Volume 2 - CH 111

After I brought Reizen back, I wanted to spend an hour or so teaching him the importance of gathering information, but there was no time for that.

So I decided to go talk to the adventurers who were staying at the lodge as soon as I brought him back.

But …… the adventurers staying here right now are wounded and recovering from their injuries.

I wasn’t sure if I could easily go to such a place, but since most of the adventurers are here in …… parties, I heard that some of them are uninjured.

And even if they are about to die, it is the duty of adventurers to pass on the information to the next adventurer.

This is all done to avoid any further victims,……, but five groups of people have been killed and have returned……………..

The only way to get the information is to rely on them.

So I talked to all five groups of adventurers.

What a terrible thing to see.

Is this really true information?

I was surprised at how little information they gave us.

The First Party.

For the first group, there was not much information to collect, since they had no idea what they were looking for and were doing their research by themselves.

And that’s it…… yup, that’s all.

All they could find out was, ‘Where did the demons come from’?

No, when I heard that, I thought they were making fun of me, but the first party of adventurers were very serious and looked at me like, “Did we say something weird?”.

There’s got to be more to the story!

We need to know where they came from, of course, but what about the direction?

Which crops they eat, how many of them there are, the surrounding terrain, and so on!

Did these guys just hear the direction the monsters came from and just go in that direction?

So, well, they were the first group that was attacked and driven away by about 20 dog-type monsters.

At any rate, they said that if we went in the direction where these guys were headed, we would surely encounter the monsters.

I have heard this from other adventurers, so there is no doubt about it.

But the second and third party, well, as far as they know, they didn’t have any information either.

Besides that, they didn’t seem to remember any of their actions in the places where they had fought.

I wonder what they were thinking.

They were just going straight ahead without any waypoints, but they retreated as soon as they were attacked.

They were in such a hurry that they lost their sense of direction and nearly got lost.

Although the adventurer laughed and said that his life depended on it, he suddenly became quiet when he whispered something about the penalty fee.

Even though the original request was a C-rank request, was the penalty fee too high?

Anyway, I’ m on my own here.

The rest is up to them.

And the fourth party.

This group seemed to act the most calm and had a lot of different information than the others.

I would honestly commend them for this.

It was not good, however, that they tried to get money in exchange for information.

It was obvious that they were thinking first and foremost about the penalty fee, but sharing this information is an obligation of adventurers.

This is not the time to extort someone in this kind of situation.

And well, I half-heartedly got the information out of them.

However, Reizen simply caused a small explosion with a small flick of a coin. ……

This seemed to be enough to incite their sense of fear.

This is the worst way to conceal them. Yup.

According to the information from the fourth party, they had found a place where a dog-type monster beast called Acid Dog lived, in the direction to the west from this Kosh village.

I wondered why the other three groups did not mention the name of the monster, but I guessed that most of them did not know it.

How can they not know the name? ……

Acid Dogs are extremely fertile and are said to be on par with Goblins.

Therefore, it is necessary to thin out the population of these dogs when they are seen, but there is no one strong enough in this village to thin out the population.

Another problem is that the village is so small that it took us a while to find the Acid Dogs.

When they visited the place where the dogs were living, they found that there were already hundreds of them living there.

They decided that this was too much for them to handle and tried to retreat, but the dogs seemed to have a good sense of smell in this world and immediately attacked them.

Acid dogs are said to have an acid attack.

Perhaps the acid is the drool that is constantly dripping from the dog’s mouth.

I definitely don’t want to touch it.

This is where they live, but the road is very uneven and bumpy.

It is a difficult place for people to pass through, but it does not matter to the monsters.

They advised us to proceed at a very slow speed, whether we were going ahead or run away.

Well, we are monsters of some kind, so I guess it doesn’t really matter.

Especially if we are going to return to our original form. ……

And, well, I heard what I wanted to hear, so I decided to talk to the fifth and final party.

These were miserable C-rank adventurers who had come to this village at the request of the fourth party before they heard the report of the failed mission.

Those adventurers who were recuperating in the village had warned them that they should turn back, but they did not listen to them, and as far as they were concerned, they set out without gathering any information and were beaten back.

What are you guys really doing here?

I think only the fourth party is doing serious work.

Excuse me?　Are C-rank adventurers such a reckless bunch?

Oh well, maybe that’s why they stop at C-rank. ……

“For the time being … we know where they are.”

“Yea, but … hundreds of them. Can we do that?”

“Isn’t Aniki’s 【Water Spear Volley】could kill most of them? I’m just going to run at them.”

“How can a man who is supposed to be a protector run through the crowd without a care in the world?”

I put a light chop in his head.

“Gyaaaaa!!!”

“That scared me! What’s wrong Reizen!”

At the moment I lightly chopped him, Reizen was writhing in agony.

He fell to the floor and rolled around.

You know, Reizen.

Reizen, who had been repelling Lequam’s attack with one hand, looked like he was in a great deal of pain.

The hell is wrong with him!

“It hurts! It hurts so much!”

“Oh! Is this the chop from earlier?”

“That’s right! Gaaaahhhh……”

Then I remembered one of my skills.

Defense Penetration

I immediately thought of this skill.

However, this was not what I expected.

This skill would not work if the opponent’s defense far exceeded my attack power.

Reizen’s defense is over 2,000.

In contrast, my attack power is about 500.

There is a quadruple difference.

For this reason, it is difficult to imagine that this skill was activated.

Then, it is ” Wave Fist”.

This is a skill that combines Shockwave, Bone Shockwave, and Internal Disruption Wave, tripling the power of all attacks.

【Shockwave】 is an attack that ignores armor.

【Bone Shockwave】 is an attack that shatters the bones of the opponent.

The 【Internal Disruption Wave】 is a skill that sends out a shockwave that disrupts the internal organs, but the attack cannot pass through armor.

Given the skill tstruck Reizen is this one, 【Internal Disruption Wave】 would be a valid candidate.

He was not wearing any armor and it was not meant to be a bone-crushing attack.

However, 【Internal Disruption Wave】 may possibly be able to damage internal organs even with a light attack.

But why did it automatically trigger?

The skill shouldn’t be activated unless I intentionally use it. ……

“I- in the meantime, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. …… But I didn’t think it was possible to make me suffer an attack. …… What’s going on?

“I’m sure you’re only hard on the outside and very fragile on the inside. I’m sure that’s what it’s all about.”

“How can you protect your internal organs ……?”

I realized that when he told me, I wondered how to protect them indeed.

Since I have these skills, maybe someone else has similar skills to mine.

Next time, I’ll do some research.

Or maybe I should ask Irza or someone when I return to the Kingdom of Salettana.

“Well, let’s figure that out later. All right, well, we should get going. We’ve got all the information we need.”

“Uh, sure …”

Reizen stumbles to his feet, holding his head.

Does it still hurt?

No wonder, since it was a direct hit to the brain.

Praying that he wouldn’t get any more dum- clumsy, we finally had to go into the forest to take down the Acid Dog.