Nozomanu Fushi no Boukensha (LN) - Volume 3 - Chapter SS2

An Adventurer’s Worth 

Adventurers—the collective term for individuals who made a living from slaying monsters. 

A normal person hardly had an inkling of their strength. They were fearsome and dreadful, but in ways that weren’t really comprehensible to villagers from rural communities. Even someone like me had memories of adventurers—two of them, actually... 

If only because those two adventurers had saved my village. 

The two of them showed up sometime in the spring. Winter had passed, and snow was slowly, but surely, melting. Some still remained on the paths, so few people visited us. It was a quiet time. 

A quiet season... 

My village, however, had certain problems with monsters. Having harvested the fields in Autumn, we stored the crops and preserved cattle products in our storerooms and barns. It was these structures the Goblins targeted. 

There weren’t many of them, but we could hardly stand up to them, monsters being what they were. All the young and capable men had to join forces just to defeat one Goblin, only for it to be replaced by another the very next day. Even a fool would know the Goblins had a nest somewhere in these parts, and that they were coming from there. 

But there was little we could do. We were only villagers. 

This was why the village chief had gone off to the big city to enlist the aid of adventurers, who would solve this problem for us. 

There were two adventurers who answered the call, their names being...Rentt Faina, and Lorraine Vivie. 

The two of them looked relaxed enough, hopping off their carriage and walking into the village. They immediately spoke with the chief, then asked for information about any forest entrances from our hunters. 

“Somewhere around here, I would say.” 

“Yes. Carcasses of dead animals and such, the hunters say. The Goblins have been hunting... Ah, and this bark being peeled off the surrounding trees. They’re fond of this sort of thing.” 

That was the nature of their discussion. Curious, I approached them. 

“What are you two talking about?” 

“Hmm?” The female adventurer turned around. “Ah, a child from the village. Are you perhaps interested in our discussion?” 

She smiled as she spoke. I nodded, and the woman happily launched into a detailed explanation of their tasks. 

“We are searching for a Goblin nest, little one. Goblins have statistically preferred a certain lay of the land, so we were asking the village hunters if such an area existed in the forests nearby. We did find a likely candidate, along with carcasses of prey, and seeds of certain plants they like to gnaw on in the region. With that much information, it was all but too easy to pinpoint where exactly their nest would be located.” 

“Well...” The man next to her chimed in as well. “I suppose that’s the case with how most of these requests are. We still have to investigate the grounds ourselves, however. With this much information, though...it won’t be too difficult. Even so, we may find a small mob of Goblins—wouldn’t hurt for us to be careful, at any rate. I think this is very much doable, Lorraine. Let’s be on our way.” 

“Yes. Let us take our leave.” 

The two spoke, looking at each other as they spread a large map between them. Before long, they had folded it up and were headed deep into the forest. They were walking head-first into danger even though they had just arrived a short while ago... Would they really be all right? 

I was hardly the only one who had such concerns as everyone in the village looked equally uneasy as we saw them off. But the two soon returned, and the sight of these adventurers made us collectively gasp. 

In the pouches they carried were ten Goblin ears apiece, each seemingly from a different Goblin. Did these two people really defeat all those monsters by themselves...? 

“Is the village chief in?” the female adventurer asked, spatters of blood decorating her previously pristine overcoat. 

I just nodded. 

“Thank you.” 

Saying so, the two faded from sight, and I just stood there, watching them as they walked away. 

From what I heard later, they truly had defeated those very same monsters we had so much trouble with, and in less than ten minutes. There were twenty Goblins in all; if they had been left alone, they would have definitely attempted to attack, or even sack the village. 

Upon hearing their report, the village chief was deeply moved by their valor, and offered to increase their reward. Although the two adventurers initially refused to hear anything of the sort, the chief was insistent, and they eventually ended up accepting the offer. 

From what I heard, the chief’s reaction was only natural—this village was apparently that close to destruction. No one was surprised he would offer a big reward to the two saviors of this village. All the villagers agreed with the chief’s decision; not a single person complained. 

At night, a large banquet was held for the two. They then spent the night at the village chief’s, before returning to their big town the very next day. 

With this, even someone like me knew adventurers really were something else... 

“No matter how you put it, Rentt, I feel we have taken a little too much,” Lorraine said as we sat in a horse-carriage bound for Maalt. 

I, Rentt Faina, shook my head. 

“There is no such thing, Lorraine. That village chief asked for help in slaying five Goblins, and offered such a reward. While we assumed there were at most ten of them, there were actually double that. I think we did fair work.” 

Such was often the case with requests taken on by adventurers. This particular request was written to enlist the assistance of adventurers who had a cheaper rate—veterans, however, would see through such lies easily. In truth, both Lorraine and I had already noticed this, yet still chose to accept the request. 

This was also why we had said certain things to the chief after our expedition—that he would be forgiven just this once for misrepresenting the nature of the request and engaging in unethical bargaining, and should he ever do anything like it again, adventurers would no longer come to his village. 

Not a threat, of course, but a warning. There were all but too many villages that engaged in similar behaviors, only to eventually be destroyed. 

Upon hearing as such, the village chief became white as a sheet, and immediately offered to increase the reward for the task. The amount of coin we then received was a little more than the appropriate amount for the work we had to do. A little of it was for us keeping his transgressions a secret, perhaps. 

“Either way, I think that should be it for this particular incident. I do not think the chief would ever do anything like this again.” 

I nodded in response. “I suppose... In fact, didn’t that chief take on the title only a short while ago? He probably has little in the way of experience.” 

He had also promised us he was remorseful, and that there’d never be such an incident in the future. 

But the appearance of monsters in such rural locations spelled doom for these types of settlements. This was the real reason we had accepted such a request in the first place, and I would probably accept similar requests should I ever see them. 

Half of it was charity, or perhaps even unsolicited help. I felt this could occasionally be a good thing. 

My train of thought carried on as the carriage rumbled on back to town—our home, the frontier township of Maalt.