Since today is a day of celebration and tears for me ~ I give you the last part of chapter 1!
He made it to the 【Creel Forest】safely but he had no clue where the goblins were. As slimes had appeared various times, he was now level 3.
With no other ideas, he advanced into the forest with precaution and left marks on the trees as not to lose his way. He would use them as landmarks on his way back.
He heard a rustling sound coming from the thicket and took stance, thinking it was a goblin but it was just another slime.
"Another one of you."
Since he was already familiar with slimes, he killed it instantly while thinking that he was already sick of seeing them. The content of his request required him to kill ten goblins and as proof, he had to bring back 《Goblin"s Teeth》.
Incidentally, the proof for slime subjugation was 《Slime Substance》 but he ignored it because he didn"t want to touch something so disgusting.
He progressed further into the forest and more slimes appeared. The moment that he started feeling irritated about it, something appeared from the side thicket and attacked him with some kind of weapon.
*Whoosh*
He dodged it by bending his body, but he broke out in cold sweat as he heard the sound that quivered through the air.
(Whoa, that was a close call… I see so that"s a goblin, huh.)
Its appearance was identically to the ill.u.s.tration shown in the reference book he was shown. It had a small stature like a child but an ugly face and it held a rugged club in its hand.
(Must hurt to get hit by that…)
When he glared at the goblin, he received an impact from behind and groaned. He had completely forgotten about the slime. The goblin used this chance to close up the gap between them.
(d.a.m.n! Goblins come in groups" right, I can"t waste time here!)
He parried the club with his solid knife. The goblin let out a voice that sounded as if it was grinding its teeth and drool was spilling out of its mouth. Hiiro definitely didn"t want to get bitten and sent the goblin flying with a kick.
(Hmmm, a humanoid monster… Will I be able to kill it…?) He asked himself, narrowed his eyes and stared at the goblin. Needless to say, he had never killed anyone when he lived in j.a.pan; he had killed bugs but never animals.
So even if it was a monster, he was worried about whether or not he was able to kill a living creature who had a human appearance.
"…. Haa, well I do plan to live here." He said as if to convince himself and glared at the goblin.
"Sorry… Become my stepping stone."
He rushed to the goblin with all his might. Hiiro didn"t know why but for some reason his agility was high. The goblin didn"t move as it intended to take him on upfront.
*Slaaaaas.h.!.+*
He chopped off the goblin"s head. He felt nauseated by the odour and blood that followed but he swallowed it down and glared at the dead goblin.
"d.a.m.n! You"re next!"
Afterwards he also defeated the slime, at that moment the level up sound resounded in his head. His level was now 4. It was going well.
His joy only lasted for a brief second as one by one goblins started to appear in front of him. The earlier battle seemed to have attracted them.
Hiiro had been waiting for them. He concentrated his magic power into his fingertip and quickly wrote a character onto the ground. The groups of goblins came at him all at once.
"Good… Come here!"
The moment that the goblins came into his field of view, "《Word Magic》activate!" He shouted and an electrical discharge sprung from the character. In that moment, several sharp objects appeared from the ground [TN: The author compares this image to a cactus… But I wasn’t sure how to word it so if you have any ideas, feel free to comment it below] and pierced the goblins.
"Heh, it worked."
The goblins couldn"t move even though they desperately tried while grinding their teeth in pain. After a while they stopped moving as they died.
The character that Hiiro had written was 『Needle (針) 』. Its area of effect was roughly 6.5m2 [TN: 4 tatami mats] wide, just like the time he had used the character 『Hard (硬) 』. He had waited for the goblins to enter that area before activating his magic. Then the ground sprouted needles just like a cactus and killed all the goblins on it.
(d.a.m.n… This is more draining than I thought.)
Lots of blood was flowing out from the pierced spots on the goblin"s body. Seeing all the blood, Hiiro painfully became aware that this was a real battle. He had done that and if he was careless, he could end up in the same state. It was taught to him in this forceful manner.
