Chapter 72
There was only one inn in the village with a stable.
“Welcome!”
The bastard who owned the place had been guzzling booze in broad daylight. When we walked in, he crawled out from behind the counter.
He had such a nasty face that he looked like the sort of bastard who made a hobby of killing people. The way he stared at us with those greasy eyes was downright fucking unpleasant.
Still, it’s not good to judge people by their faces.
Yerna the horrid bitch is a bad example, and Dorka is a good one. People are born with their faces, so judging their character by them is rude.
“We’d like to stay for one night. How much is it?”
“Hehe. Five copper a night.”
Correction. This bastard really was a piece of shit.
“Five copper seems a bit expensive.”
I said, scowling fiercely. We didn’t even want to stay in this shabby place, but it was the only inn around, and they wanted five copper for one night?
Dorka would be pounding the ground in despair, thinking, “I should’ve opened an inn in the countryside, too.”
‘The bitch is trying to rip us off?’
The thought of him putting up one shabby building in a backwater like this and coasting through life pissed me off. It reminded me of the owner of a shamelessly overpriced minbak in Busan where I’d gone on a trip with my friends.
“Well, if you don’t like it, I can knock off a copper or so. But I don’t know if there’s another inn around here.”
He picked his ear and pretended not to care, so I said with a fierce expression,
“Three copper. Any more than that, and I’d rather camp outside the village.”
I switched to a formal, old-fashioned way of speaking. It was my final offer. The bastard flinched, then spoke as if he were doing us a favor.
“Hmph. Fine, then. It’s not like I have any other customers.”
“We don’t need meals. Don’t prepare anything without asking and then demand we pay for it.”
“Got it.”
Fran and I took the room key and unpacked.
We left Ttareungi with the owner. Ttareungi still wanted to run, so I promised I’d let Ttareungi run again later and managed to calm it down.
‘I ought to put on that innkeeper bastard’s face and beat the shit out of him next time.’
Tabula’s face-concealing mask.
Fuck, wasn’t that what I’d been saving it for? Now this was putting resources to good use. The Recycling Master, Nord, in action.
Dreaming of my night of revenge, I went with Fran to the village chief’s house.
“Oh! You’ve finally arrived!”
The village chief was a deeply tanned old man. We were invited inside, exchanged some small talk, and then got down to business.
“We’ll follow the goblins’ tracks and exterminate them right away. Where should we bring the proof?”
The proof was an item used to confirm that a monster had been exterminated.
For goblins, you brought back a part specified by the client, such as their teeth or ears, to prove you’d killed them. Apparently, this practice started because some adventurers used to bring in parts from monsters they’d killed earlier, lie about it, and pocket the reward.
The source of that information was Professor Brammaton’s—never mind.
“Bring me both of the goblins’ ears.”
It was the most common method. I wrote ‘2 goblin ears’ in my notebook.
“Understood. I’m asking because it’ll help us track them down, but what exactly have those goblins been doing?”
“They’ve been stealing our harvested grain.”
The village chief clenched his fists, trembling with rage.
“We worked hard all year to gather that grain, then stored it in the warehouse, and those bastards sneak in at night and steal it! Can you forgive that?!”
“No. That’s absolutely unforgivable.”
I matched the village chief’s outrage. It seemed the little brats in this world were running wild on their own, too.
‘They’re snatching up the fruits of everyone else’s hard work.’
For little brats, they acted just like professors.
No, that kind of behavior was already the very essence of a professor!
Goblins were both little brats and professors!
Real professors at least had impressive knowledge in their own fields, but those creatures were evil beings that had inherited only the worst parts of professors: selfishness and unruliness!!!
─Kill, Master.
The Professor Slayer had awakened inside me for the first time in a while and whispered. I didn’t resist his temptation. This wasn’t mere temptation, but guidance leading me down the right path.
‘That’s right. Don’t hold back, Professor Slayer inside me.’
I soothed the Professor Slayer, who was fuming in the suite inside my mind.
─There’s a lot of trash in this village.
I know. I could sense it from the moment we entered. I had a feeling I wouldn’t be leaving this village without something happening.
So──the violent revenge you want in this village.
I’ll show it to you.
“I don’t have any more questions, so we’ll get going.”
Having finished my mental conference with the Professor Slayer, I stood and took my leave of the village chief.
“Don’t worry. We’ll have it all taken care of by tomorrow or the day after.”
***
Otherworldly green brats exist everywhere.
