I'm a Porter Hero Who Hides His Power, Dayo!
A forest hemmed in by trees on every side.
Advance.
An old man with a sword in one hand flicked a hand signal.
Rustle, rustle.
Eight figures in camouflage moved quietly along the forest path.
Crack.
"Aaaah, I can't keep my balance, dayo…"
"Are you all right? Please, allow me to help."
"Uweh… thank you so much, dayo…"
Correction.
Seven of them moved quietly.
The eighth was being manhandled by a rucksack the size of a small hill.
The old men smiled at the way he tottered like a roly-poly toy, pitching one way and then the other.
"Heh heh heh. The little one's having a rough time of it. Signal drill's enough for now, so you just come along slow."
"Yeees, dayo."
"Aigoo, hyungnim, you can't go easy on the porter like that. Cute as the tyke is, that'll get him killed in a real fight. You be careful now, hear?"
"Yes—yes, dayo."
I tightened my grip on a staff already slick with sweat and glared at the party ahead.
No matter how I turned it over, I couldn't understand it.
What, exactly, did they see in that brat?
Granted, if you looked long enough, he was cute.
…Quite a lot, actually.
But cute didn't buy you a damn thing in the hunter world.
Why are they ranking a kid like that above me?
It had been the same outside the gate. I'd introduced myself as an A-rank mage and they hadn't even glanced my way.
All they did was look for a porter who might or might not show up.
It was a humiliation I hadn't felt once since awakening.
Up ahead, the D-rank supporter Kang Donggu waved the party in.
"Let's get ourselves ready now, y'hear~ You remember what I said earlier?"
"I know, dayo! You said we're going to hunt Green Wolves, dayo!"
Yoo Ai, still shouldering the pack, came bouncing forward with his eyes shining. The C-rank swordsman Lee Seokhyeon answered him.
"The little one's sharp. That's right. From here on it's their territory, so we go careful. Slow, and we look for sign as we…"
"Got it, dayo!"
"Kid. You belong in the back."
"Got it, dayo…"
Watching him slump off to guard the tail of the line, I almost felt sorry for him.
No. What was I saying.
Get a grip. If I lost it too, there wouldn't be a single sane person left in this party.
And of course.
The moment Yoo Ai got shoved to the rear, the tanker Lee Gangsan and the attacker Gu Junghwan latched onto him as if they'd been waiting for the chance.
"Are you all right? If you're tired, I could give you a massage."
"I'm fine, dayo. A porter walks alone, dayo."
"That must be hard. Would you like some chocolate?"
"You're an angel, dayo! Hieeek! It's Lero-lero-sher, dayo!"
The close-combat vanguard had a job, and it was not this. Why did a porter need a massage. And who brought chocolate that expensive on a training run.
"Goddamn it. I'm wasting my precious time on this playing-house nonsense."
If this had been the Academy, I'd have had them by the scruff like rats.
Whether I fumed or not, Kang Donggu kept walking point, tapping a nearby tree and lecturing on the sign.
"See this here? The things are territorial. They mark about every hundred and fifty meters, see. Scratches on a tree like this, or droppings on the ground…"
A pointless lecture, of course.
The only people listening were a porter who didn't need to navigate and the supporter, Cho Sangwoo.
An hour into the gate, and it had been the same song the whole way.
Something in my chest started to seethe.
We stopped.
"Huh? What is it, dayo? Why'd we stop all of a sudden, dayo?"
"Little one, you stay put. We'll be right back."
All at once the three old men huddled together and started muttering.
"Goblins, is it. I told them to clear it properly."
"You thinking the same, hyungnim? I've had a bad feeling all day. Today might not be the day."
"Mm. We may have to pull back…"
What was this now.
"Pull back?!"
The anger I'd been swallowing shot straight to the top of my skull. I had to go through this ordeal again?
"Easy, missy, easy. See that? That's Rock Goblin sign. Looks like the Association didn't finish the cleanup. Those things spawn like crazy, so there's no telling how many there are. Better to fall back, I reckon."
I looked where he pointed. Something like a half-whittled club lay in the dirt.
Retreat—over an E-rank Rock Goblin?
"That doesn't even make sense!"
"Aigoo, she's got a set of lungs. Keep it down a touch, now. The monsters might come running."
I flinched and scanned the trees, but nothing moved.
Beside us, the D-rank Jeong Sujin, who had been quiet until now, spoke up.
"If there are Rock Goblins, the Green Wolves won't show. They get pushed out of the territory. And every piece of our training gear is meant for Green Wolves."
What did any of that matter.
The power gap was this wide.
