...
-Huh?
I flinch at the instant reaction the woman had when I pressed the wolf's paw in the gem. I quickly retract its paw from the gem because of her reaction. With the most nervous voice that I ever had, I questioned her.
-I-i-is so-something wrong?
The woman tilts her head while looking at something and then answers me in a calm voice.
-It seems that I'm not high level enough to see your pet status…
Hiiiiiiiiiiii! This is bad! This is bad! They are going to send me to the jail for bringing such high level monster without a seal on its neck! Aah…! What to do?! Run? Run! Okay, prepare to run straight out of this ci-
-Don't be so nervous miss, it's normal to monsters to be higher level than us. That's why this system is not effective.
-…Are you sure!?
The woman nods while still tilting her head while looking the puppy of the crimson eyes. Immediately, all of the stress drops to my feet and I almost fall on my knees.
But it seems like this woman is determined to imprison me.
-But is alright miss, soon enough, our guild master is going to come back from the dwarf city, called Zymia. He made a personal request to a gem maker there, which is to make a special monster registration gem. When he comes back, we will call you again!
I nervously answer her while cold sweat drops from my forehead.
-I-I'm gla-glad…
I'm clearly not.
-Okay, you can-
-Excuse me?
When the woman was finally going to free me from her hold, a deep voice resounded from the entrance. We look at the responsible of the voice and see that it's the blacksmith from my recent request.
Ah… he came for revenge… I'm doomed. I shouldn't have brought them inside the city…
While I continued to be nervous, the strong man stopped in front of me, clearly showing that he's higher than me in terms of height. With a calm voice he talked to me.
-Ah… good, I found you.
Please be gentle, all these puppies did was to stare you right?
While trying to fake that I was calm, I answered the man.
-Yes sir?
-Ah, I didn't mean to make you scared, all I wanted to talk is about the request. You gave me the wrong quantity.
-…Huh?
With the daggers in a leather string, he showed me the five daggers that I just gave him. While I tried to remember the requested number of daggers, the woman behind me reminded me instead.
-Oh, he's right, he requested eleven bone daggers and from what he's showing to me, you seem to only give him only five. Good thing you stayed a little bit from this monster registration, or else I would have called the guards.
Good wolfie, thanks for making trouble for me. You saved me.
I calm down a bit and give an excuse to the strong man.
-I'm sorry… in my village we could drop half of the items to the requester and do the rest later. I'll get back to collecting your daggers right away.
The strong man scratches his bald head while looking at me with a cautious expression. After a while of staring me, he nodded to me.
I faced the woman behind the counter and spoke with her in a serious tone.
-Then could you please deliver these items that I collected? There were requests wanting these items together with his request on the book.
The woman nods and I let the wolves in puppy forms in the ground. I place the shaman staff and the goblin ears in the counter in front of the woman.
I look around the room in search of the puppies, and find them staring the man again.
Oh no…, this is getting pretty scary. It almost looks like the wolves are fighting the strong man with stares.
-Okay, I'll look up the requests in the book. I'll give you back any spare items with the money next time you come back here.
I nod to the woman while watching the fight between the wolves and the man.
Suddenly, the man throws a question at me with a serious tone in his voice.
-Miss, is these puppies from the Moon species?
-I-I don't know.
Moon wolves? What are those? By the way, can you stop staring them?
With a serious expression, he glanced at me and gave me an advice.
-If they are, then please be careful when walking with them around the city. Their pelts go for thirty five gold each.
-THIRTY FIVE GOLD COINS?!
The strong man got surprised at me suddenly grabbing his clothes with force. When I noticed my embarrassing action, I backed off while blushing.
While the strong man readjusted his clothes, he continued to talk in a calm voice.
-That's right. As you can see, their fur is beautiful and can't be reproduced with our current paint. And recently they got hard to find, so their pelts gained more reputation between the nobles. So please be careful miss.
I rapidly nodded to the man and stared the wolves in his place.
But I couldn't stare them like the strong man, because the wolf reminded me about his true form by flashing his eyes.
…Yeah, my life is worth more than sixty gold coins.
After throwing away the greed that I had, I grabbed the puppies in my arms carefully. And with a stiff voice, I said my goodbyes to the strong man and front desk clerk.
-Well then, I'm going…
While walking back to the city gate, I sighed and talked with the puppies in my arms that were trying to bite the incoming hands of the nearby people.
-You two are the definition of trouble…
…
It should be around here…
I look around the open field in the search of the danger sign that the blacksmith mentioned the first time.
The wolves forced themselves out of my hold. They transformed into their original forms and followed me to the open field.
