Chapter 20
“Is there anything else to hand over?”
“Ah, well, we only just found out ourselves….”
When the dwarf old-timer asked, Francesca explained something to him. She was probably going to tell him about Nefertiti. I watched their conversation while warming myself by the campfire.
They were both dwarves of the same order, genus, and species, but Francesca was taller. A half-dwarf was taller? Was dwarf DNA recessive? Going by their stats alone, they seemed insanely overpowered.
Evolutionary theory really was fucking stupid. Darwin, you were wrong. Here, the gods just chanted Chingkara hoi and made humans. Go shell peas with Mendel.
“Hng. A goblin horde and a Mithril adventurer from Sekhmet….”
After hearing the full explanation, the dwarf old-timer frowned. But this no longer concerned us. If they thought they were going to die, they could take care of themselves.
“It seems the handover is complete. Let’s go, everyone.”
“Nnngh.”
Leaving the dwarf old-timer and his party, who were making noises like they were taking a dump, behind, we set off.
As we drew near the place where the whip marks remained, Francesca and I instinctively quickened our pace. I didn’t know whether Nefertiti was still in the forest, but I didn’t want to run into her a second time.
“What the hell… This was done with a whip?”
Est and Paragon also saw the marks and realized that our reaction wasn’t excessive. Humans were creatures who had to see things with their own eyes and experience them with their own bodies before they understood.
And so, the party’s movement speed changed to a full-on forward charge.
“Kyaak!! (Food!!)”
“Kyakyashwak!! (Let’s follow them!!)”
Because we prioritized speed, unlike on the way here, we even ran into goblins.
I hadn’t expected there to still be goblins left. Had Nefertiti stopped hunting and gone back by now? I wondered about that, but creatures you desperately wished wouldn’t appear always showed up right in front of you when you let your guard down.
So I flew into a rage and set about giving the little brats a proper lesson.
“Fuck off, please!!!!”
“Gyaak!!”
I lashed out with savage force, like Ungnyeo, pregnant with Hwanung’s child.
A mother bear was one of the fiercest predators in the wild. It was a time when even a falling leaf looked like a weapon aimed at its young. Against a bear in that state, even the hysteria of women on their periods was no more than Douner beside Dooly.
That was why, when I became Vector Man Bear and focused every nerve on combat, the result was incredible.
Shnk!
Not a single one of my attacks missed; every one connected. They were all critical hits. Once I had enough damage to kill mobs and enough tanking power to withstand their attacks, I could move much more boldly.
Whoosh!
Whack!
“Gyaak!!”
I popped off the left goblin’s head, reversed the sword’s trajectory, and cut off another one’s head as well. I noticed a goblin behind the headless one waiting for its chance to attack, but I ignored it.
To step into the range of an attack that would kill it on contact, a goblin had to catch the perfect opening. Expecting that goblin to find the right angle would have been cruel.
“Thunder God Style: Thousand Cuts, Ten Thousand Slashes!!”
Fwoooosh!!
Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack!
The greatest advantage brought by increased strength was the rise in sheer power. The difference in strength was overwhelming! Even my jabs would feel stronger than hooks to them, so my speed-and-technique-focused chip damage was still more than lethal enough.
“Gyaak!! (It hurts!!) Gyaak!! (It hurts!!)”
What I performed was four sword strokes: a downward slash, an upward slash, and one slash to each side. It was a basic technique that even a kindergarten kid in their first year as a little brat could perform if you gave them a tree branch.
I recreated it with the strength of a beast. In the documentary The Sword Dance of the Grizzly Bear (Green), a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood scattered across the leaf mold. The sound of splashing blood applauded my sword dance.
Splort! Splort!
Shluuuurp.
The ten goblins were all slaughtered within minutes and became fertilizer for the forest. It was a wonderfully auspicious occasion that green brats who harmed people were contributing to nature.
“Wow…. When you really get serious, you’re no joke.”
Est, who hadn’t even been able to join the fight, said that. The short spear she had gripped to fight hadn’t stabbed a single goblin before returning dejectedly to her back.
“Yes. Honestly, I’m surprised too.”
Unlike when I first used Beast Regression, I stayed calm while fighting, and the result really was no joke. If this counted as a joke, then shaving a sleeping person’s head clean with hair clippers would count as one too.
Fuck, this kind of power with my clumsy swordsmanship!
The most impressive thing was how the fight had felt from my perspective. It was as though I had glimpsed how masters far superior to me fought.
Perhaps seeing that powerhouse named Nefertiti had raised my standards. I had gotten a sense of how adventurers with strength on the level of Beast Regression fought and thought.
Warriors with overwhelming strength didn’t assume they would be hit by an attack.
