They say humans are creatures of adaptation, but I think that’s wrong.
The road we set out on to subjugate the goblins was, as expected, on foot.
I thought I’d gotten used to it after a few marches, but once my baggage increased, my legs started aching all over again.
On top of that, the armor—no better than rawhide—still felt unfamiliar, making the journey even more exhausting.
‘If I’d known it’d be like this, I would’ve put points into stamina or strength.’
It was regret, though not quite regret, come too late.
Of course, since the ability description said “increases slightly,” I wasn’t sure whether I’d even feel the difference, but still, wouldn’t it be better than nothing?
Ah, speaking of perks, there was something new I’d learned about this game system.
The morning after I chose my new perk, most of the muscle pain from the grueling march had disappeared.
Not only that, when I checked while showering, most of the wounds left on my body had healed as well.
Was it perhaps like the mechanism in games where leveling up restored your health?
Of course, since I hadn’t suffered any major injuries yet, I couldn’t be certain.
Besides, considering the wounds I’d received from the kobold, the amount of recovery probably wasn’t that high.
It wouldn’t be to the level of coming back from the brink of death like in a game.
Even so, these little things served like locks, keeping me anchored enough to stay sane in this unfamiliar place.
Language ability, the game system… If I didn’t have those two, I didn’t even want to imagine what terrible future I’d be facing by now.
***
There were four mercenary groups heading out for the subjugation.
Three of us.
Four in the bearded man’s group, the one with the axe.
Four in the gloomy group carrying bows on their backs.
And finally, Arnold’s gang numbered a whopping seven.
“…That’s a damn lot.”
Baldik whispered, glancing at Arnold’s party.
“Indeed. I can see rings as well.”
Arnold wasn’t just some ordinary mercenary.
Their equipment was better than ours, and they had more men too.
Their swords looked better than ours as well, but the difference in armor was even more pronounced.
Of course, that didn’t mean he was armed in some impressive armor like a knight.
He wore chainmail over his shirt, and that alone made him look threatening enough.
No, rather than threatening, to be honest, I was jealous.
“That bastard, where’d he get that?”
“Who knows. Maybe he stole it?”
I nodded at Baldik’s words, but when I looked more closely at the chainmail, I noticed something odd.
Its length was awkwardly short, barely reaching his chest.
It looked oddly half-baked, like he was wearing a tank top.
…For a useless moment, I even imagined that if he took off his underclothes, you might be able to see underboob.
Ugh, even imagining it was disgusting.
In any case, we lacked equipment, were outnumbered, and were at a considerable disadvantage.
“Damn it! What are we supposed to do like this?”
“…”
Baldik vented his dissatisfaction, while Drek sank into deep thought.
Judging by his expression, he didn’t seem to have any suitable plan.
Instead of staying quiet, I offered an idea.
“How about stealing them secretly at night?”
Drek inhaled briefly, then answered in a low voice.
“That would be the most common method, but it won’t be easy.”
“Is that so?”
“To begin with, mercenaries don’t camp together on trivial jobs like this. Since each group uses its own campsite, infiltration is difficult.”
“They camp separately? Why?”
Wouldn’t it be safer to stay together?
“To prevent theft. And since there are many rough men, it’s usually better to stay apart to avoid unnecessary clashes.”
Now that I heard it, it made sense.
In fact, even though we were heading toward the same objective, each group was moving while keeping more than ten steps’ distance from one another.
“Of course, in dangerous areas or on battlefields, people tend to camp together.”
“Battlefields?”
It was a familiar word, yet distant.
But judging by his tone, Drek seemed to have experienced war personally.
“Have you ever been to war?”
“I have. I needed money.”
“Everyone needs money.”
Baldik cut in.
“Still, you worked as a war mercenary and all your limbs are intact. Guess you were lucky?”
“…”
Drek was silent for a moment, then pointed to his right cheekbone.
“See this long scar here? I got it in the war.”
There were more than one or two scars on his face, but now that he said it, that one certainly looked different.
“Most of the money I earned went into treatment because of this.”
“You should’ve come to me. I would’ve done it cheap.”
“…Right.”
“I used healing arts when I worked as a priest! What do you take priests for?”
Drek stared wordlessly at Baldik, then let out a short sigh.
Did he not realize the problem wasn’t that Drek looked down on priests, but that he himself was the issue?
As we walked along the road, before long we reached the edge of the forest where the goblins were hiding.