I finally find it again and walk up to it. The wolves stayed in the shadow of a tree, they must be feeling hot since they were under the sun, until I reached the city gate behind the king's castle.
Sadly, I couldn't find any more arrows. The arrows below mine have a line over them like I did with mine.
Adventurers must have gone to these places already and killed the goblins there.
I sigh while going back to the shadow of the tree with the wolves.
With a tired voice, I complain to myself.
-So hot…
I'm already tired from the walking back and forth and I'm still hungry. Since the last meal I had was the meat these wolves gave me.
While sitting next to the wolves that were breathing roughly, I watched the surroundings, trying to think of something.
I can go back to the guild and see if they know another goblin camp nearby. Or I can ask the guards on the gates about it.
But… if I go back to the guild, I might be too tired to fight when I get any camp they point for me.
Most of the guards are clueless about the goblins, and I'll probably get tired from asking every single guard in the city wall.
Suddenly, the wolves stop breathing roughly and look at the city gate. When I try to look at the same direction as them, they transform back into puppies.
When I tilt my head with a confused expression while looking at them, the wolf with the crimson eyes barks and shows me what they are looking at.
When I follow its direction, I find a man in some plain clothes while carrying a set of silver armor with a backpack while still having a battle axe on his waist.
He has a pale skin and almost lifeless eyes. It almost looks like he's seen a ghost.
I guess I can ask him if he seen any goblins nearby…
I stand up while offering to carry the puppies, but they refuse while breathing roughly.
Thanks, it's too hot for me to carry you anyways.
I begin to walk up to the pale man, and the puppies steadily follow me. When we get near the man, the wolves stop underneath a tree shadow, leaving me alone to talk with the man that is walking on the dirt road.
I stretch my hand in the air while calling him.
-Hey! You there!
The man stops and looks at my direction. With a voice without any will behind it, he questioned me.
-Yes…? What can …I do for you?
I stop near him and question him in a calm voice. Even though he's reminds me of Yula's condition before …That…
-Sir. Have you seen any goblins nearby? Or do you know any goblin camps near here? I'm doing a request and I can't seem to find any goblins nearby.
The man looks at the ground that he's standing on and then back at me. His voiced gained some will behind it while he talked in a calm voice.
-I think there's danger sign ahead of us. You can maybe check it to see if any soldiers drew on it.
I give a sigh of relief and bow to the man. I turn to face the puppies that were resting on the trees shadow, I make a signal to follow me and they get up slowly.
I look at the man and he has a strange expression. I ignore him and walk beside the puppies, leaving the man behind.
…
-Ah, there it… is…
…I forgot that you two can't understand me. Haah… the sun is making me a bit delirious.
I get out of the shadows from the trees and walk up to the danger sign on the other side of the road and look at its back.
There's only one arrow remaining, and that is deeper into the forest the back of the sign is facing.
I look at the wolves that are breathing roughly, they transformed back to their original forms when the strange man was no longer visible.
I point to the direction the danger sign is guiding me. And they almost seemed to give a sigh of relief.
After gulping down my own saliva because my throat is dry, I began to make my way through the forest with two giant wolves behind me.
…
While almost dragging myself through the forest, the wolves suddenly begin to crouch while looking ahead. Seeing that they noticed something, I do the same while drawing the new bow that I just brought, out my sheath.
Argh… I want to drink something…
Out of nowhere, the wolf with the crimson eyes appears behind me and pushes me to behind a tree. When I look to where I was, a bolt is on the tree trunk that was behind me just now.
I get scared from almost dying and pull my remaining strength from somewhere within me and get my attention back into the fight.
I glance at the direction the bolt came from and see a goblin sprinter, an advanced goblin archer.
The goblin is healthy for a goblin and well equipped. With an iron crossbow and completely protected with leather armor and an iron helm, he look at us with a disgusting expression.
After looking around to see if there are any more goblins around, I aim an arrow at the goblin.
He's too far away for me to hit his unprotected face, so I need to make him flinch to get closer.
I let the arrow go and it flies faster than my short bow, and the arrow quickly hits the goblin's shoulder.
-GAAAAAAAH!
While the goblin screamed in pain, I rolled on the ground to get behind another tree closer to him. But when I hit my back against the tree trunk, the goblin screams something.
-OGAKI! [OSAOSA!]
Suddenly, the tree is hit multiple times with bolts. Some of the bolts even fly by me. But it quickly stops and I took advantage of it.
I quickly draw an arrow and aim at the goblin that is breathing roughly while looking at my direction.
