TL note: The term ‘Alpha" for those boss monsters had been changed to ‘Elite" since it sounds more gamey and it links up with the monster names better, like ‘Elite" forest wolf compared to ‘Alpha" forest wolf.
– Adventurer"s Life Day 34 (Sat) – Before Noon – Comnes Town – West – Gravel Fields
Magduff, the leader of one of Comnes" mid sized adventurer party, "Ferocious Hunters", had been impatient for the last couple of days.
Because of the ma.s.sive increase in adventurers coming from the north, it wasn"t possible to make a decent hunt in the fields.
Even when savings had been made in case for situations like this, the number of adventurers coming from the north did not stop, leaving the members in the party steadily acc.u.mulate their anxiety as their savings continue to plummet…
Every day when going out to hunt, they always have to be concerned whether it"s another party"s prey or not, otherwise more often than not, it turns into a dispute with the other group… Making things even more stressful.
Because of that, members who originally don"t get along with each other, would often squabble against one another. It causes the group to waste time, lose money, increasing anxiety… it"s a vicious cycle, and Magduff had been in constant stress because of it.
As of recent however, the number of adventurers visiting the gravel fields had decreased.
Supposedly, adventurers that had enough of the situation and still has some expenses left over left Comnes to work at other towns further down south. With something like this, the situation should gradually improve.
However, Magduff and his party had no knowledge about that.
"What do I do, I"ve already been skipping rent for almost a week, and the owner is threatening to kick me out…"
"Should I just quit and work back at my village I wonder…"
The party members faces continue to fall into despair as they continue moving along.
Magduff continued to stay vigilant of his surroundings as he thought,
(… Should I just use up the last of my savings and treat everyone a drink tonight… as of right now, even ranting out our complaints will at least maybe help vent their anger…)
He had been thinking on how to alleviate the party"s mood ever since…
However, that was before the scout from ahead raised out a warning.
"Hey, there are some Great King Yamoris gathering over by the thickets there! There"s even a big one among them!"
"A territorial war?… But there"s no time to wait it out, other adventurers might arrive and hunt them down."
"…? No, they don"t seem to be going against each other… Hey! They"re all coming this way!"
"Wait hold on, this could be our chance! Stand your ground!"
As the lizards generally don"t group up together, this normally would be too much for the party to handle.
However, the leader Magduff was unable to realise the situation he"s gotten himself and his party into…
Just a few minutes into the confrontation, Magduff has already been thinking of abandoning his companions and escaping himself.
"Help me!"
Two of his companions have already been too injured to continue after being attacked, and the warrior was screaming as the stupidly big lizard had already been swallowing him up to the waist!
It"s difficult to defeat a normal one even with two warriors concentrating on it, and there"s six of them.
Even including the members who would have trouble fighting up close, there"s only 8 on their side. Minus the current ones who can no longer fight, and the battle here already seems to be unwinnable.
(Dammit… Just where are the other adventurers…)
It was just not his luck.
Had this situation happened at least yesterday, then there would definitely be another group willing to give some support.
Just before he managed to decide whether to run away with the remaining or help rescue the others, he heard some rustling coming by the thickets nearby… instinctively, he faced towards that direction, and could hardly believe what he saw.
An unexpectedly large group of adventurers… no, more like soldiers… all appeared at once and confronted the herd of lizards they were just struggling against.
They moved in like an army, wore strange helmets, and ran with a full set of iron equipment… And then there is that giant moving rock among even walking along them.
… For a moment, Magduff wasn"t able to process what is happening.
In that time, the appearing group had already made contact with the herd of monsters at an unusual speed, and the two closest lizards is in the middle of being pummeled by them.
"Fire magic to the one on the left! The rest follow along with the new guys!"
Finally regaining himself, Magduff saw this opportunity and gave instructions to his team as he continues to attack a nearby lizard… Realising the same thing, the rest of the active members responded.
Noticing the sudden change in the battle, the giant lizard spat out the warrior from its mouth and began to rush in, but before that the stone giant stood in its way!
"… What is this…?"
Almost forgetting he was in the middle of a fight, Magduff murmured so to himself.
The stone giant and crowd of soldiers held the giant lizard down, a feat that they didn"t even imagine would be possible to do themselves…
Even a monster that strong wasn"t able to free itself from this.
The ‘Elite" Great King Yamori had been pummelled continuously from the soldiers on all sides.
"… Thank you. You saved us there… However… who are you guys?"
Magduff spoke over to the one who seemed to be in command, and also appeared to be equipped in metal grey equipment… the person only had a medium build, nothing particularly special, but being equipped with a horned helmet, iron grey fur mantle and shield, he feels much more intimidating… and also he"s much younger than he thought.
There"s also another person nearby with different clothing, wearing an olive green scarf, mantle and hat… and it"s a young woman at that.
"We"re adventurers from Comnes. You wouldn"t mind if we were to take that Giant lizard there do you?"
