Chapter 3 OOG Vol. 1 Chapter 2 Part 1

Chapter 2 – As a Rookie Adventurer

If I wanted to live as long a life as possible in this second world, I had no choice but to get strong.

Since that fact was now indisputable, I resigned myself to a certain amount of overwork and decided to start my training before dawn.

Swinging the Dark Metal bar at the town entrance turned out to be much harder than I expected. It was heavier than my own body weight, after all. Even just swinging it required careful attention to my center of gravity, making it quite the ordeal. However, as long as I treated it like a regular dumbbell, the load felt… almost insufficient. It really seemed like I was becoming something beyond human. In any case, after running through various exercises with the bar, I confirmed that my skills were indeed improving at a good rate.

Then, I ate the meat skewers I’d stocked up on. They were cold and hard, but I ate them anyway. Protein, soaking into my system. This would surely increase my base muscle strength. Probably.

Once the sun was up, I headed to the Boulder Dungeon at the usual time. Strength training was important, but earning money was crucial, too.

I’d already memorized the route down to the third floor. My skills had improved since the morning, so I figured I could fight even better than yesterday. Without hesitation, I went down to the third floor.

Five goblins appeared immediately. No tricks this time—I just swung my mace horizontally with everything I had, right from the front.

The three on the right were sent flying, while the two on the left had their clubs knocked away and froze up. Naturally, I used that opening to beat the remaining two down in a single breath.

What do you know? Brute force works just fine.

Next up were four Rock Lizards. They opened their massive maws and charged simultaneously.

Taking them all head-on was a bad idea, so I stepped to the left and swung my mace in an uppercut motion, smashing the leftmost Rock Lizard. Because I’d moved left, the remaining three, in their attempt to change direction and come at me, ended up charging in a single file line.

I slapped each one down with a counterattack to the side of the head, and the fight was over without any trouble. Positioning really is key against slower monsters.

Oh, I feel like my thinking has become even sharper. Maybe I’ll keep pushing through the third floor.

As it turned out, the third floor was manageable. With more monsters, the earnings were better, too. I got a little carried away and was bitten on the leg once by a Rock Lizard, but I killed it immediately and a potion took care of the wound.

After defeating a considerable number of goblins and Rock Lizards, my Adventurer Level went up by 1. Once I confirmed the entrance to the fourth floor, I decided to call it a day. Naturally, since I had extra time, I stopped by my provisional training ground.

“Okuno-san, aren’t you pushing yourself too hard?”

Kisara, the receptionist, looked at me with suspicion as I presented my massive haul. Admittedly, I might have overdone it a bit today, but admitting that seemed like a hassle, so I decided to play dumb.

“No, I don’t think I’m pushing it. My body feels fine.”

“But the tear in your trousers on your leg… isn’t that a bite mark?”

She really is a pro; she didn’t miss that detail.

“Ah, yes, that. But I had potions ready.”

“They say the first three months are the most dangerous for an adventurer. Please, be very careful.”

“Thank you. I don’t want to die yet either, so I’ll be careful.”

While accepting over 100,000 roms, I averted my gaze toward the bulletin board.

Usually, it posted information about monsters appearing in the dungeons, but apparently, on rare occasions, requests for subjugating monsters that appeared in the field were also posted.

Not that it had much to do with a fledgling F-rank like me…

“Oh, right. There’s actually a goblin subjugation request out right now. A small settlement was found nearby. I think ‘Silver Wheel,’ an E-rank party, will take it, but how about you join them, Okuno-san?”

“Huh?”

A strange offer came out of nowhere. ‘Silver Wheel’ was the name of the party led by that helpful young man.

“Wouldn’t they hate that?”

“No, actually, for adventurers Rank E and above, cooperating in rookie training earns them good points.”

“Points?”

“Yes, points needed to raise their rank. The Guild puts effort into nurturing rookies, and this is part of that.”

“I see. So by taking me along on the subjugation request, they get points.”

