Chapter 111 Adeline

"Boss, you're just going to let him go?"

A look of confusion appeared on Abi's somewhat youthful face.

The iron-rimmed wooden shield raised in front of him was slowly lowered, his right hand still gripping the single-handed sword he had recently bought.

A few minutes ago, facing that black-haired adventurer with sharp features and an icy presence, the situation had reached a standoff.

Even the drifting mist in the air seemed to freeze, making him too afraid to even take a deep breath.

Just as Abi thought he was about to welcome the first real battle against a person in his short career as an adventurer...

The woman he called "Boss," who was also the captain of their party, Adeline, took the initiative to lead them a few steps back.

At the same time, she held her one-handed hammer in a reverse grip and swung it gently toward the other party twice like a pendulum.

Signaling that they harbored no hostility, she yielded the initiative to the other side.

There was no reply.

The athletically built, short-haired Adeline stood at the very front of the formation, completely motionless.

Her yellowish-brown eyes were fixed tightly on the direction where Xia Nan's figure had disappeared.

She seemed to be guarding against the possibility that he was feigning his departure, only to circle back and launch a surprise attack on them.

"What else could we do?"

Abi heard a teasing voice coming from behind him.

"If we didn't let him go, what did you expect to happen?"

The one speaking was the last member of their three-person party.

Carrying a longbow, it was the archer positioned at the rear of the formation, Old Berg.

Although he had the word "Old" in his name, he was actually only in his thirties or forties.

But his adventuring experience was quite rich.

He had taught Abi, who had only recently entered this line of work, many useful things.

"Didn't you tell me before?" Abi scratched his head, though his voice gradually trailed off under the other man's rather intense glare. "If we run into other adventurers in the wild, we should—"

"Ahem!"

Old Berg coughed intentionally twice, trying to interrupt what the boy was about to say.

But it was still heard.

Seeing Adeline turn her head and glare fiercely at him, Old Berg gave an awkward smile and explained to Abi, "Well—you have to look at the specific situation."

"Who told you to be so rigid? You have to be flexible!"

"Why? Was there something special about that guy just now?" Abi had been standing behind Captain Adeline the whole time, his vision blocked by the mist, making it completely impossible for him to see the situation clearly.

His deepest impression of Xia Nan was only his two swords, one long and one short.

"Don't you look at where we are?"

Seeming to catch the dismissiveness in Abi's tone, Berg raised an eyebrow and pointed with his chin toward the dense, towering oak trees around them.

"A 'lone wolf' who dares to come into a place like the Misty Forest by himself would have died long ago if he didn't have some real skill."

"What if he was just lucky? I saw he was about my age. Maybe he heard from somewhere that adventurers make good money, and just rushed in recklessly on a whim."

In front of acquaintances, the unique stubbornness of a youth made Abi speak with false bravado.

"You think everyone is like you?" Berg shook his head, the expression on his face suddenly showing a bit of seriousness.

"That set of chainmail is of Fine quality. The detail on the links is practically perfect. With one look, you can tell it's a top-tier item sold by Rockhammer, worth at least fifty gold!"

"I haven't seen that gray sword before, but it definitely wasn't cheap either."

"Having slightly expensive gear doesn't prove anything. Those noble lords in Nym—"

"Think about it carefully," Berg interrupted the rookie. "The blood on the surface of his armor wasn't his own."

"The most critical thing is that kind of presence."

"After a battle, a person's eyes are different from how they are normally."

"Someone like you is obviously a rookie who can't even hold a sword steady and hasn't seen much blood."

"But his kind—tsk, tsk."

"If you ran into him on the street in Rivervale Town normally, you might not feel it."

"But out here in the wild where there's no one around—if you had the chance to meet his eyes just now, you would understand everything."

"Really?" Seeing the veteran of the party say this, no matter how unconvinced Abi was in his heart, he couldn't help but feel a trace of doubt. "Is it really that magical?"

"Why would I lie to you?"

Berg rolled his eyes at him and ignored him.

"But—"

Just as Abi wanted to press the issue, Adeline, standing in front of the two, finally withdrew her gaze after confirming that Xia Nan had completely left, and turned her head to say, "Stop."

Abi immediately fell silent.

However, the expression on his face wasn't one of timid fear, but a deep respect mixed with admiration.

The group didn't leave right away.

