Chapter 37: Hassan — The Swamp Local (4)
༺ Hassan — The Swamp Local (1) ༻
Goblins.
I’ve already met them before on the temple-cleaning quest. My state back then was rather embarrassing as I got beaten by them rather badly because I wasn’t expecting a fight.
Today, however, I was ready for a battle and had a clear intention to deal with them by any and all means. It won’t be the same as the last time.
Kisik- Kisisik-
Kisisis-
The goblins were looking down on us while snickering, unaware of their inevitable demise.
Stupid mud-covered scoundrels. Maybe they were looking at me and sneering with words like “Look at that guy over there, with the three swords.” or some disgruntling thing along those lines.
How dare they laugh at the Santoryu sword art? Do they have a death wish?
Unacceptable!!!“Spawns of the devil. Face my hatred that has been brewing for days.”
I unsheathed two of my blades and charged at the dastardly goblins.
The muddy floor was very uncomfortable to step on, but it was not enough to stop me who was charging at those disgusting wretches faster than anyone.
“Die, ugly fuckers!”
Swing-
I cut off the head of a nearby goblin with a single horizontal swing of my sword.
K-Kyargh!
The previously excited red eyes of the goblins that had been towering over us, standing on the trees, finally dimmed, and their expression leaked a trace of panic.
I was just as panicked.
I thought I’d feel a bone or some form of restriction, but my sword went through its neck like a hot knife through butter.
Was there a creature with such a frail body? This new sword seems to be pretty good.
Or maybe my strength jumping up to 4 was what created such an astonishing feat.
Kisisis!
Kaesaeski!
“Did you just fucking curse me, you sonuvabitch?”
I swung my sword sharply at the goblins that were aiming at me with their crude arrows. I had never learned the sword and the only other weapon I had ever picked up and had a decent amount of familiarity with was a rifle.
Swoosh- Swing- Swish-
With the help of my strong and towering physique, coupled with the long reach of my sword, I could cut off the goblin’s shoulders, necks, and arms even by swinging recklessly as I was doing so at the moment. Many of the said parts were now rolling on the muddy ground, slowly submerging in its stinky depths.
“Die, bastards!”
Kyaeek!
Kaek!
More and more of these goblin bastards were falling down from the trees, the number was far greater than I thought it could be.
Some of them even tried to run away with their buttocks facing me but I had no intention of letting even a single one of them flee.
They had no choice but to die under my blades of vengeance.
Even if the way I was fighting was unsightly and ridiculous, I still had to fight for my life with all I’ve got.
I had no time to think about my stature, my sword style, or even what the other adventurers might think about my reckless fighting in such a tough situation. I didn’t have that leeway.
“You guys are dead, rotten scums!”
Swing- Splash-
It was only after dealing with all the goblins within my field of view that I could spare a moment to glance at what the other adventurers were doing.
I could see a few goblins dangling on their feet, they were obviously struggling against these bastards.
“Renee! Something! Do something! You’re the best swordswoman among us!”
“W-What do you want me to do? Just fling it away or something!”
“D-Don’t touch me! Y-You’re so dirty! Yuck”
Damn, what were these rascals doing? Are they really bronze-tier adventurers? These fancy armored idiots were getting done in by these weak-ass goblins? It’s not like it was a breeze to me, but their performance is still so damn disappointing.
Maybe it was my fault from the very beginning— for overestimating what a bronze-tier adventurer was capable of.
Thanks to them, the value of adventurers’ credibility stocks probably decreased to an all-time low, at least in my eyes.
“I-It’s finally time…to use my Silence totem!”
I heard Luna’s solemn and determined voice from beside me. I subconsciously rolled my eyes when I noticed Luna making a life-or-death decision while facing a single frail goblin.
Luna took out something akin to a thick and elongated stick that was hidden in her raincoat.
It was better to call it a club rather than a simple stick, something akin to a face, weirdly enough, was engraved on it, making it look like a Jangseung. 1https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Korean.Folk.Village-Minsokchon-15.jpg/1024px-Korean.Folk.Village-Minsokchon-15.jpg
Silence Totem?
I was rather looking forward to what, Luna, daughter of the goddess Knox, could do now.
Kisisik!