The man with the iron grey mantle taking command, had the soldiers carried over some lizards… It was only when Magduff"s adrenaline rush starts to wear off, did he notice each of the soldiers were not human.
Their arms and legs were exposed showing nothing but bones… Being greatly surprised by it, the man in command nodded his head as if what he did was a response.
"Then, please excuse us."
The adventurers, followed along with the stone giant and Great King Yamori carrying skeletons, marched back into the thickets were they came from…
"Weren"t these guys the ones marching to the guild recently? What was their party name?"
"That guy, he said he was an adventurer but, that"s unbelievable."
"I saw that guy before, and he really was accompanied by all those skeletons… they"re probably that way if you take off the armor."
All the party members were shocked still, still staring from where they left. Magduff headed over and quickly treated his teammate and dismantled the left over monsters…
– Adventurer"s Life Day 34 (Sat) – Before Noon – Comnes Town – West – Gravel Fields
Once we travelled far enough where we couldn"t see the other party anymore, we start dismantling the carca.s.ses from earlier.
I had manually controlled a skeleton to dismantle one of them while Benedetta handles another.
The remaining skeletons would remain on guard during the meantime, and if a monster would come, they"ll hunt it and bring it here.
"This Great King Yamori here… it"s nearly double the size compared to the other guys… The skeletons and golem had it kept down, but it was moving quite fast…"
"It"s another ‘Elite" monster isn"t it…?"
"No doubt. There was also the fact that it was leading a group of them…"
"… Wouldn"t it be better to report this to the guild?"
She has a point with that.
It could also be related to that incident with the forest wolves.
"There"s still room for more, so I wonder if we could still hunt a little longer before going back. That said, a song please."
"Understood."
All the surrounding skeletons and skeletons luring monsters, gathered around here, and Benedetta proceed to sing her "hymn",applying the ‘Hasten" effect on all of us.
Once the last dismantling had been finished, they were given to the ones that still had room to carry and had them all a.s.semble in a group.
In the meantime, I had another skeleton fully equipped, making that 25 out of the 28 done…
Sculptor had also levelled up, so I made sure to have the golem collect up the surrounding stones before forgetting.
… And like that, I had the Golem and skeletons that were not carrying anything returned back to their coin as we head back to town.
– Adventurer"s Life Day 34 (Sat) – Noon – Comnes Town – Adventurers Guild – Exchange Centre
First thing we did when arriving to the guild was visiting the exchange centre.
Except for the "Elite" Great King Yamori, we had the rest of our hunt lined up in the s.p.a.ce available by the counter, then both me and Benedetta proceeded to walk to one of the back rooms to where Ohmas would be.
"An ‘Elite" you say…?"
"Yes. Take a look at this."
I showed him the corpse we brought earlier.
"This thing"s huge…"
"And not to mention, there were other"s following it… There was another party that was attacked by them first. If you were to ask them, they"d probably say the same thing."
"What was the party"s name?"
"Erm… I never asked."
I didn"t want to have to deal in negotiating in who gets what in there, so I wanted to leave quickly. Looks like it backfired…
Fan Art Alert I was planning on making this a procrastination chapter for me, but on the last day (today after work) I was like, “Ehh, why not”, so yeah… It looks pretty rough.
"… Hey now… That"s supposed to be like, the first thing you do in that situation… Well in any case, was there anything else?"
"Well the day before yesterday, when we were escorting a caravan heading south, we were attacked by a similar case with forest wolves… There were a lot of people there, so I"m not so sure about the whole situation…"
Maybe it was a bad idea selling that ‘Elite" carca.s.s to that merchant without going through the guild first.
"What was that! You actually encountered two of these situations in such a short time!?"
Having said that, Ohmas thought for a bit.
"In any case, we should probably keep this case silent. I"ll speak with the higher ups about this… If another situation like this happens again, then we"ll have to take some measures…"
After the discussion, I finished up with making the health potions before leaving.
It won"t be before long when the appearance of these ‘Elite" monsters becomes known throughout.
—- Summoning Memo —-
A: Hatchet + 6/6, Kite shield (metal) + 6/6, Blood stained leather armor + 0/6.
B: Mace + 6/6, Round shield with iron frame (wood) + 6/6, Greek armor and helmet
C: Battle axe, Heavy round shield (bone) + 6/6 , Greek armor and helmet, Mantle
D-U: Club (Bone) + 6/6, Heavy round shield (bone) + 6/6, Greek armor and helmet 4
V+3: Club (bone) + 7/6 , Heavy round shield (bone) + 7/6, Greek armor and helmet+ 7/6
・ One stone golem
*: + X / Y describes the level of "sculptor" / "alchemist" at the time of "engraved" / "plating" for convenience.
TL Note: For those wondering, Author had suddenly stopped showing Nemo"s status at the end of every chapter.
TL Note2: Another thing, anyone know any android apps that can read Narou books like ‘‘?
There was but I can"t seem to pay for the reading service (I used VPN too)…
I just thought it"d be nice if I could listen to other novels without having to solely concentrate on this one…