How to Live as a Genius Scholar in another World

Chapter 19 – Ruin Guard Request (6)

—–CROW—– 

“Mr. Nord, do you not like your weapon?”

Francesca asked. Perhaps because we were talking about weapons, she seemed quite engaged.  As expected of someone with dwarf blood.

“It’s not that I don’t like it.  I think it’s more that I lack the skill to use it properly.”

Didn’t some mohawked communist say something similar? That the type of weapon doesn’t matter if you’re a master.

Surely, my struggles with the sword’s shortcomings were something I could overcome someday.

But I thought it wasn’t bad to consider if there were other weapons more suitable for me.  It was a gamer’s virtue to spend money until they found a deck or character they liked.

“There are hardly any skilled adventurers from the Iron class, right? Everyone starts out a little lacking.”

“Yes.  That’s why I’m also looking for a weapon that suits me. The minor problem is that I don’t have the money to buy multiple weapons.”

I had some savings, but I didn’t want to waste them.

If my savings ran out, I would have to rely solely on my monthly bachelor’s degree salary.  And if I lost my degree and my salary, I would have to start living the hand-to-mouth adventurer life.

“Well, what can you do? Poor adventurers like us have to make do with the weapons we have.  Eventually, you’ll get used to it.”

Est said, as if I was worrying over nothing.

“Is that so?  Maybe you’re right.”

Perhaps I was overthinking it because I had a choice. There was no perfect weapon in the world.  Ultimately, a weapon’s effectiveness depended on the time, place, and the individual’s skill.

“By the way, that magic lasts quite a while, doesn’t it? You didn’t use it more than before, did you?”

Francesca looked at my mana fur with envious eyes.  The mana coating didn’t even look like fur, so it wouldn’t look warm at all.  I wondered what she envied.

“It seems to consume less mana when I’m not moving. More importantly, this magic is definitely warm, but does it look that way from the outside?”

“Dwarves can roughly estimate temperature just by looking.”

“With your eyes? Amazing.”

Did dwarves have built-in pit organs?  They were an amazing race. They could hold their breath for a long time, had sturdy bodies, were strong, and now they even had post-Sharingan eyes.

They seemed like a ridiculously overpowered race.  Or was it just a fantasy trope where only humans were weak? I was glad I had changed my class to Earth Warrior Werebear.

“Ah… the sun has set.”

Francesca murmured. We followed her gaze and looked up at the hole in the ceiling. The red sunset faded, and darkness enveloped the cave ruin.

The light from the leather lanterns was our only solace.

***

After a long, cold night, morning came.

“Chirp! (Sex!)”

“Chirp! (Sex!)”

“Fuck.”

I woke up to the racket of the flying sex-crazed birds again.

My eyes were heavy from the aftereffects of standing watch. The lack of a clock made it difficult to divide the watch time evenly, which made me even more tired.

“I should buy a clock.”

I didn’t think it was worth mentioning the watch I had stood with Paragon last night.

If anyone was curious about standing watch with other guys, I would recommend joining the military. You could stand watch until you died there.  Just spend two years as a private.

“Ugh, I’m freezing to death.”

Est, who had just finished her watch, said.

We had failed to start a campfire, so last night felt like winter training without hot packs.  Even I woke up a few times because my Beast Regression wore off.

“But the rain has stopped.”

Francesca said. Raindrops were still falling from the cave ceiling, but bright sunlight shone through the opening.

I frowned at the sight of the ruin, which had been rained on all night under the hole.

“The ruin is a mess.  The guild will be angry.”

“I don’t care if they yell at me.  Can low-ranking adventurers like us do anything about bad weather?”

“You’re a priest of the Goddess of Abundance.  Isn’t manipulating the weather a specialty of the followers of the Sky God and the Goddess of Abundance?”

“That’s only when we hold a prayer for rain.”

Paragon said.  Wizards could reproduce weather phenomena locally, but magic that could clear the clouds in the sky was like a Mithril-class adventurer.

