"Ugh… My head still hurts… That girl knows where to land her punches."
"Brother, was she strong?"
A few minutes had passed since I woke up. According to Toba, he went in and carried me out after he heard a big commotion.
We were now sitting against a tree just outside town, it was getting dark, but I wasn't going to throw the day away, so we stopped for a quick meal before going goblin hunting.
Why outside town? Well, let's just say we had our share of civilization already, we had yet to get used to all the attention, especially Toba.
I didn't blame him though, we must have been the talk of town after what happened, and he had to endure countless stares to get me out of the guild after I fainted, including one filled with murdering intent.
Thank God she left right after, poor Toba doesn't deserve her.
We were also lucky enough to get to the inn before word started spreading, so we could get our weapons in peace before getting out of town to eat.
"I wouldn't say strong, but her punch was terrifyingly precise, and she moved like a snake after I let down my hold."
"… Like Luna?"
"Yeah… But Luna also had strength to match, and magic, and… Well, everything."
I should be extremely angry at that crazy girl… But her looks hit me even fiercer than her attacks.
No matter how much I try to channel my inner misogyny, all that comes to mind is "I can fix her".
"Anyway, enough waiting around, we have 20 goblins to kill, and I really don't want to take any longer than necessary."
"But Brother's leg…"
"Don't worry about it, it wasn't that deep, and she didn't bite off anything." As soon as I finished the sentence, my body shuddered heavily as a chill traveled my spine.
Speaking of which, with the way she was beating that dude to death, I thought for sure she would try to kill me after knocking me out… Especially since I accidentally broke her arm.
Meh, I wouldn't have died anyway. I got careless and that first punch shook my brain just right, but if she woke me up after that, I had enough strength to turn the tables around, maybe she realized it.
Or maybe I got extremely lucky… Whatever.
After eating some dried sausages, we mounted up and headed west. As I took the last bite out of mine, I couldn't help but shudder again, earning a curious stare from my brother.
…
Those were certainly plains, and we were certainly west, but no goblins were in sight.
"Sigh… I'm hyped up for our first proper quest, but these fields are completely empty."
Somehow, in my head, I imagined we would stumble upon an MMO map, filled with monsters walking around left to right like retards.
I was also pretty sure the beach we saw when we first got out of the forest looked exactly like that, at least at a distance.
As if the empty field wasn't enough, it was also raining.
I thought we were in for a dark themed Windows XP wallpaper filled with runaway goblins, but the guild girl was right, we're hunting for leftovers.
The clouded night sky was depressing. I couldn't see very far, so it didn't even count as sightseeing.
Just as I was about to let out a disgustingly exaggerated sigh of complaint, Toba tilted his head and twitched his nose.
"Got something?" My face lit up in an instant, a sinister grin ending the drama I was about to start.
"Hm!" Toba nodded and mounted up.
Wait, shouldn't we be using the wolves to track down our prey? Or is Toba's nose actually sharper than theirs? Go race mixing!... I guess.
Using our wolves, we quickly cut through the poorly lit plains, and when we stopped, I could finally see it.
On top of a small hill, there was a humanoid creature with its back turned to us.
It seemed to be around 1,30 meters in height, and even though visibility was very poor, I could see that it had green skin. Its skin was also surprisingly smooth, with none of the hideous warts I would expect from a goblin.
Yeah, it was a goblin for sure. From its bald head and pointy ears to its stubby legs and sharp nails, there was no mistake.
The goblin was leisurely swinging a rusty shortsword back and forth, occasionally cutting a few blades of grass.
True to the description I got at the guild from the receptionist I could no longer remember the name, this goblin looked beat up.
It had a barely healed wound on its left shoulder, and since it was using its right had to hold the sword, it was reasonable to guess that it couldn't use the other one very well.
Still, we should be careful. He might be wounded, but monsters get dangerous when they're at their last breath.
We had to form a plan.
"Toba, I'll circle around the hill and strike him with a light blow with my sword, when he dodges back, you run him through with your spear from behind." I got back and whispered to Toba.
"If he dodges?"
"Then we both use our spears to put pressure on him and wait for an opening, if he puts up too much of a fight we send the wolves, but I'd rather not."
"Hm!" He silently nodded.