In swamps and deserts, even in jungles or snowy fields.
They’re pests whose nests appear regardless of the region or climate. You can look in some unlikely place and find yourself wondering, ‘Goblins? Here, too?’
“Still, they say they tend to prefer pretty similar kinds of nests.”
I explained as Fran and I climbed the mountain.
We’d brought our bags, including a lantern. ─Since we didn’t trust the innkeeper, we’d left only our camping gear at the inn─ we’d gone out to search the forest where goblins might be hiding.
Fran, making up for her short strides with light movements, asked,
“What kind of place do they like?”
“Somewhere with a roof overhead and easy access to food. Apparently, they don’t really care about hiding their nests.”
I answered, recalling one of Professor Brammaton’s books.
“So if we ask the animals, we’ll find them in no time. Oh, there’s a squirrel right over there.”
I spotted a squirrel stuffing fallen acorns into its cheeks. Autumn must be a hell of a busy season for wild animals, too.
─Rustle!
The squirrel, busy gathering food, spotted us, too. I called out just as it was about to run away in surprise.
“Squeak!! (Wait!!)”
“Squeak? (Huh?)”
The squirrel that had been about to flee turned to look at me when it heard the loud voice of a fellow squirrel. It must’ve been surprised, since its kind couldn’t make a voice that loud.
I wanted to laugh, but held it in. Animals tended to take laughter as a signal to fight. So I spoke squirrel to keep the little guy from getting scared.
“Squeak-squeak squeak? (Want a walnut?)”
“Squeak!! (Mine!!) ”
And so we reached an agreement. I told it I’d give it a whole walnut if it found the goblins for us.
“Squeak-squeak squeak! (I know! Green monster!!) ”
Don’t call them green monsters. It makes me think the Hulk’s about to show up.
Still, it looked like we’d gotten lucky and hit the jackpot on our first try. I was in a good mood since things were going smoothly. Or maybe those little brats were just wandering around in the open.
Either way, it was a huge win for us. I said to Fran,
“It knows where they are. We promised it a walnut, so all we have to do is follow it──what’s wrong?”
Fran’s face had turned a little red, so I asked her. Was something wrong?
“N-no, it’s nothing. I just thought it was cute when you squeaked, Nord……”
“Squeak?”
She thought it was cute when a man over six feet tall imitated a squirrel?
Fran had a very unusual sensibility. I’d even snuck out at night to meow with the cats because I was afraid Fran would hate it. I never expected her to think it was cute when I imitated animals.
‘Maybe I’d understand if our positions were reversed.’
I imagined Fran going “meow meow, woof woof.”
‘Fuck, that’s hot.’
N-no, it’s cute. Cute, that’s all. The Dongleaconda gave a twitch, wondering if it was finally going to chirp again, so I flicked it on the forehead and calmed it down. I told it we’d take care of that after we finished everything today.
“Squeak-squeak!! (Hurry up!!) ”
Just then, the squirrel we’d bribed with a walnut urged us on from our feet.
“Fran, it says we should hurry. Let’s get going before it bites us.”
“Pfft. Is it impatient? All right, I’ll hurry.”
We followed the chubby-cheeked squirrel’s lead.
For the record, even though my Translation Ability was so useful, it was impossible to befriend monsters.
I’d tried a few times in college, but every monster was a little bastard like a Chihuahua that had been infected with the rage virus for twenty-nine days.
─Hello? I’m Nord. What’s your name?
─Krop! ldoooHu! (Human! I’m gonna kill you!)
─Come on, don’t be like that. Wanna be secret friends with big bro?”
─Krop! ldooobiiS! (Human! I’m gonna kill and eat you!)
─Mom.
It went more or less like that.
Don’t assume that being able to talk means you can have a conversation. Those bastards had nothing in their heads but attack-move and eating.
At that point, you’d think the stupid monsters would gradually go extinct through natural selection, but expecting evolution in another world where the motto was “Fuck the laws of physics” was a luxury.
‘Darwin, you were wrong.’
My career change into a Pokémon Master had gone to shit, but back then, I hadn’t been discouraged by something as trivial as that.
If a problem couldn’t be solved through conversation, wasn’t it only natural to resort to violence?
For all I knew, I might be able to use dragon language or magical script through some bullshit logic like “Words have power.”
Carmine University never taught me a goddamn thing and just worked me to the bone, but it turned out that had all been foreshadowing that I was Dragonborn. Surely, one day, I’d shout Fus Ro Dah! and unleash a dragon shout from my mouth.
