Extra Story: The Rookie Adventurers Mature

Extra Story:
The Rookie Adventurers Mature

 

“HORN, stop the wolf coming from the right. Brute and I will take the vanguard. Lahtte, use your bow if you get the chance.”

I gave everyone directions while I attacked the wolf in front of me. When I kept all the stuff Ms. Yuna had taught me in mind, I started noticing all kinds of things.

While I practiced looking at the entire enemy, I started to notice things around me rather than just the enemy right in front of me. I started to notice how my teammates were fighting, whether they were in danger, and if they were freed up, which made giving directions easier.

The only issue was that I’d get distracted from what was going on around me and lose my concentration, which could put me in danger.

Ms. Yuna had told me that it’s sometimes most

important to focus on the enemy at hand, and that I’d need to judge for myself when it was time to change focus. Ms. Yuna sure liked to make things complicated.

 

Still, we wouldn’t get flustered anymore when multiple wolves or goblins showed up. Brandaugh had taught Lahtte about the bow, Brute had learned how to fight from Gil, and Horn’s magic had gotten better thanks to Ms. Yuna. I’d gotten stronger too from Ms. Yuna and Gil teaching me.

Not that we hadn’t learned from other adventurers too. I was definitely stronger compared to when I’d come to Crimonia. Since my parents were probably worried about me, it was probably time to visit the village.

 

When we came to give our report, Ms. Helen seemed pleased with us. “Your group really has gotten stronger, Shin. I was worried about you when you first got here, but you’ve really improved in these last few months.”

It kind of felt like she was praising us. Brought my spirits up, you know?

“It’s all because Ms. Yuna taught me how to use magic,” Horn replied in my place. Horn really had gotten better at magic. Thanks to Ms. Yuna’s instruction, her once-wimpy spells could take down a wolf single-handedly.

A while ago, Horn had even considered getting a bear outfit…but I don’t think that would’ve helped quite so much.

“Ha! It seems you’ve taken quite the liking to Ms. Yuna, Horn, haven’t you?”

Horn looked mighty pleased at that. She really did love Ms. Yuna. There weren’t many people around who’d be so thorough about teaching somebody how to use magic. Plus, Ms. Yuna would treat Horn to lunch whenever they met up. It was kind of unfair that she was getting all the attention, but—according to Horn, at least—she couldn’t stand it, since it felt like a younger girl was treating her to stuff. I couldn’t tell how old Ms. Yuna was, but Horn seemed a little older. Didn’t make a difference to me either way, but I think that bear outfit made Ms. Yuna seem younger to Horn.

“Ms. Helen, do you know exactly what Ms. Yuna is?” I asked. “Her magic’s amazing, and she’s great at sword-fighting too.”

“Normally, I’d just tell you that I can’t disclose personal information, but I don’t have anything to disclose in the first place. I have no idea where she came from, why she’s alone, or what possessed her to dress like a bear.”

“I think,” said Horn, “that she must have come from the country of the bears.”

It sounded like poppycock to me, but Ms. Helen took it seriously. “That really might be the case. Her beast summons, Kumayuru and Kumakyu, are bears. She lives in a bear house too, after all.”

Okay, okay, she had a point. But…a country of bears out there? No chance.

Anyway, we finished giving our report and got our reward. We’d be eating good tonight! When we tried to leave, though, Ms. Helen called out to stop us.

“Oh, right. Shin—all of you—I have a job available to patrol the woods. Would you like to take it?” Ms. Helen asked like she’d just remembered.

“Patrol how?”

“Check the area around the woods to make sure monsters don’t make their way to the highways.”

Right, I’d heard of jobs like that. Adventurers periodically went on patrol around the town and the highways to make sure that everything was safe. If a bunch of monsters appeared, the adventurers notified the guild. Then, depending on how many monsters there were, they’d determine what rank of adventurer they needed to deal with them. In other words, the job was just to check for monster appearances.

We could collect cash just by looking around, no monster-slaying necessary. Sure, it was easy to lose trust from fellow adventurers if you faked the report and got caught, but if you took it seriously? It was hard to find a better gig.

“I think you can handle it,” said Ms. Helen, “considering how you’re doing now.”

It wasn’t like the job didn’t come with risks. But the fact that the guild was giving us this job meant that they really did recognize our skill. I looked at Horn and the rest of the gang. Horn and the others gave me a little nod.

“We’ll do it,” I said. “Absolutely.”

“Excellent. This is the map of the woods. Please don’t forget to bring back the details of where you went, where you saw the monsters, and what you killed.”

When we told Ms. Yuna about the job, she seemed super shocked. She was all like “That’s seriously a quest?!” Well, not for her—she was way too strong to do stuff like this.

 

We headed out into the woods to start exploring.

“We’ll get a reward just for hanging out in the woods,” I said with a smile. “What a piece of cake.”

