Bab 14: Goblin Slaying!
Linley then truly realized that he made a young man cry and ran away. Linley actually felt bad for doing such a thing, because in actuality he had verbally abused someone who can be easily taken advantage of due to mental illness with Linley's prior knowledge. It was the equivalent of kicking a puppy who had a broken leg.
He could have given the bag of cookies to that guy, but then his maid might have a sour face if he were to lose said bag of cookies. Linley felt that he himself was actually forced into a corner now that he thought about it. It was taking sides of either a stranger he just met or somebody he knew. Good thing, Linley wasn't one bit altruistic at all.
To one side, one was a hero, to the other side one was a villain. This was bias, in the end, Linley shrugged his shoulders and tried to forget the ordeal anyway and hope to avoid a similar situation like this if he could
Melarue who had taken note of Linley's sudden dejected expression, had tried to gave him a piece of advice.
"Young master, do not worry about that person anymore, everyone deserve something like that in their lives." Melarue smiled.
Linley listening to her words felt like it was an indirect jab at him.
"..." The lizard man receptionist was speechless at such supporting words and then he coughed. "Ahem, I do not condone bullying in public here."
"But, there's nobody but us and my lord." Fatty Wang said as he simply pointed out that the adventurer's guild was truly vacant and nobody was here now that since Neville had left.
"Hey, how about you give me some face here? I am the guild's leader here after all." The lizard man spoke defending himself.
"You are?" Linley's group of three spoke at the same time. After all, normally the guild's leader would figure of power and more of a symbol of strength for the city itself.
"My name is Kam, and I am a rank 9 Cleric. Being an adventurer just isn't that popular nowadays within these years." Kam tries to explained himself.
"Hey fatty, I think you'll want your money back. I think adventurers are probably hated in this city. Which makes this all before an elaborate scam." Linley spoke out his speculation.
"What! Really? Damn." Fatty Wang spoke in surprise.
"What's with this misunderstanding?! Nobody is getting scammed here. The adventurer job is just isn't popular, because of with each passing new generation of young people. They are unable to get low-rank quests because there was a lack of them." Kam explained. "Therefore, the population of adventurers seems like it is thinning out, but there's only a lack of newbies in general."
"To further explain what's an adventurer is. Let me put this in business words, an adventurer's guild is a temp agency to be a middle man and handle contracts between the employer and the temp worker. The temp worker or adventurer is essentially a mercenary for hire. Usually employers find reliability and good trust in mercenary they previously hired. Therefore, if the amount of employers were to only limit themselves to the few they just trust and know, any newcomer mercenary would feel a burden due to not having enough work experience. Joining the adventurer's guild is a good way to help newcomers in general of getting low level task and build up a resume to be employed by let's say a kingdom, merchant company, or even being privately hired by a noble or a noble family. Now do you understand and see the problem here." Kam explained in depth.
Fatty Wang was lost due to being an ignorant fool. Melarue was not someone who understood how mercenary experience works, since she was a slave and a devoted maid. Therefore she couldn't know anything about struggling to find work.
Linley understood this completely due to his knowledge in his past life. Even though he was an otaku, he at least understand how businesses and finding a job work due to his mandatory modern education system in his past life.
"But why are lower-ranked quests so rare?" Linley asked because normally in these type of settings. Lower rank quests should be dozen of times or even a hundred times more in quantity compared to higher rank quests. It's not like random magical beasts in the wild are the equivalent to demon king-level bosses or of the sorts since Linley and Melarue traveled here without encountering such a being.
"The answer is actually simple and surprising. It's because the top and elite adventurers tend to hoard and hog them all of them for themselves." Kam said the surprising truth as if it was normal. "They can do the tasks a lot faster and easier and possess a higher rank. Therefore, if they wanted to, they are allowed priority on getting such quests for themselves."
"What? Do they have so much free time they go around slaughtering weaklings that bring them little to no wealth?" Fatty Wang spoke shockingly.
"Haha." Kam just laughed at those words, because that was the common response most people had.
Linley instead felt like there was probably a conspiracy here. But Linley didn't want to delve too deep into it because it might open a can of worms that no one ever wants to open.
"Hey fatty, you picked up my coins earlier. I think the least you can do is pay for my maid to be an adventurer now." Linley ordered his follower.
"Yes, my lord." Fatty Wang was about to hand over a silver coin to Kam but then was interrupted by Linley.
"Hey fatty, what are you doing? I said my coins! Understand?" Linley spoke with an underlying message.
"Oh! I understand my lord, you are truly insightful and wise. Truly peerless among your peers." Fatty Wang praised Linley as he then hand over 3 gold coins to Kam.