“Exactly. You seemed to be getting along well with Keim-san, so I thought it would be perfect. Of course, participating in a subjugation request earns points for you too, Okuno-san.”

“Hmm…”

This sounded like a pretty good deal. I wanted to experience a subjugation request, and I was interested in seeing a goblin settlement. More than anything, being able to see an E-rank party fight was huge.

“Understood. If ‘Silver Wheel’ agrees, please let me participate.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to them when ‘Silver Wheel’ returns today.”

Just like that, my participation in my first subjugation request was decided.

“Yo, old man. Looks like we’re going to crush a goblin settlement together.”

While I was eating at the tavern, the young man who had just returned… Keim, spoke to me.

Looking at him again, with his short-cropped brown hair and good build, he was a fairly handsome guy.

“Ah, so you accepted. Thank you, that helps.”

“Well, it gets us points too. And you don’t seem like the type to do anything weird, old man.”

“Of course, I’ll follow your instructions. It’s my first subjugation request, after all.”

“That’s the shortcut to E-rank. We leave the day after tomorrow. Get ready tomorrow. Minimum three potions, and three days’ worth of rations. Don’t forget a waterskin. There’s a village on the way, so we can refill water.”

“Got it. What’s the schedule like?”

“First day, move to near the site. Second day morning, crush the settlement. If we have time, we come straight back to Tolson. If not, we stay another night at the village on the way.”

“I see. Anything else?”

“Other than that, well, we’ll be sleeping outside at night, so a cloak might be good. Since you’re a guy, as long as you can eat and sleep, you’ll be fine.”

“True. Thanks, I’ll get ready.”

“Yup, see ya.”

Keim waved and headed to his room. He really seemed like the caring type. I was lucky he was the first person I got to know.

After finishing my meal, I returned to my room, fighting the drowsiness that came as the price for waking up early.

The next morning, I trained before sunrise again.

The Dark Metal bar was extremely useful. If I had the funds, I might buy another one. However, handling it required caution. If I walked into the inn holding it, the floor creaked considerably. If I brought two, the floor would definitely give way. Apparently, there was a skill to resolve this, but only God knew how many dungeon bosses I’d have to defeat to get the desired skill.

Keim and his team said they were resting today, but I headed to the Boulder Dungeon. Right now, anxiety would overtake me if I didn’t gain even a little more experience. Of course, I planned to finish a bit early to prepare.

The third floor was completely manageable. I could blow away all the goblins with my mace using frontal brute force before they could even attack. I didn’t know the scale of the settlement, but at least I wouldn’t drag Keim’s E-rank party down in combat.

On the way back, I had a thought and tested whether I could gain unarmed combat skills at my provisional training ground. My martial arts experience was limited to a bit of kendo and judo in high school PE. But against monsters, striking martial arts would probably be necessary. Relying on patchy knowledge, I practiced punching motions repeatedly for an hour, and suddenly my fists started moving smoothly.

Did I gain [Unarmed Combat Lv. 1]? I tried kicking for an hour too, and just as it became [Unarmed Combat Lv. 2], I noticed the sun was setting and hurriedly returned to town.

Seeing my improvement visibly was fun, making the training not painful at all. Maybe this is the ‘fun’ sensation that genius athletes talk about.

The next morning, as the sun rose, the party consisting of Keim’s group and myself gathered in front of the town gate.

“Old man… uh, Soshi was it? I’ll introduce my members just in case.”

Keim, with a longsword at his hip and holding a shield, spoke, and the girl with braids holding a staff next to him spoke up.

“I’m Meribel. Rank E. I work as a mage, basically. Sorry about Keim’s being…”

Next was a woman with short hair, around twenty years old. She held a spear.

“I’m Ranan. Also Rank E. Attack specialist. Nice to meet you.”

Finally, a small boy. Like me, he held a buckler and a mace.

“I’m Rabert. Rank E. I can use healing magic, but I prefer hitting things.”

Tank, Attacker, Mage, Healer. A textbook balanced party. By the way, everyone was quite good-looking. There are a lot of good-looking people in this world.

