Along with the vegetable garden, we were also exploring the forest.

　As the head of the adventurer's guild had said, there were really no requests that we could make in Rafan at a decent level.

　So what should we do?

　After discussing it with everyone, we decided to hunt demons.

　There are orcs deep in the forest, and we can make some money with other demons, so there's no reason not to do it.

　There was no other choice, though.

It's getting a little hot, though, isn't it?

　It's getting a little hot," complained Toya as they explored the forest.

　It was a little early to be calling it early summer, but even so, as he walked through the forest in his gear, the temperature was starting to make him sweat.

　Naturally, if you move hard in battle, you will sweat to a certain extent.
　The only saving grace is that you can easily cleanse yourself with "purification".

Yes. This time of year, it might be a little tougher in the summer.
If that happens, do you want to go on vacation somewhere?
"Vacation ......, a highland villa to get away from the heat, or swimming in the ocean?

　I'm sure you'll be happy to hear that, but in this world, that would be an insane luxury.

　No one can afford to travel.

　There are some mountains nearby, but they are said to be very dangerous, so it's unlikely to be a relaxing getaway.

　Even if you build a villa, it will probably be destroyed soon.

A vacation home may be a good idea, though.

"A summer home. But in a way, we have a pretty elegant, if not ...... white work environment, don't we?

I wouldn't say we're black, but we're ...... white?

I don't know.

　It's not that early in the morning.

It's not so early in the morning and you can be home before the sun goes down. We have a day off once a week, and we can take extra days off if we want to. No boss to bother you. When it gets even hotter, you can take a vacation off work. Sounds pretty cool, doesn't it?

That's what I hear. But doesn't it depend on whether you include training in your job?

　I go to work a little late, sure, but I train almost every day before breakfast, and after I get home as well.

　I have nothing else to do and it's partly for my own safety, but if you consider it a job, the working hours are quite long.

But even if I had gotten a job, I wouldn't have been able to go on vacation, would I?

Traveling for that vacation is a deadly business.

And by the way, a job where your life is on the line every day is pretty black, right?

And there's no workers' compensation or insurance.

There's no paid maternity leave, either.

　It's a job that smells like black.
　If you change the term "voluntary training" to "voluntary activities," it becomes even more black.

I'm not sure what to say, but I'm going to say it.

"...... Well, yeah. Toya said something unusually good.

"Unusual?

　We nodded in agreement, letting Toya's protests slide.

Well, actually, I don't think it's that bad, myself.
No mental stress, right? No boss, no colleagues.
No bosses, no coworkers. - And by the way, it's healthier too. No gym needed.

...... Hmmm, to sum it up, if your current job doesn't bother you, it's kind of white-ish, isn't it?

　In fact, if you put aside the danger of life and anxiety about the future, you can enjoy your life to a certain extent, so I'm not complaining too much.

　If I had to say something, it would be the lack of entertainment and the fact that I can't read the rest of the book I was reading in Japan, but I guess there's nothing I can do about that.

"Oops, enemy sighted.
"What?
Skeletons.
Skeletons again. ...... Too many lately.

　There were five skeletons found in the search.
　Move towards them and deal with them quickly.

　The skeletons weren't much of an enemy to begin with, but the effects of the weapons made of light attribute steel were so great that Toya's sword could kill them with a single blow, and my spear could easily kill them by breaking a few bones.

There's nothing to strip, but eight gold coins for the magic stones alone isn't bad.
No need to dismantle it... Shadow Ghost!
"Mmm, there it is!

　Toya swings his sword at the spot I pointed to.
　At the same time, I hear a "whoosh" sound, and the magic stone falls.

"Ugh! If we can find it, it's a small fish.
Yeah.

　Thanks to his training with Natsuki, he had recently become able to find the Shadow Ghosts before they appeared.

　This is the fourth time I've had to kill one, but it's not a bad way to earn money since I can kill them easily like now.