"Are you soliciting a bribe? You can just be straight forward with it. There's nobody but us here and I'm the guild leader. If you guy really do want to skip the testing, you should at least tell me your rankings in your profession at the very least, that way I can legitimize and do proper paperwork to make you adventurers with suitable rankings.." Kam spoke casually as he had taken the bribe of 3 gold coins.
"Rank 7 Warrior." Linley said.
"Rank 7 Magician." Melarue said.
"Rank 6 Warrior." Fatty Wang said.
"For the short fatty. I can believe that you can fit that rank based on your appearance." Kam then stared at Linley and Melarue "For you two, at least show me the signature abilities of a warrior scholar and magician scholar. It would be bad if this information is falsified."
Melarue had simply instant cast Gust, a spell which creates a blast of air. Linley revealed his shining silver Battle-Qi, Perfect Control Battle-Qi for a mere moment to glance at.
Kam was a bit shocked at the latter, because even though Perfect Control Battle-Qi is well known, it simply wasn't easy to practice. Kam then afterwards did the paperwork to make these three into adventurers.
In the time it takes to make tea, literally during the time period it had taken Melarue had borrowed the guild's kitchen to brew tea for Linley. Kam had finished all the paperwork.
Kam had delivered 2 gold badges and 1 silver badge to Linley's group.
"You're now 2 A-rank adventurers and 1 B-rank adventurers. Essentially, A-rank is for scholars level, B-rank is for student level, and C-rank is novice level. Of course there is S-rank, but it normally denotes someone of at least master level or above." Kam explained the rankings.
"Now that being adventurers and having higher ranks is settled. How about you gave us a low level quest?" Linley asked.
"I'm sorry, but normally I export such lower ranked tasks to other branches of the adventurer's guild with A-rank and S-rank adventurers. Perhaps if you were to wait at least a week, I am sure I can give you a D-rank or C-rank quest by then." Kam the guild leader said.
Linley didn't have time to waste that long. After all, he was going to leave this Tri-Moon city soon with Melarue within a day or two. So Linley was now just drinking the tea that his maid made him just before.
"What about a high rank mission?" Fatty Wang asked out of curiosity.
"I did recently have a new A-rank quest's contract that was recently given this morning to the guild. Normally this was one of those A-rank quest that these absurd top and elite adventurers prefer." Kam spoke.
"What's so special about it?" Fatty Wang asked.
"Well, it had to do with goblins you see. Goblins, you see even if as infants are rank 1 beings at least because they possess an accelerated growth rate and they can reproduces like rabbits so they're like a never-ending infection. Notably, goblins at student-level are hobgoblins while goblins at scholar-level are called goblin champions. Entirely as a race, they are stupid living beings who tries to reproduce through raping other races whether it's men or women, even children or the elderly. They just can't tell what a good mate for them." Kam explained with a bit of disgust on his lizard man's face.
"Goblins, Rank 1?! You say, including infants. What is this quest? Tell me now!" Linley placed down his cup of tea down on the table and rapidly spoke in anticipation.
"Hold your horses here, quests are meant for parties filled with at least 3 or 4 members of the corresponding rank. Unless this fatty were to rank up now, you can't be allowed to take on this quest as of now." Kam smiled.
"..." Linley was so speechless at this, he was almost about to go flip the table out of spite, but then he was interrupted as he was about to go follow the motions.
"No worries though, I will close up the guild for the day. And I'll accompany with your party so I can at least measure the severity of the situation and give a proper reward depending on the difficulty of said quest." Kam the lizard man had just teased Linley.
"The quest essentially is to deal with a goblin infestation within the city's underground sewer systems that under Tri-Moon city. Hobgoblins and goblin champions were known to be spotted. What's mysterious about this quest is that it always appears once a year around this time of the year for every year since over a century ago. Normally, because of this, A-rank parties are not normally allowed and instead S-rank adventurers are usually the ones who come to this city to deal with this problem. That is why I must come with your party to not only maintain your safety, but also hope to at least find the answer behind this mystery." Kam spoke out his intentions and warning based on his prior knowledge.
"That sounds interesting and all, but how about we go to the goblins. And then we kill them and save the possible goblin's victims for the sake of love and justice after all." Linley tried to rush this conservation to end as fast as he could.
"Yes. For love and justice." Melarue tried to back her young master's reasoning as she then made a heart-shaped hand gesture.
"I believed for this party, we should at least prepare ourselves in terms of supplies, equipment, preparation, and knowledge. Before we dive deep into the goblin's den. After all, being caught off-guard is the bane of any person." Kam spoke with wisdom.
