Sorry for the delays. I had to volunteer at a camp and then go to AX. But I should be able to do this more regularly now. Hurray!
We asked the man a question immediately. Well, it was Fran who asked him, though.
“Can I sell goblin horns?”
“Goblin horns are extremely cheap. They can act as a mana catalyst, but their quality’s the absolute worst.”
I see. So gathering them wasn’t worth it.
But Randel wasn’t done talking yet.
“But since the Adventurer’s Guild encourages destroying any Demon race monsters as soon as they’re found, they can fetch a decent price there.”
Appraisal also encouraged me to destroy them on sight.
Come to think of it, it’s a really arbitrary description.
It clearly had a ma.s.sive grudge against the goblins. But who wrote the description in the first place? A G.o.d? Then it was probably a G.o.d that got rid of the grim reaper. Because the contents were so obviously biased.
The goblins might even feel the same way about humans, that humans are evil.
Well, even so, I didn’t have any complaints. Since I already killed them. If the description had said, “Though they have menacing faces, they are actually kind,” then I’d definitely feel guilty. But because it said the goblins are evil, I felt like I did nothing wrong. Instead, hunting them became a matter of course.
For all I know, that was the descritpion writer’s intent. Or maybe it was trying to get me to hunt the Demon race monsters.
Could the one who wrote the description really be a G.o.d? And that connects to the man’s voice I heard when I reincarnated into this world. Could that have been a G.o.d? If that was the case, then he seemed like a good person. At the very least, it didn’t sound like he was trying to manipulate me. No, wait, could that have been his plan? Wait, wait, but…
Ah, stop, stop. Thinking about this while I have no information is useless. Well, it’s not like this lack of information is doing me any harm, so I should stop thinking about it so hard.
“Your skill in taking down those Threat Level G goblins was superb.”
“Danger Level?”
It was the first time I’d heard that. Based on the context, is it a term used to indicate a demonic beast’s strength or rank?
“You don’t know what that is?”
After that, Randel explained what Threat Levels are. Well, since we didn’t have anything else to talk about, he explained in detail.
Adventurer Ranks
G: Rookies; treated like temps. Not yet true adventurers.
F: Newcomers; receive training. Treated like adventurers for the time being.
E: Does work for him or herself. Okay to proclaim oneself to be an adventurer.
D: Mid-tier adventurers. Can be party leaders.
C: Veterans. Appear superhuman to common people.
B: Elites. Not unusual for the strongest adventurer in a small guild to be this rank.
A: Heros; there are only a few in each country. Even the common people know their names. Famous to the point of being praised by bards.
S: Mythical. There are only eight in the world. Even kings bow their heads to them, and they can even give commands to guild leaders.
Demonic Beast Threat Levels
G: Small fries; an adult man can beat them. Goblin, Fanged Rat.
F: Able to destroy caravans and guards. Large Brown Bear, Five-Headed Wolf.
E: Able to destroy villages. Lesser Wyvern, Ogre.
D: Able to destroy towns. Lesser Hydra, Blast Tortoise.
C: Able to destroy large towns. Knights must mobilize right away. Tyrant Saber-Toothed Tiger, Low-ranked Demon.
B: Able to destroy nations. Crisis requiring mobilization of all a nation’s troops. High-ranked Demon, High-ranked Dragon, King-tier Giant.
A: Able to destroy continents. Demon King, King-tier Dragon, Lich.
S: Global catastrophe; demonic beasts of myths. Fenrir, G.o.d-tier Dragon.
Adventurer Ranks and Threat Levels are matched so that parties of corresponding ranks can defeat a demonic beast of that level. Or adventurers can solo kill demonic beasts that are one Threat Level lower than the adventurer’s rank.
Goblins were at the lowest level. But when more than five of them horde together into a mob, the Threat Level increases to F.
So that meant, since Fran just defeated the goblin mob alone, she was at least Adventurer Rank E.
“But this is the first time I’ve ever been attacked by a goblin mob on a highway.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You see, the adventurers regularly make their rounds here.”
So there are adventurers. He also indicated that there were guilds, so it was fantasy-esque to a T. Now I couldn’t wait to get to the guild.
“Even I can take care of a goblin or two.”
As a reference, this is what Randel’s status looked like.
