Maji remembered that afternoon several days earlier with perfect clarity.
He and the others had gone to the Adventurers’ Association and were standing in the main hall, searching the public notice board for a suitable mission.
Then a guide brought over a shy-looking farm boy.
The boy claimed to have mastered a class battle technique.
Maji had not believed him.
Not really.
He had seen far too many reckless youngsters like Xia Nan over the years, both in the mountains along the kingdom’s frontier and here in Rivervale Town.
They listened to Bards sing heroic epics and imagined themselves as the heroes.
Then they learned a few moves from the village militiamen and decided that was enough to qualify them for adventure.
Full of dreams and confidence, they charged headfirst into the continent’s forests and dungeons.
Most never came back.
In the end, they became fertilizer for whatever happened to grow above their bones.
A battle technique was one of the basic requirements for becoming a class holder.
Even Maji, an “old geezer” who had spent years making a living in the wilds, had only managed to learn one or two crude moves.
How was he supposed to believe that some wet-behind-the-ears farm boy had mastered one by practicing off a few scraps of paper?
Even the children of noble families had to spend fortunes to learn such things.
Their families hired class holders who had already mastered battle techniques to train them from childhood.
They supplemented that training with expensive medicinal materials and specialized equipment.
Even then, obtaining a class level was no easy matter.
Those had been Maji’s thoughts at the time.
But years of experience had taught him not to show everything on his face.
So instead of laughing at Xia Nan, he had welcomed the young man warmly as a temporary party member.
He had even spent a “fortune” treating him to a plate of grayhide rat meat fried rice at the nearby White Chickadee Tavern.
It was not charity.
For the level of missions the Small Fry party usually accepted, Maji, Elki, and Gagu already had enough fighting strength.
What they lacked was someone to do the dirty work and heavy lifting.
And if something unexpected happened…
Well, a novice unfamiliar with the forest could sometimes buy everyone else a little extra time to escape.
Practical.
Simple.
That had been Maji’s original assessment of Xia Nan.
He simply had not expected…
“Whoosh!”
His fingers opened.
The wooden arrow vanished from the bowstring.
A brief numb vibration traveled through his fingertips.
Below the canopy, another Goblin let out a piercing shriek.
Maji barely noticed.
His mind was still replaying that silver flash through the mist.
There was no mistaking it.
That had been a battle technique.
[Did this kid really stumble into some ridiculous stroke of luck and actually master one?]
Whatever the explanation, one fact was undeniable.
Xia Nan truly knew a battle technique.
That meant his role in the party needed to change.
Maji drew another arrow.
Nocked it.
Pulled.
Released.
His hands never stopped moving, but his thoughts were already settling on the future.
[Elki is dead. The party happens to be short one combat-ready member.]
[Once this mission is over, I’ll bring the kid in properly.]
…
…
Xia Nan’s chest rose and fell as he slowly exhaled.
His arm trembled faintly from the force he had just used.
The solid weight of the sword hilt pressed into his palm.
He replayed the sensation of [Spinning Slash] in his mind.
It was difficult to put into words.
After years of repetition, the technique had been practiced so deeply into this body that it no longer felt like something he consciously performed.
Gather strength.
Aim.
Swing.
Simple.
Natural.
Almost instinctive.
It was only when the Goblins’ shrill screams reached his ears that Xia Nan truly registered the difference.
This time, there had been no straw beneath his blade.
There had been flesh.
Bone.
Living creatures.
Blood spread slowly across the meadow.
Severed pieces of the Goblins lay scattered in the grass.
A wave of nausea rose in Xia Nan’s stomach.
Fortunately, the corpses were Goblins.
They were sapient beings, but their size and appearance were different enough from Humans that the scene did not strike him with the same force as seeing butchered human bodies would have.
The discomfort was still there.
He could simply endure it.
“ROAR!”
The sounds of fighting erupted behind him.
Xia Nan snapped out of his thoughts.
The battle was not over.
He was a newcomer, but he had no intention of hiding at the edge of the camp.
Perhaps that first successful strike had cut through more than two Goblins.
It had also broken apart some of the fear Elki’s death had planted in him.
Xia Nan tightened his grip on the sword and hurried toward Gagu.
Roars.
Shrieks.
Arrows cutting through the air.
Blades tearing into flesh.
The attack had begun without warning.
It ended almost as quickly.
From beginning to end, the entire fight lasted less than ten minutes.
Then the forest fell silent once more.
Only the thick smell of blood remained.
As ambushes went, the Goblins’ opening move had been brutally effective.
They had immediately killed one of the Small Fry party’s main fighters.
After that, however, their nature as bottom-tier monsters quickly showed.
The moment the surviving party members organized themselves and fought back, the Goblins began losing ground.
Then Xia Nan split two of them apart with a single sword strike.
That was enough to break them.
Whatever courage they had gained from numbers collapsed in an instant.
Even though the Goblins were still armed, their actual fighting strength plummeted.
Gagu planted himself at the front and swung his two-handed axe with savage force.
Xia Nan moved along the edge of the fight, covering his teammates and finishing off wounded enemies.
From the canopy above, Maji’s arrows kept dropping into the battle.
He was not accurate enough to hit with every shot.
He did not need to be.
Every arrow disrupted, injured, or killed something.
There had been sixteen Goblins in total.
Xia Nan killed five.
Maji shot six to death with his bow alone.
As for Gagu…
The Half-Orc stood there drenched in blood, looking like some terrifying veteran who had just carved his way through an entire battlefield.
In reality, after everything was counted, he had killed exactly five Goblins.
The same number as Xia Nan, who had only just joined the party.
Once the fighting ended, they began cleaning up.
Xia Nan watched Maji, copied his movements, and stepped on a dead Goblin’s head.
Then he used his one-handed sword to cut off its left ear.
Proof of the kill.
His trophy.
The process still made him uncomfortable.
But then Xia Nan remembered the bounty.
Almost four silver coins for one Goblin.
That was nearly two days of wages for a laborer in the city.
His hands immediately seemed to move a little faster.
“Here, take it!”
A bloodstained Goblin ear suddenly appeared in front of him.
Xia Nan looked up.
Gagu was holding it out.
He blinked in surprise.
If Xia Nan remembered correctly, he had delivered the final blow to this particular Goblin.
But before that, Gagu’s two-handed axe had already split into its forehead and left it barely alive.
Xia Nan had assumed it counted as Gagu’s kill and had not bothered claiming it.
He had not expected the Half-Orc to cut off the ear himself and hand it over.
“Kid, you’ve got some skill.”
Gagu slapped Xia Nan’s shoulder with a blood-covered hand.
“When we get back, drinks are on me!”
Before this fight, the two had barely spoken.
Part of that was Xia Nan’s fault. He had spent much of the past two days dazed as he sorted through the memories in his head.
The other part was Gagu.
The Half-Orc had looked down on him from the beginning.
With Orc blood in his veins, the idea that strength reigned supreme was practically carved into Gagu’s bones.
Unlike Maji, he had not bothered thinking through Xia Nan’s possible uses.
He had simply decided that the newcomer was weak, useless, and likely to drag everyone else down.
That opinion had lasted until the battle.
Until Gagu saw Xia Nan fight with his own eyes.
Now, for the first time, the Half-Orc genuinely acknowledged him.
Xia Nan was no longer dead weight.
He was one of them.