Her small dagger danced around the remains in front of her and the intact leather portions, extracted tendons and usable materials were pulled away one after the other, while the meat and waste was piled into a small hill.

Accalia cheerfully feasted on the discarded meat, no one wanted to bring it away anyway.

Due to the strong concentration of earth aura in their bodies, [Yellow Banded Loam Monsters] had tough bodies and coarse meat, making it not desirable, which gave the wolf a huge feast in return.

Eventually, Little Lia gave up the battle against the growing mountain of food and raised four paws in surrender towards the sky and exposed a bulging belly.

The elf had to carry her contracted beast into the carriage that came to fetch them and chatted with Unico and Lisa on the way back to Thurgau, the capital.

Chatting throughout the return trip, the trio promised each other to practice more caution next time and disbanded after agreeing to meet up after the next warrior class to discuss spending their points.

Nisha left the academy afterwards with a sleepy but satisfied wolf familiar in tow.

She had just reached the Dharnas compound and changed into a dress in her room, where Little Lia occupied the bed as soon as they entered the place, and wondered whether she should visit the [Seven Stars Church] or go to the park and see if anyone wanted to play chess, when one of the servants informed her that a messenger had come to see her.

Intrigued due to being summoned through a messenger, Nisha left her drowsy contracted beast behind in her room and approached the compound gate at a brisk pace.

Next to the guard on duty currently, a young and lanky youth was nervously darting his eyes between the weapon on the guard, the gate and possible escape routes.

Just from his suspicious behaviour, the elf already concluded that the party that summoned her most likely belonged to the dark circles of society.

Her expectations were not betrayed either, the young messenger quickly passed on the message he was tasked with delivering, Alester had sent him to this address.

The sly crook had finished the first steps towards their big project and invited Nisha to the worksite outside of the city gates, as several big decisions were needed from her person to start off the construction process.

She gave the nervous youth a silver coin as his reward and wasted no time to watch him scurry off, the dragon decided to meet the elderly thief right away.

Nisha had high expectations towards the construction of a new city wall and the land that was going to enter the possession and influence of the Dharnas family.

Her small steps unexpectedly covered a lot of distance with a little bit of help of her aura cultivation, and she managed to leave the city gates in next to no time at all.

Carriages and people constantly entered and left the capital city of the kingdom, showing the vitality and prosperity of Leandar’s center.

Right next to the gates was the area transformed by the Navis Terram, the flying ship turned into a building, and loomed over the commoners that passed by it.

Greeting a familiar soldier from her training there, Nisha passed the place and headed for her destination.

Even further from the road leading into the city were new additions to the landscape.

Several tents and crude wooden buildings built with minimal effort had appeared at the empty space that had been there before.

While not many figures walked between the simple constructions, there were enough burly men and sturdy youths that it made the scene bustling and populated.

Nisha had no trouble to locate her project partner, Ser Alester, who occupied the biggest and most intact tent at this point of time.

Since he overlooked a table with unknown content in her [Spirit Sight], the elf waltzed right into his dwelling and called out to him.

“Ser Alester, I heard you were calling for me?”

Compared to the tired old man with deep wrinkles around his mouth and eyes she had seen last time, the current elder before her had regained some of the thuggish street vitality he had before.

Albeit Alester still aged somewhat from the high workload and unfamiliar environment as a new noble, the old man had regained the determination and spirit needed for a great project.

“Miss Nisha, it is a great favor that you hurried over right away, you could have taken your time and visited later.

I appreciate the alacrity.

To tell you the truth, our venture to open new districts has reached a new stage since I managed to gather all the necessary permits and documents needed for the first stage of construction.

Now we need to properly decide the outline for the districts and the wall.”

Unlike his dodgy character when he first met the noble girl, Ser Alester was quite eager to get started with their venture.

Higher noble titles were within reach if he managed to pull off the building project, and he might even have the chance to recommend others to fill in offices and positions for the newly created openings.

With a bit of care and a dash of luck, perhaps he would have the chance to form his own faction, which would be his greatest backing should the old crook decide to compete for a Seat in the council of the Thieves’ Guild.

Compared to the noble titles given out by the guild, he would be in an entirely different league and position of power.

Alester’s announcement instantly made Nisha elated.

She had handed him a sizable amount of money and even lent the Dharnas family name to him to smooth over some bureaucratic hurdles, but even the dragon did not expect that things would start so soon with the construction of the new city walls.

It was definitely good news though, so she moved closer to the desk the old crook had been studying.

He invited her to take a look at the plans on top of it, which she had not been able to see previously with her [Spirit Sight].

Drawn with great precision, the papers had several different versions of the same content: a scaled down map of Thurgau, either showing the city walls, the underground distribution of sewer tunnels or a closer look at the road system running through the capital.

In all of the diagrams, there was still plenty of space outside of the current outermost city wall, where they planned to open up new districts.

“By consulting several construction experts, from simple workers to planners and earth mages responsible for delicate work, I have come up with several projections for the planned additions to the city.

Since you are paying for the materials and are the one in charge for the overall decisions, I wanted to hear your input on the general direction for the walls.

Once we have a complete picture of the future, I will contact the merchant house responsible for procuring building materials like third grade stone blocks and third grade metal components, while a specialist in array formations will design the foundation.

Then the construction will start for real.”

Unable to hide his eager tone, Alester handed the elf a pen and looked at her expectantly.