Even if their opponent tried to attack or counterattack, they had the confidence to break through it and slice their opponent’s neck.
That sounded obvious, but it was nothing of the sort in practice.
The reason I had been able to briefly glimpse combat at that level was that goblins were at the bottom of the barrel even among monsters, and I was certain none of their attacks could hurt me.
If they had been opponents capable of threatening my life, would I have been able to show the same composure I had now? Probably not.
─The important thing was to display that confidence even against opponents similar to or stronger than yourself.
I felt that this was the greatest factor separating a true warrior from a strong but worthless scrub.
“That was an excellent battle. Now, if you get the opportunity to take on a monster extermination request, you’ll soon leave Iron class behind.”
Paragon said that after offering a farewell prayer for the green-brat smoothies and wishing them rest.
“Are you hurt anywhere? Shall I heal you?”
“Hmm, no.”
I had chopped them all in half before they could hit me, so there was no way I could have been injured.
Come to think of it, I never did get to receive healing from this fake monk. Now there was no longer any chance of getting hurt fighting monsters, either. The walls of Sargadis had already begun to appear beyond the forest.
Tap, tap.
Together with my companions, I set out on the road home.
The sun had begun sinking westward long ago. The horizon beneath the blue sky was glowing red, as if someone had grilled it with a torch. Fuck, it was making me crave meat.
Thinking about my bank balance, I looked up at the sky. A hazy, clouded moon had risen. The moon in this otherworld was fucking huge, so it was easy to see even at sunset.
It was a plump crescent, fattened like a slab of pork belly.
***
“Four Iron-class adventurers. Confirmed. Proceed.”
After going through the guards’ identity-check procedure that always switched my trauma ON, we returned to Sargadis.
On the street before the city walls, beneath the evening glow.
At the junction leading to my inn and the Audumra Adventurer Guild, we discussed things before parting.
“What are you going to do with the goblin fangs?”
Est asked. I thought she was asking whether we should split the proceeds evenly, but Francesca’s answer was a little different from what I expected.
“Let’s sell them to the guild. There isn’t much difference in price, after all.”
“There are only this many. Won’t they refuse to buy them?”
“What do you mean? Don’t they buy them if there are more than ten?”
“Priest, don’t go around saying such sheltered things. Even if you fill your pockets, they make it painfully obvious that you should gather some more and come back to sell them.”
I had absolutely no idea what the hell they were talking about. Let’s just keep my mouth shut.
It seemed to mean that they wouldn’t buy such a small quantity. This world wasn’t like an RPG where you killed a golem, plucked off the flower attached to it, and had the guild go, Oh, what is this?!
Apparently, the guilds had agreed to buy cheap goods like goblin teeth only in bulk.
It was like getting yelled at for doing a shoddy job if you brought back only ten dolls’ eyes after working an eye-pasting part-time job.
“How about selling them to the Mage Guild? We’ll only get a dirt-cheap price, though.”
“That’s vicious business practice. They know the guild won’t buy them, so they extort money from people trying to liquidate them quickly.”
“I suppose there’s no other way.”
“I don’t mind doing that.”
After discussing it, we decided to fire-sale the goblin teeth. We would dispose of them through the Mage Guild, like selling to people who hoarded avatars in games.
“Then─ who wants to take them to the Alchemy Guild and sell them?”
No one answered. I understood why, somehow. Doing it oneself was bothersome, while entrusting it to someone else raised the fear that they would run off with the money.
The small amount also increased the risk of someone making off with it.
─Jingle.
The teeth weren’t even enough to fill a small pouch.
That was because all the goblin teeth we had salvaged came from the ones we caught in the cave. In the forest, we were too busy bolting like neighborhood mutts chased by a Mad Max dog-catcher truck because of Nefertiti to take the time to collect any.
I wasn’t even sure whether splitting them would yield one copper per person.
One copper. Even if someone decided to pocket it and then flopped down defiantly, it was an amount that made me hesitate to pull out a knife and stab them in the gut.
“…Leave it to me. I’m officially a priest of the God of Abundance and a member of the church, so you don’t have to worry about me running away from you, right? How about you come collect the money from the church later?”
“That sounds fine. Should we leave it with this old-timer?”
“With that fake monk? We’ll go to the church to collect the money and come back after listening to the God of Abundance’s doctrine for over an hour.”
“How did you know?”
I know because that’s what Korean Jesus freaks in the twenty-first century go around doing. After being tormented by women offering free drink samples, the proselytizing methods of this otherworld feel as bland as lukewarm water. You people aren’t ready yet.
“Tch. We won’t get anywhere if we keep standing around like this. Let’s decide with this.”
