Ruins Guard Duty (6)
“Mr. Nord, do you not like your weapon?” Franchesca asked. Her tone was noticeably more enthusiastic than usual, probably because the topic involved weapons. That was just like her, with that dwarf blood running through her veins.
“It’s not that I dislike it or anything that dramatic. If I’m being honest, it probably just comes down to my own lacking skill.”
Even that Mohican red bastard had said it, right? Once you become a true master, the type of weapon doesn’t matter. I was sure that my constant griping about the sword’s shortcomings was something I would eventually overcome. Still, there was nothing wrong with wondering if there might be a weapon that suited me better. Hunting for the right deck or character until you felt that spark was simply part of being a gamer.
“There are almost no adventurers who start out amazing from their Iron Class days, you know? Everyone begins a little short of the mark.”
“Yeah. That’s why I’m in the middle of looking for a weapon that really fits my hand. The only minor problem is that I don’t have the money to buy several of them.”
I did have some savings set aside. I just hated wasting them. Once that money ran out, I’d be forced to survive on nothing but my monthly scholar’s salary. And if my degree ever got revoked and that salary disappeared too, it would be time to start the day-to-day grind of true adventurer life.
“Well, what can you do? We poor adventurers have no choice but to make do with whatever weapons we already have. Eventually you get used to it.”
Est spoke as if the matter were some profound dilemma.
“Is that so? Maybe you’re right.”
It might just be that having options was making me overthink things. There was no such thing as a perfect weapon in this world. In the end, whether a weapon was good or bad depended on the time, the place, and the user’s own ability.
“By the way, that spell of yours is lasting quite a while. You didn’t use it more than before, did you?”
Franchesca cast an envious glance at my mana fur. The mana coating didn’t even look like real fur, so it couldn’t possibly appear warm from the outside. I had no idea what she was jealous of.
“It seems to consume less since I’m not moving around. Actually, this magic really does feel warm, but does it look that way from the outside too?”
“Dwarves can roughly estimate temperature just by looking.”
“With your eyes? That’s amazing.”
Do dwarves have some kind of pit organ or something? The more I thought about it, the more incredible the race seemed. They could hold their breath for a long time, their bodies were tough, they were strong, and now they even had something like a post-Saruan eye. What a ridiculously overpowered species. Or was this just the standard fantasy rule that humans were the only handicapped race? I’d made the right choice rerolling as an Earth Hero Werebear.
“Ah… the sun’s gone down.”
Franchesca murmured. We followed her gaze up to the hole in the ceiling. The red sunset had vanished, and darkness now swallowed the cave. The only comfort was the light from our leather lantern.
A long, cold night passed, and morning arrived.
“Chirp! (Sex!)”
“Chirp! (Sex!)”
“Fuck.”
I woke up once again to the racket of those damn flying sex parrots. The aftereffects of standing night watch left my eyes heavy. Without a clock, I couldn’t divide my sleep time properly, which only made me more exhausted.
“I really need to buy a watch.”
There was nothing worth mentioning about last night’s watch with Paragon. Anyone curious about what it’s like to stand guard shoulder-to-shoulder with a bunch of guys should just enlist. You can stand until you drop in the military. Go be a private for two years and you’ll understand.
“Ugh, it’s so cold I could die.”
Est, who had been on the last shift, grumbled. We hadn’t managed to light a campfire, so last night had felt like a brutal winter training session without hand warmers. I’d even woken up in the middle of the night when my Beast Regression cut off.
“At least the rain has stopped,” Franchesca said.
Raindrops were still falling from the cave ceiling, but bright sunlight now poured in from above. I frowned at the ruins that had been drenched by rain all night right beneath that hole.
“The ruins are a total mess. The guild’s going to chew us out.”
“I’ll just take a little scolding. Bad weather isn’t exactly something we low-ranking adventurers can do anything about, is it?”
“You’re a priest of the Goddess of Abundance. Isn’t manipulating the weather a specialty of the Sky God’s followers and yours?”
“That’s only when we perform a rain ritual for the gods,” Paragon replied.
