by Yuu Tanaka
“Hurk.”
“Gi?”
One of them crumpled from a clean slash down their back.
“Ha!”
She proceeded to cut down the remaining two with upward slashes. Her movements were much more fluid now that she was getting accustomed to her skills. The goblins didn’t know what hit them; the battle was over before any of their dead bodies hit the ground.
“Teacher, take care of the rest.”
Sure thing.
I absorbed the goblins’ crystals and carved off their horns for later use. Apparently, Fran had heard somewhere that goblin horns were used for materials. I proceeded to toss their dead bodies into the Pocket Dimension. It would’ve been bad if their corpses attracted some big monster to the highway.
“Teacher, there’s a goblin there, too.”
There’s more of them?
“What should we do?”
They’re on the way, so let’s hunt them down.
“Okay.”
Fran leapt into action again, but what greeted her was something neither of us had expected.
“Damn it! Get away from me, you dirty goblins!”
“Giigigi!”
“Graaah!”
The goblins were terrorizing a horse carriage. There were six of them against the carriage’s sole driver.
That’s a lot of them.
“I’m going to help him.”
Go for it.
She concealed her presence again and positioned herself for an ambush. She cut through three of the little demons with Triple Thrust. Each individual stab wasn’t that powerful, but they were enough to take down goblins.
“Y-you saved me!”
“Giii!”
“Quiet.”
The rest of the goblins fell on Fran one after the other with a menacing cry, but Fran ruthlessly cut each of them down. One of them tried to get away, but Fran threw me at the little bastard to prevent his escape. I stabbed it clean through the stomach, a testament to the usefulness of Throwing Weapons.
“Th-thank you, little lady. You saved my life.”
“Hm.”
“You sure are strong, though. Are you alone?”
“…”
“Oh, you don’t have to talk to me if you don’t feel like it.”
Fran was just the quiet type, but I could understand how the man would misunderstand given her response. I was glad she wasn’t eager to give the man information though. I told her to keep up the charade for as long as she could.
“All right,” she replied telepathically.
“If it’s all the same with you, would you like a ride? You’re headed to Alessa, aren’t you?”
I guessed Alessa was the name of the city we were heading to. As kind as the man looked, he was quite shrewd as well. He would give us a ride to Alessa as payment for killing the goblins, but he would in effect be getting a bodyguard too.
We wanted information, so we were going to take him up on his offer. But I needed to remind him that saving his life wasn’t cheap. I told Fran what to say to him.
“I guess I can guard you until we reach the town.”
“Ah. Yes, of course.”
The man could only let out a wry smile.
“I’ll waive my protection fees if you tell me what I need to know.”
“Hahaha! Very interesting, young lady. All right! Hop in!”
“Hm.”
“My name is Randell. What’s yours?”
“Fran.”
“Then my life is in your hands, Young Fran.”
I made sure to take out the goblin horns before we got on the carriage. We were itching to ask questions, though Fran was going to do all the talking.
“Do people buy goblin horns?”
“Goblin horns? I guess, but they’re cheap. They’re used as catalysts, but they’re of the lowest quality.”
Really? I felt like it was a waste of time collecting them now. But Randell continued his explanation.
“That said, the Adventurer Guild’s always looking to exterminate demonkind. If you took it to them as proof, I’m sure they’d reward you for it.”
The extra details in Identify did tell me to exterminate them on sight. It was somewhat arbitrary now that I thought about it. The explanation was clearly anti-goblin; and who wrote it anyway? God? It was a very biased explanation, even calling them straight up “evil.” Surely the goblins themselves thought they were in the right and us humans to be evil.
Then again, that explanation only showed up after I had already killed a bunch of them. If the explanation had described them as “a good, merry folk who happen to look horrifying,” then I would’ve immediately felt bad about killing them. I only felt justified in killing them because the Identify screen told me they were evil. You could say I had an obligation to hunt them down because of it.
But then, someone could have rigged the Identify descriptions to pit me against the whole of demonkind. Did God really write those descriptions? I had heard a voice when I came into this world. If that was God, then he sounded like a good enough guy. He didn’t sound like he would take advantage of me. Or maybe that was what he wanted me to think? But, then again…
Okay, I should stop. Blindly doubting everything in the absence of evidence would drop me into a spiral of skepticism. Nothing bad had happened so far, so I shouldn’t think about it too much.
“Goblins are G-Rank threats, but taking that many down at once was very impressive.”
“Threat ranks?”
Never heard that one before. Was that a term people used to describe how dangerous a monster was?
“You don’t know?” Randell proceeded to tell Fran about threat levels. It wasn’t like we had anything else to talk about, so he gave a decent explanation about how they worked:
Adventurer Ranks:
G: Newbie with a provisional license. Not an actual adventurer.
F: Apprentice. Beginner adventurer.
E: Average adventurer who can proclaim themselves as such.
D: Mid-rank. Can be a party leader.
C: Veteran. Superhuman by civilian standards.
B: Top class. Usually the strongest member of a small guild.
A: Hero. Select few within a given country. Bards begin singing songs about you at this rank.
