Noru is the cutest!
I added a Noru’s ill.u.s.tration on this chapter.
Enjoy and hnngghhh~
Translator: Raizu
TLC/Editor: Sushi
Chapter 9
Behind the helm
Several days after the Wolf subjugation request, it was back to days of hunting for magic stones again.
It has mostly been smooth sailing in our hunt for manastones, although the pace is slower compared to when we first started out we have gotten up to 38 now.
Fufu, soon it will be time for the Second Heihachi Carnival.
The amount of money in our possession has long since surpa.s.sed 1 million G.
I was thinking of getting personal rooms at the inn we stay at, but when I asked Noru, she rejected with a "We"re good as it is now!" so I won"t bother for now.
Oh well, there are no problems in particular, I can converse with her normally as it is now so this isn"t a big deal for now.
“Oh, isn"t it Okura. Whatcha up to here.”
“Ah, Grin-san, Thank you for the help the other day.”
Today, another day of looking for requests at the Adventurers Guild.
While I was doing that I was called out by a familiar voice.
It was Grin-san, who accompanied us on the carriage escort request previously.
“Let"s drop the stiff greetings. So, what are you doing here at the Adventurers’ guild?”
“Well, actually we have became adventurers too.”
“Ah~, you two are pretty strong. It hasn"t been long since that time, I"m guessing you two are currently around F-rank? ”
” No, we"re E-rank currently.”
Come to think of it, it"s been what, 10 days since we became adventurers?
I got no idea if we are going fast or slow… but we have only been doing client based requests and monster subjugations so it kinda feels unexpectedly easy.
“……Dude that"s fast.”
“Grin-san? Are you acquainted with Okura-sama and co.?”
When I was talking to Grin-san, the receptionist lady approached us.
She seems to be holding some doc.u.ments …. Don"t tell me it’s another request again.
“Oh, Mana-chan. They"re the ones who helped me when I got attacked by that army of monsters a whiles back.”
“Is that so. By the way Grin-san, Okura-sama, are you all available right now?”
"Nn? What"s up?"
“Right, an escort request has just came in. This request is looking for roughly 3 applicants, here are the details.”
It was a request just as I expected.
It feels like too much of a coincidence that the request is looking for 3 applicants. Also, Noru and me are being treated as a set already.
More importantly, receptionist-san"s name has finally become known.
So she is called Mana-san. I didn"t ask for her name up til now cause I felt a little apprehensive.
Well then, I received the doc.u.ment from Mana-san and had a look.
Hmm, escort and protect a carriage up til the village of Rubergu? Looks like we"ll be following on foot.
Guess we can accept this. The reward is 100,000 G.
“Ugee… We"re gonna need to pa.s.s through Bistros forest.”
“What kind of place is that?”
Grin-san, who was also reading the doc.u.ment, spoke out in a sorta disgusted voice.
When I asked for the details, it seems that we have to pa.s.s through a place called Bistros forest to reach the village of Ruberugu.
It"s a place where you can pa.s.s through easily usually, but there are rumours that really strong monsters appear every so often.
“Well, if it"s with you two, I guess we"ll be okay.”
“Although it"s slightly troubling to expect so much from us… we"ll be going too. Is that alright with you, Noru?”
Grin-san has taken care of us before, he"s one of the few acquaintances we have in this world.
It"s not a bad thing to cooperate with others.
When I turned around to get confirmation from Noru, all I got was "Ehehe~" as she stared at the stuffed toy that she has on her palm with a sloven face.
Isn"t that the stuffed toy I gave her that time…
“He~y.”
“Fue!? Ah, I-I"m fine!”
“You really are liking that aren"t you…”
She definitely wasn"t listening to our conversation earlier. Well she"s coming along either way, so it"s all good I guess.
“Grin-san, can I ask you for a little favor?”
“Hmm? What is it?”
“Can I look at Grin-san using this for awhile?”
“What"s that? Well go ahead.”
We gathered at the carriage which is what we are defending, and we started the request.
It is said that it takes 2 days to reach the village of Ruberugu on foot.
Food and other essentials are inside the magic bag that I"m carrying, our preparation for camping out is flawless.
While we were moving, I asked Grin-san for a small favor so I could try something out.
What I took out was the smartphone. With it, I"m going to have a look at Grin-san"s status.
There are no other people around right now, so there is no worry of being seen by other people.
