Ossan Saikyō Chapter 2 Part 02
The next morning, as soon as the sun rose, Kaim’s party and I gathered in front of the town gate.
“Hey, old man… uh, Soushi, right? I’ll introduce the team real quick.”
Kaim, with a longsword at his waist and a shield in hand, said that, and the braided girl holding a staff beside him spoke up.
“I’m Meribe. E-rank. I’m basically the mage. Sorry about Kaim, as always.”
Next was a short-haired woman around twenty, holding a spear.
“I’m Ranan. Also E-rank. I handle offense. Nice to meet you.”
Last was a small-framed boy, carrying a buckler and mace like me.
“I’m Raberto. E-rank. I can use healing magic, but I kinda prefer hitting things.”
A tank, an attacker, a magician, and a healer; a perfectly balanced party straight out of a textbook. By the way, they’re all pretty good-looking. There are a lot of attractive people in this world.
“I’m Soushi Okuno. F-rank. At the moment, all I can do is hit things. I’ll be in your care for a short while starting today. Kaim has already helped me a lot.”
When I bowed, he said, “Old man, that’s creepy, just talk like usual”. Maybe that’s his way of being considerate.
“So you have a family name, Soushi?” Meribe asked.
Apparently, in this country, having a surname is rare, almost a privilege of the nobility. Commoners with surnames are usually from other countries.
“Yeah, where I’m from, that’s normal. Just call me Soushi like you did just now.”
“Since we use the same equipment, I feel like we’ll get along. Why’d you pick a mace?”
“Hmm, I guess because it seemed easy to use. I’m considering a spear too, but it’s expensive.”
“Spears are good. You don’t have to see the monster’s face up close.”
“Huh? The feeling of smashing things with a mace is what makes it great.”
The tall beauty Ranan and the scrappy boy Raberto glared at each other. They seem like a close group.
“Alright, enough of that. Let’s go. First stop is the village.”
With Kaim taking charge, our goblin settlement subjugation mission began.
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We left the town of Tolson and followed the road on foot.
There are carriages and even monster-drawn vehicles in this world, but they’re mostly used by merchants or nobles.
Apparently, near cities, there are shared horse-drawn carriages, so there’s more people travelling about in this world than I expected.
After walking for a while, fields started appearing off the road. Around midday, we arrived at a small settlement of about ten houses; our first destination, a farming village.
We entered the village and went straight to what seemed to be the village chief’s house. It looks like Kaim’s group has been here before.
The village chief who came out was a man around fifty.
“Oh,〈Silver Ring〉, is it? You’ve come to deal with the goblins, then?”
“Yeah. We’d like to use your well again. And if you could let us talk to whoever saw the goblins, that’d help.”
Kaim handled it. I see, they gather information properly.
“Understood. This way.”
The chief led us to the fields, where we spoke to a middle-aged woman working there.
But honestly, there wasn’t much useful information.
・Part of the field was damaged.
・She saw about ten goblins in a forest about 3 Kada (around 3 km) from here.
・Based on the footprints in the field, they seem to be moving in a group of around ten.
・So far, there have been no human casualties.
Basically the same information we got from the guild.
“Do you know what kind of weapons the goblins were carrying?” Kaim asked.
The woman replied, “I think they just had wooden sticks…” People don’t usually remember what monsters were holding unless they pay close attention.
We left and, after refilling water at the well, headed toward the forest where the goblins were seen.
◇◆◇
After about thirty minutes of walking, we found signs of the fields being damaged, just as the woman described.
I couldn’t really tell from the footprints, but according to Kaim and Ranan, they were definitely goblin tracks.
“Does asking about their weapons matter that much?” I asked.
Kaim scratched his head as he answered.
“Yeah. Goblins change their weapons depending on how big their group is. If there are only a few, it’s like in the dungeon, just wooden sticks, maybe throwing stones.
…
But as the group gets bigger, they start using blades or even bows. Apparently, if they get really dangerous, they can use magic too, but I’ve never seen that.”
“I see. The weapons they use really are important information.”
“Right? Well, judging by the number of tracks, this isn’t a huge group. At most, maybe around a hundred. If it gets bigger than that, they start attacking villages.”
A hundred? That sounds like quite a lot. But thinking about it, even I could probably handle around twenty. For an E-rank party like them, it’s probably manageable.
“Alright, we camp here for the night. Let’s get a fire going and eat.”
At Kaim’s instruction, we began preparing camp. I thought my camping knowledge might help, but it only made me realize how well-equipped modern camping in Japan really is.
◇◆◇
After spending the night with shifts for watch duty, we entered the forest at sunrise the next day.
From the front, the order was Kaim, then Ranan with the spear, Meribe the mage, Raberto the healer, and finally me as the guest.
The rear position is quite dangerous, but with my【Presence Detection】, the chance of being ambushed from behind is low.
Still, even if it’s a group of around a hundred, finding them in a wide forest shouldn’t be easy.
Or so I thought, but apparently goblins have a habit of marking their paths, and if you follow those, you can find them easily.
That said, the markings are just impact marks on tree trunks, and without knowing what to look for, you wouldn’t notice them. This is where experience really matters.
After about thirty minutes, my【Presence Detection】picked up goblins; eight of them.
But Kaim didn’t seem to notice. What’s going on?
“There are goblins ahead,” I whispered.
Kaim turned around.
“Seriously? You can tell, old man?”
“Yeah. About a hundred meters… no, a hundred rido ahead. Eight of them.”
“Your【Presence Detection】is pretty strong, Soushi,” Meribe said, looking slightly impressed.
Hmm, so my【Presence Detection】is high-performance.
“Alright, me and Ranan will handle it.”
The two moved ahead, and we followed at a slight distance.
Soon, I could see the goblins. In the forest, their green skin acts as camouflage. Without the【Vision】skill, I might not have been able to distinguish them properly.
“Seiyaa!”
At Kaim’s shout, he and Ranan leaped in front of the goblins.
In the blink of an eye, four heads flew off, and the other four were pierced through the heart and collapsed.
I was stunned. I could barely see their sword and spear movements. This is E-rank.
Unlike in dungeons, the bodies didn’t disappear, but since carrying goblin corpses isn’t practical, they cut out the magic stones with short knives and take those.
Since I was there, I helped and was taught how to extract them… but yeah, I’m definitely going to need a higher tolerance for gore going forward.
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E/N:
Meters is Rido and Kilometres is Kada, gotcha!
Stay tuned!
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