Ch 22: Discovery of the Goblin Holes

Bernard stood there in awe as the Guildmaster slowly walked up to him. He wore a comfortable leather jacket, outfitted with some plates of steel on his shoulders, on his side was a pouch for consumable items of the sorts. The guildmaster placed his hands on his stubble beard and slowly stroked it as he observed the scene in front of him.

Guildmaster: “It would appear to be an miasmic generator of some sort. I haven’t seen these things since the dark ages when demons ran unchecked, murdering and experimenting as they pleased.”

Bernard strolled up to the guildmaster and gave his greetings.

Bernard: “Guildmaster Siz, uhh… how are you doing?”

Siz looked at Bernard with a questionable gaze and it suddenly turned to smiles as he realized his identity.

Siz: “I’m doing fine, rather the real question is. What happened here and how are the beginners?”

Bernard started to explain the situation and what happened. Guildmaster Siz simply smiled and looked at Ben.

(He sure is looking at me with an interesting gaze.)

The guildmaster walked towards Ben and placed his hands on Ben’s shoulders.

Siz: “It would seem that we have a little hero in the making here? Anyways, why did you not run away?”

Ben: “I… I couldn’t… I ran away during the attack on Rerne Village and someone I knew perished, a silent death.”

Siz: “Rerne village… *self-mumbling* I suppose the teacher was Grant.”

Although the guildmaster mumbled to himself. Ben heard the name Grant faintly.

(Does he know Grant?)

Siz: “Hmm… it would seem that you guys managed to stave off the goblin mage and the two hobgoblins. Nice job, we will be performing some investigation regarding the talking deer with the church as well as search for any clues regarding to where the goblin mage’s power came from.”

(The church has power in this world as well? I’m assuming it’s the cliche of church and white mages.)

Bernard: “The goblin mage uttered words of the dark god, he mainly used sacrifices of the living beasts to empower his own troops.”

While Siz and Bernard were discussing the possibilities of a dark lord. An adventurer ran towards Siz.

Adventurer: “Guildmaster Siz, we found more goblin holes. They’re connected to a larger cavern downwards.”

Siz: “It would seem that this is simply a small portion of the cave. Quickly, send word to the adventurer guild and request a sweep of the land here for more caves.”

The adventurer nodded and got a partner before they headed off.

Linzet came from behind Ben and asked the guildmaster a question.

Linzet: “What are goblin holes?”

Guildmaster Siz looked at Bernard, and gave him a nod.

Bernard: “Goblin holes are basically what we call as the emergence holes as they appear in dungeons, isolated caves, and even abandoned villages. Oftentimes these goblin holes are caused by a ruling entity called the Goblin King. These Goblin holes allow ease of transport of goods and even their own armies. Whenever, we find any evidence of these the coming of the Goblin King will be alerted to all the guilds.

Ben: “How do we take care of these goblin holes then?”

Bernard: “We need to kill the Goblin Lord, or we take out the entire tunnel itself.”

Siz: “I would prefer to destroy the goblin king… however we don’t exactly have the manpower for that as of now.”

The guildmaster simply placed his hands on his chin, carefully pondering about this situation.

Bernard: “Anyways, this shouldn’t matter to you guys. For the promotion test I would say you all passed. You did your best to be cautious, you understand how to cooperate. For point deductions, Ben has to be more careful, and Scarlett although you care for Linzet you are also part of the frontline, you broke formations. Anyways, learn from your mistakes and grow stronger the next time you take the promotion test to B rank adventurers. Now put up your badges.”

The party lifted up their badges, following that movement Bernard lifted his own and tapped each of them as if he was doing a cheer with a mug of beer. The adventurer badges each turned bronze with a letter C attached to the backend of it.

Bernard: “Congratz, you guys are now official rank C adventurers and are now confirmed to be able to do both solo, grouped subjugations, bounty hunting, nominations, and even having guild support. May the rose and anvil spirits protect you, and may luck and glory follow your path. Also there was 2 gold coins in there to help prepare you for 2 months at least… also secrecy money was included, be sure not to spread this information. If you do… the guild will be on you.”

Scarlett and Linzet immediately cheered and jumped with glee. Only for Linzet to immediately regret her movement as the pain from her shoulders shot up as if it was threatening to tear her arm off. Linzet could only grimance in pain. Wilmot and Ben simply smiled.

(Well… I guess having a Rank C badge would help me. I got a little sidetracked but good to know that I can now take official subjugation quests.)

Scarlett: “Ben, did you kill all these goblins?”

Scarlett came over to Ben’s side and whispered at a close distance. Ben feeling his personal space invaded felt somewhat uncomfortable.

Ben: “Err. Yes, I did.”

Scarlett: “Truely? That’s pretty amazing, if you’re that strong I would like to invite you to our party. Linzet and Wilmot already agreed.”

(I want to go to the red temple… but also search for the Anvil spirit for Rose. According to the map, Remilington is still a fair distance from the red temple It should be around a week worth of travel… However I have 4 gold and 24 copper, each day if I spend frugally it’s only 12 copper. I haven’t seen the supply cost for the journey so I should expect a couple silver worth. I should get to know people and learn a bit more.)

Ben: “Sure, I would like to join your party for a bit.”

Scarlett: “Nice, now we’re just missing a healer… but they are rare. We will be living at the Scarfeather inn. From the looks of it, you have no idea where it is. The price is around 12 coppers a day with board and food for breakfast and dinner, water is included for face washing and wiping, and candles and food for lunch are considered extra. The food they serve is alright in my case, but it is often just bread, butter and a porridge on the side for breakfast and for dinner it’s depending on what they catch or buy.”

