Tsutomu, called over by Amy to answer the journalists’ questions, spoke with them without bringing up anything problematic. Most of what he ended up talking about were strategies against the Black Dragons and Garm’s contributions to the fight. At the end of it, another one of the journalists approached him, holding a notepad in her hands.
“Excuse me, Mister Tsutomu. I’m a journalist representing Solit Company…”
Tsutomu’s gaze instantly turned cold upon the woman’s utterance of the last two words. She momentarily cringed in response to the reaction she got, and then she proceeded to ask,
“Could you set aside a few minutes of your time? We’d like to ask a few questions about your contributions to the defense against the Black Dragons…”
“No, I’m afraid not. I don’t give interviews to the Solit Company.”
“I-if you say so.”
The journalist was stunned, a corner of her mouth twitching at Tsutomu’s sheer bluntness; she then left without further insistence.
Ever since the incident with Solit Company, Tsutomu had strictly refused to be interviewed by them, in part to extend the reach of other news outlets. The coverage by the two next biggest publishers on Tsutomu’s two Fire Dragon battles had attracted a lot of attention, and the subsequent exclusive articles on Garm and Amy had helped boost their business as well. The information on the Dungeon that Tsutomu had provided them had been quite popular as well; recently, the column about the Shell Crab was a particularly hot topic, selling out newspapers of the day it had been featured.
The other Clans were cooperating with the smaller publishers as well. Ealdred Crow had been quickly updating their layer progress, and had been willing to be interviewed without regard for payment. Silver Beast, which had defeated a Fire Dragon recently, had even refused to be interviewed by Solit Company at one point. Golden Tune had started interacting more with the second and third biggest news outlets, too.
Solit Company’s performance had clearly been declining, though they were still kept afloat by their coverage on the Scarlet Devil Squad, the Clan currently holding the deepest layer of progress. The publisher trying to contact Tsutomu again could mean that they were looking to improve their standing, wanting to get out of the current unfavorable situation.
Tsutomu had no intention to give them any interviews anytime soon, however. Perhaps he would once the other publishers got big, but his personal grudge meant that he could just never do it altogether.
Once his part was over, Tsutomu turned to Amy and Garm, and saw that they were surrounded by people. Amy was popular among both men and women, while Garm was surrounded mainly by children and older women.
For Tsutomu, although he no longer had a bad reputation, he was not yet all that popular. Some people still did not trust him completely, despite Solit Company issuing a public apology for all the infamy they had propagated. Simply put, everything had canceled out, making his popularity just ‘normal.’
Tsutomu left the scene and headed to where Ealdred Crow was gathering, wanting to get a good look at the summoned Layer Boss monsters. The Eidolons were set to be released once the Stampede was over, so he wanted to get a good feel of them while he could.
Standing near the Demi-Lich reminded Tsutomu of being in a science lab, and the Shell Crab made him think of children’s jungle gyms in playgrounds. Satisfied after getting to stroke the Crab’s solid, ore-embedded shell, Tsutomu proceeded to line up for the much more popular Fire Dragon. The Dragon’s area was quite crowded, with Explorers and civilians gathering around.
After waiting in line for about thirty minutes, Tsutomu finally got his turn. He greeted Rook and gently touched the leg of the Fire Dragon as it was eating a piece of meat.
The Fire Dragon’s scales were smooth and comfortable to the touch. Rook even arranged for Tsutomu to ride on the Dragon’s back as it flew. Although Tsutomu was used to flying by himself, the view of the sky as seen on the giant creature’s back felt quite different.
The Dragon’s scales were slippery, however; once it spun in the air, Tsutomu got thrown off. He was quick to cast <<Fly>> and land safely, though he looked disappointed by what had just happened. This scene caused all the civilians to immediately refrain from asking to ride the Fire Dragon.
As for the Queen Spider, he had never wanted to touch it, but then he simply decided not to go anywhere near it upon hearing the disturbing voice of a certain woman as she rubbed her cheeks against the Spider’s abdomen. Similarly, the people around Tsutomu avoided the scene.
Tsutomu proceeded to leave the central square and head to the northern gate again. This time, to wait for Leon’s return from his reconnaissance mission. The only people around at this time were the eldest daughter of House Babenberg, the soldiers on guard, and the Golden Tune Clan members.
Golden Tune was doing great, both with their behind-the-scenes work and Leon’s scouting. With his overwhelming speed and strength over most normal monsters, Leon had high survivability and would always return with information quickly. He was practically the best scout one could ask for.
Every hour or so, Leon would head out and observe the areas he could see within the timeframe. Considering how far he could go, it was always enough for Dungeon City to start preparing for an interception.
After three trips in the early afternoon, Leon came back, detecting the Stampede on his latest trip.
“Hello. How did your mission go?”
“Huh, you’re still here, Tsutomu? You really wanna get your hands on the latest scoop, eh?”
While his Clan members wiped his sweat-soaked hair with a towel, Leon looked at Tsutomu, somewhat surprised. The only other people currently near the northern section of the barrier were the soldiers on guard, Golden Tune members; all the others were resting up in the central square.