Name: Randel Age: 39 years old
Race: Human
Job: Merchant
Lv: 13
HP: 32 MP: 15 Strength: 20 Agility: 22
Skills: Transport 3, Carriage Driving 2, Bargaining 2, Arithmetic 5, Business 6, Spear Wielding 3, Smart Talking 2
Equipment: Spear made of sc.r.a.p iron. leather breastplate, spiderweb coat
Well, it didn’t look like he’d lose in a one-on-one battle, but it looked like he’d be in trouble if he got surrounded. Despite being only level 4, Fran’s status outs.h.i.+ned Randel’s to a spectacular degree.
“For whatever reason, the demonic beasts have been a lot more active since a month ago.”
A month ago, he said. That was about the time that I attacked Area 5.
“Why?”
“Something must have happened at the Demon Wolf’s Plain.”
“Demon Wolf’s Plain?”
“You don’t know what that is? It’s an A rank demonic area to the east of here.”
“Is it well known?”
“Of course. It’s not one of the top ten, but it’s still rank A.”
Demonic area was the the term for things like dungeons, territories that demonic beasts controlled. Each one was given a Threat Level from G to S, and that rank A one was second from the top.
The only demonic areas above rank A are the top ten S rank areas, so rank A could easily be considered dangerous.
Did I go hunting there?
Come to think of it, the boss was strong.
But I became curious about something.
“Why is it called the Demon Wolf’s Plain?”
There were nearly no wolf-type demonic beasts there. Even the boss of the western region was a cat.
I had no way of knowing why it was called the Demon Wolf’s Plain.
“It’s because there’s a legend that a long, long time ago, an S rank demonic beast called Fenrir died there. They say that Fenrir’s mana remains in the middle of that plain even to this day. Because of that, apparently there’s an interesting phenomenon: the demonic beasts get weaker the closer you get to the center.”
Shockingly, what I thought was a barrier was actually the mana of Fenrir or something else. And it had already pa.s.sed away.
Without that barrier, my life would’ve been a lot more h.e.l.lish so I really wanted to give my thanks to Fenrir.
But could there be a connection between the place I found myself in and Fenrir? I was curious.
“People say there’s an altar or something in the middle of the plain, and there’s an object there that n.o.body knows the origin of. Several people went to investigate, but they said they couldn’t tell what it was.”
『Huh? Me? They didn’t know there was a sword there?』
“You’ve never heard that there was a sword there?”
“A sword? No, not that I can recall.”
『Hmm. I had thought that he could tell me where I came from, but it seems I won’t find an answer that easily.』
Randel didn’t have any more information beyond that. What a shame.
“Next to the Demon Wolf’s Plain is the Forest of Draining; a special forest that absorbs mana.”
I had a hard time there. It was a place I didn’t want to back to.
“Thanks to that, none of the demonic beasts from the Demon Wolf’s Plain go to the outside, but it’s not completely unaffected by the Plain’s effects. Every couple of years, the regions start fighting, or the larger demonic beasts fight each other.”
I see. Could that be s.h.i.+ft from one generation of demonic beasts to the next?
“That ends up frightening the demonic beasts that live around the Forest of Draining, and it makes them a whole lot more aggressive. Maybe there’s a fight happening in one of the regions?”
That was totally my fault. Because I hunted all of the regional bosses.
Could the aftereffects of that have reached all the way here? Teheh.
Randel hesitated over whether to turn back on the highway, but then he wouldn’t be able to keep the deadline for his transport request, so he decided to forge on through.
Hahaha. Sorry about that, Randel-san. As an apology, I won’t try and export more from you for being your escort. I really am sorry.
Two hours after we got on the wagon.
“Oh, there’s Alessa.”
I saw what looked like a wall on a far hill. It looked like a protective wall constructed around a town.
Though we could see it, it was still incredibly far away.
After two more hours on that rickety wagon, I could barely start making out the details of the wall.
Now that I was looking at it from close by, it was extremely big.
According to Randel’s explanation, this was the biggest town in the area. With about ten thousand residents.
And it seemed that Alessa was the only place with a large adventurer’s guild.
And that was when I realized I had forgotten to ask something important to Randel.
“How much is the entrance fee?”
“Ahh, it’s 300 gold.”