“I’m Soshi Okuno. Rank F. Currently, I can only hit things. I’ll be in your care for a short while starting today. Keim-san has been taking great care of me.”

When I bowed, I was told, “It’s creepy when you’re polite, old man, just talk like you usually do.” Maybe that was his way of being considerate.

“You have a surname, Soshi-san?”

Meribel, the braided girl, asked. Apparently, having a surname is rare in this country. It’s close to a privilege of the noble class, so commoners with surnames are basically assumed to be from other countries.

“Ah, it was normal back in my hometown. Just call me Soshi like you are now.”

“Since our equipment is the same, I think we’ll get along. Why did you choose a mace?”

“Hmm, probably because it looked easy to use. I’m thinking about a spear too, but they’re expensive.”

“Spears are good. You don’t have to see the monster’s face up close.”

“Huh? The feeling of hitting with a mace is the best part.”

The tall beauty Ranan and the henchman-style boy Rabert glared at each other. They seemed like a close-knit party.

“Oi, cut it out. Alright, let’s head out. First stop is the village.”

Keim took charge, and the Goblin Settlement Subjugation Squad departed.

We left the town of Tolson and proceeded along the road. Walking, of course.

There were carriages and monster carts (!?) like the ones I saw the other day in this world, but apparently, mostly traveling merchants or nobles used them. However, closer to urban areas, there were things called stagecoaches, so there seemed to be a surprising amount of traffic in this world.

After walking for a while, fields became visible away from the road. When the sun passed its zenith, we arrived at a settlement where about ten houses were gathered. This was our first destination, the farming village.

We entered the village and went straight to what looked like the village chief’s house. It seemed Keim and his team had been to this village a few times.

The village chief who came out was a man around fifty.

“Oh, ‘Silver Wheel’. You came to get rid of the goblins?”

“Yeah. We want to use the well again. Also, it’d help if we could hear from the guy who saw the goblins.”

Keim handled it. I see, they gather information properly.

“Understood. This way.”

The chief guided us to a field, where we listened to a middle-aged woman who was working there.

That said, I don’t think there was much useful information.

• There was damage to part of the field.
• She saw about ten goblins in the forest three kada (about 3 km) away from here.
• Based on the footprints left in the field, it seemed they were indeed moving in a group of about ten.
• So far, no human casualties.

Basically, exactly the information we heard at the Guild.

“Do you know what kind of weapons the goblins were holding?”

Keim asked that additional question.

The woman only answered, “I think they were just holding wooden sticks…” Unless trained to look, people probably wouldn’t remember what a monster was holding.

We left the place, refilled our water at the well, and headed toward the forest where the goblins were supposedly located.

After walking for about thirty minutes, just as the woman said, there were traces of the field being ravaged.

I couldn’t really tell about the footprints as an amateur, but the vanguard group, Keim and Ranan, said they were definitely goblin footprints.

“Was there a meaning to asking about the goblin weapons earlier?”

When I asked, Keim scratched his head and answered.

“Yeah, goblins change the weapons they use depending on the size of the group. If it’s small, it’s just wooden sticks and throwing stones at best, like in the dungeon. But as they get bigger, they start using blades and bows. I hear they even use magic when things get bad, but I haven’t seen that myself.”

“I see, the weapons used are indeed important information.”

“Right? Well, judging by the number of footprints, it’s not that big of a group this time. At most about a hundred. If it gets bigger than that, they start attacking villages.”

Isn’t a hundred quite a lot? But thinking about it, even I could manage about twenty. It shouldn’t be a problem for them at E-rank.

“Alright, we camp here tonight. Let’s make a fire and eat.”

Under Keim’s instruction, preparations for camping began. I thought my camping knowledge would be somewhat useful, but I just realized that modern Japanese camping is blessed with tools.

We took turns keeping watch and stayed the night. As the sun rose the next morning, we entered the forest.