Est said that while taking out a one-copper coin. She flicked it with her finger and caught it on the back of her hand.
“We’ll choose heads or tails and keep going until only one person remains.”
In an otherworld without rock-paper-scissors, it was a common way to make a bet. After I started receiving a salary, I often used it to bet over drinks with Danawa too.
“Let’s do that.”
“Yes. That sounds fine.”
“Mm.”
“Good, I’m glad no one objects. Then I’ll bet on heads. The side with the picture is tails.”
At Est’s words, we each chose heads or tails. Francesca was the only one who bet on tails.
“Then I’ll toss it.”
Spin-spin─.
Clack!
Est tossed the coin and caught it. Fortunately, I saw which way it had landed on the back of her hand. Once everyone’s attention focused on it, Est revealed the coin.
Just as I had seen, it was heads. Est beamed.
“Yaaay~ I won party leader~! I’ll come collect the money later, okay? I can roughly guess how much it’ll be, so don’t skim any!”
“Awwww….”
Francesca, who had lost the all-or-nothing gamble, made a miserable face as she readied her purse.
After finishing the junk-item disposal, we moved to the Audumra Guild.
“Ms. Francesca’s party of four. Here is your completion reward.”
Chrrrling─.
The receptionist divided the coins into four ten-copper coins and set them on the reception desk. This was a world without even disposable bags, so money was always paid out like this.
“Excuse me, but there’s something I need to report.”
In addition, Francesca explained the variables that had arisen during this ruins guard duty request. The goblin proliferation and the matter of Nefertiti.
I left out my guesses and reported only the facts and what we had witnessed. It was best to avoid giving anyone an excuse to nitpick later.
“The goblins are multiplying?! Good heavens! You must have had a terrible time!”
The male employee made a huge fuss and then put down exactly four additional coppers as extra compensation. Adventuring really wasn’t something a human being should do.
Two days of going through that fucking ordeal, and the pay I got was only eleven coppers. This world was as primitive as ever. Where the fuck were my human rights? Had I left them at Carmine University?
No, fuck. Even there, I had been doing slave labor before someone thesis-ninja’d me. Maybe my human rights didn’t exist anywhere in the world.
Anyway, we each took our share of the reward and put it in our wallets. It was time to part ways.
“All done! I’m heading out. Let’s work together again if another request comes up.”
Est said only that and left. It was a breezy farewell, like clocking out after a part-time shift.
“If you get hurt, come to the church of the God of Abundance. We’ll heal you at a low price.”
Before leaving, Paragon made the otherworldly sign of the cross and said that. He didn’t mean they were offering a discount; he meant we should come because their healing fees were the cheapest.
“Mr. Nord. You worked really hard today. Even harder than during the sewer request.”
Francesca, who remained beside me until the end, said that.
“Honestly, judging by our contributions, you seemed more like the party leader than I did. I’m truly grateful.”
“Being the party leader doesn’t mean you have to do more work. In the end, the higher-ups just put together a suitable party and toss the request down to them.”
I stopped Francesca as she bowed at the waist. We weren’t even Bronze; at Iron class, everyone was more or less the same. It was hard to imagine the receptionists holding an in-depth discussion before deciding on a party leader.
─Let’s just make this guy do it. More importantly, what are we having for dinner today?
It was probably something like that.
“Hehe. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you.”
Francesca said that with a smile.
Come to think of it, she was a dwarf who smiled a lot. At first, she had been timid and constantly watching everyone’s reactions. It seemed that working together had brought us fairly close.
“I’m staying at an inn called The Children of Mutarat on Third Street. If you come by sometime, I’ll buy you a drink.”
“I like drinks. It’s been quite a while since I last had one.”
It really had been quite a while; I hadn’t had a drink in over a week. During my master’s program, I drank at least once a week. It felt like that was how I recovered my mental points.
“The Children of Mutarat, right? I’ll come by sometime soon.”
“Yes! If I’m not there, just let the innkeeper know and go in!”
It seemed Francesca had genuinely meant the invitation. Honestly, I had thought it was just a generic greeting, like saying we should have a meal together sometime. Did this world not have that kind of empty pleasantry? I didn’t think I had heard it at Carmine University, either.
Anyway, we exchanged friendly farewells like that once again and went our separate ways.
The greatest gain from this request was the primitive sorcery ‘Beast Regression,’ but I had also gotten a boost toward promotion. Hopefully, I could become Bronze class before the end of the year.
“Still, I’ve got a long way to go.”
Come to think of it, even my master’s degree was still only at the Bronze level. I’d better work on my thesis when I got back to the inn.
Writing had to be done immediately when an idea came to mind, or else it would get put off indefinitely.