Chapter 3 Adventurer’s Guild and a Promise
Our first morning at the inn.
It was natural for Fran to mumble that she didn’t know where she was.
Well, I don’t sleep, so I didn’t have to wake up.
I woke up Fran who wasn’t much of a morning person and got her dressed.
I cleaned her body with purification magic, and I washed her face with water I made with magic.
Fran had short cut hair, long at the sides and slightly curly at the ends. Because of her curly hair, her head looked like a bird’s nest in the morning, and I didn’t forget to tidy up her hair with water.
“h.e.l.lo.”
『How’d you sleep?』
“Like a log.”
After that, we went to the restaurant and ate breakfast.
“h.e.l.lo. The set course is here!”
The server set down a wooden tray in front of Fran.
On the tray was hard, black bread, a rolled omelette, two sausages, and a hard-boiled egg. It also came with a small bowl of soup.
『How is it?』
“Tasty.”
After being a slave for so long, it looked like Fran was really enjoying her food. She was scarfing it all up.
Good, good. Eat well and grow.
‘But Master’s cooking is definitely better.’
She said the same thing when she ate dinner last night.
『Haha, there’s no need to say that.』
‘For real. I want to eat Master’s cooking.’
This was natural since I maxed out my Cooking skill. It was strange that the best cook in this city was a sword.
Perhaps it was thanks to my memories from my previous life, but I could make more kinds of food than Fran despite our identical skill levels.
Even though we both had the Cooking Master t.i.tle.
Well, I guess this means no matter how high your level, it’s impossible to make food that doesn’t exist in this world.
In the future, I may have to come up with a way to both cook and preserve food on a large scale.
『After we take a request and leave the city, I’ll make you lunch.』
“I can’t wait. Let’s go.”
『Then we’d better go find a request.』
“Un.”
And so, we went to the Adventurer’s Guild.
“h.e.l.lo.”
“Good morning. Have you come to get a request?”
“Un.”
“The requests board is over there. Because you are a G rank adventurer, please take care as you can only take F or G rank requests. They will be on the far left.”
We took a look at the G rank requests, first.
Because there weren’t many G rank adventurers to begin with and it was early in the morning, there was n.o.body in front of the board.
『Collect herbs, hunt wild pigs, weed a field, clean trash from a road?』
“My energy’s gone.”
『Same here. Plus the reward is small.』
How will the F rank requests look?
『It’s a little better but…』
Eliminate five goblins, saving Fanged Rats, collecting mushrooms in the forest.
They were all extremely dull. But these were the only requests we could take.
Fran is clearly under-leveled, so I guess we should hunt small fries until her level goes up.
“Then this one.”
『Collect herbs, huh. Well, I guess this’ll be fine for our first one?』
Our target was heal gra.s.s, a herb that was used to make rank 5 potions.
There were lots of them in the forest.
“This one.”
“Okay. You have selected this request. You’re all set.”
“Un.”
“Do you know what heal gra.s.s looks like? If not, we do have a reference here.”
“It’s okay.”
“Understood. If you complete five requests, you can become an F rank adventurer, so please do your best.”
“Un. Thanks.”
“Of course.”
It seemed like Nel-san was in a really good mood after the commotion yesterday. Thank goodness.
『Great, then let’s go!』
“Un.”
We were able to cross the gate easily by showing our guild card. The gatekeeper may have recognized Fran, because he was surprised after finding out that she was an adventurer.
『Which way do you want to go?』
“Um… That way.”
『And why that way?』
“A feeling.”
That was a good answer. It wasn’t like it was an urgent request, so we could work however we wanted.
『Let’s also pick up some other herbs while we’re getting the heal gra.s.s. That way, we might be able to complete another request when we get back.』
“Master is a genius.”
『Hahaha. Feel free to praise me more.』
“Master is an amazing genius.”
We walked carefree through the forest.
We already collected the needed amount of heal gra.s.s.
We also collected lots of different herbs, mushrooms, and fruits.
By using the Collection, Herbology, and Cooking skills, we could tell what plants were useful.
In addition, Sense Danger was useful. It told us the how dangerous a poisonous substance was even if we didn’t know how best to use that material. In other words, we could sense what materials could be best used as poison.
Because we could store as much as we wanted in Dimensional Storage, we collected everything that we were curious about.
“Master.”
『Yeah』
Fran suddenly stopped in her tracks.
But I wasn’t surprised because I also detected something.
『Are they goblins? There’re more than a dozen of them.』
“Un.”
