Chapter 13: Accompanying to Exploring

Now their total number was six.

If they counted people who could walk on their feet, it would be five, but in any case, the group started moving, led by Ritz and Jack.

Quartz the magician was in the middle, and Nim the hunter, as well as Loren, still carrying Lapis, was in the back. But since Loren had his hands full, he was worried that the back line was weak.

“It’s okay, trust me.”

Nim, who was walking beside Loren, patted Loren’s shoulder to help him relax.

The shoulder she lightly touched was covered with medicine and wrapped in bandages.

Loren had left his shoulder, burnt from the goblin mage’s magic, unattended because he was too focused on getting away from the goblins.

Ritz saw the injury, and although they didn’t have any potions, they helped disinfect the wound, put burn medicine, and wrap bandages around his shoulder.

Although it was much better now, it still stung when touched.

While he steeled his face, trying not to let the pain show, Lapis, who was on Loren’s back, whispered into his ear.

“If it becomes unbearable, please tell me.”

Lapis was supposed to be able to use divine arts two times a day.

But she told Ritz she had one use left.

Mana used to cast magic and the power to use divine arts were totally different, so divine arts had nothing to do with Lapis trying to regain control of her limbs.

She didn’t tell Ritz about the extra use and decided to save it.

Loren guessed it meant that she wanted to use the last one for his injuries because he had taken her with him.

“I’m fine. They treated it, anyways.”

To be honest, Loren wasn’t comfortable with lying when making deals with others.

Although it depended on the opponent, Loren believed that when it came to making deals, both sides should be honest and straightforward with each other.

But Loren decided that Lapis’ choice wasn’t the worst either, because he wasn’t sure if he could trust Ritz and his party completely.

“But still, this is one weird ruin.”

Jack, who was walking up front, muttered while looking around their surroundings.

Loren, who wanted more information, wasn’t about to miss a thought from a veteran adventurer, so he pricked his ears to what Jack was saying.

“Since they said it was unexplored, you would expect enemies to be things that aren’t living, like golems or undead, right?”

Jack turned around slightly and glanced at Loren.

Loren had a vague feeling that Jack wanted him to respond, but he didn’t have much experience to give Jack his opinion.

His very first quest was exterminating goblins, and he’d never stepped foot inside a ruin before, either.

Loren was wondering how he should respond, but Jack, who apparently wasn’t expecting an answer, continued.

“But nothing of the sort is coming out in these ruins.”

“Are you saying that there’s no enemies? Isn’t that a good thing?”

Loren wasn’t sure how long these ruins had remained undiscovered, but if it was from the time of the Ancient Kingdom, it would be a few hundred years for sure.

It wasn’t an amount of time a person could survive, and without any contact from outside, as Jack had just said, it would make sense that only golems or undead could exist here.

Since those weren’t coming out, Loren thought that there might not be any enemies, but apparently reality differed, as Jack showed a frown as he turned his head back ahead of them.

“About that. I’m not sure why, but the only enemies we encountered so far are goblins.”

“Goblins in Ancient Kingdom ruins? Did they get in from outside?”

Goblins were tough creatures.

They would crawl into anywhere if it meant getting out of wind and rain, and would start reproducing there, and before long, would increase in numbers rapidly. They could live almost anywhere, and in worst cases, they would even live in sewer systems under large cities.

Of course, even if it was Ancient Kingdom ruins, it wouldn’t be surprising if they started multiplying in it, and Loren thought maybe that was the case, but Jack shook his head, still facing ahead.

“Well. Apparently, the entrance to these ruins were sealed when it was found. It means that no one could’ve come in from the entrance. The guy that found it hired a few magicians and unsealed the entrance.”

“But there’s still a chance there might be more cracks like the one we came through…”

“That’s right. Since we bumped into you guys, the chance that there are holes all over these ruins and the goblins came from those holes.”

“But there’s still things that can’t be explained just by that.”

Quartz, who was listening to Jack and Loren’s conversation, joined in.

“If the goblins came from outside and multiplied in here, it would mean there are no guardians in these ruins at all.”

“Maybe they died over the long period of time?”

“Then there would be some sort of remains of them. If they were all ghosts or undead, it would be a different story, but that itself would make these ruins quite the particular one.”