“S-Shut up!”
Luna swung it and slammed the club hard on the goblin’s head.
Gaek!
The mercilessly beaten goblin fell on the floor with a thud, convulsed slightly, then stopped moving altogether without making a single noise.
Damn, that’s why it’s a silence totem? But, isn’t this just a plain old club?
“Hassan! B-Behind you!”
Luna’s cry brought my mind back to reality — at what was happening around me. I quickly noticed a goblin swinging a rusty dagger at me from behind me. It was a sneak attack!
Kisaeki! Damnsaeki!
“Attacking me from behind? Despicable bastard, I won’t let such an offense go!”
I hurriedly waved my arms, swinging the blade in a last-ditch effort to kill it before the nasty bastard could attack me. The goblin, however, nimbly avoided my blind swings and raised up his dagger with a murderous glint, eager to stab me dead with its rusty blade.
Damn it, this is gonna hurt. Just as I resolved myself to the incoming pain.
Pyong-
Something akin to a bullet pierced through the air and hit the goblin’s head, shattering it like an explosive.
“Hassan of Samaria. How very fierce! Like a wild beast randomly swinging its horn to tear apart everything it could lay its eyes upon! Reckless yet brutally effective.”
“H-Hippolyte!”
“The rumor about you slaughtering more than 100 people must have been true, right? This is really an amazing feat, especially for a mere iron-tier adventurer.”
Did she just kill a goblin just by flicking a small pebble with her fingers? This has to be some kind of magic missile, otherwise, it doesn’t make sense how a random pebble could burst its head apart like that. So fucking scary, damn it!
The value of the adventurers’ credibility stock which had previously plummeted rose so high it even went public. This is how adventurers should be!
Man, no matter how strong I’ll get, I don’t think I could ever reach her level. Was she even a human being to begin with?
**********
A total of 40 goblins were slaughtered by our combined force of 20 adventurers.
We began looting the fangs and crude junk from the corpses without bothering to chase after the fleeing goblins.
These bastards that lived in the swamps only had crude daggers and wooden arrows as weapons, they were so out of shape that most of them were rusty and crumbling apart with a few swings. Taking them would net us nothing and would create an additional burden instead.
“Hey, shithead. I’m the one who killed this goblin.”
“D-Do you have any proof?”
“Proof? Look at the clean cut on its right side, look how clean that is. I was definitely the one to kill it, okay?”
A member of the Sword Maidens was trying to loot one of the goblins I had killed. She looked scared and hesitated after I shouted at her to bugger off.
“Ah…”
“Piss off! Where did you learn to pull off this kind of shit? Are you really an adventurer or a petty thief?”
I frowned as if I had a lot to criticize about her. She soon left the scene and rejoined her party without replying anything.
Damn it, this scene reminded me of how my sister would covet other people’s possession and would try to take them for herself. Ironically, she would get angry at others for doing the same thing. Wicked bitch!
Anyway, I ended up getting 40 fangs after slaughtering 10 goblins by myself. 40 coppers, That’s a great harvest already!
Last time, I was heavily wounded after dealing with only 5 of them and even ended up collapsing in exhaustion. This time, however, I was only out of breath after killing 10 of them, I wasn’t even the slightest bit injured!
Damn, you’ve grown up, Hassan! Is this the power of level 9? Maybe it’s the power of Santoryu art?
“Look, Hassan! I got two, holy shh! I feel so great! What do you think?”
Luna was happily pulling out the fangs of a goblin. While it’s amazing that I killed 10 goblins I was even more amazed at the fact that Luna was able to kill two of them by herself.
Some people were even talented enough to kill people by just throwing a pebble at their head… Maybe she’ll become a famous killer in the future too.
Just as the goblin looting session was going to end.
“Huh, huuh. I-It hurts…”
“Your life isn’t in any danger. Although it penetrated deep in your flesh, it, fortunately, missed your vital organs.”
In a corner, Hippolyte was checking the state of the coachman who had previously been hit by an arrow. She then began giving instructions to the adventurers beside her after stating her insights about the old man’s current state.
“Report all injuries and loots before sunset today.”
The silver-ranked Alpha Girl of our pack of 20 adventurers began doing her job. It seemed very boring to look at, so I decided to find something else to do.