(Fuuuh, anyways, first things first)
Hiiro couldn"t die in this kind of place and he didn"t want to run away either. He took action immediately. There were still goblins around but confused by his weird attack, they were reluctant to attack him.
"Now then, time to try the next one."
While saying that, he picked up a stone and wrote the character for 『Stop (止) 』onto it. If this worked, the goblins will stop moving.
He aimed the stone and threw it at a goblin. The moment the goblin was. .h.i.t on the shoulder, he activated it.
"Stop! 《Word Magic》." He said aloud. With this he confirmed that he didn"t need to recite the words in his mind in order for it to activate.
Since saying the words aloud created a kind of romantic atmosphere [TN: I"m talking about a man"s romance here… Like in One Piece, if you’ve seen it], he didn"t feel embarra.s.sed at all.
However only the stone stopped. The stone had frozen in midair as if its time had stopped.
(I see, so you can"t emit magic.)
Since he had written on the stone, only the stone was influenced.
Hiiro had hoped that the effect written on the stone would also affect the goblin too but sadly that wasn"t the case. Only the stone itself was affected, leaving the goblin unaffected.
"Okay, onto the next!"
This time he wrote 『Extend (伸) 』on the blade of his knife. Then he readied the knife and turned his body like a spinning top.
"Extend! 《Word Magic》!"
*Whoooosh*
In an instant, the blade extended manifold and the goblins in the distant was cut. Three of them went down at once. As far as he could tell there were only three left.
"I only need two more for my quest, but I won"t let anyone escape!"
He slaughtered the goblins by swinging his extended knife around and was so immersed in it that he didn"t notice the level up sound ring at all.
After he had defeated all of them, he collected the 《Goblin Teeth》. He only needed the sharp black tooth located in the goblin"s upper jaw. Before he started on his task, he transformed his knife back by writing 『Origin (元) 』on it.
His body was suddenly felt exhausted as soon as he had finished collecting the teeth. His MP was empty too so he ate 《Honey Toffee》to restore it. The toffee was slightly sweet and his body felt lighter.
(Oh yeah, I have to fix the ground too.)
With his MP replenished, he fixed the ground by writing『Origin (元) 』on it and just like he thought, the ground returned to normal.
"Hmph, never thought I was so sensitive."
He was emotionally worn out, it had been awhile since he"d moved so much and although they were monsters, he had basically ma.s.sacred them.
The smell of the blood, the sensation of cutting through flesh, the dying screams and the corpses; all of that gave Hiro, who grew up in a peaceful country, a tremendous shock.
He became painfully aware that this was in fact reality and not a game.
Feeling more exhausted than he had expected, he sat down on the spot to rest. But a rustling sound announced the arrival of something. It was a goblin.
"Aah~, I see. I"ll just have to keep doing this until I get used to it…"
He made a resigning sigh and glared at the goblin.
"Now bring it! Come at me until I get used to it!"
He swung his knife around somewhat in frustration.
"Aah~ I"m p.o.o.ped~."
On his way back to town, he had found a bench so he sat down and took a rest. The slimes and goblins had attacked him without rest.
The blood of the monsters he had defeated was spurted all over him. Thanks to that, he got completely used to it but he was completely out of fuel right now.
(Well, thanks to that my level rose up quite a bit.)
He planned to go to report to the Guild after resting for a little while longer. His blood spattered appearance drew a lot of attention from people but he was too tired to care.
(Haa… What dirty clothes… I wonder if I can clean it with my magic.) With that in mind, he moved somewhere without people and wrote 『Clean (清) 』 and when he activated it, the b.l.o.o.d.y clothes became all clean again in the blink of an eye.
Blueish-white light rained down on his body and shone brightly like scattering jewels.
(When I write it on my body, I won"t need to take a bath…?)
Hiiro kept it in mind to try it out later and if it worked, he would be delighted at how convenient his magic was.