Undead monsters don’t make good guardians in general.

Quartz explained that because undead were originally human, it was difficult to give them orders. What was usually done was either have a large number of them that could only follow simple orders, or the master of the ruins itself was an undead and had its own army.

Quartz thought that it was hard to believe that they would disappear without a trace, and it would be weird that they didn’t find any sort of trace of them if they did exist at one point.

“Personally, I’d prefer the theory of the goblins coming in from outside.”

Ritz spoke up.

He had a reason for hoping the goblins came from outside.

The goblins Ritz and the others had encountered were before they fell into the pit, which meant they were above the floor that they were in right now.

If the crack Loren had come through was where the goblins came from as well, it meant that they found a way to climb up to the upper levels, and if they could climb up, they would also find a way out of there.

“Of course, it’s possible that there are cracks everywhere and goblins came through all of them.”

“That’s something I don’t want to think about.”

If that were true, it meant that there would be packs of goblins all over the place.

To silver ranks like Ritz, it may not seem like much, but to Loren, who just witnessed a whole party getting destroyed by them, it wasn’t something he would like to encounter again.

“Oh, more goblins from the front.”

In a straight corridor with nothing between them and the goblins, Ritz let out a warning.

As soon as Loren heard him, he tried to let Lapis down but Nim stopped him.

“It’s nothing. Loren just watch behind us.”

“Alright.”

He could check if there were any enemies coming from behind without using his arms.

While Loren looked back to see if there were enemies, Nim quickly notched an arrow on her bow and without taking time to aim, she fired the arrow with ease.

The arrow flew over the heads of their front line, and lodged in the eye of the goblin in front, instantly killing it.

“There’s not many. Seven of them.”

“You shouldn’t need back up with magic, right?”

“Nah. It’ll be over in a flash.”

After nodding at Quartz, Ritz readied his sword and shield and rushed into the goblins.

He bashed one with his shield, and with a swing of his sword, the head of another spun in the air.

Ritz then quickly went to the goblin he had knocked down and cut its head off.

Meanwhile another arrow from Nim struck another goblin, and before the goblins could even react, all seven of them were dead.

“That was pretty clean.”

“It’s nothing to be proud of. We’re silver rank, remember?”

Loren, slightly impressed at the quick fight, called out to Ritz, but Ritz responded flatly.

While Loren thought that watching how Sarfe did things made him see simple battles way better than they actually were, Ritz continued.

“If four silver ranks had trouble with seven goblins, we wouldn’t be able to go on for long.”

Now that he mentioned it, Ritz and the others were indeed high ranked adventurers.

Loren apologized honestly, thinking that he may have offended them.

“Sorry about that.”

“It’s all good. Should be a good learning opportunity for copper ranks like you.”

At the same time, Ritz was going around the goblins corpses, which were decapitated or had arrows sticking out of them, and started cutting off an ear from each of them.

While Loren was watching him, wondering what he was doing, Ritz finished cutting off seven ears and put them in a small sack, and then handed it to Loren.

For a second Loren thought it was trash, but he decided that it meant something, and looked at Ritz, who averted his eyes and talked quickly.

“Your quest was exterminating goblins, right? You may have failed to get rid of the nest, but you’ll still get rewarded for killing some. To us, it’ll only be a bunch of change, but you guys need the money, right?”

Loren made sure to take note that the ear was the proof of hunting for goblins. *

“You sure?”

Loren didn’t know how much a goblin was worth, but giving them the proof of hunting meant the same thing as giving them money.

“If you don’t want it just toss it wherever. A goblin is only worth five copper coins, so there’s no need for us to take it either.”

“You should take it.”

Nim added.

“Unusual for Ritz to let go of money. We can tell other adventurers about this.”

“Hey, I’m just trying to look out for my juniors.” **

“I’m surprised. It’s going to rain spears tomorrow.”

Nim, who had kept a straight face until now, looked very surprised, and Ritz, who apparently did something that was very unlike him, tossed the sack at Loren and started to argue with Nim.

“Let’s keep it. They’re giving it to us, anyway.”

Lapis recommended Loren, as he caught the sack without thinking and hung it from his waist.

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