Chapter 37: The Dragonslayers’ Adventure

Author: 十一屋　翠 (Juuichiya Sui)

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“We should start setting up camp.”

I suggested to my comrades that we should set up camp, seeing as how the sun had begun to sink below the mountains.

“Whaaaat? But we’re almost at his village, aren’t we? Let’s just keep on going!”

The idiot said something stupid, so I ignored him.

“Jairo and Meguri, go gather firewood please.
Norb, barrier, and I’ll get the food ready.”

“Mhm, gotcha.”

“All right.”

“Don’t ignore me!”

“Shut up already and go.
Monsters will start coming out once it gets dark.
And we’re on a mountain road here, so the probability of them launching surprise attacks from the undergrowth is quite high too.”

“Come on Jairo, let’s go.”

“Oh all right then.”

Hurried along by Meguri, the idiot finally left.

♦ ♦

“I have set up the barrier.”

“Thanks, I’m almost done on my end too.”

“Heeey, we’ve got your firewood.”

“We’ve also brought some wild vegetables.”

Jairo and Meguri had returned.

“Good work.
I’ll get dinner ready in a jiffy.”

I filled a pot with water prepared with magic and lit a fire below it.

We weren’t going to go anywhere else for the day, and Norb had put up a barrier, so sparing myself the trouble of having to manually set fire to the firewood by doing so with magic instead was fine.

I had prepared the wild vegetables Meguri had gathered while the water in the pot was still heating up, and put all the ingredients in once it began to boil.

“I’m getting tired of dried meat soup.”

“Go eat grass then.”

The idiot said what he always did.

He’d be sent into a dream as soon as he started eating it anyway.

“It’s ready.”

I put some of the soup in everyone’s bowls.

“Now, let us give a prayer to the gods for coming through today unharmed.”

Norb, our monk, tried to give a prayer to the gods, but everyone was already too busy eating to care.

Me too, of course.

It was common sense that adventurers began eating immediately as soon as they had food, after all.

♦ ♦

“We’ll probably arrive at Rex-san’s hometown tomorrow.”

Norb-san murmured after we had finished eating and were letting the food settle down.

“Right.”

“Oymygoshimsoexcited! I can’t wait to get to the village where big bro was born!”

“Yeah, I’m really curious too.”

That’s right, we were heading towards the village where a fellow adventurer of ours, Rex, had been born.

Well, I say fellow, but the difference in our strengths was like the difference between heaven and earth.

His strength was quite literally abnormal.

Even though he had become an adventurer on the very same day as we had, he had raised his adventurer rank in the blink of an eye, rising all the way up to B-Rank in less than a month.

He would definitely become A-Rank, maybe even S-Rank soon.

Through a chance meeting, we somehow became something akin to his disciples.

I have to admit I was grateful to the idiot for that one.

After all, the reason we F-Ranks were able to use body strengthening magic and chantless magic was because he had taught them to us.

And, more than anything, I was grateful to Rex for having provided me with a way to stop the idiot if things ever got out of hand.

He’d get all sorts of weird ideas and get everyone in the vicinity caught up in them the moment I took my eyes off him.

Truly, if it hadn’t been for Rex, we would be dead.

Or actually, a huge amount of harm might have come to Tougai, making it impossible to stay there.

It ending with us being only banished would have been a good ending.

However, having become B-Rank, Rex had gone to a different town, and we were all quite sad at having become unable to learn anything from him anymore.
Especially the idiot.

That was when Rex suggested we should go to his home village.

According to him, there were magic textbooks he had made in order to teach the village’s kids magic there.

Upon hearing that, we decided to go there almost immediately.

We thought that if they were books made by Rex, they would unmistakably be amazing.

And now, we had finally almost made it to the village where he had grown up.

According to him, it was past the mountains to the west.

“We’ve finally come this far.”

To be perfectly honest, it was quite tough coming this far.

Even though we were going along the highway, wolves and bears and other monsters kept on attacking us insistently and persistently.

So many of them attacked us we had begun to question whether this really was a highway people could actually use.

If Rex hadn’t trained us, we would probably be dead.

It really was dangerous.

“We’re getting up early tomorrow too, so I’m going to sleep.
Norb, Meguri, it’s your turn today.”

“Yes, please leave it to us.”

Leaving lookout duty to those two, Jairo and I fell asleep.

We took turns being on lookout duty, so every second of sleep was precious.

“I’ll be going to sleep then.”

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

As I pulled my blanket over myself, my exhaustion hit me immediately.

And then, without even having to count to ten sheep, I fell asleep.

♦ ♦

“Uwaaaaaa!?”

“Ruuuun!!”

We were running away as fast as we could.

Having had breakfast, we packed up our campsite, and began walking towards Rex-san’s hometown early in the morning.

And, not long after, we encountered a pack of monsters.