Alright! This is going to be our first monster! We killed the ash tiger before, but I don't know much about how beasts like that compare to other monsters, so we should still be careful.
I can't help but be excited, though, how long will it take before we're mowing down hordes of goblins?
I silently circled around, and since it was a clouded and rainy night, he didn't notice me until the last moment. Stealth was easy with this weather.
Still, he would surely notice me when I went out to strike, and, well, he did. Right before his head was cleanly cut off by my gladius.
"Huh?"
I had just stepped in and swinged the most basic horizontal blow imaginable, practically begging him to dodge backwards.
And yet, he didn't move an inch. He just died.
"Brother, goblins weak."
"What the fuck… I was expecting a fight, was that goblin retarded or something?"
"I smell another."
…
We were in the plains for about an hour, and we managed to find another four wandering goblins.
Each and every one of them died with a single blow from either my sword or Toba's dagger. He didn't even want to use his spear or greatclub, they weren't worthy.
After the second one, we stopped sneaking around, trying to give them a fighting chance, but their weapons flew out of their hands as soon as we blocked a blow. We weren't using any techniques either, we just blocked.
It was… Disappointing, to say the least.
"Hey, Toba." I said as I placed the last goblin ear in the bag.
"Hm?"
"We probably won't find any other goblins here."
"Hm."
"These goblins also don't even begin to pose a challenge to us."
"Hm!"
"We could go after regular goblins, wanna go get this request over with?"
"HM!!" Toba nodded enthusiastically.
He was the careful type, but even he had his limits. We were clearly at a much higher level than we thought we were, so there was no point in following the "standard procedure".
Luna's training was clearly way more brutal than anything these plains could offer; we could kill lone goblins like these with our eyes shut.
Should I try that? It could be fun, like the adventurer's version of a piñata.
Nah, it's probably a bad idea… But I bet I could do it.
The only problem was… We had no clue about where to go.
Actually, that wasn't exactly true. The wandering goblins were deserters or exiles, so they had to be coming out of somewhere.
If we considered the fact that while we were hunting, we started seeing more and more goblins as we progressed northwest, it wouldn't be a stretch to say the real fun was probably somewhere in that direction.
Still, "more and more" only amounted to 5 goblins in total, so it could be a complete coincidence. We hadn't found goblins in any other direction though, so it wasn't impossible that I was on to something.
After riding in a straight line for less than half an hour, we found a cave with four goblin lookouts.
It was right at the end of the plains, and it served to divide three frontiers. To its left was a forest with trees high enough to give dwarf forest some self-esteem issues, and to its back was a short mountain that extended for quite a distance, the cave was inside this mountain.
It wasn't huge or impressive by any means, but it served as a distinct terrain change. What little we saw from Alport's surroundings up to this point was all flat terrain, except for the beach, which was recessed quite a bit in comparison to the town itself.
It's nice seeing some mountains for once, but just to be clear, there's nothing wrong with being flat. I would even say there is a certain elegance in flatness, a certain charm. I'd go as far as to say that it is my personal preference, in fact.
"Well, we found it, wanna do it?" I whispered to Toba while we were both laid down flat, observing the goblins from a distance.
They were definitely livelier than the borderline lobotomized ones we found earlier. As for equipment, all of them had a bow and a short weapon, and one even wore an oversized leather helmet.
"Tomorrow better? Toba doesn't like all the blood…"
I didn't like the fact that Toba's excitement gave in to cowardice so fast, but there was indeed blood on the grass around the cave.
"Relax, it's probably just the remains of an earlier battle, the goblins even picked up the corpses already."
"But blood fresh…"
"True… But it's goblin blood, so it wasn't the adventurers who got killed." As I said that, I shook the cloth bag we had put our goblin ears in. Naturally, it was completely stained red.
Their blood was lighter in color and was a lot thinner than human blood. The difference was enough that I could tell even from a distance.
"The adventurers probably just came and killed the goblins at the entrance before leaving. Either that, or they're still inside for some reason."
"Inside?" Toba tilted his head as he asked.
"It's unlikely, but it could be that they got themselves trapped long enough that the goblins had time to change the lookouts outside. They could also have been captured, of course."
"BROTHER WE HAVE TO GO NOW!" Toba shouted desperately, alerting the goblins outside.
