Will I End Up As a Hero or a Demon King (WN)

Here’s the chapter. Enjoy~

Chapter 34 – Dismantling

On the way, I stopped at the only weapon shop in the town of Bezart to buy a rather long knife for both attack and disassembly, and I stood in front of the request board.

The knife was listed at 7,000 beeke, and the purchase price was 5,000 beeke.

The old man at the weapon shop cried, but I said, “Next time I’ll buy this weapon!” and since I had reserved a short sword for 550,000 beeke that I had been curious about the other day, it wouldn’t be a problem.

Of course, I never said that I would buy it for 550,000 beeke, but as expected, he would not sell it at a loss.

So it’s a win-win-win situation for both parties, and I’ll try to get the short sword under the 500,000 mark.

In normal times, the Hunters’ Guild starts at the sound of the morning bell.

It seems that the most profitable requests are taken as soon as possible, and now, at noon, the place is deserted, and the number of requests on the board is rather sparse.

The point is that there are only leftovers or permanent subjugation requests, but for me, a first-day hunter with no sense of the market, it doesn’t matter if they are leftovers or not.

On the other hand, starting tomorrow, I can actively choose the requests that are more profitable than the leftover requests, so the content of the requests that are hanging around now will also be a good benchmark.

Besides, today is not mainly about requests.

First of all, I need to confirm whether I can accept the “F-rank request with a special exception” or not, which is quite important for me.

Then, while I’m moving lightly around the entrance of the Palmera Great Forest, I’m going to try my hand at dismantling something for the first time with my newly purchased knife.

“(Hmm… The G-rank request is 1,000 beeke to clean the house and 3,500 beeke per day to replace the fence around the perimeter, and the E-rank request is 30,000 beeke to escort a carriage to Malta City, which takes 2 days each way…

It seems that most of the leftovers are from chores in the city and escorting the carriages. The carriage convoy seems like a good idea at first glance, but it’s 30,000 beeke for 2 days of transportation, and on top of that, it means I’ll be left behind, so unless I want to go to that town or have some other purpose, I guess it’s a no-go.

So I guess I will have to accept urgent requests to kill monsters if there are any, and if there are none, I will have to earn money from the permanent requests in the Great Forest of Palmera.

However, as Amanda-san said, the permanent requests of 800 beeke for a Horned Rabbit, 1,000 beeke for a Goblin, and 1,500 beeke for a Hooley Mole seem cheap…)”

Combined with the information Amanda-san gave me beforehand, it seems like it would be;

Horned Rabbits: 800 beeke per rabbit as a permanent request, plus 4,000 to 5,000 beeke for meat, magic stone, horns, and fur as materials, and the rest depends on the condition, so it is recommended to just drain the blood and bring them back as is. Proof of subjugation is the ear.

Goblins: 1,000 beeke for each Goblin as a permanent request, and the only other material that can be exchanged for cash is a magic stone worth 1,500 beeke, so it is recommended to dismantle the Goblin. The proof of subjugation is the right hand.

Hooley Mole: 1,500 beeke for each body as a permanent request, and the only other thing that can be exchanged for cash is a magic stone worth 2,000 beeke, so disassembling it is recommended. The proof of subjugation is the head.

This is what it looks like in the first layer of the Great Palmera Forest.

As Zink-kun said, the Horned Rabbit is certainly the most valuable for money, but…

The problem is the weight. The basket I was carrying for Potta-kun felt as heavy as the 30 kilos of rice my grandmother sent me every year. There were probably four or five horned rabbits in the basket, but honestly, it’s not realistic to carry more weight than that.

Even if I could carry it, it would be impossible to hunt with it on my back.

It seems like it would improve with higher levels…

While I was calculating the efficiency in my head, Amanda-san called out to me.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. I received special permission from the Master, so I’ll allow you to take requests up to F-rank!”

“Oohh! Thank you for your help!”

“However! You’re still a rookie, Loki-kun, so you need to form a party as much as possible! If you are alone in an unforeseen situation, you could end up dead.”

“I’ll do my best.”

I have no choice but to mince words at this point.

I understand what she is saying, but this is a choice that is made because there is no concept of level experience or skill experience.

If people knew about the level of experience that drops when you form a party or the skill experience that you only get on your last hit, they would have to make a different choice.

In the case of Zink-kun’s party, Zink-kun, who is in charge of killing monsters, shares the experience with Potta-kun and Mei-chan, and in return, the reward for the medicinal herbs they collect will increase, although they do not know how much, and the hunting will be easier with Potta-kun carrying the load.

When Zink-kun hunted alone, he could only hunt one or two Horned Rabbits and return to the city inefficiently, and he said that he only became active after Potta-kun became a hunter.