If that monk had the skill to use such magic, he would have used *fireball* to light the firewood first.

“Now that the rain has stopped, let’s go gather firewood.”

Francesca said, folding the blanket and putting it in her bag.  I thought I had misheard her.

“Firewood?  It’s all wet, so we can’t use it.”

“No. Wood doesn’t get soaked to the core unless it’s submerged for a very long time.  If you shave off the outer layer with a knife or an axe, it’ll burn.”

Francesca said, taking out a utility knife from her bag. Est’s jaw dropped.

“Wait.  Then why didn’t we do that yesterday?”

“Because it was raining.  It’s hard to find firewood when it’s raining because of poor visibility. We might have gone out and come back empty-handed, soaking wet.”

“Ah—I see.”

Est seemed convinced.  Remembering the cold of last night, I understood.  Getting wet in that cold?  We would have succumbed to hypothermia.

“Francesca, you had it all planned out.  As expected of the party leader.”

“Hehe. Oh, so, is there anyone who wants to go gather firewood with me? One person is enough.”

Francesca glanced at the group.  So, I stood up, dusting off my knees.

“I’ll go. I’m still sleepy, so it’ll help me wake up.”

There was nothing to do here, so it would be a good way to kill time. I couldn’t do Professor Brammaton’s morning exercises during a request.

“Okay.  Thank you.”

Francesca bowed and led the way outside.

Chirp.

Chirp—

We could hear the sounds of forest insects as we stepped outside.  Were they also chirping about sex all morning, like the birds?  Suddenly feeling disgusted, I kicked a grasshopper I saw at my feet.

“Ugh…!  *Phew!*”

Francesca, who came next to me, stretched.  Her large breasts moved gracefully like basketballs.

“Ah, the direction we threw the goblin bodies is that way. Let’s look for firewood in the opposite direction.”

“Okay. What kind of firewood should we look for?”

When I was at Carmine University, I never had the opportunity to help with firewood preparation. We either hired adventurers to gather it or bought it. I was busy with other chores.

Francesca rested her chin on her hand, which was placed on her chest, and said,

“Hmm—big firewood is the best. Even if it’s too big to catch fire, we can just split it.”

“I understand. We should look for the biggest firewood we can find. We need to shave off the wet parts too.”

“Yes. Let’s do our best.”

Francesca said, smiling.  This dwarf smiled a lot for someone from this other world.

“How about we just break off a thick branch like that one? I can do it if you lend me a hammer.”

I pointed to a living tree as I walked around.

I could probably snap it off if I activated Beast Regression, climbed up, and hit it a few times. I had managed to turn even brat-sized goblins into go/blin.

But Francesca shook her head.

“Green wood doesn’t burn well. It retains moisture absorbed through its roots.”

“Ah, right.”

The green flesh beneath the bark was usually full of moisture.  Sap also flowed through living trees. It would be hard to ignite.

Firewood submerged in puddles was also a no-go.  It would have absorbed moisture from the puddle all night and become soggy, like a forgotten Choco Heim left out in the open.

‘So, we have to search the ground after all.’

I didn’t want to rummage through the damp leaves with my hands.  I decided to compromise and shuffle through them with my feet.

Shuffle, shuffle.

I shuffled through the leaves and found the dirt floor. I decided to poke around here and there like this.

But what if I got bitten by a snake?  If I asked Paragon to use detoxification magic, he would probably say, “What’s that?”

Should I carry a shovel as well as a lantern? Damn it. If my weapon was a sturdy, all-purpose knife like a kukri, I could have used it to dig around.

“Heave-ho.”

Meanwhile, Francesca stuck something into the ground.  It was a simple trap.  It was too small to catch even a kobold.  But it seemed like it could catch a rabbit or a small animal.

Surprised by her skill in making it so quickly, I asked,

“Did you make a trap in that short amount of time?”