『But there sure are a lot of goblins around here.』
Fran already had her hand on my handle and was fully ready for combat. I didn’t stop her.
A goblin mob was also easy pickings for Fran, so it was perfect for farming experience points.
I wouldn’t recommend this for normal beginners, though.
『Are they surrounding a group of adventurers?』
“Over there.”
『Three adventurers. And as for the goblins, there are…』
“Thirteen.”
『There’re even high rank goblins as well.』
Goblin Soldier, Goblin Thief, and Goblin Archer types seemed to be leading the mob.
In contrast, the adventurers looked to still be noobs. They had cheap equipment on their bodies and they were clearly deathly frightened by the goblin mob surrounding them.
『One warrior, one archer, and one magician. They have a balanced team, but it must be tough since the goblins are right up next to them.』
In addition, all of them had received damage. The magician seemed to have suffered a ma.s.sive injury.
“I want to save them.”
『Okay.』
“I’m going to cut down their numbers with magic then end them all.”
At the same time, we cast earth magic.
I cast Stone Barrage, a weak spell that shot small rocks like bullets from a gun. But because I loaded five times more mana than normal, it was as if each of the rocks was shot out of a cannon; they were strong enough to hit multiple targets if they were bunched up.
It seemed like this technique was only possible for someone with the Magician skill like me. Unfortunately, the skill couldn’t be shared with Fran so she could only use it normally.
We could probably take them all out with fire magic, but we were afraid to use start a fire in the forest.
“Stone Arrow.”
『Stone Barrage.』
Fran’s spell took out one, my spell took out five; altogether, we defeated six goblins in an instant. Among them was one Goblin Thief.
Fran’s level went up. I guess among the small fry goblins, there is always an high rank one.
The goblins had no idea what just happened, and they all devolved into chaos. In that opening, Fran suddenly approached the goblins.
『There’re seven left.』
“Hup.”
She mowed down two of them while they were distracted, and she stood between the adventurers and the goblins.
Of course, I was doing my part as well. I used Stone Arrow to take care of the Goblin Archer that was giving the adventurers the most trouble.
“Huh? Why’s a kid here?”
“She’s strong!”
The adventurers were surprised.
A Soldier recovered from the surprise that had stricken many of the goblins, and led the charge towards us.
“Gyagyaoooh!”
Oh my. They decided to charge at a strong opponent without a moment’s hesitation.
Though they were goblins, they had good judgement.
『That won’t do you any good! Stone Barrage!』
I didn’t need a break anyway, so I continued to cast spells even during combat.
I already finished casting Stone Barrage.
The two goblins to our right vomited blood after getting hit and subsequently lost their lives.
The two goblins that came at Fran from the left couldn’t even come close to equalling her.
“Slow.”
The last two goblins were cut down in an instant by a Double Slash.
In just twenty seconds, the adventurers’ situation had made a complete reversal, and they stared blankly at us.
A part of me wanted to continue looking at their dumbfounded faces, but leaving their injured party member as he was was dangerous.
『Healing magic would fix this.』
I checked his status, and saw that only his HP had gone down.
There weren’t any torn limbs, either.
『A normal heal is enough.』
“——Healing Light, Circle Heal.”
A Healing Magic 7 spell, Circle Heal created an area of HP regen.
The two who were fine had still received a little damage, so she must have decided to heal them all.
She’s such a nice girl!
“Such a small kid can use Circle Heal?”
“Wow! That’s a medium rank spell!”
They were surprised. The female archer’s eyes widened in shock at the male warrior’s words.
“And isn’t that also a magic sword?”
Whooa, she realized what I was.
Well, I definitely had a more n.o.ble appearance than other swords, so someone with discerning eyes would notice. Though this was quite a pain.
“M-More importantly, Eustace! Are you okay?!”
“I am?”
“Huh? Your wounds are all better?”
The magician who had been badly injured was also perfectly fine.
You’d better watch out, though. If any of you try to pick on her or use her, you’ll be in for a world of trouble!
“Are you okay?”
“Ah, yes. You saved us.”
“Thanks. C’mon, you too!”
“Huh? Ah, thanks.”
Hmm. They started with a greeting. That was the basics.
Regardless, they looked different than the idiots from yesterday.
“Are you, um…an adventurer?”
“Un.”
“Excuse me, but would it be okay if I asked you your name?”
“Fran.”
The adventurers exchanged glances after Fran told them her name.
‘Do you know her?’
‘No. There’s no way I wouldn’t know about such a skilled kid.’
‘Yeah, I think so too.’
‘I don’t know who she is, either.’
That was what it felt like they were saying.