Mages could reproduce local weather phenomena, but clearing away storm clouds in the sky was Mithril-class territory for adventurers. If that monk had the skill to use such magic, he would have burned the firewood with a fireball first.
“Since the rain’s stopped, let’s go gather some firewood,” Franchesca said, folding her blanket and stuffing it into her bag.
For a second I thought I’d misheard her.
“Firewood? It’ll all be soaked and useless, won’t it?”
“No. Unless it’s been submerged for a very long time, the core doesn’t get wet. If you shave off the outer layer with a knife or axe, it’ll still catch fire just fine.”
Franchesca pulled out a utility knife from her bag as she explained. Est’s mouth fell open.
“Wait a minute. If that’s true, why didn’t we do it yesterday?”
“Because it was raining. Rain makes visibility terrible, so finding dry wood is difficult. If we’d gone out recklessly we might have come back completely drenched and empty-handed.”
“Oh… I see.”
Est nodded in understanding. Thinking back on last night’s cold, I understood too. Getting soaked on top of that chill? We would have gone straight into hypothermia.
“You had a plan all along, Franchesca. As expected of the party leader.”
“Hehe. Ah, in that case, would anyone like to come gather firewood with me? One person is enough.”
Franchesca swept her eyes across the group. I brushed off my knees and stood up.
“If that’s the case, I’ll go. I’m still sleepy anyway, so it’ll help wake me up.”
There was nothing to do here, so it was a good way to kill time. I couldn’t exactly do Professor Brammaton’s morning workout routine while on a request.
“Yes. I’ll be counting on you, then.”
Franchesca gave a polite bow and led the way outside.
Chirrr. Chirrrrr—.
The moment we stepped out, the sound of forest insects filled the air. Were these bastards also shouting about sex from dawn like the birds? My mood instantly soured, so I kicked at a katydid near my feet.
“Mmm…! Haa!”
Franchesca, who had come to my side, stretched her arms wide. Her enormous chest bounced with the lively motion of a basketball.
“Ah, the direction we dumped the goblin corpses is that way. Let’s look for firewood in the opposite direction.”
“Got it. What kind of wood should we look for?”
During my time at Carmine University, I’d never had the chance to help gather firewood. The adventurers hired with money would bring it, or we simply bought it. Back then I’d been too busy with other odd jobs.
Franchesca rested her chin on the hand she’d placed atop her chest and pondered.
“Hmm. Big pieces are best for firewood. Even if they’re too large to burn as-is, you can always split them.”
“Understood. We should look for the biggest ones possible. We’ll have to shave off the wet outer layers anyway.”
“Right. Let’s do our best together.”
Franchesca laughed with a bright “hehe.” For an otherworlder, this dwarf smiled an awful lot.
“What if we just broke off one of those thick living branches? If you lend me your hammer, I think I could manage it.”
I pointed at a living tree as I walked around. If I activated Beast Regression, climbed up, and struck it a few times, it would snap easily. After all, I’d turned those kid-sized goblins into minced meat. But Franchesca shook her head.
“Green wood doesn’t catch fire well. It still holds all the moisture it absorbed through its roots.”
“Ah, right. Of course.”
The green inner layer you saw after peeling bark was usually full of water. Sap flowed through green wood too. It would be hard to ignite. Wood that had fallen into puddles was also out. It would have soaked up moisture all night and become as soggy as a forgotten Choco Pie left out in the open.
Guess I have to dig through the ground after all.
I didn’t want to rummage through the damp leaf litter with my hands. As a compromise, I decided to sweep at it with my foot. Swish. Swish. This revealed the dirt beneath. I poked around here and there like this. But what if I got bitten by a snake? If I asked Paragon to use his detox magic, I could already hear him saying, “What are you talking about?” with that annoying tone. Maybe I should carry a folding shovel along with the lantern. Fuck. If my weapon were something sturdy and disposable like a kukri knife, I could have used it to stir up the ground too.
“Heave-ho.”
While I was doing that, Franchesca stuck something into the ground. It was a simple trap. Too small to catch a kobold, but it looked like it could catch a rabbit or other small animal. I was stunned at how quickly she’d thrown it together while I was distracted and asked,
“Wait, you made a trap in that short amount of time?”