What the hell… Is Toba the righteous type? It's going to be a headache if he acts like this every time.
For now, though, it serves my purpose.
"Retard!" I smacked Toba in the head and sprung up, spear in hand.
Toba didn't have time to whine either, the goblins had already readied their little bows with a nasty look in their eye, a night and day difference from the wandering ones.
Our opponent outnumbered us, so that was the first issue we had to solve.
Instead of rushing in, I took a gamble and walked four steps back while preparing to throw my spear.
I had a feeling those weak, tiny arms of theirs couldn't shoot very far, and I was right. I had already shot a bow back when I was still sucking milk out of a wolf's tit after all, so I had experience.
Their arrows landed just in front of my feet, not much power left in them.
My spear, on the other hand, exploded a goblin's head, before carrying on and striking the cave's edge, its fire property serving to give of a light charred smell from the fresh corpse, and a small flame as it hit the rock wall.
Spear throwing 101: Don't throw it when there's multiple enemies, you don't want them using your weapon against you.
Goblin 101: Ain't no way those fuckers can wield that huge spear.
Toba went for another approach, and as soon as the first arrows were fired, he had already closed the gap like a starved beast.
He had ditched his greatclub so it wouldn't slow him down, and so he smacked two goblins with a side sweep from his spear instead.
They had tossed their bows and drawn their swords to try and block it, but it wasn't the smartest choice.
The spear didn't care one bit about their shortswords, and it broke their defense easily.
Hitting them with the shaft at an awkward angle like that wasn't the most elegant blow, but Toba's raw strength made it work, and he knocked them to the ground.
All that was left was the helmet goblin, and, seeing that his partners didn't stand a chance, he started to run away. He apparently was going for a strike at Toba's back before, but quickly gave up on that idea as he felt the wind from Toba's strike.
Even if the goblin had nerves of steel, he wouldn't have managed to hit either way. He just couldn't keep up with Toba.
He didn't run very far, either.
SPLAT!
"You don't turn your back to an opponent with a spear, dumbass. Not at that range." I said, talking to the poor helmet goblin's soul as it was dragged down to hell, before cutting off the necks of the other two goblins Toba had knocked down.
Toba gruesomely pulled back the spear from helmet goblin's back. It was red already, being made from the fire aspect boar and all, but it looked pretty gruesome caked in blood like that.
"Four of them, out in the open, and with ranged weapons on top… Not too shabby, let's see how many we can take at once!"
Was I being arrogant? Was overconfidence going to be the bringer of my demise? Probably, but not today, because these goblins ain't shit.
Well, at least they put up a fight. They're better than the wanderers for sure.
"Brother, let's go save them!" Toba had a stupid grin on his face.
"Save them? It looks to me that you're just enjoying yourself."
Toba's face went redder than a tomato, and considering his tanned skin, it was an impressive feat.
Not that I was pale, either, but Toba managed to get a deeper bronze than I these past years.
He would look decent if it weren't for the scars.
"Anyway, I'm not too tired either. I don't know where all this energy is coming from, but I don't feel like going back now."
After collecting the ears out of each of them, we entered the cave.
It was surprisingly quiet, and there were crude looking torches place at irregular intervals.
Goblins were nocturnal, but they couldn't see in the dark, hence all the torches.
This meant that they should be active right now, unless…
"Unless they are all dead."
"Mh?" Toba tilted his head, confused.
"Look, we haven't walked that far yet, and there is already blood on the ground, relatively fresh blood at that."
Whatever happened here, the goblins suffered a heavy blow. It seemed they sent those four to guard the entrance, but that was all they could spare.
Which could only mean that they were still occupied.
"Let's pick up the pace, whoever fought them should still be here."
"Hm!"
Not long after we started walking faster, we heard noises echoing on the walls.
It sounded like rocks hitting the ground, or something heavy being dropped on the ground at a somewhat regular pace.
We saw more and more blood, and the noise got louder and louder, until finally, the cave took a right turn and opened up. We spotted goblins ahead.
There were eight of them, five with spears, and the rest with shortswords. None had bows, it seemed the archers were used to guard the entrance.
They weren't using their weapons, however, since they were all occupied trying to clear a huge mountain of rubble out of the way.