From the front, the order was leader Keim, spear user Ranan, mage Meribel, healer Rabert, and guest me. The rear guard is a pretty dangerous position, but with the [Presence Sense] skill, the possibility of being ambushed from behind should be low.

However, even if it’s a group of about a hundred, finding them in a vast forest shouldn’t be easy.

Or so I thought, but apparently, goblins have a habit of marking the route to their settlement, and if you follow that, they are easy to find. However, these marks are just strike marks on tree trunks, so honestly, if you don’t know, you can’t tell them apart. I guess experience speaks volumes here.

After advancing for about thirty minutes, a goblin presence caught on my [Presence Sense]. The number was eight. But Keim didn’t seem to notice. What’s going on?

“There are goblins ahead,” I informed him in a low voice, and Keim looked back.

“Ah, seriously? You can tell, old man?”

“Yeah, a hundred met… no, a hundred rido ahead, eight of them.”

“Soshi-san, your [Presence Sense] is strong.”

Meribel looked a little surprised. Hmm, is my [Presence Sense] high performance?

“Well, whatever. Ranan and I will handle it.”

The two went ahead, and we followed a little distance behind.

Soon the goblins came into view. Green skin really acts as camouflage in the forest. Without the [Vision] skill, I might not have been able to distinguish them accurately.

“Take this!”

At Keim’s shout, Keim and Ranan leaped out in front of the goblins. Before I could blink, four heads flew, and four more were pierced through the heart and fell to the ground.

I was astonished. I could hardly see the sword or spear movements. Is this E-rank?

Unlike the dungeon, the corpses didn’t disappear, but since carrying goblin corpses was out of the question, they seemed to gouge out only the magic stones with daggers to take with them.

Since I was there, I helped and was taught how to extract them… but yeah, gore resistance will be necessary from now on.

From there, after advancing for about another forty minutes, Keim shouted “Wait” quietly.

We each hid behind trees and looked deep into the forest where Keim pointed.

There was indeed something that looked like a goblin settlement. About ten house-like structures made of gathered tree branches were scattered among the trees, and over fifty goblins were sitting or wandering around them.

There seemed to be quite a few inside the houses too, but there were too many goblins for my [Presence Sense] to work that far.

“As expected, a settlement of about a hundred. As usual, we’ll hit them with one of Meribel’s spells, and charge in while they’re panicked. After firing the magic, Meribel and Rabert wait here. Meribel, fire another one if you can. Old man… can you charge?”

“I can.”

“Then follow me and Ranan. Alright, let’s start.”

When Keim gave the order, Meribel held up her staff and began something like mental concentration. Preparing magic, I guess. I couldn’t suppress the excitement of seeing magic for the first time since coming to this world.

After watching for about ten seconds, the head of the staff Meribel held began to glow faintly.

“Here goes!”

Meribel leaned out from the shade of the tree and pointed her staff toward the goblin settlement.

Just as the light on the staff’s head vanished, several fist-sized stones suddenly appeared around it. As soon as they appeared, the stones flew in a straight line at tremendous speed, directly hitting multiple goblins and goblin houses.

The goblins hit by the stones had parts of their bodies blown off, so the power seemed considerable. The houses also shattered into pieces with a single hit, and several goblins inside collapsed, covered in blood.

“Alright, charge!”

Keim and Ranan charged without hesitation into the settlement that had begun to panic.

I hesitated for just a moment but followed them. The [Calm] skill saved me. Without it, I might have been overwhelmed by the sudden battlefield atmosphere and unable to move.

Keim and Ranan were cutting down and piercing every goblin they could reach. The goblins tried to fight back with wooden sticks, but they were struck down before they could swing.

Keim went to the center, Ranan to the right, so I headed left. Ahead were two goblin houses and about ten goblins.

As I was about to charge, an impact hit my stomach. A stone. I forgot that field goblins throw stones. Stone throwing is actually an extremely lethal attack, but physically, the stones goblins can throw aren’t that big. My [Calm] and [Thought Acceleration] skills judged that stopping here would be a bad move. Protecting my head with the buckler, I charged into the group of goblins.

