Shut Up and Wrap Bandages, Thief
Those women seemed utterly astonished that I—a man—had slain this monster.
Ha. A wild monster of this caliber is nothing to me, a Demon King.
“Um… who are you?”
The Hero, Sloan, asked for my name. She whispered to me, revealing her short black hair damp with sweat.
First time seeing her face. I’ve seen her fight plenty, though—through the desperate screams of my kin.
This Hero was so beautiful it made me wonder if they’d picked her based on looks alone.
Short black hair, feminine features that stood out, and unlike the women beside her, she had brown skin—which only enhanced her charm.
Can she even fight with that body?
My gaze was automatically drawn to her massive breasts. And that ass…
No, what the hell am I thinking right now!
“I’m Vali. No family name.”
“Vali…. This is the first time I’ve seen a man who hunts monsters. Can you tell us how you caught it?”
Was it that amazing that a small guy like me took down a boar that looked like it weighed dozens of tons?
Showing it with my body seemed simpler than explaining, so I pulled out the thin thread wrapped around my arm.
Sloan caught on immediately.
“Thread? Ah, you must have laid out wire in advance. Tie it to a pillar on one side, then pull from the other to easily make a trap. You used its charging force, I see.”
As expected of the crazy Hero. Just showing her one tool, and her comprehension was astonishingly fast.
“Sloan. Don’t talk to suspicious people.”
“Suspicious? He’s the one who helped us.”
Then a tall elf stepped forward. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. That beautiful face made my eyes go wide.
“A man who suddenly appeared and killed a boar in an instant. There’s no way someone that strong lives in this village. And he’s a man.”
“Hey, watch how you talk.”
That woman… the archer, Elisa, huh. She was eyeing me warily. Makes sense. A man she’d never met pulled out a weapon and casually killed a monster.
Because she’s an elf? Her instincts are good, as expected.
Pointed ears and white hair down to her waist. Plus that beautiful face. Classic elf features. I’d heard that other ground races, feeling the crisis as the human world fought a great war, joined as allies.
So an elf in the Hero Party didn’t seem strange at all.
“Elisa! That’s prejudice. Prejudice. In the old days, men did women’s work. Who knows if there are still strong people left.”
“But…”
“Besides, I told you before, right? I have the ability to detect fate. That man will become our ally.”
She bought it nicely. Well, they’d never heard of or seen a Demon King who looks as harmless as me. I made myself a bit cuter while disguising.
After all, humans don’t get wary of cute animals. Especially women go crazy for cats, right?
Sloan walked over to me, step by step. I yanked the dagger stuck in the giant boar’s neck free, then hopped down to land in front of her.
“Mr. Vali. It’s a bit much to say this to someone I just met, but would you join our party?”
“Y-yes? Ah, yes!”
Wait, that was easier than I thought. Could this Hero… actually be dumber than I expected?
I thought someone skilled enough to slaughter my kin would be different. Was I wrong? I felt a slight sense of relief.
Maybe the day I stick a dagger in the back of her head isn’t far off.
Heh heh heh.
This Hero is strong, but dumb.
The Hero Party’s members, including me, became five.
For some reason, Sloan hired me as a party member on the spot the moment she saw me. What did she even see?
“I look forward to the exploits you’ll show us from now on!”
The Hero, Sloan. She serves as the swordsman in the party. She jumps right in and chops off enemy commanders’ heads. She also takes on the job of personally batting away attacks flying toward the rear.
And her unique ability still hasn’t been revealed.
Heroes each have their own unique abilities. For example, being able to breathe fire from their mouths…
But Sloan’s unique ability remains unknown. What’s going on? I should figure that out first.
“…I’m Elisa.”
Archer, Elisa. Through her sharp senses, she gauges the enemy’s scale. When a fight breaks out, she assassinates key commanders on the battlefield with fierce arrows. She also covers the Hero’s back so she can run wild.
I’ve heard reports of her taking down several of my kin so many times my ears have calluses. This is something amazing.
So many Heroes challenged us time and again, but none could take us down.
Yet this woman did it with just a bow.
“Nice to meet you! I’m Camilla.”
This woman in white clothes is the mage, Camilla. She handles slaughter in the party.