“But we still have to actually patrol them,” Brute pointed out.

“You don’t have to tell me that. Look, we’re going to be visiting this place all the time. It’ll be good to learn more about it.”

If we got attacked by monsters sometime and had to scram, there was a chance we’d get lost in the woods. Learning more about the geography could help us know which way to escape.

The worst thing that could happen was if we were driven to a cliff. Getting a sense of our surroundings was going to be important.

“I don’t see any monsters,” said Lahtte.

“I wish at least a few would turn up.” If we slayed any, we’d get an additional reward.

“Shin,” Brute warned, “don’t let your guard down.”

“I know that. I’m counting on you to keep an eye out behind us, Brute.”

I took the lead, followed by Horn and Lahtte in that order, with Brute at our rear. I regularly checked the map against our surroundings as we pressed forward. We crossed a stream at some point and came out to this panoramic view, exactly like the map told us we would.

“This would be an easy place to fight. Plenty of space.”

“Yeah, we were taking a risk walking around the mountainous terrain earlier since we didn’t have a way to escape.” We’d just crossed over a tall, craggy mountain earlier, which wasn’t really conducive to high-tailing it out of there.

“Shin, look over there. It’s a goblin.”

Three of them, actually, with their backs to us.

“Should we slay them?”

“Yeah. If they get to the highway, that’ll be a hazard. Let’s take ’em out.”

If we didn’t get them now, we’d leave any travelers in danger. No, we had to fight.

 

We got rid of those three goblins…and it was no problem. The problem started when we looked around us and found way, way more goblins. There were ten—no, more than twenty of them. Too many goblins!

“Let’s scram!” We looked for an opening and started running, but the goblins growled and chased us relentlessly for killing some of their own.

We ran back the way we came. Brute and I were doing fine—we’d been running as a part of our training—but Lahtte and Horn were having a hard time keeping up now. At this rate, we wouldn’t get away from the monsters.

Argh, what could we do? At this rate, we’d get too fatigued and they’d catch us. Over twenty goblins plus four equals bad. My brain went into high gear. Ms. Yuna’s voice came into my head…

“If you wind up in a disadvantage during a fight, find a place that gives you the high ground. Even a little high ground is good.”

And another time—what was it? “You’re more than strong enough to beat goblins and wolves, as long as you fight them one at a time.”

She’d told me we could fight in narrow pathways, on top of a bridge, or up in a tree with arrows and magic. Fighting safely was more important than being brave and dead. The only issue was that we didn’t have the time to climb any trees when we were being chased. We didn’t have any bridges or narrow pathways.

Unless we made one.

“We’re heading this way.”

“But Shin, that’s the—”

“We can’t get away at this rate. We gotta fight.”

When we made it to the mountain, we turned our backs to it.

“We’re fighting here. That way we won’t have to watch our backs.”

We would be cornered, but at least we wouldn’t get attacked from behind. We wouldn’t have to be afraid they’d come up behind us. As long as our backs were safe, we could focus on the fight ahead. Then we had to do what Ms. Yuna had told us: if the enemy had us outnumbered, all we had to do was take them down one at a time. We just had to create that situation.

“Horn! Can you make a wall?!”

Horn hadn’t only learned how to go on the offense from Ms. Yuna—she’d learned how to make good use of earth magic too. “I can, but it’ll fall apart right away with my magic.”

“That’s fine. Make a wall and guide the goblins’ path.”

Horn made the wall and did what I asked. When the goblins saw us, they would head right over instead of trying to break down the wall.

“Brute, you attack from the right, I’ll take the left. Lahtte, you get them with arrows when you see an opening. Horn, you check your surroundings and maintain the wall.”

They all nodded.

 

Somehow—somehow—it was over.

After we killed about fifteen of them, the other goblins ran off.

“Are we good?”

“Looks like we’re good.”

We collapsed onto the ground.

“I’m so impressed you even thought of that.”

“I remembered what Ms. Yuna told me. She said that if we didn’t have any chance of escape and had to fight, we’ve gotta flip the situation to our advantage as much as we can.”

“Which is why you got us in a position with the mountain behind us and Horn’s walls to the left and right.”

“I saw Horn practicing those walls, so…” I knew that Horn had been mimicking Ms. Yuna’s wall-making technique, but I also knew they weren’t good enough for pure defense. “We were only safe because goblins aren’t all that smart. We would’ve been in trouble if they broke down the walls.”

I was glad I’d listened to what Ms. Yuna had taught me.

 

After catching our breath, we left and took a break in a safer spot. Then we headed back to the town, gave Ms. Helen our report, and were done with the quest. We hadn’t been able to check the entire woods out, but we’d at least been able to report back that a goblin horde had probably formed.

They were going to start another survey soon, looked like.

We’d had a tough time with this quest, but once we got stronger, I wanted to be able to slay the more powerful monsters just like Ms. Yuna and Mr. Gil.