## Chapter 25 – Goblin Extermination
“There’s no such thing as unconditional happiness.”
As that saying goes, there are no conveniences or happinesses provided for free in this world. Sadly, in order to obtain happiness, you have to run around and exert your own effort here and there.
It had already been about a week since I came to Isbanter. The thought that I was going to be screwed if I didn’t start working soon was starting to become serious, but I couldn’t work at all because I was busy gathering various information. I had to show my face at the Adventurer’s Guild and search for work by pounding the pavement. There was a lot to do since I had changed my base of operations.
More than anything, it wasn’t as easy as I thought to find work when a foreign adventurer suddenly came looking for it. You could call it territorialism. There was something like that.
Thus, after all sorts of efforts, the quest I was assigned to after a week was goblin extermination. The content was nothing special. It was a simple request to beat the crap out of those nasty goblin bastards and bring back their heads, for which they would pay 3 coppers per head.
Extermination requests are a kind of pest control project.
It’s a request that goes something like, “If you catch those freaking bastards” because certain monsters appear and plunder or devour crops, causing damage, “I’ll give you money.”
Farmers can hire adventurers at a cheap price to eliminate monsters, which is good for them, and adventurers can earn money simply by killing a few monsters, which is good for them. It’s a win-win quest.
That was what I had to do today.
—Step, step.
I, who had joined a party the day before to carry out the goblin extermination quest, headed to the general store, which was the meeting place, early in the morning. When I arrived, a bald man with a short spear was already there waiting. I waved to him and greeted him.
“Good morning.”
“Nice to meet you.”
His name was Sant, and he was an E-rank adventurer. His equipment consisted of a leather armor and a short spear in his hand. Other than that, his thick arm muscles looked trustworthy. Arm muscles were proof of training. He looked like a veteran who had been rolling around in E-rank for a long time.
The other party members were a female adventurer named Meria, with brown hair and striking blue eyes, who used a one-handed sword and shield, and another person who looked like a minor holding a sword. His name was Gibson. I wasn’t very confident, but it didn’t matter since they were both E-rank. He must have some skill to have reached E-rank at such a young age.
“Looks like the other two haven’t arrived yet?”
“Looks like it.”
I sat down next to him and waited for the others. Then, for some reason, it suddenly became seriously awkward, so I decided to speak first.
“It’s just goblins, so it won’t be that difficult. Let’s just earn a quick buck and go back.”
“Let’s do that.”
You monosyllabic bastard.
“Um… Since there are four of us, I think we only need to catch about 16. I think it would be good if we could each get about ten coppers. I don’t know if we can catch that many, though.”
“I suppose so.”
It seemed that this Sant guy was an extremely taciturn man. No, are bald guys not only lacking hair on their heads but also lacking words? Do you honestly think that makes sense?
He seemed to be using no more than five letters when he spoke. It was an extremely efficient way of speaking that only conveyed the necessary words, and my awkwardness quickly doubled.
“Are you good with a spear? It seems a bit rare to see adventurers carrying spears.”
“A little.”
As I was having a meaningless back-and-forth with Sant, the other members arrived. It was Meria and Gibson.
“Hi, hi.”
Meria, who waved her hands and greeted us expressionlessly, had a moderately sized wooden shield with an iron rim on her back. It looked quite sturdy, so it would be perfect for the main tank. Adventurers carrying shields are not very common.
“Nice to meet you.”
The boy, or rather, the teenager, named Gibson looked as young as he did when we formed the party. Anyway, he was only carrying a sword like me.
I don’t know if it was the spirit of youth, but seeing him jump into the desperate job market of an adventurer despite still being in his growth period, it seemed that his family was quite poor.
I wasn’t jealous of his poverty at all, but I was very envious of his youth.
“Everyone’s here. Let’s get going then.”
As soon as the party members arrived, Sant said the longest sentence he had ever said and took the lead. I heard when we formed the party yesterday that the farm that requested the goblin extermination was a place he knew.
So we followed Sant to the quest area. A farm, like with the Cockatrice, there are more requests from farms than I thought. Because they cultivate crops in large quantities, they are always threatened by monsters.
Even in modern Korea, damage to crops caused by wild boars and roe deer is constant, so would this world be any different? Wild animals have simply been replaced by monsters. Moreover, the goblins, who are also smart, are systematically plundering crops, so it would be maddening for the farm owner.
Goblins.
Yes.
Goblins.
Goblins are a small demihuman race with green skin. Their representative features are long ears and noses. They are a bit troublesome because they can use simple tools, unlike other low-level monsters, but the ability to use tools means that they have the ability to use their heads to some extent, and therefore they are tricky because they can do things that other monsters can’t.
To put it appropriately, they are a bit higher level than Kobolds.
But they’re just a snack to me. Anyway, the farm was located near the city, so it was within walking distance. I walked while chatting with the party members.
“Hey, Katt, was it? Wow, you’re tall. Are you from a foreign race?”
Meria seemed to be friendly and started asking me about this and that. My striking appearance seemed to be suitable for arousing such curiosity. It didn’t seem like she was looking down on me, but rather asking out of pure curiosity, so I answered kindly.
“Yes. I’m from Mirkesha. There’s no hope in my barbaric hometown, so I came to the big city, but there’s no hope here either.”
“Oh, really?”
“Well, my hometown people are all about this tall.”
I’m almost 180cm tall, 178cm to be exact. My average height is a bit taller than the men in this world. If you add the identity of black hair and black eyes to that, I become a typical barbaric barbarian man. Meria seemed to find that amazing.
Actually, I haven’t seen many people with black hair in the city, so it seems quite rare. If I get to know a few adventurers personally, I might create a clan like the “Mirkesha Alumni Association.”
“What’s your hometown like? I’m so curious right now, can you tell me?”
“Um… Well…”
If I were to explain about Hell Korea, it wouldn’t be enough to talk about it for three days and three nights, but I decided to lie appropriately here.
“Well, there’s a lot of grass and trees. In the first place, we’re nomads, so there’s no real hometown. We’re always riding horses here and there.”
“Horses? Are you good at riding horses?”
“No. It’s freaking hard.”
“What’s that?”
I actually rode a horse once in Jeju Island, and it was freaking hard and scary, so this wasn’t a lie. I’m the kind of person who trembles even when driving a Class 2 Ordinary vehicle. My riding skill is below F-grade.
“What about you, Meria? Isn’t it hard to do such a rough job as a woman?”
This wasn’t prejudice or preconception, but a matter of hormones and physical ability. Women have a harder time building muscle than men, and their bodies are smaller. In the harsh workplace of adventurers who make a living by fighting to the death, low strength and small size are extreme negative factors.
I don’t know if it’s because it’s another world, but there are warriors and knights who strengthen their bodies with mana, and mages who increase their physical strength with buffs, but that’s a story of another world that has nothing to do with me, and from F to D grade, it’s almost like there’s only a difference in skill from ordinary people, so it’s true that women in this level don’t really fit in with adventurers.
But I saw a lot of them.
It’s a rough and difficult world, so men and women alike jump into the job market.
“It’s hard, but if you have a sword, it’s all the same, right? Whether you’re a man or a woman, if you have a weapon, you’re pretty much the same.”
“That’s right. If you have a sword, it’s all the same. People don’t really know that, but you seem to be wise.”
As she said, even a woman can kill most monsters if she has a sword. If you have the fighting spirit to fight and kill the enemy, a woman can definitely become a warrior. It’s a matter of mindset. If you’re willing to risk your life, you can make a living anywhere.
“Aren’t we almost there?”
“I think so.”
I arrived at the quest area while talking to Meria. Sant and Gibson were just walking silently like ascetic monks doing silent meditation, so I was glad that Meria was friendly.
If it weren’t for her, we would have walked all the way without saying a word.
“We’ve arrived.”
With Sant’s skillful guidance, we entered the hall. There were bounty posters of goblins, drawn in an ugly and exaggerated way, on the walls of the hall. It was as if they contained the same anger as the North Korean posters that denounced the American invaders, which sent chills down my spine.
“Oh, aren’t you Sant?”
“Nice to see you, Chairman.”
“Ah, that’s right. Sant and you guys are the adventurers who came to exterminate the goblins.”
Then an old man greeted Sant. Sant and the man who seemed to be a local leader seemed to know each other. We simply greeted the old man and listened to his explanation.
“Good. I can trust Sant. Kill the goblins and bring me their heads. If you do, I’ll pay you 3 coppers per head.”
“Leave it to me.”
“Yes, I can trust adventurers like you who came with Sant.”
I’m confident.
Killing monsters weaker than me was one of my few specialties. Goblins are more troublesome than Kobolds, but they are only “more troublesome than Kobolds.” I’ve been living by killing goblins since I was young.
Goblins are quite smart, so they arm themselves with junk they find here and there.
That junk includes weapons dropped by unfortunate adventurers who died, lost items that someone dropped, and discarded blades. In short, they carry things that are worth some money.
These bastards even carry coins or things equivalent to them, which is a windfall. They have a habit of collecting shiny things like crows.
This is one of the reasons why it’s hard to see goblins in Krasheim. If it’s worth money, adventurers will sweep it away regardless of water or fire. It was impossible for small goblins to stop the greedy Ancient warriors—locust swarms.
“Let’s go then. Goblins are likely to have nests in the forests or mountains near the raided fields. Seeing that they plundered crops, they may have piled them up in caves. If you take that, you can get additional rewards.”
Seeing Sant suddenly speak so eloquently, I couldn’t help but trust him.
“Mr. Gibson, do you know anything about goblins? I’ve caught a lot of goblins, but I don’t know exactly about their habits.”
I asked Gibson, who was standing next to me, like that. Gibson seemed surprised that I, who was dozens of centimeters taller than him, spoke politely. My motto is to use honorifics if someone doesn’t cause trouble or harm me. I was a cultured modern man.
First of all, I just asked him anything so that I could deal with the battle flexibly if I at least started talking.
“I used to repel goblins in my village when I was young, but I don’t know the habits in detail. All I know is that goblins can communicate with each other.”
He looks young enough now, so when was he young?
So we followed Sant’s lead and searched for places where goblins might be. As with most things, it was a matter of climbing mountains.
