Chapter 6
Chapter 6
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: Goblin Club
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"Ah, ahhh!!!"
Adela, the receptionist before me, let out a scream more piercing than any goblin's.
'What's with her? It's not like she's never seen a goblin before.'
Although, I had to admit, the goblins I'd placed before her did resemble a three-step guide to brutal murder.
Three goblin heads sat neatly on the counter.
One was cleanly decapitated.
One had both eyes gouged out before being decapitated.
And one had its right temple caved in, blood still trickling from the wound.
I could understand if an ordinary person who'd never hunted a monster was horrified by the sight of a monster's corpse.
'But she's a receptionist at the Adventurer's Guild.'
They were the ones who told me to bring them, so she must have seen her fill of goblins. The guild handles most monster part purchases, so she must have seen plenty of other monster corpses too.
I couldn't understand why she was so shocked.
I noticed it wasn't just Adela; the other receptionists nearby were also recoiling in horror at the goblin heads.
But I paid them no mind and began my dissection show.
"Now, let the goblin dissection show begin!~"
I drew the knife from my belt.
The blade was still stained with the ultramarine blood from the goblins I'd killed earlier, adding to the grim display.
But I casually used it to slice off an ear.
*Slice. Slice.*
I'm not a psychopath, but I have to say, the feeling of slicing through it was quite satisfying.
I sliced off one ear and carefully placed it to the side of the counter.
I did the same with the other ear, laying it down neatly.
I repeated the process until all three goblins' ears were severed.
"Wh-what are you doing!?"
"You told me to bring you goblin ears."
They told me to bring them, and now they're asking what I'm doing.
To forget something they said just a few hours ago.
Could she have dementia at such a young age?
How pitiful.
"What's with all the commotion?"
The continuing disturbance brought Guild Master Argo out again.
He scratched the back of his head wearily as he came down the stairs, but upon seeing us, he slapped a palm to his forehead.
***
After that, I was temporarily kicked out of the Adventurer's Guild.
- I brought the goblin ears, so I'm registered, right?
- We'll give you your adventurer's tag later, so just stay outside for at least an hour...
'These people just don't appreciate a good dissection show.'
It's so much fun.
They kick me out, not even understanding my kind heart, trying to bring a little joy to the poor souls who stand at the reception desk all day.
Sure, the counter got a little dirty with blood from the goblin heads, but I was planning to clean up when I was done.
That's just part of the show.
Anyway, they told me to stay out for at least an hour, so I had to find something to do.
I decided to just wander around for an hour.
There was nothing else to do, and even if I knew about certain fated encounters or opportunities, I had no desire to meddle with them.
'If I were to snatch the protagonist's opportunities, I'd get dragged into the story, and that's the last thing I want.'
Stealing opportunities meant for the protagonist would lead to a mountain of troublesome entanglements later on.
So I headed toward the market to see what they were selling.
But while I had come to wander aimlessly, there wasn't much to see.
It was all just apples and oranges, things I'd seen countless times before my transmigration.
'Boring.'
It was an ordinary market, so I wasn't expecting anything spectacular, but I'd at least hoped to see something I couldn't find on Earth.
There was nothing of the sort.
Then again, it's food for people, so it's probably normal not to have strange-looking purple fruits.
'Damn author. Couldn't you have created more fantasy-like things?'
How can the only fantasy elements be magic and monsters?
Just as I was thinking about going back and squatting in front of the guild, a sign shaped like a hammer and anvil caught my eye.
'A blacksmith!'
The sign, which screamed 'I am a blacksmith,' piqued my interest.
I remembered how fun it was watching YouTube videos of swords being forged and then slicing through paper.
Not that I wanted to make one myself, but I did want to look at the finished swords.
On Earth, there were blacksmiths, but nowhere that displayed and sold swords.
Besides, all the tools needed for hunting came from a blacksmith, so there was no reason not to go in.
*-Dring.*
As I opened the door, a bell attached to it announced my arrival.
"Welcome."
And from an inner door emerged a man who looked every bit the part of a blacksmith.
His arm muscles were incredible, likely from lifting heavy objects and swinging a hammer all day.
'He could probably lift over a thousand pounds.'
Honestly, based on his appearance alone, he looked less like someone who forges weapons from monster materials and more like someone who beats living monsters with a hammer and compresses them into weapons.
"Just looking."
"Go ahead."
He noticed I was a student and spoke to me informally.
That was fine by me. Where I come from, respecting your elders is a given, so I find it perfectly natural for an older person to speak informally.
It's definitely not because I'm afraid he'd turn me into a weapon.
Anyway, since I was here to look around, I took a tour of the smithy.
There were the basic iron weapons.
Longswords, axes, hammers, daggers, and shields.
And high-defense iron armor.
The kind of plate armor you often see in RPGs?
There was armor like that, as well as more flexible leather armor.
'No bikini armor, though.'
Since I was at the blacksmith's, I wanted to buy something, but I was so broke I'd have to sleep on the streets to afford dinner.
Still, browsing was fun, so I looked around the whole shop. In a corner, I saw a wooden box with various weapons sticking out of it, all jumbled together.
They were probably failed creations or weapons in need of repair.