You wouldn"t know where there would be prying eyes on the streets, so it"s not a good idea to try this carelessly.
I wanted to have a look at adventurers who actively battle if possible, and this was the perfect opportunity.
“Please excuse me then.”
——
Grin
Race: Human
Level: 30
HP: 500
MP: 0
Attack Power: 200
Defense Power: 160
Agility: 40
Magic Resistance: 5
Unique Ability: None
Skills: None
——
Muu, this is… This might sound disrespectful, but the numbers are awfully low.
As expected, it seems that me and Noru are the ones who have abnormal numbers for our stats.
Is it because my status is pretty much the same as the protagonist unit? This pretty much confirms my suspicion that GC units have insane combat prowess in this world.
“Thank you very much.”
“Oh? Just what did you do?”
Obviously this is information that should not be spread around.
What I have understood from seeing this status, is everything related to my equipment is also abnormal.
Considering the time when I looked at Noru with this, it looks like the status boosts from equipment are not displayed when using this status app.
“Come to think of it, aren"t most adventurers the warrior kind? Are there no priests or magic users?”
“I have thought about this before, but you two don"t seem to be familiar with stuff here. I remember you said that you both came from a distant land.”
As I didn"t want to be probed about the smartphones, I changed the topic.
I also took the chance to ask about a topic I have been wondering about.
I did deceive him about where we came from the last time we met, looks like this"ll work for this time.
This was something I have always been thinking about after becoming an adventurer, of the many adventurers I have seen there are the tanks who uses large shields, then there are the attackers who use either sword, axe or spear, and the ranged bow users.
These are the only types I have seen so far.
The typical staff using priests or magic users of fantasy.
I have seen none of those.
“Priests and magicians do not become adventurers. Most of them are healers exclusive to the Royal Capital Suting. Magicians go to a School in Queres, and enter Suting"s military after graduation.”
"I see. So that"s why I never did see any of them at the adventurers guild."
Healers huh. There surely is demand for them, and when compared to being an adventurer they earn more this way plus it"s a whole lot safer.
The situation seems similar for magicians. They are entering the military, so that means they are being hired by the country.
The amount of risk is probably the same as adventurers, but it"s more stable of a job.
“That"s how it is. Any adventurer party would have an advantage just by having either a priest or a magician in the party. In fact, many A rank adventurer parties have both of them.”
"Have Grin-san met A-rank adventurers before?”
“Yep. You two are amazing too, but A-rank adventurers are in a different league altogether. I saw some when I took part in a big dragon subjugation request in the past. They are like a gathering of people who quit being human. Even a D-rank like me saw them that way. Well, I"m sure you two can definitely get to B-rank."
So Grin-san is D-rank. It"s hard to imagine just how strong the A-rankers are.
There is still too little information.
I have to aim to establish a status voyeurism method inside of town.
“Uo!? ”
“Uwa!?”
“Wh-what’s the matter?”
While we were moving alongside the carriage, there was a "dosun" sound and the ground suddenly shook.
We have already been walking for more than half a day, so we are already inside the Bistros Forest.
Tremors of this level in the Bistros forest. Should we expect a monster?
“Y-you guys better run away! I-it"s a Cyclops, a Cyclops has appeared!”
It was the shouting of the client who was on the driver box.
And from the forest ahead, a one-eyed giant that was grey all over made it"s appearance.
A single sharp horn protrudes from its forehead.
In its hand was a 3m club. It was so tall you couldn"t see its whole frame without looking up.
5m, no, it"s probably even more than that.
“A-are you s.h.i.tting me…. O-oi, you two should also hurry up and start running!!”
“We ain"t fighting it?”
“What stupid stuff are you saying! That"s a Cyclops you know? Its rank for subjugation is C-rank. You can"t win if you don"t have a C-rank adventurer party! Dammit, why is there a Cyclops here of all places….”
Grin-san, who saw the monster, was about to make his escape together with the client who got off the carriage.
That fella sure is big and scary.
However, I got Noru on my side. Even a Cyclops should be no problem as long as she is here.
But, it"s probably a better idea to run if it becomes a situation where she needs to use her skill.
I wouldn"t want Noru to get muscle aches again, and it"ll also be dangerous if we get attacked by monsters on the way back.
So I quickly took out my smartphone and captured the Cyclops on camera.
——
Race: Cyclops
Level: 45
HP: 26,000
MP: 0
Attack Power: 700
Defense Power: 500
Agility: 10
Special ability: Nullify Special Effect
Special skill: None
——
Umu, that"s alot of HP. Its attack power is also fairly high.