Rustle- Splash- Splash-
“Hah!”
The priestess jumped in surprise as if she had met a molester. She then fell flat on the mud and bowed to me with a quivering tone!
“W-What brings you here? I-I’m sorry for showing you my lacking appearance. I didn’t expect you to show up all of a sudden.”
“…Yeah?”
I was dazed and somehow felt guilty when she suddenly bowed to me in that fashion.
Damn it, I shouldn’t be feeling guilty over simply approaching a woman like this. What was she even doing?
Why was she acting this formal all of a sudden? It felt like something religious, maybe something related to the god she worshipped? While I was mulling over that thought, the woman got up and shook off the dust and mud from her body with her palms then spoke.
“Oh, I’m sorry… I mistook you for someone else. Really… It often happens since I am unable to see. Don’t worry.”
“I see. Then can you move your feet a bit? You’re stepping on the body of a goblin.”
“Ah, I see.”
Hehe, that was a corpse no one had looted yet. 4 free coppers, all up for grabs! Just as I was enthusiastically going to recover the goblin’s fangs, the priestess who was looking down in my direction spoke in a whispery tone.
Well, she wasn’t really looking at me, as she couldn’t really see, but that’s just how it looked like to me.
“Hassan, you’re Hassan, right? You’re an outstanding warrior, these goblins attacked a wheeled carriage that was stuck in the mud. Do you think it’s a coincidence?”
“So, you think the Goblins dug a trap to catch us here?”
“Maybe… the world has been changing rapidly lately. It wouldn’t strike me as strange if these goblins suddenly learned to dig traps.”
Cassandra, the priestess from Delphi, seemed to be feeling anxious about the idea of goblins working together and using a well-thought-out strategy like this, after the goblin attack.
I casually agreed with her. The fact that goblins existed was weird enough already.
To me, a man from a world without any magic or mythical creatures, nothing these bastards could do was stranger than their existence itself.
**********
“Alright, it’d better if we camp here for now. The ground is tough and we have enough space for everyone. What do you think Lord Destroyer?”
“I’ll trust Miss Hippolyte’s judgment. It’d be dangerous to run into the mud at night. We also have spring water nearby, so we’ll be able to clean our dirty equipment and our bodies of the filthy mud.”
“Then let’s camp here. Everyone get ready to unpack!”
After concerting each other, the two silver adventurers decided that stopping the carriage in this large open space was for the best and we thus began unpacking.
“It’s an abandoned temple.”
Cassandra muttered to herself. She seemed to know what was happening around better than me despite being blind.
“Look over there, Hassan! It’s stone statues. Won’t something come out from inside if we break them?”
Maybe because she remembered what happened in the temple cleaning quest, Luna shouted while pointing at the broken and corroded statues.
“Breaking the statues? You must not do such a blasphemous act.”
Luna hid the silence totem that she just pulled out back into her raincoat at Cassandra’s hurried dissuasion. I also sheathed back my sword alongside that. I had no clue if there was anything inside anyway, best not to anger anyone this way.
Breaking the stone statue in front of the others seemed like a taboo. Destroying religious symbols was bound to be considered profane or hostile to a religious person like Cassandra.
“A Goddess… This part of the sculpture looks like a sickle in her hand… We’re in a temple of Ceres.”
Cassandra was scouring the rough surface of the statue with her hands. Then, Hippolyte, the female warrior with her waving red cape, approached her and asked.
“Priestess of Delphi. We’re going to camp here today. Have you received any oracles?”
“None.”
“Then let’s camp here. Unpack and get ready to spend the night everyone.”
Thus, I began preparing to settle down. We sat around the camp in groups and shared our dry rations.
My share of food was a tough bread, I was too afraid of biting into it with force and breaking my teeth in the process. Wouldn’t it be better to melt it in water at least?
This was more of a weapon than food… “Will the bastard in front of me collapse if I hit him with it.” was what I was thinking right now sitting alongside the other adventurers.
“T-That’s hard to eat.”
Even Luna, who liked abysmal foods like stargazy pies and mint chocolate, was struggling with something this tough.
“We lost some water bottles while battling against the goblins. Just take it on yourself and eat them tough.”