However, as a result, the reward is also divided into three equal parts, so each person earns less.

The triple decrease in experience level from forming a party, the decrease in skill experience when there is a fighter, and the decrease in income… is really unacceptable for my character.

It might be possible to party in Lulub Forest, which is a higher-level hunting ground, but in Palmera Great Forest, I think it is better to go solo.

I heard from Amanda-san that the guild lends out baskets, so I told her I wanted to borrow one and went to the guild’s reference room while she prepared it for me.

“I’m going to study a bit so I don’t die, so please leave the basket somewhere out of the way!”

When I opened the door to where I was going after telling her that, I found a table and a chair in a rather small room of about 3 tatami mats.

It was a very dreary room with only two books chained to an iron bar.

When I rolled up one of the books, it turned out to be a book with an overview of the guild I had heard about in the training course.

Since I had no use for it right now, I opened the other thin book.

The paper was brown, so I wondered if this was what they called parchment. I flipped through the book and found that the contents seemed to be information about monsters in the area within the guild’s reach.

The first layer of the Palmera Great Forest and the Lulub Forest, which I have heard is recommended for E-rank… It also contains information about monsters in the Rocker Plain, which is northeast of the city, with poor illustrations.

“(And Amanda-san didn’t give me much detail, probably because she thought I’d go there as soon as she gave it to me… It’s really wonderful that such a thing exists!)”

If it’s in this city, it’s also probably in another city first, and it’s hunting information that should be checked as soon as possible after the move.

Let’s take a closer look at the contents.

The first layer of Palmera Forest seems to be all the information that is known.

There are only three kinds of monsters: Horned Rabbits, Goblins, and Hooley Moles, with the occasional Goblin wielding a weapon with a wooden stick, so be careful.

It also says that Goblins have a habit of picking up and handling weapons, so if you see a Goblin with a sword or spear, you should report it to the guild.

So the most annoying thing in the Great Forest of Palmera is the weapon-wielding Goblins?

I think I can handle swords and spears, even with the feeling I had the other day, but I am not sure how to deal with Goblins with bows.

But it’s impossible to shoot without arrows, and I don’t think Goblins can make arrows… I have a feeling that they would just hit me with a bow anyway, so I conclude that it would be a very rare case anyway, and I can’t be bothered with it.

If that is the case, then it is the Hooley Mole that I have to be most careful of. When hunting, it would be fine if I always activated the Presence Detection and made a sound.

And the Lulub Forest is…

Oh! Orcs! The actual illustration is of a slightly hunchbacked pigman!

It is about 2 meters tall and wields a log… This is terrible.

But is it for meat? I can imagine that it would be hard to carry around, but I can imagine that it is some kind of monster that can be used to make money.

Another is a Rig Spider, about 50 centimeters long. It spits out sticky threads and can eat you alive, so be careful, especially if you fight several at once. But the demand for thread is high.

The Small Wolf, about 1 meter long, is small among wolves, but it is a monster that acts in groups, so be careful of attacks from behind, and there is a demand for its fur…

Yes, it’s dangerous.

I thought about going there for a while, but I can’t imagine that I could make it alone with just a knife.

I mean, even if I went there now, I’d probably get bludgeoned to death, or eaten alive, or bitten in various places and covered in holes, or… I’d probably die no matter what I did.

As expected from an E-rank recommendation, it was out of place.

Finally, in a place called Rocker Plain, there seem to be a lot of big, 50-centimeter-long rats that eat crops, so it is easy to get an emergency strike.

As the name Poison Mouse suggests, it is a monster you do not want to get too close to, as it seems to be poisonous when it bites.

There seems to be a demand for the poison pouches on its head, and it is recommended that only the head be taken.

And although it doesn’t seem to be as common as the Poison Mouse… from the picture, it looks like a praying mantis, about 30-40 cm long.

The monster called Air Mantis has sharp arms, and it seems to be very vicious as it raises its arms to use wind magic.

However, it seems that the movement of the grass on the plains can be used to detect when it activates its wind magic, so it is relatively easy to avoid it if you watch carefully…

Since both monsters are listed as F-ranked, the Palmera Great Forest should be followed by the Rocker Plains and then the Lulub Forest.

However, the strength of the monsters is only expressed in terms of rank, perhaps because there is no concept of level.

At what stage should I move on to the next hunting ground?

If I make an error in judgment, the chance of dying will increase dramatically, so I think it would be better to move to a higher hunting ground after a considerable safety margin.

In the game, a single death penalty can wipe out several days of work, and I used to go crazy every time I made an occasional mistake, but I still think it’s cute that it only takes one death penalty.

That’s enough information for now.

I found out that the Palmera Great Forest was fine the way it was so far, so I went back to the reception desk.