“I saw some good materials and a good spot, so I made one.”

I couldn’t tell if she was half-dwarf or half-elf anymore. How could a dwarf be so skilled in the forest?  Was this a basic skill for all rogues?

“I hope we catch something while we’re looking for firewood.”

Francesca said, dusting off her hands.  Unable to hide my admiration, I agreed with her.

“I’m sure something will be caught by the time we’ve built the campfire.”

“Yes. Wet firewood produces a lot of smoke, but it’s good enough for simple skewers.”

It seemed like we would have a hearty breakfast.  It was a hopeful prospect, as I had been planning to have boiled water and dry rations.

Rustle, rustle.

We walked, gathering and collecting firewood. Unlike me, who had foolishly come out with only my weapon, Francesca had brought the blanket she had folded earlier.  We used it to carry the firewood.

Francesca carried the bundle.  I considered carrying it for her, like a macho man, but it was better for me to be empty-handed in case something happened.

“Huh?”

“What’s wrong?”

As we were walking, Francesca tilted her head.

“No. The path… looks different from a normal forest.”

“Different? Like a dungeon or a maze?”

Shit, had I stumbled into a bewitched forest while collecting firewood?  How much more could my life get twisted? With such bad luck, I would have probably died from overwork as a slave, even if I had stayed at Carmine University.

“Not like a magical dungeon… Look over there.”

Francesca, holding the firewood in her arms, pointed to a part of the forest.

“The bushes are trampled and flattened.  It looks like traces of a creature other than a wild animal…”

We went closer to the bushes.  And we immediately noticed the footprints left behind.  Damn it, there was only one kind of creature that walked around barefoot with small feet.

“Is this… goblins again?”

“Probably.”

Unfortunately, our opinions converged.  We concluded that goblin footprints remained under the bushes, even after it had rained all night.

“Why are there so many goblins roaming around… Ah, damn it.  The dungeon!”

Dorka had told me before we came here.  He said two dungeons had been discovered near here, besides the ruin.

One of them was a goblin den, and Dorka had also said this:

─Anyway, the ruin is nothing special, but the dungeons are dangerous. They’re both full of monsters, and one of them is even trying to get out.

“Dungeon…? Ah, you mean the goblin den that the other guild found?”

“You’ve heard about it. That’s right. I heard that the monsters inside one of the discovered dungeons were coming out.  I guess it was the goblins.”

Cockroaches in the kitchen cupboard, and goblins in the cave.  It was a classic pest habitat distribution in this world.

“The goblins that appeared yesterday…”

I was about to say that the goblins we caught had mentioned a “nest,” but I quickly corrected myself.

“They were probably a stray group that escaped from that dungeon.”

“Ah…”

Damn it. What kind of pest control was this? If this were Earth, I would have filed a complaint with CESCO and gone to their headquarters.  We cleared out the nest, but the pests inside escaped and moved somewhere else.

I felt a pang of sympathy for the herb gatherers and woodcutters who had visited this forest today and yesterday.  Because of the sudden outbreak of runaway brats, innocent civilians would have their lives plundered, like their New Year’s money being taken away.

It was pure luck that we hadn’t encountered any monsters on our way to the ruin.

No, considering that the runaway goblins appeared shortly after we entered the cave, it wasn’t even luck.

“Francesca, let’s go back to the ruin. We’ll get ambushed by goblins if we try to collect firewood.”

“Okay.”

Francesca’s face fell at my suggestion.

“We won’t be able to build a campfire. Unlike wild animals, goblins will be attracted to the smoke and come to the cave.”

“Oh dear. Is that how it is?”

Those damn brats.  Because of them, my breakfast today would be lukewarm water and hard bread.  We returned to the cave ruin with the firewood we had painstakingly gathered, unable to discard it.

But speak of the devil…

“Kyak?”

‘Shit.’

On our way back to the cave, we ran into the goblins.

—–CROW—–