It was quite the pitiful sight, the goblins were small and weak, so they had trouble removing the pilled-up rocks.
The cave in was impressive, too. It had completely blocked the wide passage, and if I were to guess, there was a lot more rubble up top, just waiting their turn in line to fall as soon as their neighbors downstairs were removed.
Rumble…
SPLAT!
As if the very planet were answering my call, one goblin removed a particularly tight fitted rock, only for the pile to move, and make space for another rock to come tumbling down from the ceiling, hitting him in the head.
Now there're seven… I wonder if we'll be able to salvage that guy's ears…
Salvageable or not, we had to come up with a plan. Seven goblins could actually spell some trouble if we weren't careful, the good thing was that they were distracted, but we couldn't be reckless.
"Listen, we can probably take them out, but don't get crazy, if you charge in like last time, it won't be good."
Toba silently nodded, and I continued whispering my instructions.
"We have the element of surprise, and we're decent with throwing weapons, so we'll kill as many as possible before they get into range, and then kill them one by one."
"Also, don't even think about swinging around your club in here, there's no room."
We each had two daggers and our spear, as well as my gladius and Toba's greatclub.
Toba used to carry a sword too, but it was too much, even I encouraged him to lighten his load a little.
This meant that, in the best possible scenario, we would be able to kill six out of the seven goblins if we used all our throwable weapons.
Whatever managed to get to us after that, I could dispatch with my sword.
Dagger in hand, I nodded to Toba and took a stable stance before executing my first throw.
Thunk!
Not long after my first dagger had hit a goblin's back, Toba threw his, hitting one in the head.
Nice one! Let's see if you can keep up though.
The goblins immediately started panicking, dropping the boulders, and charging at us while screaming incoherent things.
Woosh…
Another set of daggers flew their way.
This time Toba managed to hit one in the shoulder, not knocking him out just yet, while I got one in the throat.
The goblins were getting closer, but just as I was about to throw my spear, Toba pushed me to the side and shouted.
"WATCH OUT!"
I heard blocking noises, and blows hitting flesh, I didn't need to turn around to understand what had happened.
Somehow more goblins arrived from the back, and Toba was now fighting them.
I didn't have time to look his way and see how many goblins there were, right now I had to manage the ones up front.
Still, it would be nice if he would tell me these things.
Taking advantage of my reach, I stepped in with a quick thrust, and took out a sword goblin.
Now there were three of them, one with a sword in his hand (and a dagger in his shoulder), and two with spears.
The spear goblins poked at me with surprisingly agile strikes, or maybe it was just that my attention had to be divided.
Either way, I knocked aside their blows with my spear, while thrusting at the goblin Toba had injured to keep him at bay.
My range was greater, so it wasn't difficult to slowly take them down, waiting for openings to appear. It wasn't possible to take that approach, however, since I had to finish quickly and help Toba out.
"How many of them?" I could probably phrase that better, but I sort of had my mind occupied at the moment.
"M-MANY!" Toba shouted back.
Many?
I didn't know if Toba was too nervous to count, or if he was in serious trouble. I had to finish this quickly.
The injured goblin took advantage of my slight distraction to charge at me, but he got a kick in the face as a reward, he went down after hitting his head against the wall.
The other one lunged his spear at me, but I easily knocked it aside and pierced his head.
That was easy… Why was I having trouble again?
Right, there was a third one.
OH SHIT!
'Where the hell was the other one?' As soon as I thought that, I turned my body in a reflex, only to get a spear strike at my side.
Luckily, it had impacted a rib, and it didn't have enough force to shatter it. Even so, it hurt like hell.
"Bastard!"
I grabbed the spear just before it was pulled back, and instead pulled the goblin with it. He was startled, and eventually let go of it, but not before stumbling forward.
SPLAT!
Turning my body to the side, I kicked his face into a wall, bursting open his head.
After I did, however, what awaited me was Toba fighting alone in the tunnel we came from against six goblins, formerly seven, since there was a dead one on the ground.
He was relentlessly thrusting his spear, not letting any of them get close, but two of them were throwing rocks at him from a distance, and his forehead was bleeding.
Now they've done it.
I threw the goblin's spear I was still holding, but they managed to deflect it.