Linley knew those were important factors and all, but getting free EP which means more currency to buy at his system's shop. Naruto's world equipment and items should be more than sufficient enough in compensate at this level of this world's standard of goods to deal with mere goblins.
"How about since we're going to be a party. Let's settle this with fair and unbiased democracy." Linley intentionally spoke his words. "If we're going to go kill goblins right now immediately, say yes. Yes!"
"Yes!" Both Melarue and Fatty Wang supported Linley without hesitation.
The lizard man Kam felt like he was being biased against.
In the end, they were finally in the city's underground sewer system.
The group of 4. Linley, a human warrior. Melarue, a elf magician who looked like a ranger. Fatty Wang, a short round fatty human being who looked like a dwarf. And lastly, Kam the a muscular red lizard man cleric.
They weren't taking their time through the sewers. No, they were instead were running through the sewer system with great haste as if they were speed running this dungeon.
Melarue played an important role in the party due to her scouting abilities as a wind magician. There were two types of scouting magic for the wind element. One was Outside Scout and the other was Inside Scout.
Outside Scout was a wind spell that allows the user to see with the eyes of eagle in the sky above them. Inside Scout was a wind spell that is like a sonar that uses the vibration of sound waves to detect enemies.
Naturally due to this, Linley was able to charge forward in front of the party, leading them to goblin nests rather immediately. As long as he followed his elf maid's directions.
Every time, the group have met with goblins. Linley had taken the initiative with his sword beheading them immediately. If there was hobgoblins in the mix, Linley would know ignore it as he let Fatty Wang breaks the hobgoblins' limbs with his 1-ton hammer. Then afterwards, Linley would behead the now crippled hobgoblins.
If the amount of goblins were to be too numerous than Linley could kill immediately. Kam would then use his divine magic and summon a group corn-man warriors to capture the runaway goblins.
For those wondering, there was three types of magic, elemental, divine, and lastly arcane. Arcane is known to be mysterious and unfathomable trending on the boundaries fate, life, death, and etc. Elemental was rather simple and straight forward in comparison. Divine magic was magic based upon one's faith and devotion and it's attributes are based on the god they worshiped.
Divine magic users are divided into mainly two types, clerics and shamans. Cleric worships orthodox gods who possess a church, which means it is popular and well known in urban and well-developed areas, while Shaman worships pagan gods and are common in tribal and rural area.
Kam did not worship the god of farming or of the sort. He worshiped his dragon god, Bahamut. The so called corn-man warriors are just an inferior derivative version of dragon-tooth warriors.
Instead of wasting precious materials such as dragon's teeth, which is known as to be teeth of reptilian beings with dragon blood. He utilized a catalyst of a corn kernel.
Thus summoning and creating beings known as corn-man warriors. They were just about rank 1 or rank 2 warriors at most. They were muscular and with a short height of 60 centimeters. Compared to goblins, the corn-man warriors could hold a few of them with their abnormally large arms that were as long as their height.
While the three were mostly fighting, Melarue was to be on duty to scout out the next target, acting like a mini map that people have in a rpg video game.
That's right under the instruction of Linley and democracy, Linley was purpose to behead each and every goblin they find.
When it comes to goblin champions, Linley then activates his shining silver aura of Perfect Control Battle-Qi and Weapon Mastery onto his sword. Linley then can casually split them vertically in half in one slash like they were nothing.
It didn't matter if it was a goblin champion of rank 7 or 9. In the end, they were all split in half in swing. The reason why it was so easy, because goblins were too stupid to know how to use Battle-Qi or even Weapon Mastery. Battle-Qi was the main reason why Warrior scholars could easily kill Warrior students.
If they were to fight in pure physical strength, Warrior scholars were a few times stronger than Warrior students. But Warrior students could at least attack the vital weak points of the Warrior scholars in this case scenario, therefore possessing the possibility of killing them.
When it comes to just goblins, Linley purely use his own physical might without using Battle-Qi. Even Perfect Control Battle-Qi has a max duration of one hour at most. When a Warrior scholar exhausts all their Battle-Qi, they would be in a weakened physical state, where even a peak Warrior student could kill them rather easily.
Linley compared to the rest of his party was easily more exhausted, because he never had not once stopped moving in motion. When the party normally reach a small nest of goblins, Linley goes kill them all including the children all by himself, while Melarue, Fatty Wang, and Kam can all take a small break in the meanwhile.
When Linley felt like his body had reached near it's limits, Linley purchased a military ration pill from the Naruto-related shop in his system. It costed a mere 10 EP, but thanks to it, Linley could supposedly keep on fighting for three days and three nights without rest, but after the three days effects were over, Linley would have been brought to complete and utter exhaustion.
