A wild boar of about 200 jin was quickly butchered under Ler and Rand's practiced hands.
They removed all the innards and buried them in a shallow pit.
To Aaron, it felt like a waste. The Rock party and Nfirea's grandparents seemed completely uninterested in the offal.
Clearly, they were not in the habit of eating it.
Aaron naturally did not say anything.
Despite how small-time these people might look in the anime,
neither adventurers nor a pair who owned an apothecary like Nfirea and his grandmother could be counted among the poor.
The cleaned boar meat was skewered and set over the campfire to roast. Very soon, fat began to drip down in layers, making the flames burn even hotter.
A rich aroma spread through the air.
Leader Dosari walked over from the side and sat down next to Aaron, cheerfully striking up a conversation.
Aaron listened with an attentive expression, occasionally nodding and replying with a few words, but most of the talking came from Dosari.
Nfirea was the same, very interested in adventuring stories.
Though most of Dosari's tales were funny anecdotes from past jobs, heavily embellished with bragging, Aaron was still able to extract useful information from them.
The next day.
Just as dawn was breaking, they set out again.
The road soon became much harder to travel. As they drew closer to the border, the towering, endless line of the Azerlisia Mountains appeared in the distance.
The previously relaxed atmosphere grew much more serious.
Along the way,
there were increasingly frequent monster attacks, though most of the creatures were relatively weak.
Aaron steadily gained a fair amount of experience from them.
The Azerlisia Mountains separated the Re-Estize Kingdom from the Baharuth Empire, acting as a natural barrier between the two countries.
According to Dosari, four hundred years ago the two had actually been a single kingdom. For reasons unknown, that great nation had fallen and split into the two countries of today.
Suddenly—
"On guard!"
Bask, the archer guarding the rear of the wagon, called out a warning. His ears twitched slightly as his face turned grim.
"Something big is coming!"
At that,
everyone in Rock went pale.
Lizzie tugged the reins without a word and brought the wagon to a halt. Nfirea, sitting beside her, gripped the wooden rail with both hands, his face tense.
Noticing the change in the Rock members' expressions, Aaron's gaze sharpened.
Over the past few days, he had learned that Bask had an innate ability: hearing that far surpassed normal people.
Besides being their ranged damage dealer, Bask also functioned as the party's scout.
For something to rattle him that much, it had to be bad.
Even so,
Aaron remained fairly calm. The real powerhouse in this group was not the adventurers but the old woman driving the wagon.
"Graah! Graah!"
"Graah graah!!"
"...!"
Shrill cries rang out as the grass along the roadside rustled and parted.
Short green figures about one meter tall, with thin, wiry bodies, dark-green skin, white pupils, and vicious faces, rushed into view.
Goblins.
There were ten of them.
Aaron gave them a quick sweep with his eyes. Most held clubs and crude weapons. Their numbers were not trivial, but they were no real threat.
Goblins were a weak race with low intelligence but a terrifying breeding rate. An ordinary adult, one-on-one, could kill a goblin with some caution.
Let alone Rock. Based on rough estimates, a Silver-ranked party's members would usually be around levels 7–10.
Of course, goblins had several subspecies.
The real danger was coming from behind them, right?
Aaron's gaze passed over the charging goblins and focused on the dense forest beyond.
Thud! Thud!
Heavy footsteps began to sound. Compared to the shrieking goblins rushing ahead, these new presences exuded real pressure.
"Everyone, attention!"
Dosari drew both swords at his waist and barked the order.
"Roar!"
With a bestial bellow,
a massive figure over two meters tall strode out of the trees, with a fat, muscular build, dark yellow skin, and a back covered in short-spiked plates like armor.
"An ogre? No—two!" Bask said grimly.
"Graah graah graah!"
"Graah graah graah!"
The ten goblins that had hesitated before suddenly swelled with courage at the sight of the two ogres. Screaming and waving their clubs, they rushed the wagon.
"Take out the goblins first!"
Dosari charged ahead, lifted the sword in his right hand, and hurled it forward.
With a harsh whistle through the air,
the blade struck the leading goblin, the tip driving straight through its chest.
The goblin shrieked as light-green blood gushed from the puncture wound, splattering across the ground.
By then, Dosari had closed the distance. He stomped hard on the goblin's chest, gripped the hilt with his right hand, and ripped the sword free, fresh blood and bits of flesh spraying out again.
At the same time,
he swung his left-hand sword and lopped the head off another goblin nearby.
Meanwhile,
the twins Ler and Rand raised their shield-bearing arms and charged, silver shields held in front of them.
Each brother bowled a goblin over, then brought their shields down in crushing blows, smashing the creatures into bloody pulp.
Compared to their bloody butchery,
Bask cut a much neater figure. Drawing and loosing with calm, fluid motions, he quickly brought down two more goblins.
In just a few seconds, six of the ten goblins had already fallen to Rock.
Aaron took a deep breath at the sight.
He was not exactly afraid, but the gore still made him a bit queasy.
They had encountered scattered monster attacks along the way, so this was not the first time he had seen such a scene.
But as someone from a modern world, he still felt a bit of discomfort.
The metallic tang of blood in the air,
the goblin heads lying on the ground in the distance, the bodies smashed into paste under shields—all of it made the reality of this world press down on him even harder.
At the same time,
beneath the faint nausea, Aaron felt a strange surge of excitement.
He suddenly understood the Eight Greed Kings a little better.
While he was lost in thought, the remaining four goblins were quickly dispatched by Rock.
And at that moment, the two massive ogres, roaring in fury, burst from the forest.