The group at the very front was, as expected, Arnold’s gang.
They exchanged a few short words among themselves, decided on a direction, then glanced back at us and jerked their chins as if telling us to follow.
Since we were in the position of being mercenaries hired by mercenaries, we quietly followed behind them.
By the way, even the way those guys walked was swaggering and loose, exactly like a gang of thugs.
Their leaking conversations were full of curses and dirty jokes.
They perfectly matched the vague image of typical mercenaries I had in my head.
At that moment, Drek, who had been quietly observing the surroundings, spoke.
“It seems we weren’t the only ones who received a request.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Those men are only watching Arnold’s hand.”
At those words, I subtly checked the other two groups, and sure enough, something strange stood out.
They, too, kept sneaking glances at Arnold’s party.
“Don’t tell me he gave the same request to all of them?”
“Probably.”
“That damned broker! This is why I don’t trust brokers!”
Baldik fumed and ground his teeth.
In the end, this operation that had gathered under the name of goblin subjugation was becoming a human subjugation instead.
I let out a small sigh.
“That might actually be better, though. At least we don’t have to worry about missing Arnold.”
It was an operation that would have been nearly impossible for us alone anyway.
A three-way struggle like this might be better.
“That’s true.”
Drek answered briefly and looked around.
“Whatever happens, we deal with the goblins first.”
“Right. Maybe we were counting our chickens too early.”
“Chickens? What is that?”
…Ah, they wouldn’t have that here.
Since I’d been speaking Korean the whole time, it had slipped out too naturally.
“Ah, it’s… kind of a local dish.”
“A local dish?”
Drek tilted his head.
“By the way, where are you from? Judging by your hair color, you look like you’re from our side.”
Baldik, who said that, had blond hair himself. Were black-haired people common in that region?
I hadn’t properly seen my own face yet, but listening to Baldik, I wondered if it might have a Middle Eastern sort of feel.
“But your skin is too pale for that…”
“You think all of us are dark?”
Baldik snorted.
Baldik’s appearance had the feel of a typical Viking.
Tanned skin, a fierce impression, and a shaggy golden beard.
Of course, because of his short body, he didn’t look all that threatening.
“Have you perhaps heard of a place called Korea? Or… Goryeo or Joseon?”
“Korea?”
Drek murmured the word for a moment as if chewing it over, then shook his head.
“They’re all names I’ve never heard before.”
“I don’t know them either. Guess you’re not from our side.”
Baldik added from beside me.
…Was this a completely different world?
At the very least, I’d thought it might be something like a similar parallel world.
Or maybe these two just didn’t know.
To begin with, there didn’t seem to be any internet, so there’d be no proper way to learn news from distant countries.
Whatever the case, it wasn’t good news for me.
“…If you don’t know, then never mind. Anyway, I came from quite far away.”
“Hmm, kimchi soup… The name sounds tasty.”
“If I ever get the chance, I’ll be sure to treat you to some.”
While I was promoting my country in a fantasy world, a commotion came from the front.
“Sounds like fighting?”
“Yes. Goblins, most likely.”
Drek spoke briefly, raising his head to look ahead.
It seemed Arnold’s group, which had been at the front, had encountered goblins.
That aside.
“But why aren’t they calling us?”
“Why do you think? That’s all money. Would you call others if you were them?”
Ah, true.
Every goblin was loot, and loot meant pay.
They’d want to deal with goblins by themselves if they could.
“No wonder they took the lead. There was a reason.”
“Of course.”
A brief silence passed before I asked again.
“But shouldn’t we be catching some too? We did take the request, after all…”
“If we go out now, we won’t gain anything and will only make them wary.”
Drek gestured ahead with his chin.
In the direction he indicated were not Arnold’s party, but the other two mercenary groups.
They, too, were not joining the battle and were simply stopped in place, checking their weapons.
“Don’t tell me they’re already sizing each other up?”
“Seems that way.”
Drek nodded firmly.
“The situation will change.”
“What?”
“Human blood will flow before goblin blood. Those men don’t seem to care about the goblins at all.”
Come to think of it, aside from Arnold’s gang, the rest were just watching quietly despite a fight breaking out.
“Then… there’s no reason for us to rush either.”
“Right. Catching goblins now would just be doing someone else a favor.”
I understood.
If a clash with Arnold’s gang was already inevitable, there was no need to take the lead.
“But those guys’ expressions… They really look ready to spill blood.”
