Vol 1 Chapter 50 (2/2)

Judging by the vegetation encroaching upon the village, it had probably been about half a year since the village had been ruined.

The crops had all withered, and there were rotten fruits laying uneaten.

「みーつけた！」

“Foound them!”

As Paul surveyed the ruined village, Wynn called out.

Paul ran over to the half-ruined house where Leti stood and peeked in through the gap between the pillars.

“In here?”

Leti nodded.

The gap was barely wide enough to let a child’s body through.

“Hey Wynn. What’s it like inside? Who’s in there?”

“It’s just a single girl!”

“I can’t come in. Can you bring her out?”

“Sure.”

Paul deciding that carelessly moving the pillars might cause them to collapse, and he waited for Wynn to come out.

“Alright.”

Wynn crawled out from the gap.

“Hey, it’s alright now, please come out.”

The girl crawled out after Wynn.

Her clothes were ragged from being caught on tree branches. Her unkempt hair and wings were dirty.

Even a child from the slums would have been cleaner.

However, that thought soon left his mind.

‘Oh, it really is an avian!’

Paul was elated to see an avian, something that he had only known through stories and rumors.

They were beings on the same level as High Elves, and in some places, they were idolized.

The girl, a semi-mythical avian, was hugging a half-eaten cabbage preciously and sobbing as Wynn and Leti stood around her.

“Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

She looked to be the same age as Leti, so he patted her head.

Paul let out a sigh.

It just wouldn’t feel right to question such a young girl about the thefts.

Rather, he was shocked at her living conditions.

However, there was something he had to ask.

“So, could you tell us what happened?”

Paul drew closer to the girl, trying to ask her about her circ.u.mstances.

The girl backed away from him with a frightened squeal.

Paul scratched his head.

“Hmm… Let’s talk in a calmer place. Leti, can you fly us to Laura’s house?”

“I think I can.”

“Then, we’ll talk more there. Also, I would like to do something about this girl’s clothes. Then—”

“There’s something coming!”

Wynn interrupted Paul.

Wynn held the wooden sword that normally hung on his waist with both hands.

Paul noticed what Wynn was referring to.

The air felt colder, more menacing.

With their backs to the ruined house, Wynn and Paul stepped forward to protect the two girls.

‘What did we get ourselves into!?’

At that thought, something jumped out of the rustling bushes.

“Hah, hah, hah, eek…”

The avian girl let out a feeble cry in between short breaths.

“It’s fine. Onii-chan will beat it!”

Leti comforted the girl.

Wynn stood between the monster and the two girls.

“Wynn, you can’t do it. Let me do it!.”

The monster was a bit larger than a child. It had dark skin and a horn on its forehead.

It wore primitive clothes and held a rusty sword.

It was the fiend known as a goblin.

Goblins reproduced quickly, and lived in groups centered around a Goblin Lord.

Due to their high reproductive rates and the fact that many groups settled near human villages, goblins caused a lot of damage to humans.

They were not particularly strong, as indicated by their size, and pretty much every adventurer would be able to defeat a single goblin.

That included Paul.

“Uoooooooo!”

Paul swung his sword with a shout.

The goblin leapt backwards.

The goblin eyed Paul and the children while staying outside of Paul’s range.

“Haaaaaah!”

Paul swung his sword sideways.

Their swords smashed against each other. The goblin stumbled backwards from the force of Paul’s blow.

Paul was not yet a full-fledged adventurer, so his swordsmans.h.i.+p was still rough.

He used his full strength for every blow. However, Paul’s crude swordsmans.h.i.+p slowly wore down the goblin’s stamina.

Even monsters were made of flesh and blood.

Paul’s sword began to actually hit the goblin

The bleeding goblin’s movements slowly became duller.

‘Okay, now to finish it off!’

Judging that it was at its limit, Paul prepared to make the finis.h.i.+ng blow.

“Uoooooo!”

With a shout, he swung his sword — through thin air.

“What!?”

The goblin leapt to the side. Enduring its wounds, it ran past Paul.

“Shoot!”

He hadn’t realized that he had ended up straying quite far away from the house.

He had been so focused on chasing after the goblin and showering it with attacks that he had forgotten to stay close to the house.

The goblin ran with the last of its strength.

It sprinted straight for Leti and the Avian girl.

It aimed for easier prey, two helpless-looking girls.

Paul couldn’t run after it in time, due to the recoil from his slash.

“s.h.i.+t!”

The goblin was only a few meters away from the girls.

The goblin raised its rusty sword as it leapt at them.

Suddenly, the goblin let out a loud shriek.

He had finally seen Wynn in front of the girls, with his wooden sword pointed upwards.

Just as the goblin leapt at the girls, Wynn stabbed at the goblin’s throat from the side.

The goblin tumbled over the ground.

Paul then ran over and finished it off by slas.h.i.+ng its unprotected stomach.

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