Kujonin
Author: Hanakuroko
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Story 12It"s my first forest.
In actuality, it would be, aside from the first time when I fell into this world.
At that time, I was searching for signs of people without having the mind for leisurely enjoying the scenery, but now I am able to enjoy the humus that I"m stepping on and the sunlight hitting the green leaves.
As if she was giving a warning, Irene said that recently there were goblins of a different, so "do take note."
"At that time, I wasn"t sure what I should be taking note of, but does Balzack know?"
"Basically, there might be a new species of goblin, possibly a powerful breed particular to this area, and you should take note of this when fighting, is what it means."
"Is that it… Balzack is someone you can rely on, huh?"
"Naoki-sama"s level is high, but you really don"t know about anything."
"Nothing at all, naa. But man, the weather"s great. For there to really be monsters is, bu-bu- !!!"
Something came jumping out at my face.
There was pretty much no damage, but it scared me badly.
When I look at it, it"s a rabbit the size of a medium-sized dog with a horn growing from it that"s menacing us.
"It"s a forabbit!"(Balzack)
"Is that so; shall we run?"
"Please don"t run from this kind of opponent!"
When Balzack said so, his sword completely took it down.
"You"re strong, huh? Balzack."
"That"s not it! It"s this sword that"s weird! What shall we do, strip the fur?"
"It"s fine. Let"s just take the subjugation proof and go."
"Understood. Should we burn the corpse?"
"There"s that too."
Balzack cut the ears off, and I drew a magic circle on the ground to incinerate it.
"Good grief; I wonder why don"t you use that power in battle?"
"That"s right. I"ll do that next time."
After walking for a while, all sorts of forabbits and masmascarl types came running out.
All of them were incinerated, and Balzack got mad at me with, "The subjugation proof aren"t left behind, right?!"
If he gets mad, then it"s troublesome, naa; when I looked in another direction, I realized that there was a purple, human-shaped monster-like thing looking this way in the shadow of a tree.
"Balzack, is that a goblin?"
"That"s right. However, the color is wrong. Isn"t that what Irene-sama was talking about?"
"What should I do? It"s not good if I incinerate it again, I guess?"
"I will go instead!"
When Balzack said that, he mowed it down with his sword from the side.
The different-colored goblin dodged it by squatting, but the tree he was hiding near was completely cut through and fell over.
The goblin dodged the tree and fled in a fl.u.s.ter.
"Now then, let"s chase it."
Balzack said as he resheathed the sword into the sheathe at his waist.
"Chase it?"
"Yes, because its comrades might be nearby. If it does have comrades, we can finish the request in one go."
Balzack gave chase, running into the inner forest.
I as well gave followed one step behind him.
I normally don"t exercise enough so my speed is a little slow, but somehow I manage to follow after.
As expected, should I do some jogging at least?
It"s just, my endurance is way more than enough so I didn"t get tired at all.
After running about 10 minutes on, the goblin disappeared.
Balzack, who was running in the front, stood still and motioned for me to stop.
There were all sorts of trees cut down, forming a large depression where the surface of the ground was exposed.
The den the goblin ran away to extended diagonally along the bottom of the depression.
It"s big enough for an adult to enter, but if there"s a bunch of traps installed then it could get troublesome.
"Are we intending to enter this?"
"How about it? Although it"s no problem for me because of my nose. If Naoki-sama has the Search skill, then…"
"I have it. It would have been better if I had done this from the beginning."
When I took a look with the Search skill, I found out that the den spread out very extensively.
Furthermore, the number of goblins inside are at the scale where you can"t count them; a number where 100 or 200 wouldn"t be sufficient to use as units.
The entrance of the cave also has many; about 6 are there.
"Right then, what should we do?"
I consulted with Balzack.
"I think it would be best to think about it as something along the lines of Naoki-sama"s specialization of extermination-type requests."
"Maa, we can"t just leave it like this, I guess. That said, burning them all won"t fulfill our request."
So saying, I fished around the contents of my bag.
What I took out was a Va○san type insecticide and a sticky board.
"Do you think these will do it?"
"What will? What are those?"
"A pesticide that you use for large areas. If you switch the insides for sleeping drug and throw it in, I think we"ll manage somehow."(Naoki)
"And this is a board that has some adhesive, but for now I want Balzack to go pick mushrooms for the sleep drug." (also Naoki)
"Understood. Is the type that"s at Elf"s Pharmacy suitable?"
"You know which ones?"
"Yes, I watched Camilla-sama work, after all."
"Then, I"ll request that of you. Oh right, take this with you."
So saying, I took out two pouches, drew magic circles on them, and handed them to Balzack.
"Try talking to that."
"E? To this?"
["E? To this?"]
You can hear Balzack"s voice from the pouch.
"See? Even if you"re far away, it"s a bag you can put a little magic into to talk. Well, after a certain amount of time the magic circle disappears, so it lasts about 2 hours. Take this with you. We"ll meet up later."