Their numbers made them cumbersome inside the tunnel, and it prevented them from circling around him like what happened to me, but it also made their defense tight.
Also, since they were using spears, they managed to get some kind of formation going. It wasn't pretty, but it was better than nothing.
Toba was visibly tired, but the spear I threw made them stumble, and it bought him some time.
Time he could've used to kill one or two.
"Don't waste your chances Toba!" I stepped in, sword in my left hand and spear in my right.
Now facing two opponents, the goblins got a little more careful, and retreated a few steps.
Not long after, rocks were being chucked at me.
Not so confident now, huh?
I walked up to them with my guard completely open, only occasionally dodging the rocks that came my way.
The goblins were confused, but as expected, the one closer to me stepped in, and tried to strike me while I dodged a rock.
The others followed, but before they could stab me, I deflected the first one's strike with my sword while piercing his chest with my spear, immediately retreating afterwards.
Goblins were weak and tiny, we had to use that to our advantage. If the stab I received in my rib was done by an adult, for example, I would surely be dead, or at the very least incapacitated.
Likewise, if the one handed thrust I just killed a goblin with, had been aiming at a trained, full-sized fighter, it would probably not be able to pierce the chest.
That was also taking into account that it would hit, because a simple backstep would turn the already light wound into a mere graze.
For a short, fragile goblin, however, it was lethal.
The goblins were even more wary now, so it was time to change strategies.
"HAAAH!" I shouted and stabbed my spear a number of times.
Having a much shorter range than me, they could do nothing but retreat as I stabbed at every single one of them that tried to move close.
"Toba, the daggers!"
He wasn't stupid, and he was already going to charge at them after my distraction, probably taking out one or two.
My idea, however, was better.
I was stabbing nonstop, and was already getting tired, but I endured, and each rock that I couldn't dodge just made me go faster.
My struggle was rewarded, as one of the goblins chucking rocks received a flying dagger in his belly, and his friend soon followed.
Without their ranged support, and without the opened space required to run around, they were easy prey.
Toba tossed a third dagger their way, and while it didn't hit, it brought me the distraction I needed.
I stabbed the rightmost one hard, but instead of retreating, I let go of my spear and charged in.
Dodging one, two, three stabs from the remaining two goblins, I was finally close enough.
What was a goblin, essentially? They had strength comparable to a child, and not a strong one like me and my brother were.
If you gave children spears, they would surely prove a threat, but as soon as you moved past their range, there wasn't much they could do, was there?
SLASH!
After getting past their effective range, I cut off one's head while I grabbed the other one's spear.
Alone, and without a weapon, he tried to run.
So, I grabbed his head and rammed it against the wall.
SPLAT!
"Seems like our limit is 14." I said as I slumped to the ground.
Toba had a dagger in hand and seemed to be waiting for the opportunity to throw it, but it was over.
"Is brother safe?" Toba said with a worried look.
"Safe? Oh, you mean this. Yeah, it's starting to hut a lot now… I guess the adrenaline ran out."
"I'm fine, though... I think." I added before Toba could start panicking.
Still, it was actually hurting quite a lot. But it was probably just that I wasn't used to wounds like these.
Back when we trained with Luna, we usually used blunt weapons, and when we did use sharp ones, we usually avoided going all in with thrust and slashing attacks, for obvious reasons.
As such, having my bones broken was something I'd gotten quite used to, but not deep wounds like the one I had right now.
To make matters worse, the wound that girl gave me on my leg had opened again.
Speaking of girls… If there were any here, I could complain and exaggerate my wounds so they would spoil me.
Probably wouldn't work with that blond demon, though. Somehow, she doesn't seem the type.
I started crouching down to collect the goblin ears we needed, but the pain made me reconsider.
I instead found a nice flat wall to rest against, and left Toba to do all the work.
As soon as I did, I started hearing faint voices coming from the pile of rubble.
Unless some trapped goblins started learning human speech, I probably just found the adventurers we were looking for.
"I'm going to check out the blocked passage, you come too, when you're finished."
"Ok."
After walking up to it, I could finally hear what they were saying.
"heeey, is anyone there?"
"There is, are you trapped in there?"
"Oh, thank the gods. We're lucky someone came so fast."