“So, I’ve seen the Stampede… but it was a bit strange.”
“Strange, how?”
“For one, it was a lot smaller than the one that just went through Uga’ol. Lots of already-bloody monsters among them, too; maybe they’ve been eating their own kind?”
“…They were already bloody? Was there anything else of note?”
“Nothing in particular, no. I’ll tell you if I find anything new next time.”
“Thank you very much.”
“All right, catch you later.”
Tsutomu saw Leon off as he went to report to the nobility and the Security Team. The takeaway from the news was that the Stampede had dwindled in numbers, and some among them were injured. It would be good news if the monsters had cannibalized one another, but if one considered the involvement of Dragons, this was more often than not a bad sign.
Of the various types of Dragons out there, only a few would directly injure monsters like that. Dragons that manipulated natural phenomena could be crossed out, since there would have been signs of freezing or burning instead. Upon hearing that the monsters were ‘already bloody,’ three candidates had come to Tsutomu’s mind, with one in particular being the most likely.
[It might be the Devourer Dragon.]
This Dragon was infamous for its gimmick of preying on other monsters in the combat area, growing stronger the more it ate. In the game, it would strengthen itself by devouring the hordes of mooks that spawned alongside it, so the key to beating this boss monster was to quickly clear out the mooks before it could eat too much.
If the Devourer Dragon’s mechanics were to be applied to this world, however, things could turn very bad very fast. Assuming that the Dragon had eaten all of the monsters in its Dungeon and had come outside to prey on the Stampede, the situation was already as bad as it could get.
But of course, there were other Dragons that could injure the monsters in a similar way, and there could be other factors worth considering. As such, Tsutomu began checking his equipment immediately, hoping that the next thing he had to face was anything but the Devourer Dragon.
――▽▽――
Leon’s reports into the evening were largely the same, but with the key difference being that the Stampede’s numbers had greatly decreased again. The Explorers, having gotten to rest for four hours since noon, were a little too relaxed by this point. The same went for most of the nobility and the Security Team.
This was only inevitable. Normal monster Stampede had never been expected to claim any casualty from Dungeon City in the first place, and this time, they had made it safely through the much more dangerous Dragon invasion. It was natural for them to let themselves loose afterward.
Tsutomu saw that the Guild members around him had become quite optimistic. Camille was pretty much the only one among them that still had her focus.
“You don’t need to worry so much, Tsutomu~~ Everything all right now!” Amy said to Tsutomu and sat next to him, while the latter pondered over things while waiting for Leon. Garm came along as well, and proceeded to do some stretching, his silver armor clinking with his movement.
“C’mon, let’s go back to the square. We can ride the Fire Dragon together or something!”
Amy jumped around Tsutomu like an obnoxious attention-seeker, prompting the latter to cast <<Haste>> and direct the energy sphere to fly past her eyes. Amy was totally distracted by it, as apparent from how her cat ears instantly perked up, so he quickly directed the sphere away for her to chase it.
“Gah! Gotcha–!”
Amy seemed to be having fun trying to swat the <<Haste>> sphere down, as if she was playing tag with it. But that chase did not last long. Just a few moments later, something suddenly smashed into the barrier; Tsutomu was startled and ended up stopping the sphere, enabling Amy to slap it with both hands, popping it and boosting her own AGI.
As it turned out, it was Leon that had hit the barrier, having rushed back from his reconnaissance. His wolf ears were held up despite him usually bending them down due to his dislike of their appearance, and the golden hairs on his tail were standing on end. Something was clearly wrong.
Once the oldest Babenberg daughter saw that it was Leon, she immediately opened a person-sized hole in the barrier for him to get through. Her training had enabled her to link her senses with the barrier, so she could immediately notice whenever something unusual happened to it.
Leon’s face was pale as he staggered to his feet and walked inside. His Clan members tried speaking to him, worried, but he looked too stunned to even reply. Tsutomu shook off Amy and ran over to Leon.
“Leon! What happened!?” Tsutomu asked, grabbing Leon by the shoulders and shaking him.
Leon’s Clan members stopped Tsutomu, but that shaking did help the wolfman regain his focus. He proceeded to explain,
“Found something. Looked dangerous as hell… And it was eating the monsters.”
“…Did it walk on two legs and have a big head?”
“Y-yeah, it definitely was like that. Looked kinda like the Earth Dragon… but it was totally different. Looked too strong,” Leon said, his breath short and his composure lost.
It ate monsters, had a big head, and walked on two legs — the description fit the Devourer Dragon.
“Leon, please hurry and report to the rulers. I’ll talk with the Guild,” Tsutomu said calmly.
“…Yeah,” Leon replied and nodded firmly, his composure regained thanks in part to Tsutomu. He proceeded to immediately leave the scene.
Tsutomu turned around and saw that Amy and Garm were waiting for him. They were now in serious mode, having seen Leon’s unusual discomposure.
“Let’s go find Camille.”
“Yup.”
“Right.”
The two nodded. Together with them, Tsutomu headed back to the central square and started checking out places where Camille could be.
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