Several stones hit me, but because my body was in a state of excitement, I didn’t feel pain. I swung my mace horizontally with full force at the nearest goblin. Three goblins were sent flying, scattering blood, flesh, and other things. The rest was brute force. I swung my mace and buckler around, mowing down the goblins in front of me.

After wiping out the goblins outside, five more appeared from inside each house. I ran without hesitation and knocked them away one after another. I destroyed the houses while I was at it to check if any remained inside. Alright, this side is cleared. I cooled my head down for a moment. The places where the stones hit hurt a bit, but it was probably just bruising.

Looking around, I could still hear goblin screams from the direction Keim went. I headed there while activating [Presence Sense].

“Tch, Ranan get over here! There’s a would-be King!”

I heard Keim’s shout. His tone was quite urgent. A ‘would-be King’… basically meaning there was a boss enemy.

I trotted over and saw Keim fighting while being pushed back by multiple goblins.

One goblin was clearly huge. It was about as tall as Keim, and its muscles were quite developed. It was banging a large club against Keim’s shield, not allowing Keim to counterattack.

Ranan… seemed to have gone quite far. She was heading this way, but waiting for her meant Keim might be in trouble.

I circled behind the huge goblin. It was attacking Keim frantically, unaware of me. I raised my mace and smashed it into the back of its head with all my might.

Squish.

There was a sensation incomparable to a normal goblin, and the creature, its head crushed, fell forward.

“Whoa!? Old man! Nice one!”

With the tables turned, Keim cleaned up the remaining goblins in an instant. Ranan, Meribel, and Rabert gathered there. There was blood on Rabert’s mace too. Some must have headed towards Meribel’s group. No other presences were caught on [Presence Sense]. It seemed the settlement had been annihilated.

“Keim, are you okay?”

When Meribel asked worriedly, Keim scratched his head and answered, “Yeah.”

“Saved by the old man showing up at the right time. Didn’t expect a ‘would-be King’ to be here.”

“Yeah. A ‘would-be King’ in a settlement of this scale is impossible. We should report this to the Guild.”

Ranan nodded.

“But old man, you’re good. Even with a surprise attack, taking down a ‘would-be King’ in one hit means you’ve trained your skills quite a bit. Just looking at power, doesn’t feel like you just became F-rank.”

“Right. Or rather, contrary to his appearance, his fighting style was totally berserker. My favorite style.”

Rabert chattered excitedly. But berserker… now that he mentions it, maybe. I should reflect on that.

“I was able to defeat it because Keim was drawing its attention. I really understood the meaning of fighting in a party.”

“Well, there’s a limit to what you can do alone. Anyway, the credit for this goes to the old man. Now, the real work starts. Time to collect magic stones.”

“This is why I don’t want to do subjugation on the surface…”

Rabert hung his head. Indeed, fighting in the dungeon would have been much easier in this regard. Subjugation missions are supposedly the flower of adventuring… but such phrases are usually attached to gloss over something.

Collecting nearly a hundred magic stones, we left the forest and headed to the village on the way.

I wondered if the goblin carcasses were fine left as is, but apparently, deep in the forest away from human habitation, leaving them be is standard.

We told the village chief, who thanked us and asked us to stay the night, but because of the ‘would-be King’ incident, we decided to return straight to Tolson. I always think this, but the stamina of ‘Awakened’ adventurers is terrifying.

We arrived in Tolson in the evening and went straight to the Guild.

Kisara, standing at the counter, smiled when she saw our faces.

“Good work. You completed the goblin subjugation mission, I see.”

“Yeah, perfectly. Here are the magic stones, verify them.”

“Yes, received. Please wait a moment.”

Kisara called other staff for help and began verifying the magic stones. She immediately seemed to notice a noticeably large, ping-pong ball-sized magic stone mixed in.

“Excuse me, Keim-san, this is…”

“What does it look like?”