"How many of you are there? How did you get trapped in there?"
"Wow, ok, lots of questions. Let me introduce our group first."
"Introduce your group? I think you have bigger problems right now…"
"Haha, true, true. I was getting ahead of myself. It's just that I'm curious, is all."
"Curious?"
"Well, yeah. Not many people just go wandering inside a goblin's nest at night out of nowhere, you know."
"…You mean like you guys did?"
"Exactly! It means we'll get along! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!" The adventurer's laughter was loud enough to get through to Toba, who was extremely confused, watching me talk with rocks.
"Also, you must've killed a lot of them to get here. You two must be experienced, I'm dying to meet you guys!"
'You two'? how does he know?
"You have to get out of there first, you know?"
"True!! True. I'll get to the point then."
Rather fond of talking, this guy. But I don't exactly dislike him.
"Anyway, we're a group of five, and we were just getting back from a mission in Payon. You know how it is, right?"
"I don't…"
"Well, you know. Long trip, no horses, few monster ambushes… We were itching to fight."
I can't read your mind dude, how was I supposed to know that?
"We found this cave just as we got out of the forest and remembered there was a quest for it. So, we decided to clear it before we got to town, and then get the quest and turn it in at the same time."
"…"
"…"
"Go on…"
"Right! Right."
Was he waiting for me to say something about it? If there was an emergency, these guys would already be dead.
"It was all going smoothly, just regular goblin slaughtering, you know? But out of the blue, the ceiling collapsed!"
"Well, not exactly out of the blue, our bud Goose accidentally hit his sledgehammer in the wall, and it collapsed."
"Needless to say, we got trapped! And, well, this cave is big, it goes on for a while and there's tons of goblins in it, so we were going to die for sure if we had our backs against the wall and got swarmed by all of them. So, we collapsed the other side too. Same way as before."
"So now you're all trapped between two collapsed ceilings?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
"And you're not afraid the middle will fall on your head too? The cave's structure must be pretty weak."
"No worries! Crow cast a spell to prevent that. 'Castle wall' I think."
Goose and Crow? What's with the bird names?
But this spell is good news, I might have a plan.
"Hey, I think I know a way to get you guys out, but you'll need to protect yourselves from the debris, there'll be a lot flying your way."
"Great!! Just give the signal."
"Brother, what going on?" Toba had just finished gathering all the ears. Seeing him completely covered in goblin blood made me remember that we desperately needed a bath.
"You got here just in time."
…
Sandwiched between two piles of rubble, a group of five people stood among dozens of goblin corpses.
They were all covered in blood, and two of them had passed out. They all had countless wounds in their bodies.
As if detached from his surroundings, a young man wearing a cloak made of owl feathers was smiling.
"Hey Owl, shouldn't we get ready? We don't know how they will clear the rubble away… If they use explosives, we're dead, you know?" With a tired voice, an even younger adventurer wearing all black warned him.
The staff in his hand denounced him as a mage, but his vest adorned with black feathers gave him a roguish look.
"Right! Let's go way back, You and Goose stand up front, and when they give the signal, you use 'Repel'. Also, carry Nightjar and Crane, and put them behind us."
Despite having ordered the frail mage to do it, Owl carried both of their unconscious partners by himself.
"You know this is all your fault, right? And what exactly am I supposed to do here?" The man wearing heavy armor and carrying a sledgehammer complained in an extremely aggressive tone. He looked at his leader Owl like he was looking at his worst enemy.
"Goose… You were the one who-" Crow's retort was interrupted by a shout on the other side.
"Now!!"
"[REPEL!]"
BOOOM!
The debris wall suddenly exploded, with rock flying everywhere, only to reveal a kid not older than 12 years old swinging a huge greatclub.
The shine on the weapon indicated the use of a Law spell.
Before the rocks could collide with the stranded adventurers, however, they impacted against the magic shield the mage had created and were repelled…
Repelled right back to the kid, who got knocked out after getting hit in the chin with a rather large rock.
"TOBA!!!"
…
Immediately after Toba sent the rocks flying with Minor Gather, some of them flew right back, hitting and knocking him out.
I managed to avoid getting injured, since I was standing a little farther away. The rock explosion was also chaotic, with rocks colliding against each other, so it was only a few that managed to pass through and hit Toba.
