Chapter 2: As a New Adventurer – Part 02
The next morning, as the sun rose, my party, along with Kaim, gathered in front of the town gates.
“Hey, old man… uh, was it Soushi the old man? Let me introduce our members,” Kaim said, his longsword hanging at his waist and a shield in hand. Next to him, a girl with braids holding a staff spoke up.
“I’m Meribe. E-Rank. I’m a mage, sort of. Sorry for always bothering Kaim.”
Next was a short-haired woman around twenty years old, wielding a spear.
“I’m Ranan. Also E-Rank. I’m specialized in offense. Nice to meet you.”
Finally, there was a small boy, holding a buckler and a mace like me.
“I’m Labelt. E-Rank. I can use healing magic, but honestly, I prefer to punch things.”
A tank, an attacker, a mage, and a healer—a perfectly balanced party, it seemed. By the way, everyone here is quite good-looking. This world has an abundance of beautiful people.
“I’m Soushi Okuno. F-Rank. So far, I can only punch things. I’ll be in your care for a while starting today. Kaim has been a great help to me.”
As I bowed, I was met with, “Old man, that’s creepy. Just stick to your usual way of talking.” Perhaps he was trying to be considerate in his own way.
“Soushi-san has a surname, huh?” Meribe, the girl with braids, asked. It seems that having a surname is quite rare in this country. It’s close to a privilege of the noble class, and commoners with surnames are usually from other countries.
“Yeah, it was normal back in my hometown. Just call me Soushi like you are now.”
“It seems like we have similar equipment. Why did you choose a mace?”
“Hmm, probably because it looks easy to use. I considered a spear too, but it’s too expensive.”
“Spear’s great. You don’t have to see the monster’s face up close.”
“Huh? The feeling of smashing with a mace is what I like!”
Ranan, the tall beauty, and Labelt, the boy with a subordinate vibe, glared at each other. They seem to have a good camaraderie in this party.
“Alright, that’s enough of that. Let’s get going. First, we head to the village.”
With Kaim taking charge, our goblin extermination team set off.
We left the town of Tolson and proceeded along the road, of course, on foot.
While this world does have carriages and even monster-drawn vehicles, it seems they’re mainly used by merchants or nobles.
As we approached the urban area, there were also shared carriages, indicating that this world surprisingly has a lot of movement among people.
After walking for a while, we began to see fields off the road. By the time the sun was high in the sky, we arrived at a small settlement with about ten houses. This was our first destination, a farming village.
We entered the village and headed straight for what seemed to be the village chief’s house. It appeared that Kaim and the others had visited this village several times before.
The village chief who came out was a man in his fifties.
“Oh, it’s you, ‘Ginrin’! You’ve come to exterminate the goblins, have you?”
“Yeah. I’d like to use the well again. Also, it would help if you could tell us about anyone who has seen the goblins.”
Kaim was handling the conversation well; it seemed he was thorough in gathering information.
“Understood. This way, please.”
The chief led us to a field, where we spoke with a middle-aged woman who was working.
However, I didn’t think there was much useful information to be had.
- Some damage was done to a part of the field.
- About ten goblins were seen in the forest, three kilometers away from here.
- Based on the footprints left in the field, it seems they operate in groups of about ten.
- So far, there have been no human casualties.
Basically, it was the same information we had heard from the guild.
“Do you know what kind of weapons the goblins had?” Kaim asked for more details.
The woman replied, “I think they were probably just holding wooden sticks…”
If humans don’t pay attention, they likely wouldn’t remember what kind of weapons monsters had.
After leaving that place, we replenished our water at the well and headed toward the forest where the goblins were said to be.
After about thirty minutes of walking, we found signs of the fields being ravaged, just as the woman had described.
I couldn’t tell much about the footprints as a novice, but according to Kaim and Ranan, the front-line fighters, they indeed looked like goblin tracks.
“Was there a reason you were asking about the goblins’ weapons earlier?” I inquired.
Kaim scratched his head and replied, “Yeah, goblins change their weapons based on the size of their group. If it’s small, they stick to wooden sticks and maybe throw stones, but as their numbers grow, they start using blades and bows. Apparently, when it gets really bad, they can even use magic, but I’ve never seen that myself.”
“I see, the type of weapons they use is definitely important information.”
“Right. Well, judging by the number of footprints, it doesn’t seem like a large group this time. At most, maybe a hundred. If they increase beyond that, they start attacking villages.”
A hundred? That’s quite a number, isn’t it? But thinking about it, even I could probably handle about twenty. For them, being E-Rank, it should be no problem.
“Alright, let’s set up camp here for the night. Let’s start a fire and cook some food.”
Under Kaim’s direction, preparations for camping began. I thought my knowledge of camping would be somewhat useful, but I quickly realized that modern Japan is blessed with camping gear.
After taking turns keeping watch, we spent the night, and as the sun rose the next morning, we entered the forest.
Leading the way was Kaim, followed by Ranan the spear-wielder, Meribe the mage, Labelt the healer, and then me, the guest. The rear guard is a dangerous position, but with the Presence Detection skill, the chances of being ambushed from behind should be low.
However, even with a group of about a hundred, finding them in the vast forest shouldn’t be easy.
Or so I thought, but goblins have a habit of marking their paths, and following those marks makes it easy to find them.
The marks, however, are just strike marks on tree trunks, and honestly, without prior knowledge, you wouldn’t be able to distinguish them. This is where experience truly matters.
After about thirty minutes of moving forward, my Presence Detection skill picked up the presence of goblins. There were eight of them.
However, it seemed Kaim hadn’t noticed them. What could that mean?
“There are goblins ahead,” I whispered.
Kaim turned back, surprised. “Oh, really? You can tell, old man?”
“Yeah, about a hundred meters… no, about a hundred Rido ahead, there are eight of them.”
“Soushi-san, your Presence Detection is impressive,” Meribe said, looking a bit surprised. Hmm, so my Presence Detection is high-performance?
“Well, whatever. Ranan and I will handle this.”
The two of them moved ahead, and we followed a bit behind.
Soon, we spotted the goblins. In the forest, their green skin provided excellent camouflage. Without the Enhanced Vision skill, I might not have been able to distinguish them accurately.
“Here we go!”
With Kaim’s shout, he and Ranan leaped in front of the goblins.
In the blink of an eye, four heads flew off, and four others fell to the ground, pierced through the heart.
I was astonished. I could barely see their sword and spear techniques. Is this what E-Rank is capable of?
Unlike in the dungeon, the bodies didn’t disappear, but it was impossible to carry the goblin corpses, so they seemed to be extracting the magic stones with their daggers.
Since I was there, I helped out and learned how to extract them, but… it seems I’ll definitely need to build up my resistance to gore in the future.