*********************************

Wilmot: “Rank C, party requirement: 4, Subjugation D rank monsters, Dire wolves, Location: Shefleche Woodland. Reward: 10 copper per wolf fang. If we include the pelts then we can get at least 1 silver per wolf… any of you guys can skin a wolf?”

Linzet and Scarlett looked at each other and shook their heads.

Linzet: “We could always ask the guild people to teach us the basics.”

Scarlett: “I don’t think the guild people will want to touch us anything important. We’d probably damage the pelt to the point that it’ll be sold as trash.”

Linzet: “We’ll improve with time… maybe I should’ve taken disassembly missions when I was lower rank.”

(The very thought of skinning animals with my hands will be pretty gruesome… but… I am pretty strapped on cash in a sense.)

Ben simply stood there pondering, while the party had problems around the guild board.

Wilmot: “If we don’t skin the wolves and only do the subjugations we would have to kill 10 wolves to have 1 silver. If we get the pelts and the fang we get one silver.”

Linzet looked at Wilmot in bewilderment.

Linzet: “Wilmot! When! When did you learn to calculate!”

Wilmot looked at Linzet with an empty gaze. His face showed a tired look.

Wilmot: “We learned this from our teacher at the village…. did you actually learn anything!”

Wilmot poked at Linzet’s head, Scarlett only nodded as she digested Wilmot’s words.

Scarlett: “We should pick up tips from the guild then… regardless if we do a terrible job we will eventually learn how to skin one properly. Although… Are there any chances that Wilmot wants to skin for us?”

Wilmot: “I am not going to be the *designated* skinner… Do your own fair share of work.”

Scarlett: “... Fine.”

Scarlett pouts and gives another look at Wilmot with pleading eyes. Wilmot simply shook his head and took the mission paper to the receptionist. It was Julia once again, her back was against the chair as she was drinking some warm water, she looked a bit like a secretary in the office. She quickly stood up from the chair when she sees Wilmot coming over.

Julia: “Ah, welcome. Do you want to register for the mission, if so please place your badge here.”

She pointed at a tablet in front of her. It’s exterior was black and in the center a white painted circle was there. Wilmot placed his badge in the middle, two lines of information slithered in the air towards Linzet, Scarlett’s badge.

Linzet: “We forgot to add Ben to the party. Ben place your badge up.”

Linzet and Ben placed each other's badge together.

Julia: “Well, good luck and be safe.” She simply smiled and lightly tilted her head. The feeling of levitation of the heart, the act of innocence seemed to have blasted through Ben’s heart.

(AHHH!!! That was… so...I don’t know this feeling but… but to use the dog head tilt maneuver! )

Ben blushed a bit, but since he was behind everyone no one notices it… except the bar people in the fair distance.

“Another one… hook line and sinker.”

“I don’t blame him. She just has that charm…”

“As long as he doesn’t stir any trouble…”

“Another one looking at my love like that!”

“Ugh… men.”

********************

Scarlett was counting the amount of coins in her pouch as the party walked towards the Shefleche Woodlands.

Scarlett: “We used 3 silver coins for the skinning knife, 2 silvers for the loot bags, 1 silver for food supplies for a week to walk to and back. 2 days travels, 2 days hunting, another 2 days of travel back. In total that’d be 6 silver coins. We would need 6 dire wolves then.”

Wilmot: “Can we even find 6 dire wolves? Rumors have been going around how the lack of beasts has been going on.”

Ben: “Rumors? When did you get a chance to listen to that?”

Wilmot: “While we rested at the Scarfeather Inn, the innkeeper told me about it. The veteran C ranked Adventurers have been feeling restless as they are becoming strapped on coins.

(The innkeeper was nice, a hearty muscular man that did the cooking and the heavy lifting for his family of one son and his wife. The cooking he did was lazy, but that’s expected of a complimentary meal of dine ins. After being in this world for awhile, I would have to cook my own food in hopes to elevate my own sense of adventure for food… the lower and middle class of people aren’t particular about food until they have enough money or if they have a special event.. salt, pepper and the usual seasonings are more expensive and difficult to obtain for the lower classes while medium classes are considered an extreme luxury. I guess that’s why I’ve been eating pretty lightly.)

Scarlett: “What was the reasoning? Rank C adventurers should be taking care of the main population of lesser beasts and lesser monsters? There should be enough… or maybe an overwhelming amount.”

Ben: “... is it due to the Goblin King?”

Scarlett, Linzet and Wilmot immediately stood in awe as they also connected the issues together. Seeing that they all hunched down and started to whisper to each other.

Linzet: “If the goblin king is affecting this, then how large is the scale of this!”

Wilmot: “....”

Ben: “Those goblins from earlier were racking up kills like crazy, for the sacraficial altar… such evil and much taboo.”

Scarlett and Wilmot stared at Ben for a moment.

Scarlett: “Ben, I know we’re all uneducated here, but at least keep your commons in check as such evil and much sounds weird. Also racking up kills?”

Ben: “Err. slang from the frontiers… shortcut phrases.”

Scarlett and Wilmot simply looked at Ben, eventually coming to a *forget it look*. While, Linzet simply nodded with a small smile.

Linzet: “Even if we think it’s the goblin king, we can’t do anything about it.”

Having said the last phrase of the topic, everyone agreed and started to prepare for their mission.