Nevertheless, he was still hurt.
"HEY WHAT THE FUCK?" I shouted in anger.
"A- A kid?" The leader, who I recognized by the voice, said with a shocked face.
"What do you mean, 'a kid?' We saved you, you brat."
My memory suffered a sort of reverse effect for a moment.
I had spent so much time wandering this world by this point, that I often would completely forget I was reincarnated, and that I had previously been a 110kg man.
This time, however, I got so angry that I forgot I was currently a kid.
"H- hey, calm down, I didn't mean no offense, are you two actually some different race or something?"
"Huh? What does that have to do with anything?" By this point, I was already resting my hand on the hilt of my sword.
"Nothing, nothing. I just got confused. Look, we didn't know you two would break the wall like that, ok? I thought you would use a spell or bombs or something."
"It was a spell."
"Yeah, yeah. True enough. But the thing is we didn't mean it, ok? Besides, he's already getting up. His name is Toba, right?"
I took my eyes off the adventurer and looked towards Toba, he was slowly getting up, but his bandana and eyepatch had come off.
He slowly raised his face in a daze, and innocently looked at the group we had just saved.
"AAAAAAAAAAH!! HEALER, WE NEED A HEALER!" The man shouted in horror.
"O- Owl, w- what have you done?" A man that I could only presume was Crow, said while looking like he saw a ghost.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN ME? YOU CASTED THE SPELL!!!"
"SHUT UP YOU TWO! THE KID IS MISSING HALF HIS FACE FOR FUCK'S SAKE! CARRY HIM TO TOWN ALREADY!"
A sledgehammer… That's Goose, then.
"Oh gods. Oh gods. We spent all our money on equipment, how are we going to pay for the spell?"
"Brother, what is happening?" Toba had already scurried over to my side and was hiding behind me, confused and afraid.
"Sight… Shut up, all of you."
"HEY! Don't tell me to-" The sledgehammer guy started protesting.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!"
They stood in silence for a moment. By this point I had remembered that I looked like a child, and as such didn't exactly command much authority with my appearance.
However, considering we had blown up the wall with only a law spell, and that we were surrounded by massacred goblins, not to mention the fact that the other group were all terrified, thinking they ripped Toba's face off, I had just enough to make them quiet down.
"I'm Cona, this is my brother Toba." I guided Toba to stand by my side and poked at him so he would greet them.
"Hello…"
"We're new in town, and yes, we are a little younger than you all, but we're also adventurer's… Technically."
"B- but-" The Crow guy tried to say something, betraying the edgy aesthetic he probably was going for with his clothes.
"My brother has a few scars in his face, since a long, long time, and so it cannot be healed with common spells. These are not new injuries, and they weren't caused by the rocks just now."
As soon as I said that they all made a 'So that's how it is…' face, and things got awkward for a couple of seconds.
"Hey, sorry for freaking out, Cona. I'm Owl, thanks for saving us." Owl said, extending his hand to me.
"It's fine, glad we're all safe." I shook his hand, putting just enough strength in it for him to know It wasn't just Toba who's been doing pull-ups.
How cool… Has seeing everyone shut up at my command give me a 'dignified leader' aura? I doubt it, but that's how I feel right now.
"As you can see, we are quite beat up, and you two have some wounds as well, so why don't we tend to that first, and then we head to town together?"
"Yeah, to be honest, I took a mean hit at my rib earlier, let's do that."
"Oh! Just a head's up, Toba and I, we got some beast companions with us, two wolfs. I'll put them at ease before you guys head out.
Wouldn't want another incident right now, if there's one more misunderstanding, I might just give up.
After I put the wolves at ease, and made them stand guard for us, we set up a little campfire, just so we could treat our wounds.
"Well, that does it for me I think."
I had just finished bandaging the spear wound I got. It was pretty bad, and it was hurting like hell, but I could still get to town just fine.
"Same here, I don't think anyone is in critical condition." Owl followed up with a smile.
"Actually, I-" Nightingale, which was dressed like your typical rogue, plus the whole bird themed addons of course, tried protesting.
"If you don't survive, maybe you were always meant to perish here. We shouldn't fight so fiercely against fate." Crane, who was wearing only a torn kimono and some face paint, interrupted him while seemingly meditating with his eyes closed.