Bad news, we were short.
He said that everywhere but the Adventurer’s Guild treated goblin horns as worthless, so what do we do?
I should ask him about all the prices while we had the chance. So that way, I could make some plans for how much to bring for next time.
“How much for a day’s lodging and food? The cheapest place is fine.”
“Lodging, you say. The worst inn’s price was about 200 gold, I think. Of course, there’s no food there.”
The average meal costed 50 gold. One loaf of bread was 10 gold. The cheapest knife was 300 gold. One bath costed 20 gold.
This was the feel I got from this. 1 gold was worth about 10 yen?
One copper coin was worth 1 gold, and the denominations went copper coin, large copper coin, silver coin, large silver coin, gold coin, large gold coin, and each one was worth 10 of the coins before it.
“How much are goblin horns at the guild?”
“One pair is worth 20 gold. And they’d fetch about 5 gold from a merchant.”
Cheap! Goblins are so cheap! To think that we can’t even pay for lodging unless we hunt over ten of them…
But what should we do? Even if we sold the horns from the eight goblins, we still wouldn’t have the 300 gold.
Maybe I should sell the demonic beast loot I have in my Dimensional Storage?
That was what I thought, but Randel told us that he couldn’t buy them.
“The goods I deal in are mostly food-stuffs and weapons. I’m not so sure when it comes to cheap, common things like goblin horns, but I can’t give a professional evaluation of that loot.”
Oh no, what do I do? Should I force him to buy it, even at a low price? But that’s also a waste…
As I was worrying about this, my Detection picked up something new.
Further along the highway.
I had Randel slow down and we scouted ahead
There were goblins hiding in the forest. They were probably waiting to ambush someone.
We ended them in a flash with Fran’s Sword Techniques and my magic.
We retrieved horns from the five goblins, when our eyes fell on one goblin’s sword.
A club probably wouldn’t be worth a thing, but I thought that a sword should fetch at least a small price.
『What luck. We might have 300 gold if we sell this to Randel.』
We asked Randel about it, and he bought it for 100 gold. It was more expensive than I thought.
“You’re buying it for so much?”
“It may be made of bronze, but it’s in good condition. It must have gotten the sword from an adventurer recently.”
We really were lucky. And so, we were able to enter the town.
We should hold onto the goblin horns and submit them to the guild.
On the way, we hunted one more demonic beast, and we sold its loot to Randel.
It was a fifty centimeter long, umber beetle called Black Bug. Apparently its carapace is used for armor for beginners. He said he knew how much this was worth, so he bought it for 20 gold. It may actually be better to focus on goblins that have weapons. Goblins were truly fated to be hunted by me.
“Yo. Randel, it’s you. You look no worse for the wear.”
“Yeah, though there were some close shaves along the way.”
“And that young lady?”
“Picked her up while on my way here. Could you take care of her entrance procedures?”
“Got it. You sure were lucky that Randel’s wagon was pa.s.sing by. I bet you felt safe, since Randel is so strong.”
Randel gave a wry smile at the gatekeeper’s words. When the truth was, Fran was the one escorting Randel.
We didn’t want to attract attention, so we asked Randel to just call Fran a traveler he picked up while coming here.
“That’ll be 300 gold. That’s the entrance fee. It’s good for three days. Pay close attention to that, since you’ll have to pay again if you try and come in again after that.”
We had already heard that before. And that after becoming either legal citizens or receiving an adventurer card, there was no entrance fee.
Thus, we needed to get an adventurer card as soon as possible.
“Welcome to Alessia.”
He said there was no age restriction for joining the Adventurer’s Guild. But there was an apt.i.tude test, and if we failed to pa.s.s, then they wouldn’t issue us a card.
“Then I’ll be going back to my shop. Fran-san, will you be going straight to the Adventurer’s Guild?
“Un.”
“My shop is at the far west from there. Come by when you have some free time.”
After saying that, Randel left.
He didn’t ask us anything even while leaving. Completely ignorant of the ways of the world, but possessed of incredible skill, such a strange little girl was walking by herself along the highway. There was clearly a story behind this. But he didn’t mention this even until the end. He was a good person.
He said he does business with adventurers, so we should meet with him when we have some money.
『Then shall we go?』
“Un.”