“My name’s Krall. She’s Lily, and my friend over there is Eustace.”
He gave us very polite introductions.
But it seemed like Fran had already lost interest in them.
“Okay. Later.”
It seemed like she wanted to check her leveled up status right away.
『Are you okay? Who knows, they might give us a reward.』
‘I’d feel bad for them.’
Well, is that so. They were clearly noobs. There was no way we could expect an amazing reward. It seemed more likely that we’d end up extorting them of something.
But Krall, the warrior who seemed to be the leader of their group, grabbed hold of Fran as she tried to leave.
“P-Please wait.”
“Hm?”
“These goblins that you killed belong to you.”
“What? You mean this young lady killed all these goblins? What’re you talking about?”
“That’s enough, now quiet down!”
“After you saved our lives, there’s no way we could also accept your help.”
His heart was in the right place.
He might end up peeved if we refused.
『Shouldn’t it be okay to pick up the loot from the high rank goblins?』
“Okay. I’ll only take the high rank ones.”
“Huh? There were high rank monsters here as well?!”
Hey, Krall’s friend, you didn’t even know that?
It was admittedly difficult to tell by their appearance, but high rank ones were bigger and their horns were a bigger longer as well.
“Un.”
Fran disregarded the three surprised adventurers and harvested the materials.
The soldier, thief, and archer adventurers’ faces made a drastic change.
Fran put the horns and magic crystals in her pocket at her side.
The pocket was a ruse. She pretended to put the items in her pocket but instead put them in Dimensional Storage.
“There were three high rank demonic beasts?”
“Wasn’t this super dangerous? We need to tell the guild…”
“No, wait a sec. Were they really high rank ones?”
“Most likely. Those three are definitely bigger than the rest.”
They were more bewildered than we thought they’d be.
It seemed like a problem had arisen.
“What’s wrong?”
“You see, if three high rank demonic beasts show up at the same time, we need to report this to the guild.”
“Why?”
“Does that mean you don’t know?”
“Un?”
“If there’re high rank ones, there might even be a King.”
When compiled, the adventurers’ explanations went like this:
When a goblin mob has a King, the mob’s cohesion improves markedly and its combat power goes up as well.
I knew this as well.
Also, the number of demonic beasts would increase, the number that would die easily decreased, and the number of high rank evolved demonic beasts would increase.
Then their combat ability and their numbers would increase, resulting in a worst case scenario.
And if the mob reaches a certain size, a Queen is born. The reason why I didn’t find a Queen in the plains was probably because there were too many strong demonic beasts that stopped the goblins from reaching a big enough size.
The important thing was that when a King and a Queen get together, all of their offspring are hobgoblins.
And hobgoblins had a threat level of F. One rank higher than goblins. Apparently, even if a mob of normal goblins is led by a King, they can reach Threat Level D. In that vein, if a King leads a mob of hobgoblins, they would reach Threat Level C.
“If that happens, then there’s nothing we can do. It’d end up as a demonic beast catastrophe.”
“I can’t even imagine how many towns would disappear if that happened.”
I see. To the adventurers in this area, this was a matter of life and death.
Though I could only see the goblins as nothing more than food, this was also a threat to Fran.
Then it was best to get rid of those goblins as soon as possible.
“We will go report this right away to the Adventurer’s Guild.”
As they said that, they picked up the corpses of the high rank goblins.
Because even if they didn’t have any of their loot, their corpses should act as sufficient evidence.
“Un.”
“Then please pardon us.”
“Thank you so much for today.”
“I don’t really know what happened, but it seems like you saved us. Thanks!”
We ended up getting our hands on the loot from the goblins, and we saved some promising young people, so this didn’t end too badly.
『I’ll absorb the magic crystals now.』
Fran took out the magic crystals in a place far from the newbie party, and I absorbed them.
Though they only had skills I already had, collecting these minor bits of experience was important.
Thank you very much for the meal.
“Um, could you take a look at my status?”
『Yeah, okay. I’ll take a look.』
“Un.”
Name: Fran Age: 12 years old
Race: Beastfolk. Black Cat
Job: Spellsword
Lv: 4
HP: 41 MP: 29 Strength: 28 Agility: 49
Her stats went up by a lot. Though her strength and MP should have only went up by 1, they actually went up by 4. This was because of her job, Spellsword. I told Fran about her stat increases.
“Feels good.”
『Me too. Let’s keep this up and level up.』
“Oh yeah.”
Fran even looked cute when she expressionlessly raised her fist toward the sky.
Great, I should give it my all and find some prey as well!