"Yeah, and if I hear you complain about the arrow they shot in your ass one more time, I might just help fate run its course." Goose gave the finishing blow.
"Anyway, since we're all alive and well…" Owl said as he leaned his body forward, looking at me and Toba with a sly smile.
"Ask ahead."
The guy is probably at his limit, it would be mean to act mysterious right now.
Besides, I have some things I want to ask them as well.
"Whew, where do I start… Oh! How about you two tell us your adventurer ranks and classes?"
"As far as classes are concerned, I think I would fall into spellblade, I guess. Toba is definitely a warrior, but he can use law spells, so I don't know if that changes anything."
"As for ranks… We're currently unranked."
"Huh…?" Nightingale was the first to voice his confusion.
"Unranked? How? Why? I mean, you killed all those goblins, right?"
"We did, we had to collect 20 goblin ears to get our first rank. We got registered earlier today." I said as I shook our bag full of goblin ears.
"Wuh-" Nightingale was about to say something else, but Owl stopped him.
"So, if I'm getting this right, you two are brothers, younger than us, and you haven't received your first rank yet?" Owl asked, regaining his smile, and wiping away his look of shock.
"Yeah."
"And instead of hunting the leftovers by the plains, you went charging at a goblin cave, and killed them all in one go?"
"Well, we did try hunting the wandering ones, but they were completely retarded. It wasn't much of a challenge."
After I said that, a weird silence ensued.
What? I can't say that? I hope there's not an association for retarded people in this world, they would cancel me and take Toba away.
"Interesting, I had thought we were prodigies, but it seems we are not the only ones…" Crane said, finally opening his eyes.
"So what? Even if they got an early start, it's not like they're stronger than us."
A bit cranky huh? This sledgehammer guy, I wonder if he's still mad that I told him to shut up earlier.
Not that I care.
Suddenly, Owl moved over to our side, and wrapped both his arms around our necks in a friendly but overly intimate manner.
Toba got incredibly startled by that, but he didn't know how to react, so he just stayed still.
"Hehehe, Cona, Toba, my guys… I don't know what cave you two were living in before, or what crazy training you two had, but beginners usually struggle a little with those wandering goblins, you know?"
He actually guessed it right…
"It's not unheard of to skip them, we did the same, but it's not a common thing." Crow added.
"No, no. You guys are missing the point." Owl said as he finally released us.
"Back then, it was already the five of us, and we were all what? Fifteen years old?"
"On average." Nightingale answered.
"Right. These two are practically on their own, they look twelve, and they went straight into a nest instead of ambushing goblins in the forest."
Is it actually that impressive? I can't help but think our fight with the tiger was way harder.
I also wonder how he would react if he knew both I and Toba were actually six years old at most.
"I get that it's impressive, but those are just goblins, right? We trained too much before coming here, that is all."
As much as I wanted to brag, it wasn't good to let them be too impressed. I didn't want too much attention, and we already stood out.
"I guess it was just goblins, but still. Taming wolves, using spells, fighting with multiple weapons… I can't say I've lived a long life, I'm only sixteen after all, but I have certainly never heard of adventurers like you two. Who are you, exactly?"
There's the question I wanted to avoid the most… What do I answer? I don't want to say we were raised in a wizard tower by an expert assassin.
I'm also not exactly keen on telling them how we were living with wolves before that.
And if I wanted to really start from the beginning, I would need to explain to him what a 'double biceps' is, since that's what killed me.
Well, let's not be unfair to double biceps, we all know what ACTUALLY killed me.
Bad luck.
"That… Well, we'll get there eventually. No need to rush, right Toba?"
"HMM!!?? Mh!" Toba nearly exploded when I called out to him, but he managed to nod.
Seriously, he needs to loosen up a little.
Its not like I don't get him, though. I was antisocial once, too.
"Fair enough! How about we get going then? I'll pay for the drinks"
"Sure… but wait, are we old enough to drink?"
"Old enough to kill, old enough to drink." Goose said something cool for once.
In the end, I couldn't even ask a single question, huh?
I'm fine being the star of the show just this once, but I wanted to know what's the deal with the bird theme.