When I wanted to let go of the arrow, my mouth opened by itself and words that I didn't want to say came out.
-Bow Technique! [Wind arrow]!
Suddenly, the arrow gathers wind around it, making it fly faster than any arrow that I shot until now.
The arrow hits the goblin hand that was holding the crossbow, since he tried to block my arrow with his arms.
I begin to touch my lips as white boxes appeared in front of me.
[Requirement met.]
[Bow techniques Acquired.]
-GAAH!
While the goblin screamed, I looked at the white boxes with happiness.
When they disappeared, I smiled and prepared to shot another arrow at the goblin and use the new acquired [Bow techniques: Wind arrow].
-[Wind arrow]!
The arrow quickly flies through the forest and hits the goblin's face, killing it.
-UGAAA!
I smile while looking at my hands, but suddenly a scream comes from behind me. I look at the responsible and see a goblin with a stone great sword. The great sword was about to hit me already.
I quickly put my hands in front of my face to block the great sword, trying to minimize the damage.
But instead of feeling pain, a strong breeze hits my face.
I slowly open my eyes and try to look. And instead of a forest being in front of me, it was the moon's dark sky.
I take a step back and notice it was the crimson eyes wolf in front of me. Or is it the crescent eyes one? I can't tell…
While I was trying to see which one was the wolf that saved me, the wolf quickly broke the goblin's neck while walking towards the other wolf that was sitting down like it was watching this go by.
I shake my head and walk up to the wolves.
On their feet were different types of goblins, including the goblin sprinter that I killed.
There were eleven goblins in total, two goblin sprinters, five goblin warriors, two brute goblins, one goblin shaman and finally a berserker goblin.
They were all equipped with armor and iron weapons, especially the berserker goblin, which had a platinum battle axe and silver armor.
If I didn't have the wolves with me, I would be easily killed. Because they are all wearing army equipment, some of them still have worn out crests on their armor or weapons.
But strangely, I couldn't recognize the crests. There were four crests, one with a sword between a gold crown, one with a red battle axe wrapped with some kind of string and one with a pair of iron daggers in front of a tree trunk.
The last one I couldn't see because it was too worn out to make it out.
Are they from some kind of new city? No… a new city wouldn't have equipment of this quality without its name spreading.
While trying to find the answer in my head, I searched through the goblins. Some of them had leather bags, but the berserker goblin had a leather backpack with enough supplies for a small army.
Meat covered in salt, bread, some Icy Sytmy and more is on the main part of the backpack. While some powders for potions were on the side pockets.
I search through the rest of the goblins, and find more food in the leather bags, but no bone daggers in them. On the last leather bag, there was a small leather canteen.
Immediately open the canteen and begin to drink the water that was inside of it.
The water was… sweet. It was like the canteen had fruits inside with the water.
While I was trying to figure out about the water, the wolves tried to eat the meat inside the backpack.
But the second they bite the meat, they spit it out.
What did you guys expect?
Sadly, I couldn't find any clues about the sweet water or the crests. And even sadder is the fact that I can't carry the goblins equipment's back to the city and sell it.
I get the backpack and empty it of its contents and replace with my own supplies of my leather bag.
After a bit of shuffling of bags and bow sheaths, I could finally wear the backpack without much effort.
I look around the goblins equipment and try to see if they have any better armor than mine.
I find it and strip the armor off the goblin sprinter. I stuff it in the main part of the backpack that I didn't need to put anything inside.
I sigh and stand up. I look around and see the wolves eating the fruits that were on the ground and leather bags.
They were eating only the Icy Sytmys and leaving the Jomikitas and some berries that had the same appearance as the berries that I found in the forest.
So you guys only like sweet things too. But please…
-Leave some for me!
I walked up to them as fast as I could, trying to rescue some Sytmys for myself.
…
Hmm! It's so good! The sweet taste of Icy Sytmys is just too good for such a small fruit!
I and the wolves continued our path in search of the goblin camp.
When I secured some Sytmys for myself, the wolves did something cruel to the equipment that the goblins were wearing.
They buried it! Buried the platinum battle axe! Just because you can't burn it doesn't mean that you can bury it like a corpse! Actually, why didn't you guys do that to the goblins!? The smell is almost getting on my mouth!
Urgh… the waste was so immense that only three Sytmys could cure the after taste of watching that amount of gold get buried.
How many do I have left? …Only one?! Didn't I have three just now?!
I look back at the wolves and one is munching on something while looking away from me.
No! How could you do this?! What did I do to receive this kind of treatment?!
Someone save me! I'm being held hostage!
…