“It’s already decided.”
Drek’s tone was calm. As if he had known this whole flow from the start.
The broker had said he didn’t care whether Arnold lived or died.
But in this situation, it seemed hard for Arnold to make it out alive.
I felt like I understood a little why Baldik hated brokers.
“When do you think those guys will start?”
“Probably… tonight.”
“Tonight, huh…”
After the long march, the sun was already beginning to set.
It didn’t feel real at all that a fight to kill and be killed would soon break out.
After we first encountered the goblin group, we also discovered their dwelling.
It certainly exuded a primitive atmosphere worthy of being called a “village.”
But its scale was larger than expected.
“Fuck, how many are there?”
“Looks like easily over twenty.”
After finding the goblin village, the conclusion was reached that we would rest at camp and attack afterward.
Arnold’s gang insisted on attacking immediately, but they met opposition from the three groups that had other objectives.
Each group decided to set up its own campsite at a distance from the village, and everyone went their separate ways.
Strangely, everyone was watching only the backs of Arnold’s gang as they left.
For some reason, that sight felt ominous.
We too gathered wood not far away, lit a campfire, pitched a tent, and set up a simple camp.
I worried that the campfire might reveal us to the goblins, but the forest was so dense that the smoke didn’t seem likely to show.
As Baldik tied a warning cord to a tree, he asked,
“Shouldn’t we find out where they’re going?”
“We’ll know once a fight breaks out. There’s no reason to move first.”
Drek spoke calmly, as if accustomed to this.
We were passing the time in the darkened campsite, chewing dried fruit, when a commotion came from not far away.
“What the hell, damn it! Are they fighting?”
“They’re quite impatient.”
We grabbed our weapons and hurriedly got to our feet.
The battlefield we reached after pushing through the forest was, in every sense, utter chaos.
Clang! Clang!
“You fucking bastards!”
“Uaaagh! Die, you son of a bitch!”
All three groups except us were tangled together in a brawl.
Two people were already cold, and another was bleeding out, on the verge of death.
Perhaps because of the difference in skill between mercenaries, most of the dead belonged not to Arnold’s side, but to the other groups.
One man who spotted us watching from beyond the grass shouted,
“Damn it, boss! Those bastards are here too!”
“These motherfuckers. Did they think we were some kind of joke?”
Only then did Arnold appear from the rear.
Unfortunately, he still looked perfectly fine.
There was blood all over his body, but it seemed to be someone else’s.
Two people on what could be called our side were dead, while only one on Arnold’s side had fallen.
It was not a positive situation.
However, the other side, seeing the tall Drek suddenly appear, visibly grew tense as well.
Drek stepped forward without a word.
When his massive frame pushed through the grass and appeared on the battlefield, several of the fighting mercenaries froze for an instant.
“Bastards like this are all size and—”
Thwack! Stab!
One enthusiastic mercenary who rushed in had his head snapped to the side by Drek’s swinging shield, and the short blade that followed pierced his chest.
The fallen mercenary showed no sign of ever getting up again.
And I…
Overwhelmed by the bloody chaos unfolding before my eyes, I stood there blankly, half out of my mind.
My head spun, and my heart pounded. My breath caught in my throat.
‘Wh-what… What am I supposed to do…?’
That was when it happened.
Slap!
At the sound of a hard smack against my cheek, my head snapped to the side.
Beyond the ringing in my ears, Baldik’s urgent shout faintly reached me.
“Get a hold of yourself! If you stand there dazed like this, we’re all dead!”
“Uh… what? Ah, ah… yes, yes!”
Barely managing to steady myself, I nodded.
When I clenched my trembling fist, I belatedly felt the sensation of the dagger in my hand.
This wasn’t just a dagger. It was the only means I had, the only way to survive right now.
I took a deep breath and looked at the battlefield before me.
With an expressionless face, Drek slowly walked toward another enemy.
He was like an executioner without the slightest hesitation.
The sight made me feel reassured, but there were still many enemies.
Baldik, too, had already put his dagger forward and begun moving behind Drek.
His fighting stance was clumsy, but his eyes held clear resolve.
‘Good. I can do this too.’
Blue mana flashed and seeped into my hand.
The mana that had felt unfamiliar until recently now responded, however faintly, to my will.
[Waterflow Shield]
Water flowing from the canteen at my waist hardened over my hand into a cold, solid form.
With sword and shield in hand, I took one step onto the battlefield.