‘I thought I didn’t have to be Dragonborn, though.’
I may not look it, but I got my Hanja proficiency level 8 certificate when I was in elementary school, and I was a devoted reader of The Magic Thousand Character Classic.
Wouldn’t it be a pretty good future if I became Nord, the Benefactor of Mankind, spreading the glory of an eighth-level Hanja grand mage throughout this world full of squiggly writing?
That was what I’d thought back then, so I tried it.
─Nord of Britannia commands you!!
─Po? SSuA toooGu? (What? Is this guy hinting that he’s an idiot?)
─Split in half and die.
─KropCisA! Wo! biiS! (Annoying human! I’ll hit you! I’ll eat you!)
─Yeah, your mom.
There was no Magic Thousand Character Classic in this world, either.
Damn it, what a bunch of fucking racists. China was one of the three cradles of human civilization before the Red Guards, and this was how they treated it?
─Rustle, rustle!!
It was while I was thinking that.
A huge snake suddenly swallowed the squirrel leading the way at an insane speed.
“Squeak?!”
─Chomp!!
─Gulp!!
Our guide was sucked into the snake’s stomach in the blink of an eye. Acorns and bits of walnut spilled onto the fallen leaves as it let out a scream.
─Patter.
─Gulp! Gulp!
We were struck speechless by the National Geographic scene playing out before our eyes. The snake, having gobbled down the delicious squirrel, glanced at us and tried to run away!!
“You bastard!! Spit out our GPS!!”
Furious, I activated Beast Regression and grabbed it by the body. As expected of a snake bastard, it bit my arm as soon as I caught it, but its fangs couldn’t even pierce my mana coating.
“Ssss?! (What?!)”
“Open, door to the stomach!!!”
I grabbed the snake bastard by the tail and squeezed upward from there, like squeezing a tube of yogurt!!
I had to get our little squirrel out of this bastard’s stomach!!!
“Sssshaaaak?!”
─Gurgle!!
Against the yogurt-tube-squeezing technique I’d honed through elementary, middle, and high school, the snake bastard regurgitated the squirrel it had swallowed!
But covered in stomach acid, the squirrel had already died from fractures all over its body and suffocation!!
“Daram!!!”
I wailed in grief, mourning Daram’s death! As a veterinary student, I knew better than anyone there was no way to bring it back in that condition!!
My sorrow turned to rage, directed at the snake in my hand!
“You bastard!! How dare you kill Daram?!”
“Sssha?!”
“Daram was a rodent who might’ve led us to the goblins!!!! You ruined everything!!!!”
Having lost my temper, I hoisted the venomous bastard into the air. I was going to recreate the throw my grandfather used to subdue snakes.
If I unleashed my power as a hero of Earth, it wouldn’t just pass out—it’d burst into chunks of flesh──but that was the fate you brought on yourself!!
“Die!! Daram’s murderer!!!!”
“Ssshat!! Ssshat-sit shrrrr!!! (I’ll help you!!!)”
─I froze!
I’d been about to grant the snake bastard the gift of death, but I stopped my arm at its last words.
“Sshat? Sshat shrrr shishi shat-shrrr? (You? You know what we are and still want to help us?)”
“Shrrrrt!! (Anything you want!!) ”
The snake, whose loose tongue had nearly gotten it killed, said so desperately. Its voice had the unmistakable tone of a creature willing to do anything as long as it didn’t die.
“……Do you know any green monsters called goblins?”
“Shishi!! Shishi!! (I know!! I know!!) ”
My eyes widened so much they felt like they might pop out of my head at the snake’s answer!
Good heavens, this snake knew where the goblins were, too!! I was hit by an incredible culture shock!!! That’s right!!!! There was no rule saying squirrels were the only ones who could be our GPS!!!!!
“Why didn’t you say that sooner!!”
Feeling sorry for it, I set the snake down.
If it knew where the goblins’ nest was, all we had to do was get it to lead us there!!
“Go, Kabutomaru! Carry on Daram’s will!!”
“I’m not really following the story here…… Are you sure this is okay?”
“It’s fine!!”
Fran seemed worried, but if the snake was lying, we could beat the bastard up and make a new friend. We were only connected by food and the promise of its life, after all—a very casual business relationship.
And so Nord and his friends, with a new companion, headed for the goblins’ nest.
Ah, of course we made Daram a grave.
I even put a walnut in it, so Daram could happily play in heaven, too. I believed that.