NBAA Vol. 2 Chapter 5 Part 1
CHAPTER 5
Several weeks had passed since the armed Goblins’ attacks.
Reito continued taking requests and improving his rank: at present, he was a rank D adventurer.
Reito was now riding the carriage he received in the Aferre village, on a request to transport supplies. He also helped in the reconstruction of the villages ravaged by the Goblins.
“I’ve brought food supplies!”
“Woof!”
“Ooh, finally!”
“Break time, everybody! Stop working!”
The wolf carriage had arrived at a large village located dozens of kilometers from the Adventure City Lunot.
When the village was attacked by the armed Goblins, the fences surrounding the village were destroyed; the Barrier and Decay stones were damaged as well.
The survivors returned to the village, little by little, and the reconstruction was proceeding at a very high pace.
“How is the process going?”
“Well, the pace is stable, I guess. We should be back to normal in two weeks or so.”
“We sorely need manpower, though.”
While unloading the supplies from the carriage, Reito asked the villagers about the reconstruction.
Many people had been killed by the Goblins, but most houses were intact. The armed Goblins’ objective was gathering food supplies and tools, so they did not cause extensive damage to the buildings.
“By the way…we’ve got some broken shovels. I’m sorry to ask again, but could you fix it?”
“No problem, where is it?”
“I’m really sorry to ask you to help so many times…hey, bring the stuff!”
“Yessir!”
A villager brought several broken farming tools and Reito quickly fixed them with his Alchemy skills.
Looking at his shovel, as good as new, the man cheered.
“Amazing!! And I thought I needed a new one!”
“I can’t fix the wooden parts, so please be careful.”
“Could we ask you to dig a hole here? We want to bury trash, but it’ll take time to dig it ourselves…”
“Okay…Earth Block.”
“Whoa, amazing!!”
Reito could easily make earthen walls to protect the village as well, but he didn’t want to stand out too much, so he quickly left after performing such simple tasks for the villagers.
“Okay then, I have to go now…”
“Thanks as always, friend!!”
“Please come again!!”
Reito waved back at the villagers, then headed back to Lunot with Ullr.
It had been a while since Reito started visiting human settlements, after his life in the forest: he had befriended all sorts of people and managed to lead a relatively normal life.
『You seem like you’re enjoying yourself, Reito.』
『Whoa, don’t talk me out of the blue like that! You really surprised me…』
As the wolf carriage was running across the plains, time suddenly stopped for Reito. Airis’ voice resounded in his head, even though he had not called her.
The communication with Airis only happened when Reito called her first before, but recently Airis sometimes initiated the communication from her side.
According to her, the wavelength of their souls was growing gradually closer, so such a thing became possible.
『Oh, I advise against going down that road. You’ll be ambushed by bandits.』
『Bandits?』
『The convoys carrying supplies from the Adventure City to the villages are being attacked fairly often. The convoys have to be guarded by soldiers or adventurers recently.』
『Right, the receptionist said something like that too…』
『You can probably defeat them, but I don’t think it wise to stick your neck into trouble. Look, your dear cousin just happens to be in the area. You should report to her about the bandits.』
『My dear cousin…Nao?』
Reito took Airis’ advice and made a detour towards the village of Faas, where Nao happened to be at the moment.
When he arrived at the village, he found the Valkyrja knights were there too, so he called to them.
“Hello!”
“Hm? That’s…Princess Nao, it’s Reito.”
“What? Reito!?”
The knights were having a meal, monster meat grilled on a large iron plate.
One of the knights noticed Reito’s arrival and told Nao about it: the princess, still chewing meat, ran up to him.
“..chew…gulp…it’s been a while! We met in Lunot last time…”
“Princess, you should talk after properly chewing and swallowing..”
“R-right…”
Reito smiled wryly at Nao’s enthusiasm, as her knights rushed to her and offered advice.
Nao and her Valkyrja knights had been stationed in Lunot for several weeks: the king had ordered them to track the movements of the pro-empire faction. In order to do so, the Valkyrjas had been visiting the villages attacked by the armed Goblins.
“How are things going lately?”
“We are hunting down thieves day after day, as you can see. We have more chances to fight against humans than against monsters…which, I have to confess we have mixed feelings about…”
One of the knights continued after Nao’s apologetic words.
