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The Extra Strategist’s Royal Road Chapter 182

The Extra Strategist’s Royal Road Chapter 182

Gaspar’s reply to the letter asking him to come to Baien to raid the Forest of Lament.

I opened the letter with a nervous feeling.

It was written in Gaspar’s characteristically rough handwriting.

─I received the letter. The Forest of Lament in the Southern Continent? I’ve looked into that place before. However, if we’re going there, I won’t stop by Baien. It’s faster to go straight from here. Let’s meet in Iswakan.

The fact that it started like this meant I could infer that the matter of the bandits who attacked Aggert had been handled well.

Sure enough, Gaspar brought good news.

─Those bandits were slave hunters. You could call them the dark side of the Savior Alliance. They were guys sponsored by the Alliance to find disposable manpower. That’s why they were quite skilled. I had a hard time too. I understand how Aggert got caught. No, maybe Aggert could have won, but it seems he couldn’t because there was a hostage. Those slave hunters had captured your mother.

I hurriedly moved my eyes to the next content.

─Fortunately, she wasn’t badly treated. The slave hunters’ primary goal was to get men who could immediately become laborers. Dealing with women wasn’t their top priority. I killed those guys and rescued her before that decision was made. I sent her to Baien with a trustworthy subordinate. I think she’ll arrive by the time this letter reaches you.

A sigh of relief came out naturally. It was a big deal to find my mother, one of the most worrying missing persons.

However, if there’s good news, there’s also bad news.

─I couldn’t find Aggert. According to your mother, it seems he was sold off somewhere. Probably to one of the Savior Alliance. This part seems very difficult to search. The Alliance knows about slave hunting but keeps it hush-hush. If we go around looking for Aggert who was slave hunted, we might become targets for elimination by the Alliance. I’d like to consult with you about this part. Then, let’s meet in Iswakan.

That was the end of the letter.

I hurried to the mansion. I had told them to send people to Rinoa’s mansion when sending from Gaspar, so if my mother had come, she would have headed there.

When I returned to the mansion, I could hear noisy voices from the reception room.

I threw open the door of the reception room without even thinking of knocking.

“Ah…!”

In the reception room, Rinoa and Erina were talking with my mother. When my mother saw me opening the door, she sobbed and approached with trembling steps.

“Ars… My son…!”

My mother hugged me tightly.

I felt my legs weakening with relief.

“Mother, are you alright? Didn’t you go through any hardships?”

I detached myself from my mother’s embrace and looked closely to see if she was hurt anywhere.

There was almost no change in her outward appearance except for her hair being tied up for easy movement.

“I’m fine. That child… Aggert protected me.”

“Whew…!”

My mother soon asked for a search for Aggert.

“We must find that child. He ended up like that trying to protect me…!”

“Yes, I’ll definitely find him. Don’t worry too much.”

I shared the situation so far with my mother.

“So you’ve found five people including me…”

“It’s a shame about Aggert. If he were here, he would have been a great help.”

My mother didn’t know much about this world.

She said it was difficult to gain knowledge because the place she first fell was an island with almost no people. Even now, she couldn’t communicate properly with Rinoa.

I explained about this world to my mother.

“The outer world… I never knew such a thing existed.”

“It’s not that different. After all, it’s a place where people live.”

My mother listened with a serious expression to the parts about the lost lands and monsters, then asked me.

“Ars, do you know anything about Yumir?”

“…”

“That child’s delivery is not far off.”

“Yes, I know.”

Yumir’s expected delivery date is roughly 3-4 months from now.

I wanted to find her by then somehow, but there were no clues at all.

There was the characteristic of being a pregnant beast person, but this was too common a feature. If you say pregnant beast person, there must be tens of thousands in this world.

“I’m trying various methods. Mother, don’t worry too much.”

“Yes, you must be the most worried. If I make a fuss, it will only burden you.”

“It’s not like that.”

I signaled to Rinoa with my eyes. It meant I wanted a room.

Rinoa smirked.

“At this rate, I don’t know if it’s my mansion or yours.”

“So-sorry. When I get money, I’ll buy a mansion and move out.”

“It’s okay. I don’t really mind.”

My mother decided to use the room to my right. With this, the number of empty rooms left in Rinoa’s mansion is one.

Indeed, I feel sorry for Rinoa.

There’s no choice but to get money before more people increase.

* * *

Although Rinoa agreed to cover all the costs for this Forest of Lament raid, travel expenses were still needed.

I was at Baien’s publishing house with Erina to raise those travel expenses.

Ukon, who appeared with bouncing steps, brightened his eyes when he saw Erina.

“Sir Ars! Who is this person?”

“Ah, yes. She’s an acquaintance of mine. She’s also someone who helped in writing about Their Circumstances.”

Erina, who seemed to be seeing a dwarf for the first time, looked curiously before greeting.

“I’m Erina.”

“Erina…?”

Ukon narrowed his eyes as he observed Erina, then shouted.

“You’re the one who became the motif for Irina Paleon!”

“Hehe, that’s right.”

Ukon points with a fierce expression.

“You villain!”

“Ye-yes!?”

“Urgh! To torment Ertel so much! Unforgivable!”

Erina bites her lip and says to me.

“Sir Ars! Haven’t you delivered volume 2 yet!”

“I think I did… I’m not sure. Since the immediate publication was focused only on volume 1, I might have forgotten?”

“Then release volume 2 right away!”

“But there needs to be a gap. Releasing volume 2 less than a month after volume 1 is a bit…”

Listening to Ukon’s words, it seems it’s just starting to gain momentum now. Today was the day to settle those profits.

“Here it is.”

The amount he handed over was about 200,000 won in our money.

“Gasp…!”

It was hard to react to the unexpectedly small amount of money.

