The Encounter In The Forest
On the day we did the adventurer registration, we returned without taking any request. The reason is simply that it"s gotten late. I suppose we"ll be able to do some miscellaneous requests like transporting baggage and such if we take the request now but, it"ll end up quite late and impede on our academy life tomorrow so we pa.s.s up on it today.
And then. Next day after school, we who came once again are scouring the requests that are posted on the notice board. By the way, today, Emma and Birdon also came and they"re in the middle of their adventurer registration with Ruby-san.
“Now, what should we take? As expected, subjugation-type is better than miscellaneous-type huhh~”
Dargris asks me. However, unfortunately, the requests are the lowest rank, F Rank"s Goblin or Caterpillar, and those that are one rank above, E Rank"s Wolf, Battle Bee, or Slime. By the way, the slimes aren"t the cute slimes of a certain RPG-style of my previous life, they"re syrupy amoeblike slimes. Its organs are visible from its surface so it"s rather grotesque. And as for the slime"s attack, it spits acid. It"s a strong acid that"s strong enough to dissolve an ordinary metal sword.
“I guess it"s gotta be goblins and such?”
“Eeh~. Isn"t that no different from when we were in the village”
Dargris who objects to Rene"s opinion. Even if he says that, those are the only subjugation-type that they can take so there"s nothing we can do about it. Request tickets posted on the notice board goes up to B Rank. A Rank and above requests may be requests from n.o.bles or important requests so it seems they"re managing it at the reception.
“For the time being, let"s take the goblin request. It"s in a forest that"s somewhere about an hour walk away from here so we can get there right away”
“Yeah. If we"re dealing with goblins then we can defeat as many of them as we want so we can even go with this number of people”
and Cait also agrees with me. Goblin is an all-time subjugation request. If these guys are left alone, they multiply as they please. Like those black things1, their breeding power is not to be trifled with. Although it looks like it"s mostly Goblins that are birthing them, it seems those fellows will take anything as long as its a female, there are cases where human women are also a.s.saulted and made into seedbeds.
Additionally, it seems their meat is too revolting to eat so they"re a completely useless living thing. It seems they"ll create settlements if you leave them alone for too long.
According to what I hear, in the past, it seems there was a n.o.ble who left goblins" settlements be and despite knowing that the goblins were multiplying, was unwilling to fork out money for military funds and to commision Adventurers so the goblins multiplied too much and the n.o.ble"s territory was attacked and perished.
According to what I hear, it seems the number of goblins at that time was about 5 thousand and there"s a Goblin King there as their leader. Goblin King is a B Rank monster and in comparison to the other goblins that are roughly the size of an adult male"s waist, it apparently has a giant body that"s close to 2 metres.
Although the population of the fief was apparently about 10 thousand, there were few who can fight and by the time the national army arrived, it seems the men were killed and the women were being raped by goblins. It didn"t matter how old they were, young ones range from girls who aren"t even 10 years old all the way to old ones who are grannies. It seems there were also women whose stomach were already bulging.
Ever since that incident, the Adventurer"s Guild put out the all-time subjugation request. Under normal circ.u.mstances, there"s nowhere to sell goblins and they aren"t profitable but, because the country is forking out the money and putting out the request, payments for completions are guaranteed. Hence, it"s a profitable request for Adventurers who are poor. Nevetherless, it"s quite little so it"ll all be used up in a day.
When one subjugates a goblin, it"s worth 30 Bel per goblin. In the Royal Capital, a cheap dinner can roughly be eaten with 300 Bel so one will be able to have dinner if one works hard.
By the way, this continent"s currency is called Bel, 1 Bel coin, 10 Bel coin, 100 Bel coin, copper coins of different sizes. For the currency above that, it"s 1 thousand Bel note, 10 thousand Bel note. In this continent, paper currency is already being used like this.
This is something that"s usable throughout the continent and it seems it can"t be counterfeited because a unique magic is used on it. I hear that it"s apparently propagated by a Hero from several hundred years ago. It was at a time when people carry around silver coins and gold coins but, a Hero who disliked carrying and jingling it around taught and propagated paper currency and that"s how it came to be now. It makes me wonder whether if it went that easily but, there were probably various things to it.
It looks like Emma and Birdon"s registration finished as I"m thinking about such things and Ruby-san"s calling.
“Both their registrations have been completed. Will you receive a request today?”
“Yes, we are thinking about going to the forest and hunting goblins”
“Is that so. I think it will be fine since it is Lei-kun and guys but please be careful”
and we left the Adventurer"s Guild behind while being sent off by Ruby-san. We purchase the necessary water and so forth at a nearby store and exit the gate. We can just use Water Magic and the likes to make it but not everybody can use Water Magic and it becomes life or death if we don"t have it when we strayed from each other so we just buy it. I also just buy it in case my magic power runs out.
And then, about an hour after we exited the gate, we catch sight of the forest from afar as we"re walking on a paved road. This is our destination today.
“Now that I think about it, I"ve taken that road over there before but I"ve never entered the forest before”
“Well, it"s because there"s no need to enter. Aren"t Adventurers about the only ones who enter this place?”
Cait says. Indeed, one doesn"t enter this place normally. Trees that are about 3 meters in height are growing densely. I suppose the sunlight also only shines in very slightly because of the trees if we go inside.
“Alright, now then, shall we go in!”
and Dargris walks ahead. Rene who sees that and sighs. I"ve somehow also gotten used to seeing this.
Everybody chases after Dargris. We steadily make progress inside the forest. I wish they"d be more cautious though.
Like that, we walk for ten odd minutes…… No matter how I look at it, it"s strange. Let alone monsters, not even animals came out ever since we entered this forest. Not even the chirps of birds can be heard, what can be heard is just the sound of the trees shaking. It looks like everybody else is talking while moving ahead so they didn"t notice it. However
“Lei, it"s somewhat strange”
, looks like Ely thought so as well. It feels like it"ll be terrible if we carry on going inside like this. I tried to stop everybody so that we won"t proceed any further but, it was too late.
“Oh, we suddenly came out to an open s.p.a.ce. ……Nn, somebody"s there”
Where we finally arrived was empty s.p.a.ce, even though trees were growing densely until now, it"s as though that place alone has been emptied out. And then, over there was
“Oh? How rare it is for humans to come here”
silver long hair with purple skin. A man with sharp ears and a monocle on his right eye was standing there.
c.o.c.kroaches