Chapter 2

Loren knew in his head what goblins were.

Goblins were ugly creatures. Their color ranged from green to dark green, and were the size of a child.

They could be found almost anywhere and reproduced quickly.

They were ferocious monsters but had low intelligence, and were not that strong either.

But their high reproduction rates and strength in numbers were not to be underestimated.

There was an undeniable fact that goblins could mate and reproduce with almost any living thing that has reproductive organs, and fully grow during the span of a few days.

Although new adventurers hunt them day by day, they show no sign of going extinct.

“No wonder he says it’s an easy quest,” thought Loren as he gazed at the rest of the swordsman-like young man’s party members.

The young man’s name was Sarfe.

He was quite new to the job of an adventurer himself, and dreamed of being a hero. While Sarfe was going on and on about his dreams, Loren couldn’t understand what made Sarfe be this optimistic, despite being similar ages. As Sarfe went on, Loren decided not to pay much attention to him.

Siting next to Sarfe was a girl with short brown hair dressed like a thief. She was looking at Sarfe, who was still going on about his dream to become a hero, with sparkling eyes and a small blush.

Loren recalled that her name was Naren.

She was Sarfe’s childhood friend and left her village along with Sarfe to become an adventurer. With nimble movements and skillful fingers, she was the party’s thief.

Although the class name is thief, they are not criminals.

The class ‘thief’ as an adventurer is completely different from the criminal ‘thief’, and as an adventurer, it is legal to introduce yourself as a ‘thief’.

Their job is to locate and disable traps as well as pick and open locks. Loren had no idea as to why the class was called ‘thief’, just like the criminal ‘thief’.

“I guess they couldn’t think of a good name for the class,” thought Loren as moved his gaze to the next person.

Next to the thief was a female magician wearing a blue robe and a staff propped next to her, and was listening to Sarfe with a bored expression.

Although she acted annoyed by Sarfe, Loren could see that she glanced at Sarfe every time brushed her blond hair out of her eyes and let out a small sigh.

It was obvious that she was only acting annoyed and was very intrigued by Sarfe.

Her name was Oxy, and although she didn’t know Sarfe as long as Naren, she met them the day Sarfe and Naren became adventurers, and formed a party together.

She was around the same age as the two, but she graduated from a school for magicians, and her staff was proof of that.

Sarfe told Loren that she was able to use 3 spells a day, but Loren had no idea how impressive that was because he didn’t know any magicians during his days as a mercenary.

Magicians were usually hired by aristocrats or royalty, and the ones who weren’t were usually adventurers. Loren knew of no one who was a magician that was a mercenary.

Since Sarfe told him so proudly, he decided that 3 spells a day must be an extraordinary feat, but wondered if a person who can only use 3 spells a day be useful at all.

Since Loren didn’t want the party to hate him, he decided not to say it out loud.

Loren believed that in order to survive as a mercenary, there was a need to read between the lines and not create a bad atmosphere.

Loren then looked at the last person.

Sitting next to Oxy was a girl wearing a white colored priest’s robe and her black hair tied up in a ponytail.

Her name was Lapis.

As a priest she served the god of knowledge, and continually glanced at Loren with apologetic eyes and a troubled smile.

She was also invited by Sarfe to join the party, and she knew them longer than Loren but shorter than Oxy.

She became a full-fledged priest not too long ago, but instead of working for the church, she became an adventurer in order to see what the world was like to gain experience.

Priests prayed to their deity to perform divine arts, and Lapis told Loren in an embarrassed manner that her skill in divine arts was not that great, and she can only use divine arts twice a day.

Loren didn’t understand why she was acting embarrassed, but assumed it was because she couldn’t use divine arts as frequently as other priests.

Same with magicians, from Loren’s knowledge, there were almost no priests that worked as mercenaries.

They usually worked in the church, and the few that did come out of the church would not willingly work as a mercenary.

Loren had never seen a divine art, but he had thought a number of times how having a priest that can use divine arts, which can heal injuries and poison, would be beneficial to the group.

By this time, Loren thought that Sarfe would get bored of talking, but seeing that he was still at it, Loren interrupted him by saying,

“Can we talk about the quest now?”

Loren sighed inside as he looked at Sarfe, who looked disappointed being stopped from talking, and the two girls gave Loren dirty looks as well.

Although Loren was low on money, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he joined a difficult party to work with.

One problem was that Loren just became an adventurer and had no experience at all, but the rest of the party did not have much more than he did.

The other problem was that everyone else in the party except for Sarfe was female.

The party was balanced class-wise, but was unbalanced gender-wise.