S: Legend. Only eight have ever existed. Kings bow before them, and they have the authority to command Guild Masters.
Monster Threat Levels:
G: Trash mobs. An adult male can take them down no problem. (Goblins, Fanged Rats)
F: Can take down a merchant caravan. (Giant Bear, Wolfpack)
E: Can destroy a village. (Lesser Wyvern, Ogre)
D: Can destroy a town. (Lesser Hydra, Blast Tortoise)
C: Can destroy a city. Knight Battalion dispatched. (Tyrant Saber-Tooth, Lesser Demons)
B: Can destroy a country. Entire military force dispatched. (Greater Demons, Greater Dragons, Giant Kings)
A: Can destroy a continent. (Demon Lord, Dragon Kings, Lich)
S: Can destroy the world. The stuff of legends. (Fenrir, Legendary Dragons)
It was standard practice for adventurers of the same rank to band together and take down monsters of an equal threat level. An adventurer could also even solo a monster who was a rank lower than him.
Goblins were the weakest of the bunch, but a pack of them could increase their threat level. A crew of five could bump their threat level from G to F. Considering Fran took care of them in no time flat, she was probably as strong as an E-Rank adventurer.
“Still, I never ran into goblins on this part of the highway before.”
“Really?”
“Yep. The adventurers would patrol these parts from time to time, you see.”
The adventurers. They had a guild too, by the sound of it. It was all very fantastical, and I couldn’t wait to check it out.
“I’m no spring chicken, but I can handle a goblin or two.”
I Identified Randell to see what his stats were lik
e.
Name: Randell
Age: 39
Race: Human
Class: Merchant
LV: 13
HP: 32; Magic: 15; Strength: 20; Agility: 22
Skills: Transport 3; Driver 2; Negotiate 2; Arithmetic 5; Trade 6; Spear Mastery 3; Conversation 2
Equipment: Iron Spear; Leather Breastplate; Spider Silk Mantle
He wouldn’t lose in a one-on-one fight with a goblin, but he would have a rough time facing a whole gaggle of them. I noticed Fran’s stats far outpaced Randell’s at Level 4, which I found quite ridiculous.
“The monsters have been going a little crazy this past month.”
A month ago… That was when I had cleared Area 5.
“Why’s that?”
“I hear something happened in the Demon Wolf’s Garden.”
“The Demon Wolf’s Garden?”
“Never heard of it? It’s an A-Rank Haunt to the east of here.”
“Is it famous?”
“Of course. It’s not one of the Ten Haunts, but it’s still A-Rank.”
A Haunt referred to an area that was ruled by monsters; dungeons fell under this category. They were categorized from G- to S-Rank according to their threat level. A-Rank was the second-most dangerous level. It wasn’t quite as dangerous as the S-Rank spots dubbed the Ten Haunts, but it was up there.
So that’s where I hunted for a month. Now that I thought about it, the bosses were pretty tough. One thing was bothering me, though.
“Why is it called the Demon Wolf’s Garden?”
I didn’t run into any wolf monsters out in the grasslands. Most of the monsters in the western areas were feline even. There was no reason for it to be called the Demon Wolf’s Garden.
“Legend has it that it’s the resting place of the Great Wolf Fenrir, an S-Rank monster. Even now, Fenrir’s magical energy still emanates from the center of his garden. Funnily enough, the center is populated with weak monsters because of it. Such an odd phenomenon.”
So, I had this Fenrir to thank for setting up the barrier. Without it, starting out would’ve been much tougher. Shame to know he was already dead though. I wanted to thank him in person. But was there a reason I happened to wake up there too? I needed to know.
“There’s something that looks like an altar in the middle of the Garden, but no one knows who made it or what it’s for. Scholars are still researching it to this day.”
What about me? Do the legends say anything about a sword?
“Is there a sword on the altar?”
“A sword? Don’t know anything about that.”
And here I thought I’d find out about my origins. Guess it’s not that easy.
Unfortunately, that was all Randell knew.
“The Demon Wolf’s Garden is surrounded by the Withering Forest, so named because of its ability to drain mana from the creatures living inside it.”
I had felt the pain of that forest firsthand. I never wanted to go back there if I could help it.
“The stronger monsters of the Wolf’s Garden couldn’t get out because of the forest, but it still affects the local wildlife. The stronger monsters will fight each other for territory once every couple of years.”
I see. So there was something like a succession of area bosses.
“When that happens, the weaker monsters in the forest and the surrounding areas will get more aggressive out of fear. They’d flee from the stronger monster’s presence and eventually wind up on this highway here. It’s probably turf war season again.”
This was completely my fault for killing all the area bosses. I didn’t think it’d have this much of a ripple effect. Whoops.
Randell hadn’t been sure whether to proceed or turn back with the recent monster sightings, but he decided to keep going so he could make the delivery date.
Hahaha, I’m so sorry for the trouble, Mr. Randell, sir. I’ll waive the protection fees as a show of goodwill. Seriously though, sorry about that.
Two hours went by as we were carried along in Randell’s cart.
“And there’s Alessa now.”
I could see a wall in the distant horizon, and it seemed to be surrounding a city. It was still far off in the distance, and it took another two hours before I could make out the finer points of the city of Alessa.