The armies of my kin burned by the fireballs she launches number in the tens of thousands, they say. She’s also a woman who has slain a Demon King.
“Ah, hello…. I’m Ly, Lylie. Nice to meet you. Hehe…. But you’re really cute.”
“Huh?”
“Ah! Nothing. You’re smaller than me! Men are usually bigger, you knowooo….”
“?”
This woman who’s rude in various ways handles curse removal and wound healing in the party. The reason she wasn’t visible earlier was probably because she was healing the village militia.
As expected of the strongest Hero Party, the miracles she can perform are said to be the greatest among all Saintesses in history.
Her skills are still immature, but she can open the gates of heaven and summon mid-rank angels, I hear. Is that real? If it is, she’ll be the first one I have to kill.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Vali. I’m a thief.”
“Thief?”
“No! A thief. Thief! In other words, you could call me a Trap Master.”
“That’s a role I’ve never heard of…. A thief? So do you evolve into a murderous bandit later?”
“…No. Just call me Trap Master.”
At my words, every party member except the Hero looked flustered. Hmm, these guys have no idea how important a thief is.
“Oh, nice to meet you, Mr. Vali! How old are you, by the way?”
“I turned twenty this year.”
Though I’m much older than that. About double.
“Hmm! Different from the age I thought. Still, I’m older. Mind if I speak casually?”
“Yes, it’d be weird for the party leader to use formal speech. Everyone can do as they please.”
The Hero grabbed my hand and shook it hard up and down. My body bounced around.
I’m not one to lose in strength wherever I go. What’s this?
Since she uses a sword, her strength was incredibly powerful. If this woman put force into it here, what would happen to me? My delicate hands would probably get twisted every which way.
As expected, a Hero is a Hero. Unless it’s a perfect ambush, I shouldn’t even dream of challenging her.
The party’s balance itself is excellent. No uneven power anywhere.
They’re the ones who took down a Demon King who hadn’t been killed in hundreds of years.
I can say each of them is far stronger than me.
I can’t win with my current skills.
Maybe…. I’ll have to use that method to grow stronger.
Actually, I was looking for an angle to stick a knife in while they sleep.
If they’ve trained this much, even an ambush would be useless. Stay quiet. The chance will come someday.
“I’ve already seen your skills, but since I don’t know what a ‘thief’ is, do you perhaps have other abilities?”
“Of course. I can do things like this.”
Fwaaat—! When I thinly spread the mana in my body throughout my whole body, I vanished in an instant.
My unique ability, Stealth. I was planning to somehow take them out one by one with this.
“Ah, this is!”
“Even my detection magic can’t catch it? So that’s why we didn’t notice you approaching.”
“….”
Everyone looked surprised. Of course. My stealth technique has never been detected even once. Even my arrogant kin said this stealth skill was scary.
“What’s so great about that?”
Elisa frowned as she spoke. What’s this woman’s problem.
“Hey! Elisa. What’s with the way you’ve been talking. If even my detection magic can’t catch it, that means no one in this world can figure out this form, don’t you know!?”
Camilla screeched. It wasn’t defending my ability, but more like she was upset that an ability so outstanding even her magic couldn’t detect it was being belittled.
“You idiots! Watch closely!”
But Elisa walked precisely to where I was and grabbed my arm. How…? Not just my form, but even smell and sound all disappear.
“Wow… how did you just do that?”
“Your footprints are stamped right into the dirt, what are you marveling at!”
“Huh? You’re right.”
This woman…. Her observation skills are incredible. I heard elves’ eyesight and insight are far better than humans’, and that was true. Because she’s a sniper?
“Wow, Lady Elisa is amazing. I, I didn’t notice at all!”
“Hmph! This much is basic. Anyone with a little concentration would notice right away. Don’t act all high and mighty just because you have some weird talent.”
Why is she so prickly? And why does this elf bitch seem to hate me? I don’t get it. The other party members seem welcoming. Is it okay to be this rude to someone you just met today?
Besides, I helped with the fight. Can’t she approach a bit more amicably?
I’ll deal with this woman first.
This woman’s observation skills will cause major setbacks in the work I plan to do going forward.