I thanked Amanda-san and carried the basket on my back, greeting the meat skewer lady on my way out.

I bought one and bit into it on the way to the Palmera Great Forest.

As I was leaving the town, the gatekeeper, who was snarling at the sword, said to me, “Make sure you come back when the sun goes down!” to which I replied, “Of course I will!”

I never thought I would return to the forest I had wanted to leave for so long.

But I had to do it to make a living.

I’m weak, and this is the only place I can make money, so I’ll just keep killing monsters without getting too deep into it.

▽ ▼ ▽ ▼ ▽

About an hour later.

I was on all fours and nauseous.

A Horned Rabbit was already in the basket.

Even without using the jacket strategy, I was able to keep up with the Horned Rabbit’s rush with a little time, thanks to my increased skill level, so I just slashed it and chopped off its head before putting it in the basket.

Blood was dripping from the gap between the baskets, but since I was not collecting medicinal herbs, I thought it would be no problem if the blood could be drained efficiently.

The problem is the Goblin lying in front of me…

This one is still tough.

Amanda-san had told me that if it was a Goblin, the magic stone would be in the center of its body, at about the level of its heart.

So I prepared myself and opened its chest, but a much more intense scene that I had learned in science class jumped in front of me, and I felt a knot in my stomach.

Zink-kun, being able to ripen this process as a matter of course is truly amazing…

It must be pretty hard for modern people who grew up in a lukewarm environment.

Ugh… I have decided to stop being picky.

No, it’s different; I made up my mind back then! Then I’ll do it! I’ll do it even if I have to vomit to live!

Even in modern times, doctors work in a world where this is the norm! Don’t be so naive as to put my hand in! I’ll get used to it quickly, I’ll get used to it quickly, I’ll get used to it quickly… Oooohhhhh!!!

Slip…

Then, I immediately discovered a churning sensation, so I pulled my hand out, hoping to get it out as quickly as possible, even if it was just for a second.

“Huh… ugh… Mmm… this black stone about the size of my thumb… this is the magic stone, huh…?”

It is not beautiful enough to be called a jewel. Still, the strange feeling that attracts the eye is probably due to unfamiliarity.

With a strangely emotional feeling, I next begin to dismantle the body parts for the subjugation proof.

“Amanda-san told me to start with the right wrist… and see if I can cut it with a knife…”

No matter how big it is, about 120-130 cm, the wrist is about 4-5 cm long, and of course, there are bones inside.

If I try to cut it with a knife by force, I feel that the knife will soon be ruined.

“The gap between the joints is well done… Ugh… and when I touch it, it’s squishy and surprisingly soft…”

I put the blade on the part that feels like it’s here by touch and put all my strength on the top, dropping my wrist at once.

“Phew… this finally finishes a Goblin, about 2,500 beeke.”

Although it was quick to defeat the Goblin, it took about 20 to 30 minutes to take out the parts that were needed as proof of subjugation and the magic stone that needed to be exchanged for cash.

A lot of time was spent hesitating in front of the corpse.

“I’ll have to work hard to crack this in about 1 to 2 minutes per body… Ah! What am I going to do with these bloody hands…?”

Here, I finally realized that I had failed and asked myself.

I didn’t bring any water…

Come to think of it, I had been walking along the riverbank until now. No matter if I got a little dirty or returned blood, a quick river wash was all I needed, and I washed my bloody flathead screwdriver at the same time.

Oh shit… what’s solo, what’s more efficient that way, you idiot…

Usually, newbies learn this stuff from their seniors.

I just played games in an air-conditioned room with a drink. I’ve never had any real survival experience, so what makes me think the lower hunting grounds are any good?

If I wanted to go alone, I should have at least checked with Zink-kun or Amanda-san to make sure I had the minimum equipment.

When I think about it, it’s a good thing that I started hunting at noon today, but if I had a good offer in the morning, I wouldn’t have thought about lunch that day.

And then, when I started hunting, I was too scared to do anything about it, even though it was the only part of the hunt where I could make money…

So I’ll do better next time? Am I an idiot? I’m the one who chose this life-or-death hunter job!

Then, I should be willing to do it without saying a word!

Oh, shit… I’m so frustrated with myself…

I quickly cover my blood-soaked right hand with dirt and smear it on.

“As long as the knife doesn’t slip, there’s no problem. Then, this is a reminder to myself. Hold the knife with the fresh blood on it. Run and make up for the delay. That’s the job, right?)”

Today’s quota is five Horned Rabbits. As for the time… there are three hours left, and I have to be on time. Otherwise, be sure to collect the magic stones and the proof of subjugation.

Never stop until I reach my quota.

With this resolution in mind, I began my run.