Instead, led by Adeline, they approached the entrance of the lair Xia Nan had just cleared.

This was the target of their current mission.

It was purely coincidental; hidden deep in the dense woods, this Goblin Cave, whose location should have only been roughly determined through coordinates provided by the Association, was unexpectedly stumbled upon by Xia Nan on his way back to town, and he had cleaned it out in passing.

It was precisely because of this that the three-person party, having taken the mission and obtained the location information for the lair, just happened to run into him at the cave entrance.

Old Berg took two steps forward, carefully observing the environment around the cave.

He crouched down, showing no disgust as he pinched a clump of foul-smelling wet dirt, rubbed it hard between his fingertips, and even brought it to his nose to sniff carefully.

Only then did he turn around and report to Adeline, "It should be a medium-sized Goblin Lair, with a number between twenty and thirty, lacking elite individuals like Bugbears or hobgoblins."

After speaking, it was as if he remembered something else.

Without waiting for her reply, Berg took two more steps into the cave.

He casually scraped away some nearby moss, leaned his cheek close, pressed his ear against the wall, and closed his eyes in deep concentration.

After about three or four minutes, he opened his eyes again.

"No movement."

Adeline nodded.

Since she had seen Xia Nan standing outside the cave covered in blood, she had already anticipated this outcome.

"The old method?" Berg suggested at the right moment, taking two pieces of flint from a pouch at his waist.

"No need, let's just go straight in." Adeline stood at the cave entrance, her gaze seemingly able to pierce through the profound darkness before them and look inside. "They're all dead."

Squish—squish—

The damp, cold air clung to their skin, and a pungent stench signaling danger surged into their nasal cavities with every breath.

In the corridor leading to the depths of the lair, Abi shuffled his feet with a nervous expression.

His back was already soaked with sweat, and the hand gripping the hilt of his sword had turned slightly pale from exerting too much force.

Even though he knew from the conversation between the captain and Old Berg that this lair had most likely been completely cleared out, that there were no enemies left, and that no fighting would be necessary, the pressure brought by the dead, cramped environment around him still made his body tremble uncontrollably.

Fortunately, Adeline, gripping her twin hammers and walking at the forefront of the formation, gave him a certain boost in courage.

If he had been left here all by himself, his performance would likely have been even more unbearable.

Gulp—the sound of swallowing saliva echoed between the empty stone walls, sounding exceptionally clear.

As if to relieve his inner tension, Abi licked his dry lips and spoke up, "This should be our last mission this month, right?"

He hadn't controlled his volume well, or perhaps the overly quiet environment made him particularly sensitive.

As the words left his mouth, they bounced off the bare stone walls and echoed back into his ears, almost giving him a fright.

"Yeah, Hunting Day is approaching. After we get back from this trip, we need to hurry and make some preparations."

The experienced Old Berg spoke no differently than he normally would, his tone steady.

"Finally, a few days of rest." The other man's calm tone also somewhat relieved Abi's pressure, and he immediately replied, "Staying out here for a couple of weeks, surrounded by nothing but trees and goblins, would drive anyone crazy."

"I haven't seen you chop down that many greenskins these past few days. You're actually tired?"

Perhaps sensing the tension in the boy's words, and with no present danger around, Berg teased him with a smile.

"W-what do you mean I haven't!?"

It was highly effective.

The words, carrying a hint of goading, made this green youth who had just formally stepped into the adventurer profession suddenly crane his neck, his volume rising significantly higher than before:

"Last time, I kited four goblins around a tree stump and finished them off one by one. Did you forget?"

"They were just four unarmed greenskins. You could drag any random farmhand out of a village and he could poke them to death with a pitchfork, yet you're actually proud of that?"

"I handled four of them all by myself! Isn't that enough?" Being young, even though he heard the joking tone in the older man's voice, Abi couldn't help but get defensive.

He then recalled the pointer the other man had given him right before they entered the cave.

He curled his lip and said stubbornly, "That guy carrying the twin swords just now only had slightly better gear. If he were in my place, maybe he—"

Squish. Distracted by his own blabbering, he hadn't paid attention to where he was stepping.

With a single step, it felt as though he had stepped into a small puddle.

Drops of liquid splashed onto his cheek, and he subconsciously reached up to wipe them away with his sleeve.

An extremely thick scent of blood abruptly surged into his nose.