But that's only if you have attribute steel.
It's a dangerous creature without light magic or magical weapons.
Physical attacks don't work on them, so you have to run away.

　When we first met it, it was definitely dangerous.
　The first time I encountered one, it was definitely bad, but Natsuki reminded me of purification, so I was able to manage.

But haven't you been seeing a lot of skeletons lately?
Is this the kind of area you're talking about?
Different areas, yeah.

　Perhaps because we have penetrated deeper into the forest than the area where we were logging, the distribution of demons has also changed.

　The first to decrease was the sculpted ape.



　This is not a problem at all, as it is a troublesome enemy. If I had to say there was a problem, it would be the decrease in the amount of raw materials for compost, but this has been solved by another method described below.

　On the other hand, the number of skeletons and slimes has increased. Both are small fry, so there is no problem with them, and they are much easier to deal with than sculpts and apes.

　Orcs, like goblins in shallow areas, are also a welcome sight.

　Hunting a few of them is enough to make money, and dismantling them yields a lot of unwanted parts, which I use to make compost instead of scarp-ape.

　As for the brown ape, which I used to hunt for a while, I don't bother with it now.

　They seem to be used as food for orcs.

　If we hunt them too much and there's a shortage of food, orcs might appear near the roads, and from the point of view of those of us who make money from orcs, we don't want the number of orcs to decrease too much.

　In the first place, Orcs are more useful than Brown Eyed Peas, so there is no reason to hunt them.


Speaking of which, has anyone been to the temple since then?
I've been there. Twice.
That's a lot!　I've been there once.

　I've been there once." To Haruka's question, Toya and I raised our hands.

　Yuki and Natsuki are shaking their heads, which is probably normal, considering that less than a month has passed since then.

No, I was just curious to see how much experience I could accumulate.

　The reason I visited the church so often was to find out how much experience I could gain in a day.

　As a result, I found out that in the current area, I could gain less than 1,000 experience per day if I worked hard.

　However, it does not mean that I will change my behavior, and I think it would be dangerous to do so. It cost a lot of money to make the offerings.

　But if it's used for the orphanage, it's not a waste, so it's okay.

By the way, my level went up by one.
Oh, really?　So we're the same?
I guess so. I don't think there'll be that big a difference.
The experience is pretty evenly distributed, right?

　It's hard to tell because it doesn't show the log like in the game, but considering that there's not much difference in our experience, it's probably not different.

　If it was only the last attack, or if the experience was distributed based on the amount of damage, there would have been more of a difference.

So, what's wrong with the temple?

"No. No. I just thought that if you leveled up, you'd feel it.　Just wondering.

You don't seem to feel it ....... You don't feel any change, even though you seem to be getting better.

But you're definitely getting stronger. The orcs had a hard time at first.

That's true. Now you might be able to cut them down with your cleaver. I won't do it, though.

It's true that this weapon is much more powerful when you pass magic through it.

　Not only can it kill undead with ease, but it can also deal more damage than ever to other demons.

　It's a good idea to have a good idea of what you're going to do, and how you're going to do it.

I'm not sure if I can do it.　"Hmmm, can I do it? I can cut with something that looks like a blunt object.
"No, don't do it.　You'll ruin the meat.

　Until now, Toya's sword attacks had been of the smashing and tearing type, but now that she was attacking through magic, she was able to generate something called "sharpness".

　Therefore, it might be possible to slice an orc in half if you wanted to, but you would be a failed adventurer if you did so.

　Slicing an orc with a single blade would only look flashy, but it would lower the value of the fur, and more importantly, it would ruin the meat.

　When dismembering, it is important to remove the organs without damaging them, but what happens if you cut them in half? Yes, the meat will be covered in filth.

　You may still be able to eat it if there is a "cleansing" process, but you will feel terrible.

　The best way to finish the meat is to chop off the neck at the beginning of the encounter.

　I've heard that if you stress it, it loses its flavor.

