Oh, I hinted that he was hiring a transport! Granted, it was the final paragraph, so I can see why it was missed. The idea is that his Staraptor isn't strong enough to be a cross-region transport, and especially not while injured. But the bird is a relatively recent addition to his team. Most of them are, actually. Stahlblatt has a well established transport system, especially for transporting goods between the mountains. So of course they got transports that do people! The idea is like... They have a sort of prototype inter-regional transport that has a serious malfunction that leads to a catastrophic failure and one of the engines explodes. Nothing seriously bad, but definitely enough to force the aircraft to land and a disgruntled scientist to try his best in fixing the thing. He's a doctor in both biotechnology and regular technology, after all!

And I'm glad that you think the idea of his musical tastes is interesting! I've always found contrast in music is fun. Like a tough biker-type character being into something like k-pop, a country farmerly type being into electronica, and of course, an Adolphian being into hard metal. It helps to showcase a character! Metal especially helps to showcase his internal emotions are a lot harsher than what we see. I get that sounds edgy, but hey, it is what it is.