"Are you people stupid? It's an E-rank monster. There are seven of us, and an A-rank mage, and you want to retreat?"
The C-rank swordsman Lee Seokhyeon answered.
"Don't you go taking a gate lightly. One slip and it's your life. That's a gate for you."
I could have screamed. That was a speech for washouts like them.
"I'll handle it! Me. There's an A-rank mage here, so a D-rank gate is nothing. Do you not understand that? You're old, you're dragging a bunch of half-baked brats around, and you can't even read the situation!"
A small mutter drifted up from behind me.
"The crazy lady's at it again, dayo."
"You're a porter. Shut up!"
Was there not a single person here who could judge a situation?
I looked around at the other trainees. Every last one of them had their hands behind their backs, watching the show.
Sons of bitches.
So I was supposed to take point, was that it?
"Fuck. You want me to do this insane shit all over again? If we're pulling out, then hand over the completion certificate. Otherwise we keep the raid going. I am not going back!"
I drove the stake in hard. The three old fossils looked at one another.
"Haa— Fine. We clear the cave as planned. But it's dangerous, so absolutely no going off on your own, you hear."
"Just walk in front. I can handle all of it."
The old men shook their heads, but they didn't argue.
Instead, Kang Donggu, who'd been on point, gestured toward a stretch of forest with no path at all.
"Ordinarily we'd just follow the trail to the cave, but goblins for an enemy means that's no good. We'll swing around that way, so y'all come along nice and easy."
Eight people struck off into the trees, stride by stride.
Thirty minutes of detouring later.
Hah— hah— hoo— hieeek—
Cutting through forest and mountain with no trail at the edge was a different animal entirely.
Personal packs and canteens kept slapping hips and ribs.
The trainees were barely hanging onto their breath. The porter lurched this way and that, yanking his load free of every branch that snagged it.
Crack.
"Ugh, that's the fourth time already, dayo…"
"Little one, watch how the guide walks and copy him, nice and slow."
"Uu, okay, dayo."
"…"
Nobody had the spare energy to fuss over anyone else anymore. Even the ones who'd been the worst about it had gone quiet.
Only the old men up front quietly herded the group and kept the training moving.
"Sometimes you've got to take rough ground like this. Go easy~ save your stamina, and don't push it. If you're truly done in, we'll pitch a temporary camp, so speak up."
Snap.
"Kek— there are too many branches, dayo. Save me, dayo."
"Little one, let's go just a bit farther. Up ahead looks like a good spot."
"Hweeeeng, dayo~"
We barely managed another ten minutes before we were allowed to stop.
"Thirty-minute rest!"
"Heuk."
"Uuuhhhh."
"Khuk…!"
"It's rest tiiime, dayo!"
"Little one, take the perimeter kit out of the pack and go set it on the path."
"Hieeek! I said save me, dayo…"
Click. Gulp, gulp, gulp.
"Haa…"
Water from a canteen I had sworn I didn't want tasted clean and cold.
"Listen while you rest. We've been lucky not to meet any monsters so far, but from here on it won't be like that, so you'd best steel yourselves. For a while you'll see three or four scouts at a time, and near the cave they'll come in droves, so stick together as much as you can, hear."
Pat, pat, pat.
"Hah, hah— Granny, I finished setting them all up, dayo."
"Well done. That was practice, so go pull them all out. We'll be moving soon."
"Hieeek! This is porter-phobic treatment, dayo! I'll form a porter's union and demand our rights, dayo!"
I snorted.
Watching him get rolled after being fussed over by a circle of minders was deeply satisfying.
The raid team rests. The porter works.
That was how it should be.
…But is he not a little too lively?
The contradiction snagged in a head gone steam-stupid from the heat.
He was carrying a bag that size and he still hadn't collapsed. I wondered if he was an enhancement-type awakener—but the other trainees were wiped out and sitting down too.
The one sadly eating expensive chocolate was the tanker.
The idiot who'd offered to rub his shoulders was the attacker.
So the porter's pack is a dummy?
I'd heard that happened sometimes on short gates. Haul too many supplies and you just end up throwing more of them away.
Then why is mine a full combat load.
I wanted to upend the survival kit packed tight in my bag and dump the whole thing on the ground.
"Let's move, y'hear~"
"Aigoo~"
"Hieeek~"
"Huk!"
With a chorus of groans we got up off the rocks and started walking again.
Ten minutes, maybe.
It was exactly as advertised.
The moment we crested a rise, a scout party came boiling in.
"Kieeek!"
A lazy sweep. A wet chop.
Lee Seokhyeon's sword, drifting as if it weighed nothing, took the lead goblin's head off.
"Kueek…"
"Like that. Power off, all in one motion. See it?"