"My word, it"s splendid! I understand."
Balzack carried the pouch like it was something precious and then disappeared into the forest.
"Now then, I"ll have to bring down the entrances here."
I drew a magic circle and went off to block the entrance with earth magic. s
I prioritized blocking entrances when there weren"t goblins, and when the comings and goings were going to be particularly busy I drew a magic circle on a plank of wood and threw it in.
Anyone with magic power that pa.s.sed by would cause rocks to rain down.
Even though they"re goblins they should have magic power.
Sure enough, there was a big commotion when a single goblin appeared and a rock squished him.
One by one I threw them in and the entrance was sealed off.
For now the entrance is blocked off and I need to search for air holes.
And here, Balzack contacted me.
["Sleep shrooms have been obtained. Can you hear me, Naoki-sama?"
"Aa, I hear you. Then come to the entrance that the goblin that ran away went to at the beginning."
I met up with Balzack and made a strong sleep drug.
I put the strong sleep drug I made into the Va○san and searched for an air hole.
Using the Search skill to look, I found a crack in the rock next to the river.
Because it connects to the cave, so smoke from the powerful sleep drug will enter it; I throw it into the crack.
After that is just sealing up the crack with magic circle earth magic.
After some time, it seems that the goblins inside are raging.
With the Search skill, I see that, because not all the air holes are stopped up, there is smoke coming from here and there within the forest.
Drinking a sleep drug antidote, I stopped up the places that had smoke rising with earth magic.
Balzack also drew magic circles and helped out.
When there was no more smoke coming from the ground, with Search skill I see that within the cave, the goblins" movements have become worse.
It seems like it"s effective, so all we have to do is wait.
Within that time we finished off lunch.
"Today is pretty much over."
"My goodness, when I"m with Naoki-sama, it doesn"t feel like we"re subjugating monsters at all."
"Rather then subjugation, it"s extermination after all. That"s what I do. Are? My level went up."
When I inadvertently looked at my Adventurer"s Card, the level went up to 72.
When I look with Search Skill, the red-lights that are goblins are becoming black.
"It might have been too powerful of a drug, huh?"
"Certainly, if you consume sleeping medication in big quant.i.ties you can die. Right then, let"s wait until they all die."
While taking a tea break with the herbal tea that Balzack brewed, I sit on a stump and wait.
When monsters came out, Balzack hunted them.
There were goblins who had been out and could no longer return who attacked us, so Balzack sent their heads flying.
When I threw a poison bag, I understood why they had become purple.
The poison worked on the green goblins, but didn"t work on the purple goblins.
It"s an evolved form of goblin, it seems.
Talking it over with Balzack, they"re goblins that have consumed too much poison and evolved.
When I heard about the poison, I remembered the poisoned masmascarl corpses I had been throwing into the forest.
When I thought that what goes around comes around and attacked me, I was deeply moved.
"Now then, it should be about time to open it up."
"Understood."
First I erase the magic circles on top of the air holes and move the dirt.
I get rid of the rocks in the entrance and fed air through with wind magic to get rid of the sleeping drug.
Just in case, so we would breathe in clean air, I drew a magic circle on a hand towel and covered my mouth like a mask.
There were a lot of goblins at the entrance, so we are able to cut of the right ear as the subjugation proof one after another.
Among the goblins are particularly large individuals and goblins wearing flashy clothes; Balzack taught me that these were superior species.
Superior species are those who have gotten stranger far beyond a goblin"s strength and rarely pop up around Kubenia; it happens once in many years and plants fear into beginner Adventurers.
Somehow it seems like I"ve exterminated all of them.
"Is it okay to burn all of them?"
"It might be better to report to the Guild just in case. There really aren"t goblin groups with this amount of goblins, after all. If they call in a specialist, they might be able figure out how to prevent this in the future."
"That"s true. A! The magic stones."
Among the superior species there are also ones with magic stones dead center in their chests.
They can become money, and I can use them when making magic tools, so I"ll collect them.
"However, there are also a lot of the ones with magic stones. Come to think of it, was the magic stone from the queen bee of the vespahornets recovered?" (Balzack)
"No."
"It probably had one, so I will look for it."
"Sorry, I"ll leave it to you."
When we had cut off all the goblins" right ears from their corpses, there were 636 of them.
WE cut quite a bit of these.
I"ve been cutting ears off of goblins, so my back hurts.
"To be safe, should I make this place airtight to preserve the scene?" (Naoki)
"That"s true. That method might be good."
I drew a magic circle at the entrance once again, sealing the cave.
I"m just going to leave the airholes as is.
The amount of right ears in the bag is quite tough, so we return to town and head tot he Guild.
Even if you say they"re just right ears, there"s a lot so it"s quite heavy.
When I return home, I"m going to make an item bag that won"t get heavy no matter how much you put in it.