The Louth family mansion in the royal capital.

　Father Balan and his butler, who looked grim-faced in his office. And a devil man with wings and horns was facing them.

　However, Balan's face was grim.

"A stampede happened on the frontier, and Yuri repelled it?　What the hell happened?'

'I don't know. 'I sent out a large number of Wolves, but they seemed to be easily defeated."

"It was a Stampede, not a rally!　And Yuri is not capable of killing that many wolves."

"I don't know about that. ......"

　The demon man smiles happily at the rough Balan.

'As might be expected of the son of the Louth family. After a quick assessment of the situation, he seems to have led the Wolves into a grave trap."

"So even Yuri, who has little talent, can use a pits trap."

　The quality of all members of the mastermind family, the Louths, including Balan, was set at a high level.

　According to a long-ago report by an appraiser, Yuri's qualifications were by far the lowest of the family members.

Name: Yuri Loutch  .

HP: D

MP: C

Attack: D

Defence: E

Agility: E

Magic: C

Skills.

Swordsmanship: D

【Magic】

Earth: C Darkness: C

　The quality appraisals carried out by the appraisers did not give as precise and detailed figures as Yuri's appraisals.

　Only the player could authenticate detailed numerical values.

　Perhaps it is because it is necessary to quantify it in the game, so it can be done specifically.

　Yuri's innate skills of disguise made him look like he was of average ability to others.

　In this way, he hoped that the target of his assassination would let his guard down. ......

　It was also through this disguise that Yuri's characteristics were on par with those of the protagonist's companions when he joined them.

　Father Balan, who had completely trusted this disguised trait, was now aware that he could fight well with this level of skill against the Wolves.

'Rest assured. The next time, he will be able to fight with a very thick head of hair. We have prepared a demon for the next battle that your son's abilities will not be able to compete with.

"Well, what is it?"

"It is a dragon."

"Well, it's not surprising that a dragon would happen to appear in a remote area."

　Once a dragon with the most powerful capabilities appears, the knights of the kingdom are dispatched, but even then, it is a monster that can only be repelled without coming close to being defeated.

　It is not a monster that can be summoned by a single master, and it is not a monster that can be dealt with no matter how hard you try.

　If he can deal with it, then he is hiding a certain amount of power.

--If he's hiding that power even from me, then I'll have to change my opinion of Yuri. Well, I guess he just survived by sheer luck.

'But what will HE do after destroying that territory?　I'm going to label him an incompetent duke who left the dragons behind and had his son killed.'

"I am thinking about that too. Once the territory has been destroyed, the Master will slay the dragon. In this way, I think we can further spread the Master's power."

'I see. But even I can't slay the dragon, right?"

'It is the dragon that will be defeated, but it is the giant lizard that the Master will be dealing with. How about we just say that you misjudged it because of its gigantic appearance?"

　If the witness had survived, the plan would have failed, but it was a village with only old people. It is unlikely that anyone could survive the dragons.

'Are there dragons that look like lizards?'

Yes. There is the earth dragon, . It is a lizard-like dragon that does not fly and does look like a lizard, but it is a bit smaller than the other dragons. It is a little less capable than other dragons, but it could still be a natural disaster for the human race.

'Indeed. Even I would have trouble defeating it."

　Balan struggles to hold back his laughter.

　Thus, they decided on their next move, but they did not realise that the door to the room was slightly open at that time -.

　　　　　　　　　◇ ◇ ◇

　A few days after Yuri made the tools.

　Having finally managed to put all the wolves away in storage, Fritz moved on to the task of preparing the moat.

　Yuri and his men are locating the river and mapping the area.

　Apparently, this was necessary to clear the territory, but Fritz didn't understand it.

　At first he asked if Yuri was the son of a corrupt lord?

　Fritz was skeptical when he heard that he was the son of a corrupt lord, but he no longer has the slightest inclination to be so.

　He is a naive man with out-of-the-ordinary abilities who sometimes does extraordinary things, but even so, he is a person who is strangely easy to hate because it is clear that his motive is always 'to improve this territory'.

　Perhaps bonded by such an atmosphere, Fritz also settled in this village before he knew it.

　Still, he had to go and report the escort request at least once.

　He was moving his hands, thinking that he would tell Yuri that he would be away for a while after setting up the moat and ensuring the safety of the village, and then he would go out.

　However, he noticed that the forest on the side of the house was strangely quiet today.

"It's strange that there's not even a sound."

　Fritz feels a sense of discomfort and looks towards the forest with his eyes.

　He sees the Wolves running towards him, just as before.