“I saw decent materials and a good spot, so I gave it a try.”
At this point I couldn’t tell if this person was half-dwarf or half-elf. Since when were dwarves this good at working in the forest? Did all rogues have this as a basic skill?
“It would be nice if something gets caught while we’re gathering firewood.”
Franchesca said as she brushed off her hands. I agreed without hiding my admiration.
“I’m sure something will be in it by the time we finish lighting the campfire.”
“Yes. Wet firewood produces a lot of smoke, but we should still be able to do simple skewers.”
The prospect of a proper breakfast lifted my spirits. I had been planning to make do with boiled water and dried rations, but now things were looking brighter.
Crunch. Crunch.
We walked along, picking up kindling as we went. Unlike me, who had foolishly come out with only my weapon, Franchesca had brought the blanket she’d folded earlier. We used it to carry the wood. She held the bundle. I briefly considered offering to carry it like a proper macho man, but if something happened and we had to fight, it was better for me to keep my hands free.
“Huh?”
“What is it?”
As we moved, Franchesca suddenly tilted her head.
“No, it’s just… the path seems different from a normal forest.”
“Different? Like a dungeon or a maze?”
Goddamn it. We came out to gather firewood and now we’re falling into a forest of illusion? Just how badly was my life going to twist? With luck this terrible, even if I had stayed at Carmine University I probably would have died from overwork while slaving away.
“It doesn’t feel like magical interference like a dungeon… Look over there.”
Franchesca, still hugging the bundle of wood to her chest, pointed at a section of the forest.
“The underbrush is torn up and crushed. That looks like traces left by something other than a wild animal…”
We approached the bushes. The moment we saw the footprints, we immediately understood.
Oh for fuck’s sake. There was only one creature that left tiny barefoot prints like that.
“Don’t tell me these are… goblin tracks again?”
“Probably.”
Unfortunately, our opinions aligned perfectly. Even after a night of pouring rain, goblin footprints remained beneath the bushes.
“Just how many goblins are wandering around here… Ah, damn it. The dungeon!”
Before we came here, Dorka had mentioned it. Two dungeons had been discovered near the ruins. One of them was a goblin nest, and he had said this:
—Anyway, the ruins are nothing special, but the dungeons are dangerous. Both have lots of monsters, and one of them is even trying to come outside.
“Dungeon… you mean? Ah, that goblin nest the other guild discovered?”
“You heard about it too. Yes. I was told that monsters from one of the discovered dungeons are coming out. So it was the goblins.”
Cockroaches in the kitchen cupboard, goblins in caves. That was the standard arrangement for pest habitats in this world.
“The goblins that appeared yesterday…”
I started to say that the goblins we caught had called it their “nest,” then hurriedly corrected myself.
“They must have been stragglers that escaped from that dungeon.”
“Ah…”
Damn it. What kind of half-assed cleanup was this? If this were a pest control service, I would have filed a massive complaint and stormed the main office. They cleared the nest but all the bugs inside escaped and moved somewhere else. My chest felt heavy as I thought about the herbalists and woodcutters who had visited this forest yesterday and today. Because of this sudden goblin infestation, innocent civilians were going to have their lives shaken down like New Year’s money from children.
The only reason our party hadn’t encountered any monsters on the way to the ruins was pure luck. Actually, considering the runaway goblins had appeared shortly after we entered the cave, maybe it wasn’t even that lucky.
“Franchesca, let’s head back to the ruins. If we keep gathering firewood we’ll get ambushed by goblins.”
“Alright.”
At my suggestion, Franchesca’s shoulders slumped with regret.
“We won’t be able to light a campfire. Unlike wild beasts, goblins will see the smoke and come straight to the cave.”
“Ah, so that’s how it is.”
These freezing little brats. Because of them, my breakfast would now be lukewarm water and hard bread. We headed back to the cave with the firewood we had worked hard to gather, unable to simply discard it.
But of course, speak of the tiger and it appears.
“Kyak?”
Fuck.
On the way back to the cave, we ran straight into a group of goblins.