The Tales of Draconic Warlock

I woke up early in the morning. Then I freshened up and ate my breakfast before setting off from the town. This should be the routine that the merchants and their guards followed on the day that they left.

The file doesn't have full details, but this was the time that they left the town through the west gate, which leads to Orlon town, famous for Orgalite, a magic metal. It was said to be light in weight but conducts magic well.

This is useful for professionals whose class is Magic Swordsmen or something along those lines.

Though it is useful for them, not everyone would prefer it. Many use Mithril for their weapons and armour. This was because Mithril is stronger than Orgalite.

The advantage of Orgalite is for people who prefer Agility-based battles, rather than head-on battles.

Orgalite is very similar to Mithril but is weaker but lighter. This made it a favourite metal for weapons and armour of Agility-based warriors who also have magic abilities.

So though it is not as popular as Mithril, it still occupies a higher rank when compared to other metals.

The presence of Orgalite ore near Orlon town, made the town fill with a lot of miners and also a lot of adventurers. The miners are present to mine the ore while the adventurers protect the ore.

Monsters eat anything that was present in the natre and that include ores.

There are a few monsters that prefer metal ores to consume, rather than soft foods like meat, fruits or roots. Moreover, the metals that they prefer are not common metals like Iron, but magic metals like Mithril.

So no matter how many times they are driven away, these species of monsters will return to eat their metal foods. This would be disastrous to the miners. These monsters would see them as thieves who are stealing their food and those monsters would let that happen.

They would do one thing that they can do. Kill the thieves and that means the miners would die if these monsters return or make their homes in the mines.

To avoid such a problem, there are guards specially appointed by the mining companies or adventurers would act as temporary guards. For them guarding a mine is easy money, though it would be quite boring most of the time.

If the mines were occupied by these monsters then the adventurers are hired to clear them out. Of course that depends on the estimates of the ore in the mines.

From what I hear, the presence of Orgalite is pretty high around the town. So there are a lot of miners and adventurers in that town.

The problem was the excess presence of this metal in and around the town. It makes the growth of crops pretty difficult. Though there are trees present in the forest, it was said that they were mutated.

The trees absorbed Orgalite over the years and became pretty hard. Cutting them down would be a hassle but if they could, it would net them a small fortune.

Due to the low supply of wood and the high demand for it, the price of orgalite-infused wood is very high and many can't afford it.

Much of the wood that is produced is used as handles for Magic weapons.

Anyway, where was I?

Yes, the two merchants and their group were on their way to Orlon Town.

As I said, the food production of this town was low but there are many people that still live here, most being Miners and Adventurers. These would still need food to eat.

The monsters that appear around here are the ones that eat the metals. The meat obtained from them would be contaminated with the metals, which would kill even an awakened in such amounts if eaten. So there was no source of meat either.

Almost all the food that the town eats comes from other places through the merchants who travel long distances bringing them food items while collecting the ores from here to transport to other areas.

Similar to other merchants, my missing victims were on their way to trade.

From what they brought in Endis, I can guess that would be the only reason for their travel to Orlon.

It was mentioned in the file that these two brought a lot of salt and fish from Endis town. Around twenty kilometres south of Endis there is a sea town, where people's livelihood depends on fishing and producing salt.

They didn't go to this seaside town because it's very small and it's a one-way route. It means to leave that town, one can only return to Endis again. There is another way and that is through sea but there are no ships or ports that can support ships.

They must have thought that it was a waste of time. Though those two items might be cheaper if they went to that small town, there wouldn't be much profit after deducting the transport costs and time consumed.

So they brought the items in Endis instead.

After they got their items, they went on their way to Orlon.

Let's see what could have happened along the way.

---

It has been more than an hour and nothing as of yet.

To see what could have happened, II had to slow down to the speed of a caravan. Though there are only two merchants and twenty security guards as per the mission parameters, those idiots forgot about the servants.

To them, those matter not.

The merchants were of high priority because of their noble blood. The guards are next because they can fight and that's something one can't easily find.

Compared to the total population, the percentage of awakeners is low and high-level rankers are pitifully low. So most of the fighting force consists of the low-level rankers.

Though they are weak among the awakeners, with so little proportion compared to the total population, everyone who has awakened is needed in one place or another.

The servants on the other hand are common people and are easily replaceable. So there not a mention of them in the file.

Even in the original mission pamphlet at the academy, there was only mention of the two merchants and to find out what happened to them. They were not concerned about the guards but at least for them, there was a description and data regarding them.

About the servants, there was none. They were totally ignored.

It is bad that they showed no concern about the lives of those servants but they didn't even think about them from the investigation point of view. Did no idiot think that there were servants?

I don't think that they are all idiots. At least one of the teams that came here before me should have thought about this but there was no mention about it.

Whether it was deliberate on the part of the team or the watchers, I have to find out.

I mean, from the investigative point of view, if there was a description of those servants, it would be much easier.

If the group was attacked, then the guards should have fought with whatever that attacked them. The merchants may have fallen because they couldn't let go of the goods but the servants, they have no reason to die here. They would have ran.

Even if not everyone survived, at least one could have. The possibility is very high.

Without having the descriptions of everyone in that caravan, how did they think that I could investigate properly? No wonder everyone who came before me failed to do so.

It was almost as if they didn't the investigation to be successful.

What could be the reason behind that?

As far as I know, they shouldn't be one. The Count wants his relatives alive or to take revenge for their deaths. So no one should be hindering this mission but it feels as if they are.

I mean someone should have thought the same as me about the servants. They would have said something to the Mayor but when he gave me the file, the new file that I just got yesterday had no changes.

There should be two reasons for that.

One is that they don't have any descriptions of the servants.

The second was that they were trying to hide something.

Which one would be?

---

Huh, what is that?

As I was moving along the road, I heard a pretty strange sound. It felt as if it was calling me.

Wait, calling?

Is someone or something here?

I didn't hear any language or at least any language that I can say it's a language. I mean any language is made of words, or at least to my understanding but I heard no such words, except for the fact that someone or something is calling me.

Did those two merchants and their guards hear this?

There was no mention of any investigation team diverting at this point. They continued their investigation past this point but found nothing.

Did they miss something here?

I should check it out.