Crunch-
Hippolyte was biting the bread like she was eating chocolate. I could clearly feel my little brother shrinking from that sound alone. Damn, is she a hippo or what?
After finishing this hard meal, which felt more like self-harm, Hippolyte called out to everyone and then shouted in a loud voice.
“It looks like everyone is done so focus on me. After deliberating with Lord Destroyer, we decided on who’s on the night watch. I’ll call them out right now.”
Damn, even a night watch?
Fortunately or maybe, unfortunately, I was picked to keep a night watch during the second shift.
The second shift is in one word the ‘Worst’. It was a very hard time to keep watch since— before the start of the watch you had finally gotten the chance to let your body rest after a hectic day of adventuring, however, before you could even fully rest and let the tiredness of the day melt away with a much-needed sleep, you had to wake up abruptly, when the first shift was over and resist your sleepiness until the morning. There was no time to rest afterward as it was time for another day of adventuring… yet again.
Luna ended up being a part of the second shift too. While it was certainly unlucky, that was still miles better than what Marco was currently going through over there— on the other side of the camp…
“Mr. Marco, we’re using the same tent. I think we’re going to have a good time. Let’s have a male-only night, shall we?”
“H-Hii! Oh, Lord Mercury!!! Don’t put me to the test!”
Damn, poor Marco. I’m glad I wasn’t in his place. This is karma, bitch! You should have paid your debts.
“Wow, you’re really good at making tents, Hassan. Yours is the best I’ve ever seen in these lands. It’s just like the ones our elders used to set up back in Ideope.”
I, who had raised a cramped Type-A tent for two, was in fact not happy with how it came out. It was crudely made because of the lack of materials, but Luna seemed to be awed by it nonetheless.
“It’s very cozy. I can’t feel the wind too. I can’t believe hanging a raincoat on the side would have this much of an effect inside. Take these fluorescent fireflies! How is it? Doesn’t it make it brighter inside the tent? I caught a few of them after dinner earlier. I’m glad that we can use them this way.”
Luna smiled brightly while hanging a glass bottle atop the tent. Inside it was bugs I couldn’t recognize. They were buzzing around the bottle while producing dazzling light.
“D-Don’t you mind using the same tent as me?”
“Why? Is there anything wrong with me being here with you?”
“I mean, usually men sleep with men and women with women.”
“I-I don’t want to sleep with the sword maidens.”
While it was very common for regular parties to use the same tent, some were still reluctant to sleep with the opposite gender. But Luna didn’t seem to care about that at all.
“Also, I like it here since the tent is so big!”
“That’s a given since my body is rather big. The space has to be much larger than normal after all.”
“The floor is soft too, just like an inn bed! Where did you learn all of this?”
“I used to know someone who was very picky about their lodgings.”
“Someone you know… Is it a former colleague? A hometown friend, perhaps?”
Damn, there was no way I could call Elfriede a colleague. So, while I was brooding on how to answer Luna, she simply stretched out her arms and lied on the floor in a careless fashion.
“Haa… I’m so very tired and sleepy today. I just washed my body in the spring water and feel very drowsy.”
Slowly- Gently-
The wind was pushing her crude raincoat apart revealing her soft white flesh. Maybe because she just had dinner, her slightly round and convex belly immediately caught my attention.
Looking at her white skin, memories of its warmth and smooth texture naturally came to my mind.
At the same time, I felt my heart beat faster, heat rushed up all the way to my face and even my lower body became full of vitality.
“I was going to keep it on since you gifted it to me, but it’s too uncomfortable to sleep in. I’m gonna take it off while I sleep.”
Wait, you’re taking off your raincoat here? Do you even care about the state I’m in right now? Damn it.
Luna was simply laughing, blissfully ignorant of my inner turmoil.
“I’m glad you set up the tent right now, Hassan. My whole body was hurting and I felt like I could die any minute. The hard wagon made my butt hurt so much… My arm is still also sore from swinging the silence totem so much today.”
Luna went “Huuh…” while gently pressing down on the sore flesh of her soft arms.
As I was entranced at the sight of her white and smooth-looking armpits, my true thoughts leaked out of my mouth.
“…D-Do you want me to give you a massage?”
“…Huh?”
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