Before long, the aroma of seasoning from the boiling-water-soaked bento box gradually began to drift out, little by little.
That kind of braised beef noodle smell, in a forest so quiet you could practically hear the insects, stood out in an especially glaring way.
The instant Natsuka caught the first whiff, his brow furrowed.
“Crap.”
“This smell is way too strong.”
“Of all the things I could’ve bought, why did I have to go for the braised beef flavor…”
He cursed himself under his breath, immediately pulled the bento box closer, mixed in some cool water to bring the temperature down faster, and then started shoveling it down with his head buried in the box, trying to deal with the source of the smell as fast as humanly possible.
The noodles slurped noisily into his mouth.
He’d barely gotten through two mouthfuls.
When suddenly a strange rustling sound rose up from the surrounding underbrush.
A sound that went from very far to very near, layer upon layer, as if something was closing in around him.
Natsuka’s movements froze on the spot.
In the darkness, pairs of red-glowing eyes slowly began to light up.
At the edges where the campfire’s glow couldn’t reach, they opened up bit by bit.
Dense, packed together.
The sight alone was enough to send a chill down anyone’s spine.
“Holy crap.”
“Don’t tell me I’m this unlucky — monsters showing up the moment I touch down?”
In a flash, Natsuka set the bowl down, snatched up his racket to hold in front of himself in guard, eyes locked dead on that patch of darkness.
It was only when those things slowly drew nearer to the firelight that he finally got a clear look at the newcomers.
“Goblins…”
The most common kind of monster in Western fantasy.
Less than a meter tall, greenish skin, limbs as scrawny as dry twigs, and faces that were ugly in a remarkably distinctive way.
Going by build alone, even an ordinary human child might be able to take them.
But Natsuka didn’t dare let his guard down even a little.
“In other worlds, there’s no shortage of goblins that go on murder sprees, either…”
He ratcheted his wariness up another notch.
“Gabu!”
Those goblins couldn’t care less about what he was thinking.
Their noses twitched away, the lot of them driven crazy by the smell of the instant noodles, eyes brimming with greed.
A dozen-some monsters jostled and shoved each other, charging forward in a chaotic mob, and they only had one target.
That bowl of Natsuka’s not-yet-finished dinner.
Seeing this scene, Natsuka actually let out a small sigh of relief.
At the very least, judging by their reactions, this bunch wasn’t all that bright.
They fell within the range of what he could handle.
Wham!
Natsuka struck first, planting a kick squarely into the chest of the goblin leading the charge.
The monster went flying on the spot, more than three meters away, crashing into the grass and rolling a couple of times.
Pressing his advantage, he pushed forward and, with several more kicks in a row, knocked the goblins lunging at him from behind to the ground too.
But the sheer numbers were what they were.
They surged in wave after wave, sloppy in their movements but plenty in numbers, forcing Natsuka into a frantic scramble.
The racket even got knocked out of his hand somewhere in the brawl.
The area around the campfire descended into chaos.
Monster shrieks, footsteps, the sounds of bodies being slammed about — all churned together.
The air was thick with ash and dirt.
In the end, at the cost of one of the sandbags on his arm getting torn off, Natsuka finally managed to put down all dozen-some goblins.
“Whew…”
“Good thing they’re just ordinary goblins.”
“Honestly, maybe even a notch wimpier than ordinary goblins.”
He panted, chest heaving violently, his arms and legs faintly aching.
And right at this moment, he noticed something off.
A few of the more seriously injured goblins, after falling to the ground, hadn’t left behind any corpses — instead they had just gone “poof” and dissolved into a cloud of black smoke, scattering away.
This phenomenon was obviously not normal.
Natsuka furrowed his brow, and just as a tentative guess was beginning to surface in his head, a sharp air-splitting sound suddenly exploded near his ear.
Bam.
“Ssss—!”
A stone slammed solidly into his temple.
It was a heavy, brutal hit, the kind of pain that blacked out Natsuka’s vision for an instant.
Blood slowly trickled down from the corner of his brow, sliding hot across his skin.
“There’s still enemies!”
Natsuka clutched at the wound and snapped his head sideways to look.
At the far end of his line of sight, another squad of goblins.
But this batch was clearly different from the bunch just now.
Each of them had a wicker basket woven from vines slung across their backs, and they were gripping handfuls of small stones in their hands, tossing them lightly up and down for fun.
Obviously, the ones who had just ambushed him were this crew.
Before Natsuka could even catch his breath, five goblin throwers had already split their mouths into nasty, sickening grins, and hurled the stones in their hands all at once.
“Holy crap.”
Natsuka instinctively raised his hands to shield his head, twisting his body as far to the side as he could.
But even so, one or two of the stones still grazed and struck him, hurting badly enough to make him bare his teeth, his anger pounded right out of him by the impact.
He immediately darted behind a large tree and hid himself.
His line of sight, the very first thing it did, was hunt for the racket on the ground.
Found it.
The next second, in a single rolling motion he flung himself across the ground and snatched the racket back into his hand.
And in that same instant, his gaze locked dead onto the positions of several of the throwing goblins.
Facing the five stones flying at him all at once, Natsuka didn’t retreat — he advanced, his arm snapping out in a vicious swing.
“Bursting Wave Ball!”
Bam!!!
The moment the racket and the stones collided, an enormous recoil exploded from his wrist all the way up to his shoulder.
Inside Natsuka’s eyes, it was as if streaks of crimson light flashed forth.
“It’s the daily life ohh~ nameiluna!!”
“Don’t underestimate ‘daily life,’ you bastards!!”
Knocking five stones back all at once — was that supposed to be hard?