Chapter 60 – Cohabitation (2)
The most decisive reason why an adventurer’s guild, which is like a gathering of armed rogues, can openly exist in every city of a certain size is to secure manpower to deal with monsters.
Well, if you put your mind to it, you can mobilize the guards or troops to protect the city and save the demons, but they are basically specialized in fighting against people, and their main role is to defend rather than attack.
In order to respond to the threat of a wide variety of monsters infesting the world and occurring sporadically in a wide range, if the city’s troops were moved every time, not to mention the cost and effort, the monsters that used military power, including the risk of holes in the defense Salvation is very inefficient.
For that reason, adventurers always visit areas inhabited by monsters, and adventurers and monsters remain in a very close relationship that cannot be separated from each other.
“…That’s why adventurers like us can be guaranteed a certain level of status without belonging to a specific country~”
“It’s personally regrettable that these days, adventurer has changed to mean something like a convenient errand boy in the city, which is quite far from the word ‘adventure’… But what can I do?”
“I see… It’s very different from the image of an adventurer I imagined while reading the books my sisters lent me in the past.”
“Originally, in children’s books that children read, they do not contain cold reality, but only romance.”
In order to find the goblin settlement, the four of us explored the dense forest area to the northeast, where thick trees stand tall and sparse wild animals and flying insects roam.
While sufficiently wary of enemies that might appear at any moment, the twin sisters slowly began to open their mouths, taking turns explaining the significance of the existence of an adventurer job to Loxia, a girl who had never experienced what an adventurer does.
“Then, is the goblin subjugation request you’re currently doing a kind of early rescue operation to stabilize the area around the territory?”
“Yes, that’s right. In the case of goblins, after they have completely settled in the forest, if left unattended for a long time to allow the horde to grow, there is a fairly high probability of later raiding relatively easy farmhouses. It’s basic to kill and take a lot of damage, and there’s even a risk of seriously hurting farmers who resist the goblins.”
“In order to prevent that in advance, most of the lords are regularly making subjugation requests to the adventurer’s guild.”
“Aha, there are reasons to hunt even the monsters nestled in the deep forest.”
Satisfy the girl’s curiosity and knowledge through the stories told by twin sisters who are active adventurers. By the time we had gone through the woods, about two hours had passed.
“…Everyone, look at this.”
A swordsman covering his face with a helmet, who was watching the front a little further in front of them. Roden lowered her stance and gave out a low voice. At the tip of his finger, which he was pointing at, there were several marks of pressed down on the bush in the shape of small footprints.
Roden stepped aside and provided additional explanations for Loxia, who crouched down and watched her footprints with interest.
“Loxia, here’s this. Can you see that unlike humans, they only have four toes? These are the footprints of a goblin.”
Subspecies with four toes are common outside of goblins, but there are no other species other than goblins and kobolds that have feet this small.
Kobolds are monsters that usually live near mines. Then, the only remaining suspect is the current target, the goblin.
“Finally found a trace. Uncle.”
“Yeah. Searching isn’t my specialty, so it took a lot longer than I thought, but if you follow this all the way, you’ll be able to find the goblins right away.”
After finding a specific clue, the group walks at a faster pace, catching the sunlight that warms their skin through the tall leaves.
Due to the influence of entering a fairly deep area, each time they stepped on the thicker grass, the grass was crushed in the shoes they were wearing, and the smell of the naturally buried juice wafted out.
… Soon after, the goblin appeared in Roden’s field of vision, who was chasing the footsteps at the forefront. He gave a hand signal instead of a horse, instructing the following party to lower their stance.
Oh, come to think of it, this. These are the hand signals I used when I was an adventurer. Is it still valid?
Roden looked back quietly, just in case. Fortunately, the twins understood exactly the meaning of the hand signals they had seen earlier, and were lowering their stance with the girl next to them. It seems that the hand signal system has not changed much since he quit the adventurer.
The four of them moved closer towards the small creature, which only appeared as a green dot, killing as much as possible.
The appearance of a small demon with a small stature similar to that of a 10-year-old child, dull green skin, a hooked nose with bumpy protrusions, and subtly pointed ears as a bonus was revealed.
Long hair like an alien and sparsely curly hair adds a minus to his appearance.
Two goblins, dressed in roughly tanned hides barely covering their crotches, are wandering through the woods with shabby sacks full of holes and crudely trimmed clubs in each hand.
“… Judging from their general form, they seem to have come out of the village to find food.”
“Sure. Brother Roden, how do we start?”
Although Merim was the head of the party who had been formally requested, she handed over her decision-making authority to Roden.