"Hyungnim, show it a little slower, would you. What's a kid supposed to even see in that?"
"How about like this?"
Thud. Slice. Guk… clang. Slice. Kiik?
He kicked a charging goblin in the knee, let the club slide past, and cut, easy as breathing.
"I think I get it, dayo! It's whoosh, shak, pak-whoosh-shak, dayo!"
"That's it! Fighting full-out every time'd be nice, but it's dangerous, so you leave something in the tank. That's the idea."
"But I can only use my hands, dayo…"
"Kids these days don't even know all paths lead to one, huh."
All paths lead to one, my ass.
He was stitching embroidery on goblins. At that rate, when exactly were we supposed to clear the gate.
Another knot of scouts came on from the rear.
"Fireball."
A rush of air. KA-BOOM. Keeeh…
Fire leapt from my staff and blew five of them apart in a single sweep.
"Aigoo~ Missy, you'll run yourself dry like that. Spare it a little, now."
"I could fire that ten times and not get tired, so just watch the path."
Stitching things one by one was for powerless old men.
When you had overwhelming power, you didn't need to fuss.
…Or so I told myself, right up through the third scout party.
Clear one and another crawled out. Think you'd grabbed them and they came wriggling back.
By the tenth scout party, I had no choice but to start watching my mana.
"How many of them are there! Fire!"
"Missy, cool those mana circuits a bit. You'll wreck yourself pushing it."
Flame jumped from the staff and burned one goblin down; the old men took the rest.
Slap—! PAANG.
The sonic skill I'd seen outside the gate smashed into four goblins' ears.
Lee Seokhyeon slid into the stagger and butchered them.
"Kreeeek!"
"Kiik!"
"Injuries?"
"None here. Let's go~"
Hah, hah.
My breath came short again.
Mana on the floor. I looked around and everyone else was just as wrung out.
Useless bastards.
A handful of fights and they were already gasping.
Where were those old men even getting their stamina?
"See that up yonder~? We clear the cave and today's training's done, so put a little heart into it."
We were trudging into the middle of the clearing in front of the cave when it came.
Hoooo—
"? What is that, dayo?"
Thud.
The porter coming up behind us stopped dead.
BROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Something was wrong. A chill ran down my spine. I looked around.
"What is that sound. Does anyone know?"
"Whoa… this pressure is no joke."
"What is this, dayo! What is this, dayo!"
"Kids. Quiet a moment."
The long note died.
Silence settled, and then came the sound of something brushing through the undergrowth.
Sssrk. Ssrk. Sssssrk. Sssrk. Sssssssssssssssssrk.
Without rest. Without end.
We put the cave at our backs and gave ground one step at a time, and the sound filling the forest resolved into goblins coming on.
A number close to a tide.
Crude clubs in their hands, eyes glittering.
Lee Seokhyeon's voice drifted from behind us.
"So there was a hobgoblin."
"'So there was'? That's all you have to say? We walked into an ambush! What was the guide doing, ah, fuck!"
I looked at the three old men scanning the trees with those calm eyes, and I revised my thinking.
Fighting wouldn't fix this.
How did we stay alive? What had been in the survival kit? If I'd at least brought a mana potion.
I wrung my brain for a way out and found nothing.
"Trainees. Vanguard covers the rear and we fall back into the cave. Watch for an ambush inside."
Lee Seokhyeon's even orders cut through the chaos.
"What about you grandpas, dayo!"
"We'll hold the goblins."
The old men stepped forward in long strides. Before I knew it the formation had reversed.
Old men in front. Trainees behind.
"Slow retreat. Begin."
The whole party was shoved toward the cave.
Overwhelmed by goblins pouring through the trees, we backpedaled.
I couldn't take my eyes off them, terrified something would come flying. There were so many goblins it was like a wave, goblins…
Where—where was inside.
"What's wrong with her!"
"Get in this way!"
Too man—
Whoosh.
"Euk—!"
My body left the ground and my stomach dropped.
"Get a hold of yourself. Go in behind us."
"You—you!"
A child's face shoved in front of mine.
Brown eyes cut through the panic and drove in.
The porter…?
Something about it felt wrong.
"I'm sending you. Catch."
"Uwaah!"
I was shoved into the inside of the formation, and there was the boy setting his load down and rolling his shoulders.
He hurled the rucksack far away.
Then he stripped off the camouflage that had been hanging off him in folds, and a back packed with lean muscle came into view.
"W-why are you taking your clothes off!"
"Hm? Oh. I need the power. Unghihi!"
"Ah! You—youuuu!"
He'd been able to talk properly this whole time!