After talking for a while, the party decided to raid the basements.
The Mujad Ruins were known to be a place of cathedrals and churches of the ancient past, and it was no secret that there were underground basements below.
Other mercenaries come to the mercenary house, and have actually sold maps that have presented the layout of the place. Lock had tried to remember if he had seen something like that in the past, but the original Lock had unfortunately never shown any interest in the Mujad Ruins.
Most of his life, he had stayed inside the premises of the town, within a safe zone.
Maps of that nature were also not accessible in the public, so Lock had not noticed anything like that when he looked at the maps displayed in the mercenary house.
Lock sighed in his heart, and his eyes shone with disappointment.
'If I am just more powerful, and had money, I would not be thinking about this...'
"Anyways, that's the plan, this mission would reward us with 120 silver coins, what do you think of being our scout for a while?" the leader, Orean, offered to Lock.
Lock naturally nodded inside in good spirits. His abilities were already revealed and this party was kissing his butt!
Of course, joining the party was favorable for him. It was his plan in the first place.
"Hmmm." Lock smiled. "If the mission is only worth 120 gold coins, does that mean we will even split that? That's way too low!"
"What?! Do you want to get all the rewards then?!" the lady archer yelled in anger.
"No, why would I do that?" Lock replied gently, "I am not that kind of person. Instead, I have another offer."
Orean waved his hand at the lady archer, as a sign to calm down.
"What is your offer?" he asked, feeling that the little sorcerer from the academy had some interesting plan.
"It's very simple. If we find a monster core, let me have it." Lock said, shocking everyone there.
"Do you know what you're talking about?! It's already hard to get one monster core, we won't even dream of it." the lady archer retorted.
Orean though looked at Lock. Lock only had plans of doing business with Orean too, so he ignored the lady archer.
"You're an interesting one. Mujad Ruins are only inhabited by goblins and if we want to find a monster core, only the dungeon boss has it. Are you planning to fight that?"
Lock nodded.
"Yeah, you guys are capable of that, right? Surely, you can take care of some goblin monster."
"You sure take things lightly, but we are talking about a hobgoblin here."
That was right. The boss of the Mujad Ruins was a hobgoblin, a strong and big goblin that was capable of destroying walls with its bare hands. But in the eyes of Lock, it was just a creature that was too weak he won't even bother learning about it.
It was not like it had knowledge of martial arts. It just learned fighting through battles, so it only knew instinct-like fighting skills. It was comparable to a normal gangster bully found in normal human settlements.
Seeing that the boy was not speaking, Orean started to go silent, as he thought of what Lock was thinking when he said that. The other members of the party however, laughed, and talked about how foolish Lock was.
"We don't know what you learned in the academy, but real life battles against monsters shouldn't be taken lightly."
"If you are arrogant, you will die around here."
The members of the party continued to talk, directly looking at him, while shrugging their shoulders, and looking at him with pity.
In their eyes, Lock was indeed a decent martial artist, and he had some outstanding raw abilities as a scout. He was even a sorcerer, although he could only cast a fireball.
Lock though, did not care about them.
But how could he explain his plan to them?
His plan was to garner more experience points by fighting the minions, and then level up. If his stats were decent enough, they could go to fight the boss monster! It was a very simple plan.
But who would believe him if he said he could get stronger by defeating monsters?
Probably no one. Except him, he doesn't know anyone who had that ability. People might get stronger by experience, but not like him, where he could basically get stronger physically just by improving his stats.
"Haha, it doesn't matter if you believe me or not. You would see if my abilities are not enough anyway. If you think I'm strong enough, let's take on the boss." Lock said.
"We already saw it though. You're not good enough."
"Haha, you mean those goblins on the surface? Someone like me won't show my true abilities when faced with those weaklings." Lock said.
The party doesn't know how to react. Was the boy a liar or not?
When he spoke his words, they couldn't help but consider if there was some truth that he might be hiding his true abilities? At first, they thought he was just a useless kid who can't even run properly and could only use a puny normal spell, but he turned out to be decent in fighting.
"Okay then, we already fought the hobgoblin a few times, so beating it is not a problem. But it's not our mission, why would we even help you?"
The mission of this group was to check on what was causing the anomaly in the goblins of the Mujad Ruins. It was just to check on the situation. Since they had nothing to do, they decided to slay the goblins on the surface.
Of course, Lock had no knowledge of their mission, since he just sneaked inside the carriage, and even during the travel, they did not even talk about it. The things that they talked about were their friends whose names he doesn't recognize, and their crushes on some ladies in the town. It was a very typical topic.
However, Lock knew that they willingly wanted to add anyone in this mission. Their usefulness in battle did not matter, which meant that the mission was not that dangerous.
Lock smiled.
"That's when my condition comes. I would naturally join the party, but only on a few conditions. Help me defeat the boss, and I would take the monster core. I'll be your scout!" Lock announced with a smug face.
Orean and the other party members could not help but look at the boy in front of them with widened eyes. They gazed at him with complex emotions.
The lady archer shook her head. If anything, Lock was acting as though he was some highly sought out prospect when it looked like he was just a nobody. If their leader did not offer him to be their scout, no one would have even found out his talent.
"By helping you defeat the boss, do you mean you want to take the final kill?" a party member asked, somewhat curious.
Lock smiled.
"Because it will make me stronger!" he said truthfully, with twinkling eyes.
But in the ears of the others, it looked like they had gotten entangled with a weird person.
Now that they thought about it, the boy actually smelled. Did he even take a bath before going to the mercenary house? He looked penniless too. Was it really okay to let this guy enter the party?
The members looked at their leader, and using their expression, urged him to talk.
Orean was also shocked, but for some reason, he wanted to do it. Looking at Lock, he couldn't help but feel that he was someone that could really help them.
"Okay, I agree, but become our scout, as soon as we are finished with this mission."
"What about the monster core?"
"It would be yours, but if we succeed, we're going to get more and you're going to help us." Orean said.
"Of course, I'll get you a thousand!" Lock said with confidence.
The party then entered the biggest hole that the goblins had used to go to the surface. It was under a big pile of bricks that once stood as a pillar of a cathedral. They walked into dry ground with some moss for a while, but they soon reached an area where a stairs made of bricks, going down, were seen.
They did not stop and continued going down, until they saw a spacious area which was like a cavernous hall. It was like a village, but there were no houses or people, just goblins, and ruined small shacks.
The party had obviously gone into the place several times, so they knew the way, but before they could sneak in the corridors and make a plan, Lock ran ahead.
"It's time to do my job as this party's scout. I will whistle if I see any danger." Lock said and left the group in awe. Not of amazement but of speechlessness.
Lock then immediately saw three goblins which were blocking the corridor. They were sleeping lazily like he always does. But then another goblin came and woke them up, kicking their stomachs, and making them groan.
Lock smiled at their silliness, and he threw a pebble he found, hitting the goblin that was standing nearest to their escape route.
Lock smiled, and picked more pebbles in the ground, hitting them in their skulls, and welcoming the system's notifications.
"A scout? What bullsh*t!" Lock scoffed, "I only wanted to go ahead, and get these experience points. If I let you people see them first, I won't be able to compete at my current level."
A few minutes later, the group advanced since their scout did not come back at all, and when they followed the path that he went to, they saw a very clean path. However in the distance, they could see a boy with a bunt in both of his hands, killing goblins, turning them into particles of light.
"What kind of scout is that?" the lady said with a wry smile.
They expected him to assess the situation, and report to them any danger, but he had hardly inspected anything, and was busy killing all of the goblins he could see.