Dragon Goons

Not an hour passes, Lohikaarmi's figure appears over the depths of the Pitted Woods. There are three dots following behind her in the sky.

"It looks like they are back," I say.

"Is that them?" Faye shields her eyes with her hand and gazes into the distance.

"Yep."

Soon, they arrive near us. With Lohikaarmi are three smaller dragons, each one about half her size. None of them has the same intimidating dark-red scales. They all have a grayish and brownish color, making them look more like flying lizards, which I guess is fundamentally what they are.

The ground shakes as they land in front.

One of the smaller dragons doesn't look to be very fearful of us. It puffs out of its nose and roars.

"Ah, that's loud!" Faye yells over the roar as she covers her ears.

Lohikaarmi, still in her dragon form, shoots a side glance at the small one, and it instantly shuts up with a whimper.

The Dragon Queen indeed.

"How did it go?" I shout.

Lohikaarmi nods and turns to another small dragon, who bends down its head and opens its mouth. A pile of ogre's heads covered in blood and saliva roll out onto the grass.

"Ugh. " Faye recoils at the sight and covers Astra's eyes.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Astra asks.

"You shouldn't see this," Faye says.

"What? Fine."

I walk up to the pile and take a look. There must be over a dozen of them. All of the ogre's heads are around the same size, except for one that is significantly larger. That's probably the ogre commander.

"Great. Let's go turn these in. Tell your dragon friends to stay around. We will probably come back with more missions," I say.

Lohikaarmi shakes her head.

"No? I ask.

She lets out a grunt.

"I don't think the other dragons will listen to Lohikaarmi anymore if she transforms," Astra says with her eyes still behind Faye's hands.

"Is that right?"

Lohikaarmi nods.

"Well, help me get the heads onto the carriage then. I will go by myself. You guys stay and wait for further orders," I say.

"Are we doing more missions?" Faye asks.

"Why not? It's still early in the morning."

"Okay."

Lohikaarmi scoops up the messy piles with her hands and rolls the heads into the cabin of the carriage. The horses look very distressed at how close this dragon is getting to them.

"Thanks. I will be right back."

I climb onto the driver's seat.

"Oh, and make sure no crusaders see you."

Lohikaarmi nods again.

I tap on the back of the horse and begin on my way to the shrine's gate.

They are even more efficient than I thought.

I hear the ogre's heads roll around behind in the cabin as I go over a rough patch of dirt. The smell is less than pleasing, but the money waiting ahead of me is the opposite.

Soon, I arrive at the shrine. Bringing this into the submission office might not be a great idea. People have seen me at the D- desk before, so if I were to walk up to the A+ desk, I doubt it will take very long for the other crusaders to figure out who this Kris Kaplan is.

But lucky for me, I discovered my own way.

I park the carriage near the stable. It's a rather spacious shed with stalls for each horse and an open plot beside for carriages. The smell of horse maneuver more or less covers up the decapitated ogre heads.

I get off and grab a tarp that was just hanging around for public use and walk over to the cabin. I glance around to make sure no one is watching.

With my telekinesis miracles, I bring the heads over and wrap them in this tarp, then I tie the corners to turn it into a big bag.

Ooh, that's heavy. I sling the bag over my shoulder and walk to the submission office. It's not like people with bags is an uncommon sight around the shrine, so no one really pays much attention to me.

Instead of going around to the entrance, I squeeze through the alley behind the office and knock on the back door.

As I had expected, it opens, and that woman from yesterday shows up again. She is in a different outfit now, but it's not much more modest than the last one.

Her familiar brown eyes land on me, and her face brightens up. "Kris!"

"How do you know my name?"

"Who doesn't know your name?"

"Ah, I guess that's true."

It was probably not hard for her to figure out who was the one that jumped from D- to A-, especially when she was literally the person that told me it was going to happen.

"Well, what are you doing here? Did you change your mind about my offer?" She asks

"Nope. I came here to once again turn in a mission in secret."

"Again? What did you do this time?"

I drop the bag down on the ground and untie the corners.

"Oh… wow," she says while fanning her nose.

"Yep. I would like to turn in the A+ ogre commander mission and two of the A ogre soldier pack missions."

"How did you… whatever. Sure, I will take it, but you can't keep coming back here. I am not supposed to be a receptionist," she says.

"Well, then what are you?" I ask.

"Me? I don't work here. My father oversees the submission office, I just hang around and help out wherever I can."

Right, that actually makes a lot of sense.

"But you can still turn these in, right? Because I am thinking of making this a common thing."

"Yeah, with my connections, but I am going to need some compensation if you want to keep coming back here," she says with a wink.

"I hope you mean monetary compensations."

"Well, the other kind that you are thinking of would be fine, too."

"Never mind. How about five percent of the rewards for every time I turn in my missions back here?"

"Fifteen."

"Eight."

"Nine and a kiss."

"Ten."

"Deal."

"Great."

That negotiation could have gone really badly.

"Well, tie up your bag, and I will bring the rewards over," she says.

"Sure. By the way, if we are going to work with each other long term, may I know your name?" I ask.

"My name? Chloe, Chloe Pecunia," she says.

Oh… that's where that vague resemblance comes from.

"Are you perhaps… related to Alice Pecunia?" I ask.

"Yeah, she is my cousin. Do you know Alice, too?"

"Somewhat."

This might have gotten a little bit more complicated.

"Huh, interesting, but it's not like we are close or anything. We only share the same grandfather, and since she works at the Grand Cathedral, we don't see each other all that often."

"Okay."

"Well, anyway, I will be right back with your 90%." Chloe goes back into the building and closes the door behind her.

This Alice. How does she follow me everywhere I go?