Eventually, they have killed most goblins on the ground. Now they headed to a main river area, as they watched from afar, the party of four saw a large wooden boat carrying over a hundred goblins at least sailing through the sewer waters.
Linley himself could have activated his aura of Battle-Qi and jumped over to that boat and performed a massacre on board, but there was problem with such a plan. Because who would expect a boat made by stupid goblins to be sturdy and well-made. If the boat were to have collapsed during said slaughter, Linley could have been easily swept by said current. Therefore, the situation could possibly go worse from there.
"Young master, I could use a large-scale destructive spell to destroy said boat." Melarue suggested, since most of them didn't have any means to destroy a faraway boat beside magic.
Linley still didn't know that since Melarue was spiritually connected to Linley as a slave, any kill she made would gave Linley EP as long as he goes "pick up the loot" which means by being near the remains.
"No, Melarue. Fatty lend me a club or a torch of some kind. I want to try something first." Linley said as something clicked in his head thinking of something.
Fatty Wang did carried a club right now after all. If Fatty Wang were to swing his 1-ton hammer at a goblin, said goblin would have gone splat. So instead, when it came to wrangling in runaway goblins, he would lightly smacked them with a club.
Linley acquired the club and then he purchased a exploding tag from the System's shop for a measly 10 EP. Not only that, he also purchased a item that was Asuma Sarutobi's lighter as well for 1 EP.
He wrapped the club with a exploding tag and then use a lighter to ignite a tip of the exploding tag.
Linley didn't want to take any chances, so he activated his aura of Battle-Qi and along applying Weapon Mastery to said club thus covering it in his aura.
Kam who noticed that Linley performed Weapon Mastery on another weapon had him shocked once more than when witnessing Linley for the first time using both Perfect Control Battle-Qi and Weapon Mastery with a sword. After, each mastery of a weapon requires a long time of experience and training. Therefore, Kam had believed that Linley was a super-genius at least.
Linley thrown the club at the wooden ship as hard he could throw at least. It left a trail of sonic booms as it then collided with the boat. Thus boat's upper half then exploded in a blaze of glory. A exploding tag was not originally that powerful, but Linley's Weapon Mastery had also applied to it as well without him knowing. Even the surviving goblins of that flaming wreckage could only dive to the dirty sewage water in which they easily drown in since they couldn't possibly understand the concept of swimming.
[You have killed a Rank 1 being, you have gained 1 EP. You have killed a Rank 1 being, you have gained 1 EP. You have killed a Rank 2 being, you have gained 1 EP....]
Such messages were so common to Linley as he was slaughtering goblins, that Linley had to mentally blocked his mind from listening to it.
Linley destroyed seven more boats like this and each one at least netting him more than a hundred EP each time.
Eventually, the party of four had to leave this city's underground sewage system.
The party were all reaching their limits in terms mental and physical stamina. Except for Melarue who did mostly only scouting.
When they came out, and first saw the beautiful morning sun. Fatty Wang got on his knees and praised to the sun. While Kam prayed to his god.
After all they were all inside the city's underground sewage system for more than 10 hours. Not only that, they have killed at least more than they can count.
Linley knew the exact number of goblins they had killed due to how much EP he had. He currently now had 2,147 EP. Killing the bandit's group that Fatty Wang was apart of had only net him 15 EP in total. The killing of chickens type magical beasts for three days until heading to Tri-Moon city only gave him around 10 EP in total. One have to know that Fatty Wang was not an expert at capturing magical beast chickens, so he ended killing more than he had captured for Linley. His total expenditure was about 91 EP in this dungeon-like area. Based on the System's calculations, Linley had killed 2,213 goblins in total.
As soon as Linley took a step outside. Even though Linley had taken a military ration pill, his body may be still strong but his mind felt weak. Especially when the sun's bright light first entered Linley's eyes, he had narrowed his eyes immediately and end up stumbling.
Linley ended up stumbling into the arms of Melarue who was right next to him. Linley saw a blurry outline of Melarue's face.
"Sorry to bother you now and yesterday." Linley apologized with a soft weak voice.
"It wasn't a bother at all. Young master. Not a bother at all." Melarue spoke while holding Linley's sluggish body in a tight embrace.
Linley who felt really comfortable in her arms make him wanted to take a nap right now. So he had closed his eyes subconsciously.
Melarue smiled as she watched her young master's relaxed sleeping expression on his face.
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
Dolphin_Tweed
Dolphin_Tweed I originally wanted to make this into 2 chapters.
With Pt.1 being introduced into the goblin quest.
While Pt.2 is goblin slaying part. But I felt like I should tell most of it, since it's just grinding. Therefore it's filler.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone