Side story 03 – A Certain Adventurer’s Disaster

After receiving our rewards for reporting the completion of our quest, we sat ’round a table in the guild to take a break.
The quest we turned in was the subjugation mission of forest wolves…
Was a pretty difficult job for us. Forest wolves are pack monsters that live in the forest, but recently they’ve been growing too large in number and have been attacking merchants that use the forest roads. That’s why the lord of this area sent out a request for their subjugation.
Each forest wolf ain’t so strong by themselves, but they always move in a pack and attack after surrounding the enemy, so they’re a pretty annoying foe. In the forest your vision is limited, so forest wolves are a monster you need to take care with, but for some reason they appeared close to the entrance to the forest yesterday, so it was easy to hunt them. Seems that something scared them. I was worrying about it, but I still have no idea.

“Still, things were easier than expected this time, ey?”

“Well yeah, the wolves were at the entrance to the forest for some reason. What’s more there wasn’t any teamwork at all.”

Apparently my companions were thinking about the same thing. I decided to join in.

“Didn’t feel like they were hunting for prey. Speaking of which, didn’t they look scared of something?”

They nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, I got that feeling too. Could it be that they were running from some strong monster that took up residence in the forest or something?”

“Hell if I know. But it sounds possible.”

Basically the only times that monsters migrate are when there are too many of them, too little prey, or when there’s a strong monster that moved into their territory. Since they moved so suddenly this time, and they looked scared too, the chance that it’s the latter is pretty high.

“Can’t be that a dragon or something moved into the forest, right?”

“Haha, pretty sure that ain’t happening.”

I’ve been an adventurer for pretty bloody long, but I ain’t never seen a dragon. Heard that they exist deep into the Demon Territory though.

“Well at any rate, it’d probably be better to be careful if we head into the forest again for a quest.”

“Yeah. Ain’t nothing matter more than your life.”

Once you’re dead, you’re dead.
An adventurer is a job where your life completely hangs on your skills and yourself, but even so you get novice brats that dream of being heroes and get themselves killed trying to do the unreasonable. Veterans like us try to teach them what the world is like whenever we can, but people like that are endless.
Right, just like that kid over-… Hey.

..*

..*

“I’ll be transcribing what’s written on the car──”

“Oi, oi, this little girl wants to become an adventurer? It’s the end of the bloody world.”

When I went to have a look, I found someone hidden from head to toe in a black robe, applying at the counter to be an adventurer. But even under that robe I could tell at a glance that they were a dainty, green-arsed brat, and what’s more a woman. This brat of a girl is going to be an adventurer without even forming a party? It’s bloody suicide! If I leave her alone, in two or three days she’s just gunna be a ‘seed-bed’ for a goblin nest.
Before I knew it, I’d left my seat and cut into the conversation.

“Oi, oi, Gartz. You’re seriously picking a fight with another newbie?”

“Doing this everyyy singleee time. You sure don’t get bored, huh.”

Can’t be helped that my companions are all astonished that I’m doing this again, but I’m not gunna sleep well knowing that brats are getting themselves killed left and right. It’s for their sake as well that I grill them a little and have them work underneath us.
The lass might’ve been afraid of me or something, cause she just stood there without saying anything.
Looking at her again, she sure is bloody tiny.

“Oi, how ’bout saying something. Don’t just freeze wordlessly with your face hidden.”

Saying that, I pulled off the little girl’s hood.

..*

..*

──────!?

The moment I saw her face, I spontaneously stiffened.
The moment our eyes met, I thought I was gunna die.
Her eyes were so dark and stagnant that I’m pretty sure even demons couldn’t compare.
The next moment, just as I seemed to feel a prickling pain on my arm, the girl was fucking holding a sinister black tantou.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! She’s gunna kill me!

“HII-!?”

I reflexively let out a pathetic cry as I fell on my arse.
Before I knew it, the thing in front of me wasn’t a human woman anymore. It was a monster spurting out some black sludge from its whole body.
I backed away, trying to put even a little distance between us.

“＄％、＆＄＆％’＃!”

And when I did, I heard a somewhat incomprehensible cry.
Turning around, I found that the same fucking monsters were reaching out their tentacles to me.

“!? UOOOOAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH――――!!!”

“＠＃、＊? ＃＄＆＄＆％!”

I tried my best to hit the thing, but there didn’t seem to be any effect.
Far from it, before I knew it all the monsters had fucking surrounded me and were charging in at me at once.

I somehow managed to shake them off and got myself outside, but even there the place was filled with the things.

“What the fuck is going on with this town!?”

I don’t even know who I was screaming at, but I started to run to escape this town of monsters.

..*

..*

..*

◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

..*

When I came to, I was laying on the ground.
Holding my hand against my painfully throbbing head, I got up and looked around. Apparently I was in a field outside of Riemel. Although I was close to town, it wasn’t as though there weren’t any monsters. The fact that I didn’t get eaten while lying around here was just good luck.

Anyway, it wasn’t like I could get anything done here, so I decided to head back to town. I get the feeling that I’ve forgotten something incredible, but I can’t remember what it was.

..*

..*

It was right afterwards that I was told that I had hit the guards and forcefully broken out of town, and starting from the entrance to town, I was stuck with being accused by a bunch of people about stuff I have no recollection about.

..*

Just what the fuck have I been doing!?

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He seems to be a ruffian, but is actually a good person.

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