Did You Do Something To Him?

The next day.

Kikori headed for the Hero Gate.

Today again, there were all kinds of people—party recruitment, stalls for adventurers, and more.

But, well… he didn’t know if there was anything he needed to buy here.

And as for party recruitment, someone like Kikori probably wasn’t what they were looking for.

“All right, then…”

“Oh! Kikori! Over here!”

A voice shouted Kikori’s name at an absurd volume.

Kuon was yelling energetically in front of the Hero Gate.

“Don’t shout someone’s name like that…”

“Hm? Did you not like it?”

“It’s not like I hate it, but…”

“Got it. I’ll be careful.”

Kuon smiled and said sorry, and Kikori replied, “It’s fine.”

He wasn’t a bad guy. That much was certain, but…

“Then let’s go. I want to start earning quickly.”

“Yeah.”

At Kuon’s prompting, Kikori and Kuon walked side by side through the Hero Gate.

They advanced into the forest and kept striding along.

“All right, then!”

Kuon suddenly swung left and raised his iron staff as if to stab into the bushes.

With a clang, a Horned Rabbit slammed into the iron staff… and Kuon scooped it up and flung it into a tree with the staff. The blow killed it, and Kuon let out a bored-sounding breath.

“At this level, it’s just…”

“I thought it was pretty clean.”

“But this isn’t enough to make you want to team up, right?”

“Hmm…”

“Well, once we take the mana stone, let’s move on.”

As Kuon started extracting the mana stone, Kikori blurted out, “Ah.”

“Wait—wasn’t there a request for Horned Rabbit meat?”

“Let’s not. It just becomes baggage and it’s not much money… and more than that, I’m not walking through the forest with raw meat hanging off me.”

“Ah… right.”

Now that he thought about it, there was that problem.

No matter how well you processed it, the smell of raw meat might attract some violent monster.

That idea hadn’t occurred to Kikori.

“Ha—weren’t I pretty useful just now?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, that’s actually a good response.”

Kuon laughed, and Kikori laughed along.

“Then let’s go a bit deeper.”

“Yeah.”

And so the two of them went deeper… but strangely, they didn’t run into any goblins.

“No goblins, huh.”

“I heard they were sending out an investigation team… maybe veterans are hunting them down one by one?”

Kikori thought he’d heard something like that too.

So what kind of results had this “investigation team” gotten?

Had they sensed something abnormal in the forest?

Or had they found nothing at all?

Kikori thought about it, but quickly realized it didn’t matter.

Things happening “up above” had nothing to do with him.

Right now, more importantly—

“Gii! Gigi!”

One goblin was making a racket up in a tree.

And one hobgoblin came charging in with heavy, thudding steps.

The one wearing a gauntlet… had a lot more armor now, but Kikori recognized it.

“…It’s pointing at you, Kikori. Did you do something?”

“A groin shot, I guess.”

“I see…”

The rematch with the gauntlet hobgoblin—seething with rage—began.