"Oh, no, not again!"

　There is no weapon in his hand, only a shovel.

　Yuri and the others are not expected to help like before.

　The last time this happened, he had to face the Wolves with no weapons at all.

　A moat has been built to prevent them from entering the village, but that is all the defensive equipment we have.

　However, even with a moat that is somewhat deep, if there are a large number of opponents, they can easily climb up using the fallen Wolves as a foothold.

　In other words, what Fritz had to do now was to reduce their numbers as much as possible.

　He regretted that he should have at least brought an axe with him, but it was too late.

--No, no, no, pull yourself together!　All I have to do is buy time. Yuri-sama will come and notice me sooner or later.

　He slapped his cheeks to get back into the swing of things and readied his shovel.

"Come on!　The mercenary apprentice Fritz will deal with you!"

　But the Wolves suddenly turn away and run away.

　Fritz, the apprentice mercenary, is ready to take the fight to them.

"What the hell was going on, ......?"

　Looking at the Wolf who had left in a daze.

 

'Ah, the Earth Dragon, ......."

　A large lizard with a huge body mostly covered with solid rock.

　It is a monster that has been given the name of a dragon because of its sheer power.

　Although it has lost its ability to fly, its body, protected by rock as armour, is impervious to both physical and magical attacks.

　It is said that the power with which it lunges using its body can easily break down even an ordinary castle wall.

'Oh, it's impossible ....... Now, I must escape from the quarry ......."

　No matter how much Yuri is up against this walking natural disaster, he can't see any way to win.

　This land is rebuilding, but life is more important.

　But if things continue as they are, one can imagine that the dragons will overrun the area without anyone escaping.

　For this reason, what Fritz, the mercenary, has to do is to divert the dragon's attention and get it to take its mind off the village.

　He doesn't have to think about defeating it.

'Come on, come on, you big lizard!　I'm the one you're fighting!"

　With trembling legs, Fritz held up his shovel.

　And when he swung the shovel with all his might, a ray of light was emitted in the next instant, gouging out the body of the Earth Dragon.

'Haaah!!!'

　Fritz shouted out unintentionally.

　The earth dragon did not expect to be hurt, and looked at its own body curiously.

　The part that was hit by the rays of light had a hole in it, as if it had never been there in the first place.

'Oh, is that so?　His body is made of rock. In other words, it's not an exaggeration to say that it's earth. Then a shovel should be able to do something about it!'

　It was a pretty outrageous argument, but he forced himself to accept it because the result had already been achieved.

　And after a fierce and almost deadly battle, Fritz barely managed to defeat the earth dragon without a single scratch on his body.

　Fritz felt indescribable, but the next moment, when nobody was around, he felt a pain as if his whole body had been electrified, and he collapsed at the Earth Dragon's feet.

When Fritz was in mortal combat with the earth dragon Earth Dragon, I had come to the side of the river.

　However, my sense of detection is always on the lookout for signs of life around me.

　Naturally I was aware that the Earth Dragon is coming .......

"Earth Dragon ....."

"Is something wrong?"

"Well, no, there's an earth dragon coming to attack our territory. ......"

"Then we need to hurry up and intercept it!"

"I honestly don't have the motivation."

　The earth dragons in the story were annoying monsters, with little good to offer in comparison to their abilities.

　As a dragon, it has a certain amount of experience, but neither physical nor magical attacks are effective.

　This monster, which is too much of a casualty at first sight, has only one weakness: its earth special ability.

　It was to attack with a weapon with a special earth weapon.

　Surprisingly, these weapons were rare, so it was recognised as a strong foe.

　However, the annoying thing about this monster was that it almost never dropped any materials to be bought.

　Even after so much effort to defeat it, there was no reward.

　So I didn't have much motivation.

'Well, if we leave it to Fritz, it won't be a problem. As long as he's got a special earth weapon, it's only as strong as a Wolf.'

"So it's actually not that strong?"

'Oh, yeah. I'm more interested in how to get water to the territory. ......?!"

　Aside from confirming that the earth dragon Earth Dragon was safely out of sight, the biggest crisis that had come to the territory was also arriving.

'This is not good, Fi. We have to get back to the territory immediately!'

"Are earth dragons really dangerous after all?"

"It's even more serious than that!　If we leave this thing alone, our territory will be destroyed!"

　Seeing me in such a panic, Fi understands the gravity of the situation.

'What kind of danger is approaching?"

"The one who will lead me to the doom...... That's right, the saint!"

　For some reason, my sense of presence had a hint of the saint who was supposed to be in the royal capital -.