Can’t have that. Better to deal with obstacles in advance.
I’ll either kill her, or make it so she can’t take my side.
“Ahem, ahem. Understood. I’ll keep those words in mind. I have no intention of overusing this talent either.”
“Hmph!”
Keep in mind, my ass. You’re done for.
Formally invited into the Hero Party, I was assigned the role of scout.
Elisa uses her keen senses to check if there are traps, and I dismantle them or make it so we can pass. You could call it a kind of key role.
And when Elisa detects from all directions, I watch and grasp the enemy’s movements from the front. The mission is the same, but the range of activity is different, you could say.
While marching along the mountain path after leaving the village, Elisa revealed her role.
“It’s a bear trap.”
Seeing the trap hidden in the grass, Elisa trembled slightly. Since it’s the trap elves hate most, that makes sense.
“Do humans still use such barbaric things?”
Elves live in forests, so they sometimes come into contact with humans, and get hurt by the traps they set.
For her, a bear trap that barbarically smashes ankles would be hated. But this doesn’t seem like something a person set.
“It’s goblins.”
“Huh?”
It’s not a place bears frequent often enough for humans to set it, and more than anything, the smell isn’t human. This is the body odor of lowly monsters.
“You can tell just by looking at the trees. If there were bears around here, they’d have marked their territory. There’s none of that. Plus, this trap is placed near medicinal herbs.”
“Bears sometimes eat herbs and stuff too, right?”
“No, this grass is called bitter herb, and it gives off a scent that large mammals like bears and leopards hate. If you apply it to wounds, it has medicinal effects that prevent them from festering.”
It has quite a few uses, so it’s a profitable plant. Usually it’s deep in the thickets…. It shouldn’t be blooming by a roadside like this.
In other words, this is a trap targeting people who came to pick herbs. Nasty, huh?
“If it were a person, they’d quickly pick this grass. Meaning it wasn’t done by a person…. There aren’t many who can handle traps. It’s goblins. This is.”
“Goblins, huh.”
Goblins are monsters of unclear origin. They say they commonly roamed the wilds even before we invaded the human world.
Some of my kin eyed their reproductive power and hands and feet that can handle tools, and incorporated them into their armies. As someone without a proper army, it’s enviable.
“Come to think of it, I’ve heard of it. That goblins sometimes appear in villages and raid them….”
The kin who incorporated goblins into their armies remodeled the species itself. First they raised intelligence a bit so they could take orders, and in exchange for shortening lifespan, they greatly expanded the range of reproductive ability.
Thanks to that, goblins can produce children as long as there’s a mother body to increase numbers, starting from humans to animals like cows and pigs.
“If it’s come to this level, the goblins have probably grown their forces quite a bit. Look. The grass is broken.”
“So what?”
“It means they captured someone wandering around here. They must have dragged them this way.”
This much is simple. But everyone else doesn’t seem to think so. They all wore surprised expressions.
Except for one, of course. Ugh, that big-eared bitch.
“This much is a ‘simple’ talent. Anyone with a little concentration can tell.”
“….”
Even Elisa’s sharp senses didn’t seem to have grasped this. She saw the footprints just fine, though.
“I’ll take it as a parlor trick.”
It didn’t take long for Elisa’s face to turn vicious.
Pfft…. Look at that face. Humiliating, right?
It’s a shame I can’t laugh out loud.
“Amazing. I would’ve just walked past.”
Actually, I think it’s because you guys don’t think much. You could tell just by investigating the nearby villages.
How did they cut down my kin with this kind of judgment? Did we get weaker over time?
“Vali.”
As I stood still, I felt a presence at my back. Wondering who, I turned to see the mage in a white pointed hat. Camilla.
She approached me giving off a fragrant scent, with a build similar to most men, of course including me. That aside, her breasts seem really big. At this level….
“Euk?!”
In the moment I was thinking that, I felt a hand on my butt. Startled, I looked at Camilla. She nonchalantly played dumb as if nothing happened and walked ahead.
No, why the butt….
Did she just pat me for a job well done? Or did she want to touch?
Something…. weird. A sense of incongruity I can’t erase, lasting about three seconds.