“Thanks to the Princess’ efforts, however, the safety of the area has improved. The Black Tigers’ guildmaster too expressed her gratitude for the decrease in bandit activities…”
“That is true, but…not being able to focus on our original mission has me concerned.”
The Valkyrja knights were currently patrolling the villages under reconstruction, finding and eliminating any bandits and thieves attacking the supply convoys. They had already captured more than 50 thieves, but Nao and her knights were vexed with such vultures hovering around the villagers’ plight.
Nao seemed to recall something and spoke again.
“By the way, Reito, I heard you were promoted to rank D. That’s an impressive feat! Only 11 other adventurers could reach such a rank in such a short time at your age!”
“So I’m the 12th…? I’m not sure if I should be happy or not…”
“It is the first time for a so-called ‘hopeless’ job holder to rise over F rank, though. Some even doubt you really are a hopeless job holder…”
“Nothing I can do about that…ah, do you want to see my guild card?”
“Yes, gladly…hmm, Support Magician and Alchemist…by the way, Reito, why do you use a broadsword, if you’re a Magician? It doesn’t seem very fitting…”
“Well, I’ve trained to use it.”
“I’m not sure that’s a weapon you can handle with just training…”
In order to change the awkward topic, Reito asked about the bandits.
“Ah, er…by the way, I spotted a group of bandits on the way here, so I wanted to report them…”
“What? You should have said that sooner! Where did you see them? Did they do anything to you?”
Nao immediately stopped eating, asked Reito about the bandits’ whereabouts and decided to dispatch a group of knights to deal with them.
Incidentally, the Valkyrja knights were at present composed of over 100 members, all powerful warriors over level 50.
“We shall handle the inspection here then, Princess Nao.”
“We’ll do our best!”
“Do be careful.”
Nao entrusted the inspection of the Faas village to the black-haired knight and young Beastman knight Reito had talked to previously.
Nao was going to lead the other knights to catch the bandits. Before she left, she recalled something and turned towards Reito.
“Oh, I might as well tell you. You’ve probably heard of it, but the Hunting Festival will be held soon. Because of the pro-empire faction and the armed Goblins’ attacks, it was delayed two weeks, but…”
“Hunting Festival…?”
Airis quickly intervened to explain.
『It is a festival for adventurers, held in Lunot. Monsters are let loose in the city, and adventurers compete by taking down as many of them as possible within a set time. The adventurer who defeated most monsters receives an award, and the guild they belong to also receives greater funding from the kingdom.』
Reito recalled that Bal had told him about the festival too. He wasn’t very interested, so he had forgotten about it already.
“The Hunting Festival is an important event, which visitors come to see from all over the world. Because of the pro-empire faction events, however, they couldn’t gather enough monsters. If you can catch monsters, when you’re out on requests or other business, and bring them to monster merchants, you’ll be rewarded.”
“What are monster merchants?”
“People that trade monsters for humans to keep. In Adventure City, there’s a large building in the northern part of town that serves as a monster trading post. If you bring monsters there at this time, you should be able to sell them at a high price. If you wish to become a first-class adventurer, you will need proper equipment, won’t you?”
“Eh…?”
Nao smiled wryly.
Reito was not wearing any defensive gear and only used a broadsword not made of magic metal. Nao was thus worried that he hadn’t acquired any proper gear yet.
“Let us depart, my knights!!!”
“Yes, Princess!!!”
Nao’s white horse galloped out of the village, with the other Valkyrja knights in tow.
Reito then returned to his wolf carriage.
His finances were not dire at all: on the contrary, he had accumulated quite a bit of money from requests and helping people. There was another reason why he had not bought any equipment.
If he wore bulky gear, it would get in the way when he fought.
During his life in the Abyssal Forest, Reito had fought satisfactorily even without proper gear, dodging or parrying the monsters’ attacks with his physical skills. He had learned several defensive skills, but never used armor or the like.
“Defense, huh…now that I think about it, Bal used a skill called Harden…”
『Harden is not a skill regular humans can learn. It is exclusive to Giants, normally.』
“Eh? Does that mean that Bal is a Giant?”
『No, but she has Giant blood in her veins. There are ways to boost your defenses other than Harden, though.』
“Really…”
Reito listened to Airis’ advice as Ullr pulled the carriage back to Adventure City.
~