“Grrrrrrrr”

“Forest Wolves!?”

The monsters that made up the pack were dangerous ones that used non-monster wolves to do their bidding.

They had their wolf minions chase their prey until it was tired out, and then they stepped forward themselves to deal the final blow.

They were terrifying monsters that used normal wolves almost like disposable slaves.

Forest Wolves were C-Rank, overwhelming opponents for us F-Ranks.

They also made good use of their superior numbers, making them frightening opponents for us adventurers few in number.

“Pfft! They’re just big wolves! Let’s just off them already!”

“Yes, we’re surrounded, so breaking their encirclement would be a good idea.”

Jairo-san and Mina-san were ready to fight, but there really were too many monsters present for that.

“They have a weak-looking part on the right there.”

Meguri-san pointed out a hole in the monsters’ encirclement, and Jairo-san and Mina-san immediately sprang into action.

“Oraa!”

Using the body strengthening magic Rex-san taught us, they broke through the right side of the encirclement.

The Jairo-san from before wouldn’t have been able to make such movements; body strengthening magic truly was something amazing.

“Thunder Lance!”

Mina-san also attacked the wolves with the lightning magic she had been taught by Rex-san.

“Gyaun!?”

Lightning magic apparently had the additional effect of paralysing the target, and it seemed like that effect activated even if it only brushed the opponent.

It was quite useful when you had a lot of opponents to fight.

“Their encirclement’s broken! Let’s go!”

We all activated body strengthening magic and sprinted through the gap in their encirclement at Meguri-san’s signal.

“We can get away at this rate!”

“Hey, we’re not gonna fight!?”

Jairo-san complained when Mina-san gave the command to withdraw, but he didn’t stop running.

He must’ve learned to properly judge a situation based on experience from when we had worked together with Rex-san.

“Urgh, they’re so annoying!”

Jairo-san said, attacking the Forest Wolves behind us.

“Thunder Lance!”

Mina-san used that moment to gather her focus and use chantless magic to repel the wolves attacking us.

Being able to use magic even while escaping was also thanks to Rex-san teaching her chantless magic.

However, the wolves were great in number, and there were still more Forest Wolves hanging back at the rear.

“We just keep on running being driven away by the monsters!?”

Ah, I was just thinking the same thing.

“Won’t big bro come save us then!?”

“As if!”

Jairo-san that is very wishful thinking indeed.

“Anyway! There’s too many of them! We’ll just lose if we fight! Let’s just try to run away to a human settlement!”

“We’ll just cause them trouble though!?”

“Beasts don’t usually go near human settlements without a good reason! So they’ll probably give up if we go to one!”

I see, it is indeed true that monsters rarely go near villages or towns with fences and walls.

We had found a small spark of hope, which was then instantly extinguished.

Just when we had somehow managed to break their encirclement and were running away, more enemies appeared in front of us.

Moreover, they weren’t normal wolves, but Forest Wolves.

“Damnit, they tricked us!?”

It seemed like we had been caught in the Forest Wolves’ trap.

“Guoo!!”

The Forest Wolves jumped at us, who had now stopped running.

We readied ourselves to die.

But then.

“Seryaaaa!!”

A shadow suddenly flew across in front of us, decapitating the Forest Wolves.

“W-was is actually big bro!?”

‘What idiocy,’ I couldn’t help but think as we all looked where the shadow had landed.

“Seems you were in a pickle, eh!”

Standing there was a muscular man who didn’t look like Rex-san at all.

““““Who’re you?””””

We all said, completely forgetting how he had just saved us.

“Hang on just a sec! Imma just finish this!”

Having seemingly said what he wanted, the man jumped at the pack of Forest Wolves with his bare hands.

“Hey, you’re gonna die!?”

It was no wonder Mina-san shouted so, one must be out of their right mind to jump into a pack of dozens of wolves and Forest Wolves bare-handed.

We were all sure that he would be attacked by the whole pack and lose his life in an instant.

However…

“Hahaha! Weak, you’re all so weak! You’re waaaay too weak!”

He began one-sidedly beating up the wolves with his bare hands.

He grabbed a Forest Wolf in one hand, swinging it around, sending the other wolves flying, casually punching away a Forest Wolf that tried attacking him from behind without even looking.

“Kyaun kyaun!”

He was treating the wolves like puppies.

“He’s using body strengthening magic.”

Meguri-san said as she watched it all unfold.

We all hurriedly turned to look at him, and just as Meguri-san had said, I got the feeling that he was using body strengthening magic.

“If he can use body strengthening magic, then…”

“Don’t tell me he’s!”

“A relative of Rex’s!?”

At that moment, the man looked over at us, briefly stopping his fight with… I mean steamrolling of the Forest Wolves.

“Oh, you lot know Rex?”

It seemed as though we had arrived at our destination.