By the way, there is a bathing culture in this world as well. Unlike j.a.panese people who thought that bathing was normal, commoners of this world cleaned their bodies by boiling water, soaking a wet towel into it and then wiping their bodies. Of course, aristocrats have big luxurious bathtubs in their mansions that they used every day.
At the guild the receptionist widened her eyes in surprise. Because he had complete the quest, which demanded the subjugation of ten goblins with a far higher number, 22.
She looked at the 22 《Goblin Teeth》that he had presented as proof.
"I-I am impressed that you managed to hunt so many goblins! Especially since you"ve only recently registered here, Okamura-sama."
"Please hurry up and evaluate them already."
He wanted to finish this up before he was dragged into something troublesome. Hearing his words, the receptionist started to apologise and went to properly do her job.
"The advertised reward is 35,000 rigin, but I can give you an extra 10,000 rigin for all these extra 《Goblin Teeth》you are turning in. What would you like to do?"
"Yeah, do that."
"Then, please wait a moment."
She took this card and went off somewhere after saying that. After a while she returned and gave him back his card.
The money had been added to it. He recited the card to disappear, upon which it vanished into his chest.
Now he had enough funds to stay in the inn for a while and also to buy a considerable amount of MP restoration pills. While doing the subjugation quest, he had realized that MP pills were absolute necessities for him.
In order to use 《Word Magic》, which had a high MP consumption rate numerous times, he should always have a large amount of restoration pills on hand.
Unlike HP, MP could not be recovered by 《Word Magic》. As expected, there are limitations to his infinite cheat power.
(I got to test out a lot of stuff this time and because of that, realized how important MP pills are. I"d better buy as much as I can carry.)
Thus, he headed straight towards to general store and brought items that were necessary for battle, including a weapon. It was the cheapest sword available but it still cost him 30,000 rigin.
The reason he brought a new one was because the blade of his knife was chipped. Which was only natural since he had fought so many monsters. Lastly, he brought a red hooded-robe as protective gear.
He chose it since it had high magic resistance and an unexpectedly high defence value. The robe was kind of flashy, like something a knight would wear but he made do with it thinking that he would get used to it eventually.
(Ahh, couldn"t I have fixed the chip in the blade with magic… Like if I wrote 『New (新) 』 or 『Origin (元) 』on it while remembering the condition it was in when I brought it… And…)
Various ideas came into his mind but he had already brought the sword.
(Well, it was just a knife anyway. I"ll use magic from now on.)
The knife was only something Hiiro brought due to a shortage of funds at the beginning and he had intended to buy a sword when he had saved up enough money anyways. From now on he would first try to restore the blade before buying a new one.
And when the blade actually got chipped, he tried using 《Word Magic》 to repair it. The blade really turned out as good as new with the word 『New (新) 』. It seems that his magic knew no bounds.
The following week after that, Hiiro complete quests from morning till evening. At first he just wanted to save up money and level up but it was surprisingly fun when he tried it.
He saw plants that he had never seen before and encountered various types of monsters. It was also quite worthwhile to think of different ways to defeat monsters.
He didn"t consider himself to be a battle maniac but it seems that it was necessary for him to revise that as he unintentionally got elated about how to kill a strong opponent – the real thrill of an RPG.
By doing various quests, his Guild rank also rose, turning from the blue F rank into the violet E rank. Not to mention his pile of money and his increase in levels.
The receptionist and others called him a new rising star since there were hardly any beginners would could complete twenty to thirty quests in one week.
(If I work here any longer, it"ll probably get troublesome when the King hears about it.)
Hiiro feared that he would get told to fight alongside the heroes if the King knew he was that strong, which would be terrible.
His freedom was the only thing he didn"t want to give up. He didn"t want his fun life in another world to be restrained by obligations.
(I guess it"s about time.) He made up his mind while checking the contents of his big bag.
(I"ll leave this country tomorrow.) Yes, his decision was leave this country and travel.
He had made enough money, his level had already risen to 18 and the most important thing of all was that he had toughened up his mentality; with that, he concluded that he could survive while travelling.