If you must, do it with a scalp-ape.
Yeah. You don't need anything but a magic stone.

No, it's not like I want to do it, okay?
That's fine, but ......?

　Strong enemy response to search.

　I'll raise my hand and tell them to stop.

　I raise my hand and tell them to stop. Even though they're chatting, they're all very firm about it, and they all immediately stop and raise their weapons.

"What?　Orc leader?
"Oh, fine meat?

　When we came to the deeper part of the forest, I was surprised to see orc leaders walking around.

　Compared to Orcs, there were far fewer of them, but I still encountered them on rare occasions.

　However, since there is basically one orc leader and several orcs in a group, they are no longer much of a threat now.

　If we can get rid of the orcs before they approach us, we can face the orc leader with just a few of us, and their previously hard skin can be easily cut through with magic weapons.

　From our point of view, it's just like high quality meat that we can get now and then, as Toya said.

　It's better than orc meat, so it's the basic meat for cooking these days. It's a bit of a luxury.

　This would not require much caution, but my spotters were reacting differently than the orc leader.

No, not ....... I know it's stronger than the orc leader, but ......
"No way, orc captain?　I might be able to kill him now. ......

　I've read that the approximate strength of an orc captain is four orc leaders.

　It's a good idea to have a good idea of what you're going to be doing and how you're going to do it.



That's not true either. The enemy is alone. No cronies.

　The orc leader has orc cronies with him. It is unlikely that the orc captain is acting alone. So the conclusion is: .......

Augur, I suppose.
"Finally. What do we do?　What are we going to do?
It's not a bad situation. We're not too tired.

　We could play it safe and try to raise our level even higher, but if we pull out now, we'll have to move our activities to a slightly shallower area to avoid encountering the ogre.

　However, we were hesitant to take the easy way out, since the document said that rookies would be outmatched.

　However, the situation was not waiting for us.

What?　Oh no, they've noticed us!　And it's fast!

　The enemy in the search response suddenly started moving at high speed, and was approaching us at a very fast pace.

　I thought I had kept a sufficient distance, but it seems that the range of the indeterminate name auger was much wider than I expected.

"Oh my god, are you serious?

　The closer it got, the more Toya could sense it.
　He readied his sword in the direction of the approaching ogre, and Natsuki readied his naginata beside him.

　Immediately after that, a demon of about the same size as an Orc, or slightly smaller, appeared in front of him.

　However, its appearance is more human-like, with a tight body and two horns growing out of its head.

　It looks like a gorilla mixed with the image of a Japanese demon.

　In his right hand, he holds a rusty broadsword.

"It's an ogre!

　It was Toya who shouted that. Perhaps he was appraising it.

　The ogre ran at Toya in the blink of an eye, and just as he was about to collide with her, he leapt into the air.

"What?

　A tree on the side of the road was used as a springboard for the rear guard. That is, our side.

　--This thing has the intelligence to attack the rearguard first?

　Orcs, and even Orc leaders, did not have the intelligence to attack the rearguard first, avoiding enemies who were holding weapons in front of them.

　Nevertheless, this ogre aimed for the rearguard first.

　Tactically, he was right. But what the ogre miscalculated was that there was no such thing as a pure rearguard among us.

　The spear I thrust out as quickly as I could was repelled by the broadsword, but at about the same time, Haruka's arrow pierced his left shoulder and Yuki's small sword sliced his left leg wide open.

"G-Gaaaah!

　A resounding scream.

　I pulled back my spear and tried to give chase to the ogre, who landed on the ground, losing his balance, but the ogre jumped back.

Don't you dare!

　It was a simple leap, and with one leg injured, the leg strength to jump nearly two meters high was unbelievable, but it was a bad move.

　It's a good thing that you're not the only one who has a problem with this.

　A dull thud sounded.

　Natsuki's naginata fluttered further.

"Huh!

"Aah!

　The head flew into the air and fell to the ground with the body spewing blood.