Hearing the sound I reflexively tried to run out of the forest but then I noticed that it sounded a little familiar.

'Do I run or check it?’ I started hesitating on whether I will do as my curiosity says or not, I gave it a thought but before I could think about it my feet move on its own heading towards the noise.

As I neared the place where the noises coming from it started to get loud as I started to hear the sounds of two metals colliding at each other and some occasional grunts.

I then arrive in front of a thicket and on the other side of it is where the sounds came from I stopped for a moment and brush aside the sweat forming in my forehead before I made my way inside it slowly parting the branches and leaves blocking my sight.

When I came out of the thicket what I first saw are people fighting but when my eyes got accustomed I saw three people fighting goblins who outnumbers them, maybe they noticed that there's someone watching them because the heated battle suddenly stopped as they all looks towards me, it made my body tensed up as I felt their gazes but the young man who is in front holding a wooden shield and a sword reacted first lounging towards the nearest absent-minded goblin severing its head, the goblins saw their comrade get killed making them go towards the man as they started the fight again.

“There's thirteen goblins- no twelve left! Take at least two of them and I'll split the reward to you!” the man with brown hair shouted towards me as he blocks the weapon of three goblins with his round shield.

“I have–”

I want to reply that I have no experience in fighting but it got stuck in my throat because I saw one of the goblin that the man blocked took an arrow on his head after I took a blink.

“Don't just stand there or you'll get killed! Just draw your sword and slashed it towards the enemies you see I look after you in the back!”

I looked towards the voice and saw the two other people clearly its the yellow haired boy who's holding his right arm with his left hand and the black-green haired girl.

Both of them didn't give me another look as the boy swings his sword towards a goblin and the black-green haired girl who's holding a bow took an arrow from her quiver and nocks into the bow as she aimed it in the goblin that the boy is fighting she then released the string as another sound of air being cut was heard together with a thud as the goblin whose head was pierced by that arrow fell into the ground.

'They're the one in the morning.' I thought as I followed what she said, I unsheathes the rusty iron sword in my waist and hold it with my two hands as I run towards the goblin who is aiming towards the side of the shield man.

Hearing my steps the shield man looks back briefly then he kicked the sneaking goblin sending it flying towards me, as I saw the monster flying near me I took a step forward and adjusted my grip to line the tip of my sword towards its back, then the next thing I heard is a gruesome cry before falling down on my butt.

I looked towards the goblin whose body is pierced through with my sword as I tried to get up from my sitting position but–

“Dodge to your left!!” ordered by the girl.

Following her instruction I hurriedly roll over the side as I heard a piercing sound pass by me, I stood up and when I gave a look where I was previously at there's a spear stuck in it.

“Gruuahh!!!”

I unconsciously reached for the dagger in the back of my waist as I look around the place, there are only 6 goblins left all of which looks at me with clear anger in their eyes and one of them who is much taller than the rest has the greatest anger among the six shown from how he thrown his weapon and shouted at me.

The goblins then started retreating towards the forest after they all gave their own gnarls to us following what the tall goblin did.

Seeing them retreat the yellow boy wants to chase after them but he was stopped by the shield man.

“Goblins adds poison in there weapons, we need to treat your wound first.” said the shield man to the yellow boy as he tossed him a glass vial. “Use that on your wound.”

“But you already save us and we owed you for that, taking this antidote which must cost you a lot is not good” said the yellow boy as he tries to give back the vial.

“You can pay me next time so use it, you cant pay me if you died here.” the shield man said as he smiled towards the yellow boy.

He tried to give it back one more time but he was stopped by the girl.

“Thank you for all the help, we will pay for this debt one day.” she said as he looked towards the shield man and me.

“You don't need to be thankful I only help a little and I really just came here because I can't reign my curiosity about the voice I heard because it sounded familiar.” I said as I looked towards the boy who started bandaging his right arm.

Understanding what I said the boy momentarily stopped as he turned his back to me with his ears reddening.

“Its because of those despicable goblins ambushing us that I got wounded by them making me shout!” he said with his loud voice.

“You shouldn't be ashamed because without you shouting I will probably not find the two of you.” the man said as he patted the boy's left shoulder.

“That's right for the first time your lo~ud voice benefited us.” the girl said emphasizing the word loud making me chuckle a little meanwhile the boy's ears started to turn even redder.

After he bandaged his right arm he looks towards the two us with an embarrassed face but before he could say anything—

“Ahem.” the man coughed making the three of us look towards him. “Let's start collecting our loots and get out of this forest or else other monster might come here after they smell the blood, take their right ear for the proof of subjugation and search near the heart to see if there's a magic stone there, it can sell for a high price if we luckily found one.” he said as he walked towards a goblin corpse and started dismantling it.

“Magic stone?” the three of us asked at the same time as we started picking up weapons in the ground.

“All I know what it's called and didn't have a chance to see one yet but there's talk among mercenaries about someone getting rich after selling it to a noble, also from what I heard from a mercenary he said its a special stone which is use by witches for them to conduct magic.” he said without even looking at us as he continued looting the bodies of the dead goblins.

“Witch..huh.” said the girl looking towards the arrow she took from the head of the goblin.

“I thought its only a story told by the adults to scare us.” the boy said as he picks a hand axe near the goblin corpse.

“They exist but I also didn't see one yet and only heard it from a mercenary which came from the capital who said that there are mercenaries who uses magic there.” replied by the man who finished collecting the loots.

'This man sure heard a lot of things. So there are witches in the capital, maybe someday when I go there I will see a witch using magic in my own two eyes.' I thought as I pulled out the sword from the first monster that I killed.

“Oh, that's right good job for killing that one.” the man praised as he patted my shoulder when he passed me.