“Well, Loxia. From now on you have to use your magic to attack the goblins, can you do it well?”
“Yes! Uncle. No problem.”
Up until now, she had been constantly learning magic from Merim and had once experienced combat in a port city, so the girl was able to answer her master with courage.
“Okay. Then let’s use both magic at the same time. Merim will deal with the one on the right, and Roxia will aim for the leg of the one on the left.”
“Aim for the bridge? I get it first.”
“Aha, you’re trying to take on the role of guide? That’s fine.”
When they nodded to Roden, the two wizards, each holding a staff and a wand, quickly memorized a spell and spit out words of magic at the same time.
“Ice Needle!”
“Earth Spike!”
Fu-wook! The ice pick, emitting cold air, was quickly thrust into the goblin’s head, and he was killed before he had time to scream.
“Kirrureuk…?!”
As they watched, the goblin didn’t even have time to be startled as the stone protruded from the ground through the bushes and hit her leg violently with a heavy, bone-breaking sound.
With one of her legs broken in an instant, the goblin threw away the objects she was holding and began to run away with a limp gait.
Roden, who was watching the back of her slowly receding goblin, approached Loxia and stroked her hair.
“You’ve wounded him just enough to go after him. Good job.”
“Ahaha! It’s worthwhile that you’ve taught me with all your heart so far? You’re doing well. Loxia, try doing it that way in real battles in the future as well.”
“Yes!!”
Roxia, who was praised by her master and her master at the same time, her confidence soared, and while nodding her head vigorously, she gazed at Maril as she approached the goblin’s corpse, then looked at her two eyes. Eyes wide open.
“M-Sister Marill…? Why are you cutting off the goblin’s ears?”
Marill, who cut off the goblin’s ears with a skilful hand with her snipe dagger, kindly explained so that her girl wouldn’t be surprised.
“Oh, we didn’t tell Loxia in advance. This is cut to submit as evidence. Each type of monster has a different body part, but in the case of sub-species monsters like goblins, if you bring the right ear, you can get extra money. .”
“For reference, in this quest, you can get 3 additional coins per request.”
… Hmm, the rules are still there.
Hearing the explanation given by her twin, Roden naturally recalled memories of his days as an adventurer who lived by cutting off certain parts of monsters in the past.
Quickly shaking off his thoughts, he clapped his hands loud enough for his party to hear, then took the lead again.
“Let’s chase after it before it’s too late. He’ll guide us to the village.”
* * *
A structure in the form of a fence began to appear in the field of vision of the party who chased after the goblin while eating lunch with the portable food they had prepared in advance.
“I think it was built to keep out beasts rather than intruders.”
“…I don’t know if I can get the proper effect if I build it like that.”
Unlike a moment ago, the party did not bend their posture and checked the village beyond the fence with a leisurely attitude as if they were looking at their own house.
Four small tents, crudely built using animal skins and trees, were built, and at a distance from the tents, the smell of animal blood and rotten flesh flowed in.
The stench that is common in places where more than a certain number of monsters have settled, their excrement and leftovers are deposited.
“Kirreuk…! Kikirurureuk!”
Meanwhile, the goblin, who limped on his leg and went back to his comrades, chatted with them and pointed at Roden’s group watching the village.
Then, the guys took out their weapons from the tent and began to gather one by one. It’s ready to run right now.
“Kirreuk! Kirururreuek!!”
“Kiriririri!!”
No one in Roden’s party had the mysterious ability to communicate with the goblins, but it wasn’t hard to sense that they harbored hostility toward them.
“You were very angry.”
It is very natural for the goblins to be angry with Roden’s party. It would be rather strange if a fellow tribesman who went out hunting returned with a crippled leg, but did not hold hostility.
Most of their weapons are clubs and spears made from wood. The only piece of iron is an old iron sword that seems to have been picked up by luck somewhere.
“Twenty-one. At this scale, it’s before the numbers are called in earnest. … Marill, don’t worry about your sister and Roxia and fight to your heart’s content.”
Marill, who had drawn her sword and shield before her, nodded her head instead of answering her Roden and started walking slowly towards her goblins. He started chanting attack spells.
Lastly, Roden quietly drew his sword by the wizards. She intends to cut down any attack or enemy that could threaten them, but she has no intention of attacking first.
In the current situation, if Roden only had to swing her sword at the goblins once or twice, she would be very easily resolved. However, he did not come all this way to massacre civilians, but to fulfill a kind of safety supervision role.
… Eventually, the magic embodied at the tips of Merim and Roxia’s wands, which completed the spell, fired at the goblins, and Marill began to charge boldly as a signal.