A bizarre sensation—soft yet firm—came from beneath his foot.

"What is this?"

Abi subconsciously looked down.

He saw half of a severed goblin arm, seemingly jutting out from the mud, dangling limply against his leg.

In an instant, a chill shot straight up his spine to the crown of his head. His whole body shuddered, and he violently kicked the severed limb away.

And it was only then.

Illuminated by the faint glow of moss in the crevices of the stone walls and the flickering embers of a campfire that hadn't completely died out, Abi finally saw what lay in the deepest part of the lair.

Countless scattered, mangled corpses soaking in pools of pus and blood.

A pungent metallic stench so thick one could almost see a crimson hue in the air; pale bone splinters jutting out from shredded flesh; squishy, steaming entrails; and scaly heads rolling upside down like roadside pebbles, their murky eyes still wide open...

His face instantly turned a deathly pale.

Abi felt an inexplicable urge to vomit surge from his stomach up into his throat.

His Adam's apple bobbed twice.

"Blergh..."

"Huurgh..."

A patron who had drunk himself pale leaned against the table with trembling hands.

His body jerked violently like he'd been electrocuted, and tears and snot dripped down along with the foul vomit spewing from his mouth.

The nauseating stench, originally sealed in his gut, rapidly spread through the air.

"Sorry, sorry."

Two slightly more sober adventurers, acting as his companions, left a few mixed silver and copper coins on the table, hoisted the drunkard up from both sides, and dragged him out the tavern doors.

Xia Nan frowned and withdrew his gaze.

On the wooden table in front of him sat a few empty bowls, leaving only food scraps.

As the White Titmouse was one of the hottest taverns in town, adventurers drinking themselves into a stupor like this appeared almost every night.

He was already used to it.

Fortunately, he had already finished his dinner earlier, otherwise his appetite would have been ruined.

Right now, another two days had passed since he returned from the Misty Forest.

Unexpectedly running into those three adventurers in front of the Goblin Lair had merely been a minor interlude during his mission.

No battle had occurred; there wasn't even any basic communication.

They had just briefly encountered each other and left in accordance with the unspoken rules of adventurers.

There was nothing worth reminiscing about.

By comparison, Xia Nan was far more concerned about another matter now.

For the first time since transmigrating, he hadn't found a suitable mission on the quest board.

Those green-skinned rats that multiplied and spread like cockroaches, existing everywhere, had actually drastically decreased in number over the span of a few months.

It had gotten to the point where even the related bounty quests issued by the Association had become highly sought after.

Often, a quest would be posted on the board one second, and the very next second, the adventurers staking out the area would crowd toward the front desk, scrambling for it.

And this was precisely the reason why Xia Nan, after working non-stop, was able to enjoy a long-awaited leisurely rest day.

'It can't be that I slaughtered them into extinction, could it?'

He joked in his mind.

Of course, the probability of such a thing happening—at least judging by his current strength—was practically zero.

How could these bizarre creatures, which had never gone extinct even under the extermination campaigns of the gods, be wiped out by a bottom-tier adventurer like him who hadn't even acquired a Class Level yet?

There definitely had to be some other underlying cause that he didn't know about yet.

Sitting beside the tavern table, leaning against his chair, he was just thinking of finding the well-informed tavern owner, Chapton, to ask about the situation.

Suddenly, the sound of several adventurers chatting drifted over from the neighboring table.

"Damn it, I think these general store owners in town have gone crazy for money. They actually have the nerve to charge me several copper coins for a five-foot rope."

"The prices of other supplies like sleeping bags have doubled compared to when I last bought them."

"What is the meaning of this? They think we make money easily, so they're trying to fleece us! Fuck!"

Hearing the other man mention this, Xia Nan also felt quite strongly about it.

He had been taking on quests at a high intensity over the past two months, purchasing various supplies at a very high frequency.

He went to the general store almost every few days.

It was precisely because of this that he could clearly feel the rising prices as time passed.

But he had originally assumed it was just a normal occurrence in Rivervale Town as the end of the year approached, so he hadn't thought much of it.

Looking at it now, there... seemed to be a problem going on?

Seeing the topic among the adventurers at the next table deepen, he quietly perked up his ears.

"Heh heh, you just arrived in Rivervale Town this year, so you probably don't know yet. There's a reason why the prices of supplies have suddenly gone up across the board..."

"Spit it out!"