But what caught my eye wasn't the weapons I couldn't afford anyway, but an item next to them.
"Oh? Sir, is this for sale too?"
"Ah, that. Someone asked me to make it, but they never came to pick it up. You can just have it."
"You're giving it to me for free?"
"Yeah. It's just taking up space, and it's not worth much anyway."
Nice! I hit the jackpot!
I took the item I found in the corner of the smithy and put it in my inventory.
They say there's no such thing as a free lunch, but that was clearly a lie.
'With this, goblins will be a piece of cake.'
A laugh escaped me just thinking about using it.
"Geh heh heh."
***
After killing some time, I returned to the Adventurer's Guild exactly one hour later.
When I got back, the scene of my little dissection show had been neatly cleaned up.
The horrified receptionists were back to work as if nothing had happened.
"Hello."
"...Welcome."
But Adela's tone was noticeably sharp.
"What's with the tone?"
"...Are you really asking because you don't know?"
Her glare was so venomous, I thought lasers were about to shoot out of her eyes.
The dissection show must have been quite a shock for her.
"So, my adventurer's tag?"
"Haaah... Here."
'Just a piece of paper...?'
It was a business-card-sized piece of paper with an 'E' written on it, along with which branch issued it, the date, and my name.
I later learned that the tags become more luxurious as one's rank increases.
D-Rank is a copper tag, C-Rank is iron, B-Rank is silver, and A-Rank is gold.
Apparently, F-Ranks and S-Ranks don't have tags.
F-Ranks are basically for odd jobs, so just saying you're F-Rank is enough for people to understand.
Conversely, there are so few S-Ranks in the world that anyone who knows about adventurers would likely know who they are.
To make an Earth analogy, it's like how a president's identity is proven simply by their name and face.
'Well, I've got my tag. Time to earn some dinner money.'
I headed to the quest board to check the E-Rank quests I could accept.
It used to be possible to take quests one rank higher, but that changed because too many idiots who couldn't tell courage from recklessness got themselves killed.
However, it's still possible if you have an adventurer of the required rank in your party.
For example, if an E-Rank party wants to take a D-Rank quest, they can as long as at least one member is D-Rank.
Since I was solo, I couldn't do anything but E-Rank quests anyway.
And naturally, I chose the most basic of the E-Rank quests.
"Goblins."
When I brought the quest slip to the counter, Adela started glaring at me with terrifying eyes.
"Aren't you going to do any other quests?"
There were plenty of other monsters besides goblins at E-Rank.
But it would be a waste to abandon the den I'd gone to the trouble of tracking down.
"Nope."
"...This time, you must bring back only the ears, properly cut."
"Yep."
"Haaah..."
"Yep."
***
The price for returning without leaving any markers in the forest was steep.
I wandered through the maze-like forest for at least an hour. It felt like trying to find the exit of a labyrinth by only touching the left wall.
With bad luck, you could end up walking the entire maze.
I hadn't searched the entire forest, but I eventually found my way back to the cave I'd spotted earlier.
"Phew. That was exhausting."
Now that I was here, I immediately took out what I had prepared.
I reached into my inventory and readied the 'caltrops' I got from the blacksmith.
The kind of things ninjas in anime and games often scatter on the ground.
I spread them generously across the cave entrance.
"Hee hee hee hee."
Step on them, and you'll start tap-dancing involuntarily.
My so-called makeshift club was complete.
Now all I had to do was lure the goblins out, which was quite simple.
"Kiyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
I let out a deafening shriek at the mouth of the cave.
I wanted to treat them to the sound of nails on a chalkboard, but I didn't have one on hand.
'I should bring a chalkboard next time.'
Anyway, after my shout, the cries of goblins echoed from deep within the cave.
-Kyaaaak!!!!!
Even from a rough listen, it was definitely more than one.
There were more than I thought.
Then I heard the patter of multiple footsteps, and as they neared the entrance, the forms of goblins began to gather.
At a glance, there seemed to be about ten of them.
"That's right! Delicious prey is right here! Come and get it!"
You might think no one would step on the caltrops when they're in plain sight.
But from their perspective, I was the enemy, and this was their home base.
Who would expect a trap to be laid at the entrance of their own lair?
Especially not stupid goblins.
As expected, a few of the goblins charging at the front stepped on the caltrops.
-Kieeeeeek!!!
"Ouch, that's gotta hurt."
I wonder if they could describe the feeling. It's like stepping on a Lego, but a spiky one.
Just watching them looked incredibly painful.
The goblin at the very front stepped on the caltrops and was about to break into a pained tap dance, but the goblins behind couldn't stop in time and crashed into it.
Naturally, the goblins in front toppled forward, face-planting into the field of caltrops.
The goblins coming from behind ran forward, trampling over their comrades buried in the caltrops.
Of course, the trampled goblins were pierced all over by the caltrops and died from blood loss without even letting out a final scream.
The rest continued to charge forward, but it was just a repeat of the same process.
I had spread the caltrops over a wide area, so they'd take one step, do a little tap dance, get trampled and die, take another step, do another tap dance, and get crushed to death.
Only the cries of 'Kieeeek!!!' and 'Keeeeek!!!' echoed through the cave.
I danced merrily, with their screams as my background music.