And… Nullify Special Effect!? Hey, what the heck is with that pinpoint ability.
That cuts Noru"s effectiveness in half… What should be our course of action.
She"s got over 2000 defense, so I don"t need to worry about her taking damage.
As for me, I got about 500, after adding the defense from my armor. I can take afew hits.
Because my attack power is around 850, I"ll only deal 350-ish damage.
Noru"s attack power should be close to 2,500 so she should able to inflict around 2000-ish damage. Noru should be able to defeat it in 13 attacks.
However, other monsters might appear if we take too long.
“I guess she should be able to handle this much. Noru!”
“I understand! Do I need to use my skill?”
“No need for that… The aftereffect would hurt more than the boost. Gotta slow it down first, let"s go!”
“Oi, don"t do it you fools!”
Ignoring Grin-san"s words, me and Noru ran off.
My running right now is pretty fast, though it"s nothing compared to Noru at full speed. Nike’s shoes sure are handy.
The Cyclops quickly noticed us, it began raising its arms in preparation to swing its club.
“Oops, haha. These shoes are really wonderful.”
“That"s some good movement you got there Okura-dono.”
Before the Cyclops could start its run and swing down its club, I run past it and got behind it.
And the moment the Cyclops swings down its club, Noru jumps to the side.
Then she uses her sword and slashes the arm which was swung down. Now the Cyclops is afflicted with the action speed -50% debuff.
The speed of raising the swinged arm is also slow, so me and Noru use this chance to land attacks on the Cyclops.
After that I thought we could finish it off by just rinsing and repeating.
But at the moment I pierced somewhere around the back of its knee with Baaru, the Cyclops began falling backwards as though it lost all of its HP.
“Eh?”
“Okura-dono!”
The large body was about to fall ontop of me, before it turned into drop items.
But, just when I thought I heard Noru"s voice, a strong sudden impact hits my body and I was knocked further back.
I crashed onto the ground and felt pain on my back, looks like I was saved.
When I looked in front of myself, it was Noru who hugged me and jumped away together.
“O, oi, Noru! Are you alright!?”
“This hurts, how about you?”
“Eh, ah, yeah?”
I panicked and called out to her, but there was something different about the voice that replied.
The helm which she stubbornly didn"t want to remove was gone, and I see a girl with long silver hair hugging me.
And my eyes met with her crystal clear blue eyes.
A childish baby face, Noru has exposed her face before me.
We were looking at each other at so close a distance we can hear each other breathing, I received a shock as if my head got hit with a hammer.
To put into simple words what I"m thinking right now, she"s super cute.
" Ehehe, I"m so glad~"
” Well, how about you, are you alright too?”
While she was slightly surprised as she looked at my face, she finally noticed something was out of place from hearing my tone.
Something doesn"t feel right, just what is it? Did you hit your head or something?
“Eh? What is— A, aaAAaA!? He-helm, my helm is gone!”
She finally realized her helm was missing, and she frantically moved away from me.
“Nuuu, don"t look, don"t look at me…”
And she hid her face with an almost crying voice.
Even though she stood up, she sits back down in a "girl"s sitting form" as though she lost all strength.
Just what is this, this feeling I have now.
Having seen her like this, it"s like I opened a door i wasn"t supposed to open.
“He-hey, here"s your helm.”
“Uuu, *sniff*, I have been seen… and heard too… *sniffs*.. I"ve had enough….I wanna go home…”
“Just, sorry. I really am.”
After looking around a little her helm rolled off somewhere closeby. I picked it up and brought it to her, she s.n.a.t.c.hed the helm out of my hands with tremendous speed and put it back on.
And, she crouched down hugging her head.
I can tell from her voice that she was really crying. This is some tremendous sense of guilt I"m getting.
I crouched down beside her and rubbed her back, and kept on apologizing. Just what is this situation.
●
Noru · f.a.gna
Level 12 → 16
HP 1780 → 1940
MP 190 → 230
Attack Power 410 → 450
Defense Power 295 → 315
Agility 69 → 73
Magic Resistance 30
Cost 15
●
【Leader】Okura Heihachi
Level 11 → 15
HP 770 → 810
MP 95 → 115
Attack power 255 → 275
Defense power 195 → 215
Agility 35 → 39
Magic resistance 10