“That right, it was awesome! If only I am not wounded I would probably do something more awesome than what you did.” the boy added as he raised his chest and chin sounding and looking confident.

“Yes, but why did you not just let the goblin fall and slice its head when its on the ground? But thanks to what you did the goblins retreated.” the girl asked before she gave the boy's back a slap when she passed by him creating a loud smacking sound it almost made the boy fall over with his face first onto to the ground.

“I have no experience in fighting or killing something so I will most likely hesitate if I saw its face even if its the goblin's face that evokes fear and nausea, that's why I did it.” I replied before following the two of them.

“That's enough we've stayed here for a long time monsters would start gathering here, let's go back first to the guild and inform them about what happened and then exchange the loots that we have, unluckily we found no magic stone.” the man said signaling the boy who are not following to hurry up.

After that we headed towards the blacksmith who the man said that he knows and sold the weapons we collected from the dead goblins before heading towards the guild to report and exchange the rewards for killing the goblins. I too exchange for the herbs I gathered making my quest completion a fourth one because the goblin that I killed is not counted as I didn't take the request about it.

We then head for the second floor which have rooms in it for talking privately because the first floor is full of mercenaries that came back after finishing their own quest making it a bit noisy for people who want to discuss about something.

In the private room we put together the earnings we made from killing the goblins and selling their weapons then we counted it, after that we decide how to split the earnings but I am ashamed because I only gave them a little help so I asked.

“Do I need to be here? I only killed one goblin but you said I need to kill two right?”

“I only said that to gave you a reason to fight, any help counts as we are outnumbered by the goblins even if I could take the majority of them I have my own limit.” the man said as he put down the coins he's counting.

“So how we should split it?!” the boy said with his loud voice clearly excited from shining coins gathered in the table.

“Sir should take half of it while we split the other half for the three of us.” the girl suggested to the man.

“I...agree!” the boy added while forcing his head to look away from it.

“I agree too, but my part should not be that much from the both of you, just give me ten percent of it.” I suggested to them but then I noticed that all their eyes are on me which made me a little confuse and frighten.

“What?”

“You know how to calculate?!” the boy shouted with a voice that contained surprise.

“I do, why are you so surprise?”

“Are you a merchant son!?” he asked again as he put his hands on the table making his face a little close to me who's in the other side.

“No I am not, is it rare for someone not a merchant son knew how to calculate?” I asked the girl sitting next to the boy.

“No there are others that are not a merchant that knew how to calculate but most of them are nobles and commoners that are either genius or got lucky but what rare is someone with a knowledge of it became a mercenary instead of job that is much safer and pays more.” she answered as she look at me like I am a fool.

“She's right you can get jobs like a receptionist in any kind of guild or if you're lucky you can became a worker for a noble.” the man added as he looked at me with a complicated expression.

“Working for others would get me a good payment but I know that its hard to quit to with that kind of job whenever you want to.” I stated my reason to the two of them who doesn't understand why I would choose this job.

“Eh? Why would you quit if you have a good job?” the girl asked not understanding my point.

“I don't want my freedom stolen like that and I also want to travel tons of places I can't stay in one place forever.” I answered to her but the confused look in her face did not disappear.

“Girls like her won't understand us.” the boy remarked making the girl look at him with a furrowed brows but not minding her he continued. “We have dreams that they will not get no matter how we explain it to them, I have a dream to you know, I want to become a knight of this kingdom, the strongest and most awesome knight there is but I am not a noble and no connection with anyone who is so I decided to become a mercenary cause I heard from my father that some talented mercenaries would be invited by the kingdom itself to be a knight.”

Different from when he is always shouting this time the boy sounded more graceful and persuasive as we both looked at each other with our shining eyes that seems to says that 'I found someone that understand me'.

“Well enough of that we will need to split up the money it's already about time for the dinner.” the man interrupted us but then a growl came out of the boy's stomach as the difference I felt in him vanished like a bubble.

“Hahaha! What man are you saying you're just a kid!” the girl laughed while pointing her finger to the boy also losing the mature aura she's been showing to us making both me and the man laughed too.

Then while the two of them are fighting each other about who's a kid I started splitting up our earnings, giving their portions to them while separating the fee for using the private room, after that both of them thank the two of us we then stood up from our seats ready to exit the room but stopped by the boy who rush in front of the door blocking us from exiting.

“Wait! We should form a 'party' together!” the boy shouted towards us.

“Party?” I asked.

“It's what they called when two or more people group up and accepts quest together.” the man explained it to me.

“But I have no experience in fighting and its my first time killing a monster today.”

“It's okay! That's why I suggest to group up with us so that we can cover the mistakes that we will make like what happened in the forest earlier.” the boy said to me making me think about his proposition.

“I'll join but I'll probably quit after gathering enough money for my next journey so I'll hope you don't stop me when that time comes.” I agreed making the boy smile to me.

“You don't need to be worry about that I promise it to you.” he said as he offers his hand to me, we then shake our hands before looking towards the two.

“I'll join because like the two of you I have my own dreams too and making it come true I need money.” the shield man said.

“But aren't you higher rank than us? What about teaming up with other people with the same rank?” the girl asked.

“I am only at an Iron rank not far away from you and an archer with a skill like yours is rare, I also feel like we can become a good party so I will follow my instincts in this.”

Hearing his words the girl's cheeks became red like what happened to Zana.

“Good! We are now a party! You two should tell me what your name is, mine is Bartholomew but its a long name so you can call me Bart!” the boy- no Bart said as he held his left hand towards us.

“Alexa.” followed by the girl, Alexa.

“My name is Denn.” said the shield man Denn as he took Bart's hand and shook it then all of them look at me waiting for my answer.

“You can call me Traveler.”