“With this size, it’s a high-ranking goblin species… a bit short for a King, but bigger than a General, right?”

“Yeah. That’s a ‘would-be King’s’ magic stone. There was one of them in the goblin settlement.”

“Eh!?”

Kisara opened her eyes wide and covered her mouth. The surrounding staff had similar reactions. Is a ‘would-be King’ appearing that dangerous?

Perhaps bothered by the staff’s reaction, one of the adventurers behind came closer. A man appearing to be a veteran, around thirty. Probably a D-rank adventurer.

“Oi Keim, is that true?”

The man glanced at the magic stone and his eyebrow twitched.

“…That magic stone, no mistake. Hope this doesn’t turn into something troublesome.”

“Anyway, everyone from ‘Silver Wheel’… and Okuno-san, we’d like to hear the details. Please come to the back room.”

Kisara moved briskly, guiding us to the back room.

The veteran from earlier returned to his party. They started discussing something; maybe it meant this would become a case for D-ranks.

The back room had the atmosphere of a conference room. There was a large table with about ten chairs lined up around it.

As we sat and waited, the door opened, and Kisara entered with another man, a staff member around forty. His clothes looked a bit high-class, so he must be a superior. The man sat on the opposite chair and spoke.

“Sorry to keep you. We couldn’t exactly not hear about this case.”

“Ah, Guild Master, no problem. I know it’s a big deal.”

‘Guild Master’ meant the top of the Adventurer’s Guild in Tolson. I didn’t think I, a rookie, would meet such a person so suddenly.

“So, let me hear the story.”

With Keim taking the lead, we reported the whole sequence of events to the Guild Master.

Meribel supplemented missing parts, and from what I heard, the story was told without omissions.

After hearing the whole story, the Guild Master looked at me.

“Hmm, by the way, I hear you were the one who defeated the ‘would-be King’… I haven’t seen your face before.”

“Yes, I just became an adventurer the other day. My name is Soshi Okuno.”

“You ‘Awakened’ at that age? Now that you mention it, Kisara did say such an adventurer had arrived. It was a tough situation right off the bat this time. Knocking down a ‘would-be King’ at F-rank shows promise… keep it up.”

His response felt a bit like he was holding back, but it couldn’t be helped. Even I question a rookie at this age.

“Thank you for the report. This matter will be sent up, cross-referenced with other information, and a response will be considered. You all should continue your activities as usual.”

“Yeah, got it. Add a bonus to the points, yeah?”

“Of course, we’ll take it into consideration. Okuno-kun too.”

Saying that, the Guild Master left.

Shortly after, we were released, received our respective shares of the reward, and returned to the inn.

Back at the inn, we held a small banquet to celebrate, then returned to our rooms.

During the banquet, I heard from the ‘Silver Wheel’ members that a goblin ‘King’ is a special existence, and its mere presence causes goblins to multiply explosively.

Goblins are really weak individually, but as their numbers grow, multiple higher species appear, and the threat level jumps with their numbers. Considering that, a ‘King’ is a very dangerous existence.

It might seem good that we defeated the ‘would-be King’ beforehand this time, but apparently, that’s not the case. Actually, a ‘King’ appears by being chosen from multiple ‘would-be Kings’… meaning there are likely other ‘would-be Kings’ near that forest, and there’s a possibility a ‘King’ will be born from among them.

Since great damage would occur if a ‘King’ was born unbeknownst to anyone, this matter would likely be reported to the lord governing this area, and some countermeasures would be taken.

“I’ve only been an adventurer for a week, though.”

I grumbled a bit on the bed. I wanted to level up slowly, but the situation seemed to only move in directions that didn’t allow that.

If it’s come to this, there’s no choice but even harder training. For now, before there’s movement regarding the goblins, let’s defeat the boss of the Boulder Dungeon and get a special skill. That seems to be one of the conditions for promotion to E-rank, and if I get a magic skill, becoming a mage like Meribel wouldn’t be bad.

It would certainly look better than being a berserker at this age.