In a mercenary group, there are usually no women.

Loren heard from one of his comrades that it was because there were few women who became mercenaries in the first place, and because in groups with women, there was a high chance that problems would occur in the group.

It was a quite rude thing to say about women, but Loren had seen groups split up or straight up fall apart because of women, and thought it wasn’t a story without any sort of evidence.

If he put that into consideration, it was a party with high chance of problems occurring within the party.

But Loren convinced himself that he wasn’t going to be with them for long, and faced Sarfe again.

“I’m just saying that talking here isn’t going to get us any money. Unlike you guys, I don’t have much money to work with, so I want to talk about the job. Got a problem?”

“No, you’re right. Now that we’re introduced, let’s get to the details of the job,” replied Sarfe. But a sudden complaint from Naren stopped Sarfe.

“Hey Sarfe, are we really taking this guy along? He used to be a mercenary. You really think it’s ok to invite a guy who would do anything for money into our party?”

“That’s a misunderstanding,” thought Loren, but he didn’t speak up to deny the previous comment.

It was because there were in fact, mercenaries who did anything for money.

But if one asked if that was most mercenaries, Loren would have say it was incorrect.

Including the group that Loren was in, most mercenary groups chose what job to take and what not to take.

Although it was true that not many mercenary groups did anything for money, it was also true that groups that did do anything for money brought bad reputation on mercenaries.

Bad reputation was one thing that was very likely to become rumors and gossip.

“Naren you agreed to get another person to be the front line with me, remember?” said Sarfe.

“I did, but it can be someone else and not this guy, can’t it?” replied Naren. But then Oxy said,

“It can’t be helped. We’re a party with very little experience, and most adventurers wouldn’t want to join us. But since he has battle experience, at least he will be useful to our party.”

“That’s true, but still……. Well, what do you think, Lapis?” said Naren, not ready to give up. Lapis looked at Naren, then at Loren, then cocked her head and told her,

“He doesn’t look like a bad person to me.”

“Haaaaa, you’re so naïve. You say that because you don’t know what mercenaries are like,” sighed Naren.

“Well it’s true that I grew up in the church and I don’t know what mercenaries are like, but I’m confident in my ability to judge people,”

‘I’m not asking you guys to let me join the party,”

Interrupted Loren,

“I’m just asking you to bear with me just for this quest.”

“I’m fine with letting you in the party if it’s fine with you,”

said Sarfe.

But Loren didn’t answer him. He had no intention in staying in a party where he wasn’t going to be liked by the members. He knew that there wasn’t going to be any merit for him to stay in that sort of group.

He had already made up his mind that once he earned enough money, he would leave them and search for a different party to join.

“The quest is from a village and they want us to hunt goblins that appeared in the area. The village takes around 3 days by foot.” continued Sarfe, but Naren said,

“It’s the village of Ain, right? If we’re going there why did you pick a quest for hunting goblins and not a different kind of quest?”

As Sarfe was scratching his head with a troubled expression, Oxy said,

“You mean exploring the recently discovered ruins? There’s no way the Guild would let us take that sort of quest. It’s obvious that they will ask more experienced adventurers take it.”

“But at this rate, we’ll never be able to take good quests,” complained Naren.

“Come on Naren, we just need to be patient. As soon as we finish some quests like this one, we will have a good reputation, and then the Guild will let us take better quests.” Sarfe told her, and Naron didn’t say anything more.

“What an unorganized party,” thought Loren, but he was glad that they would finally be able to move on.

“So, do you have any idea how many goblins there are, or how large the herd is?” asked Loren.

“I’m not sure. Apparently, some hunters from the village saw them in the forest but ran straight back as soon as they did. But they’re just goblins, there’s nothing to worry about.” replied Sarfe in a carefree manner.

Although Loren was worried about Sarfe’s easy going manner,  it was also true that goblins weren’t that hard to deal with, so he decided not to say anything more.

Sarfe continued,

“I’d like it if we can depart tomorrow, if there’s no problem with that.”

“Hmmmmm, seems all right.”

“Then it’s okay if we each get ready for the trip and meet up tomorrow morning, in front of the east gate?”

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There were no objections to his suggestion.

Loren then brought back his thoughts to his wallet.

It had almost nothing left, but there was enough to buy rations to last for 6 days. It meant he was going to run out of money, but he was certain that they would be able to hunt things on the way for food.

He then thought that maybe it would be fine if he sacrificed a meal or two in order to buy a blanket to use. With these thoughts in mind, the group disbanded to get ready for the trip in the morning.