It was quite large. From Randell’s explanation, it seemed to be the biggest town around here with a population of ten thousand people. It was also the only town that had a big enough Adventurer’s Guild.
Now that the town was in sight, I remembered my earlier worry.
“How much is the entrance fee?”
“300G.”
Goblin horns were cheap outside the Adventurer’s Guild, so I was at a loss for what to do. I needed to ask him the price of food and lodging. Then we could start calculating a budget.
“How much for a night at an inn? The cheapest one will do.”
“A cheap inn’s about 200G a night. No meals, of course.”
The average price of food was about 50G. Bread was 10G a pop, a cheap knife was 300G, and the baths were 20G per entry. I guessed that 1G was worth about 10 JPY back home.
A copper coin was worth 1G, and ten coins of the same value were worth one of the next value. In ascending order, the coinage went: copper, large copper, silver, large silver, gold, and large gold. Randell himself had never seen a large gold coin.
“How much would we get if we sold our goblin horns to the guild?”
“A set of two would net you 20G. A normal merchant would buy them off you for 5G.”
They were worth next to nothing! We were going to have to hunt ten goblins a day just to stay one night at an inn. Should we just take our high-rank monster parts out of the Pocket Dimension and sell those? I was considering this option, but Randell refused to buy them.
“I mainly deal in food and weaponry. I know the price of common items like goblin horns, but I don’t know enough about these items to give you a fair price for them.”
Seriously? Should I just sell it to him cheap anyway? That’d be kind of a waste though…
I detected something in the distance as I mulled over this problem. We told Randell to slow down so we could scout ahead. Sure enough, there were my old friends, the goblins, lying in wait in the bushes. They must have thought they had a winning strategy, but Fran and I made quick work of them with our skills and magic. We carved off five sets of horns and noticed one of the goblins had been carrying a sword. A wooden club may not have been worth the wood it was carved out of, but a sword had to have been worth something.
Lucky us. We might just break 300G if we sell all this stuff to Randell.
We brought the sword back to Randell and he bought it for 100G, which was more than I expected.
“Is it really worth that much?”
“It’s made of bronze but it’s still in good condition. The greens must’ve filched it off an adventurer.”
Great. Now we could enter the city.
We hunted down a monster called the Black Bug along the way and sold its parts to Randell. It was a giant beetle about fifty centimeters long whose shell could be fashioned into armor for newbie adventurers. It was worth 20G.
These monsters sure were cheap though. 20G for armor materials? It may have been better to hunt goblins that had weapons on them. The goblins and I must have been fated to meet.
“Hey there, Randell. Good to see you in one piece.”
“Thanks. I ran into some trouble on my way here though.”
“Who’s that little lady with you?”
“Found her on the road. She’ll be coming with me too.”
“You got it. It’s a good thing you ran into old Randell here. He’s a good, strong man, ain’t he?”
Randell forced a wry grin at the gatekeeper’s comment; Fran was the one guarding Randell after all. We wanted to lay low though, which was why we asked him to tell the guard Fran was a normal girl on a journey.
“That’ll be 300G, and here are your
temporary permits. They’re good for three days. You’ll have to pay an extension fee if you overstay, so be careful.”
Randell had also told us earlier that we needed an official identification card or an Adventurer’s card if we wanted to stay for free. We had to head to the guild immediately after this.
“Welcome to the city of Alessa.”
The Adventurer’s Guild didn’t have an age limit for its applicants, but it did have a placement test. We had to pass it to get our identification card.
“Well, I’ll be heading back to my shop. Are you going straight to the guild, Fran?”
“Hm.”
“My shop’s in the west along the main road. Can’t miss it. Do come by if you have time.”
And with that, Randell left. He never asked about Fran’s circumstances, about the girl who was as strong as she was ignorant. She clearly had her share of problems, but he was sensitive to it and kept his curiosity to himself. He was a good person.
We should visit him once we had some money. I remembered him telling us he mostly dealt with adventurers on our way here.
Let’s go.
“Yeah.”
We followed the directions Randell gave us to go to the Adventurer’s Guild, soaking in the sights of the city along the way. It was a beautiful city with the look of medieval Europe about it. It really felt like I was in a fantasy world. It was my first time seeing this many people in one place since I had come here. I was getting excited.
Adding to my excitement were the humanoid peoples mixed in among the regular humans. There was a man who had animal ears and a tail, a sexy elf, a bearded dwarf, and even a guy that had insect wings. The streets were as multiracial as it could get—literally.
I snuck a peek at some of the adventurers who happened to pass by. After checking out their stats, there didn’t seem to be anyone weaker than Fran. A lot of them were just as strong as she was. But when it came down to skills, we won hands down in both quantity and quality. The highest I’d seen among the adventurers was one guy who had Level 5 Sword Mastery which made me appreciate how out of the ordinary our Sword Mastery was at Level 7. You could definitely win a fight against a stronger opponent by outpacing them with skills, the grasslands had taught me that much. You could say a difference in raw stats wasn’t as important as the difference in skills. Fran would have no problems being an adventurer.