It was unavoidable. Since Ukon took care of everything from book production to publication, my share was bound to be small.

Ukon patted my back, encouraging me.

“It will gradually increase. The reactions of those who read it were good. Most of them said they couldn’t stand seeing someone like Irina Paleon though.”

Erina was biting her lip, seemingly upset.

I asked Ukon to continue taking care of things and left the publishing house.

Erina, seemingly only counting on the release of volume 2, firmly insisted to Ukon about its release.

“Haha… Estelle should have seen this.”

When Estelle was mentioned, Erina’s expression darkened.

“Estelle will be fine. Didn’t you say so, Sir Ars? That Miss Ilya was with her.”

“That’s true.”

This time, with the incident involving Aggert and my mother, something was somewhat proven.

People who were together move together. Although it was just one sample, right now I wanted to rely on even this one hopeful observation.

‘That means Estelle and Master Ilya, Eonia and Bisketa, Olaf and Sister Julia are together.’

If they’re together, their survival rate increases that much.

So I prayed in my heart that they would be together.

The schedule for heading to the Southern Continent was set quickly.

The schedule was 16 days. Although I wouldn’t be able to attend academy classes during that time, attendance scores aren’t that important here. Performance like exam scores or practical grades is much more important.

Dungeon subjugation is counted as one of those performances, so considering academy grades, it was actually more effective to go on dungeon subjugations.

Of course, that’s the story when you succeed.

If you fail, it’s all for nothing, so at least freshmen don’t go on such adventures.

When word got out that I was going on a dungeon subjugation, the guys in the same class were quick to mock.

‘It’s certainly a loss.’

The Forest of Lament was originally not a dungeon but a region. To get academy performance, you had to bring back magic stones, the mark of dungeon subjugation, but we couldn’t be sure where those magic stones would be.

You could say it was an expedition with a high probability of returning empty-handed.

Still, we had no choice but to go.

Only by breaking through that place would the search for the lost lands become smoother in the future.

‘There are 19 missing people including me.’

Assuming they were evenly scattered across the world, it means 9-10 people fell into the lost lands.

Seven people, including me and Aggert, have already been found in areas where people live. Based on this, the conclusion is that the rest are more likely to be in the lost lands.

It’s just the worst-case assumption, though.

I tried to gather information on the way to Iswakan in the Southern Continent, but as expected, there was no result.

It was half a day before arriving at Iswakan.

While the carriage was briefly stopped, Rinoa received a letter from someone.

Rinoa skimmed through them and brought them to me.

“Take these.”

“This is…?”

“Information about the Forest of Lament. I had people from my family gather it before we left.”

“You… You’re unexpectedly competent.”

“What do you mean unexpectedly? I’ve always been competent.”

In the carriage that started moving again, I looked through the information Rinoa gave me.

There were some interesting stories there.

─A dark wizard and a death knight.

─Sacrifices offered to the Forest of Lament.

─Sightings of undead monsters.

─The Ellan Kingdom’s preparation for pioneering lost lands.

─A woman bewitched by evil spirits.

There were also many miscellaneous stories like those about missing persons.

These five were what remained after filtering.

“A dark wizard and a knight of terror…?”

Rinoa was reading the same thing and chimed in.

“It seems a dark wizard and a knight protecting it were recently discovered together in the Forest of Lament.”

“Dark magic…”

The dark attribute, which is the origin of dark magic, was an extremely rare attribute.

Of course, there are several rare attributes.

Erina’s lightning attribute is a typical example.

Dorofei isn’t that far. It’s rare to be born with both time and space, but time and space separately aren’t that rare.

And even if it’s rare, being rare itself isn’t necessarily good.

The light attribute I was born with is rare, but it doesn’t have great merits.

Rather, one of the most common attributes, the fire attribute, has more advantages.

The dark attribute was rare, had merits, but wasn’t a universal attribute.

Most dark magic is unsettling, like controlling people’s minds or awakening the dead.

Therefore, people born with the dark attribute can’t enter the academy. It’s forbidden from the start.

And such people usually learn magic in the shadows.

The back alleys of the city or the red-light districts belonged to this, and in extreme cases, the lost lands.

It is said that dark wizards with high skills and notoriety hide in the lost lands to avoid subjugation.

“One of those dark wizards might be controlling the death knight. If that’s the case, it’s a danger level 3.”

The danger level is divided into 10 levels, from special class to 1-9 class.

Level 3 is the fourth from the top, so it was quite high.

“We’d better not encounter this one.”

Next is the story about sacrifices offered to the Forest of Lament.

This seems to be a kind of religious ritual conducted by the Ellan Kingdom. They thought the Forest of Lament was cursed and tried to weaken the curse by performing a ritual.

The event that occurred here is the attack of undead monsters.

During this ritual, a group of undead monsters attacked to disrupt the ritual.

Looking at it that way, maybe the ritual was effective.

And in this flow, people were whispering that the Ellan Kingdom might be trying to pioneer the lost lands again.

“And lastly…”

A woman bewitched by evil spirits.

As I read this information, I couldn’t help but hold my breath.

─A mad woman appeared who seemed bewitched by evil spirits. The woman insisted that there was no Demon King in the magic continent and that it was a peaceful place where humans lived. No one believed her crazy words. The mad woman was chased out of Iswakan while being pelted with stones by children.

Meissen, Sophia, Melodie, Lysithea, Sister Julia… I’m not sure exactly which one, but it’s likely one of the missing persons.

And it was clear that Gunther, who obtained this information, headed to the Forest of Lament to find that woman who was chased away.


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The Extra Strategist’s Royal Road

The Extra Strategist’s Royal Road

Score 9.2
Status: Completed Type: Author: Released: 2022 Native Language: Korean
I ended up possessing Ars Elaine, a supporting character in the game. Struggling to prevent my death, I pave my way.

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