Chapter 12

We woke up the next morning and got everything packed up. With everything put away we headed back to the village to tell them the goblin threat had been eliminated. We made our way through the forest heading roughly in the direction of the village. It took us till midday to reach the village. We went to the elders house. He had seen us coming. He made his way toward us with a quizzical look on his face. “Back so soon?” I replied to him smiling. “Yes, we found a goblin encampment deep in the forest. We killed all of the goblins there. You shouldn't have any more trouble out of them. We burned the corpses and the huts to make sure they were dead.” I showed him the bag full of goblin ears as proof and he had no choice but to believe me. “Well thank you both for ridding our village of that scourge of goblins.” We talked for a while about some of what had happened. Such as setting up the ambush and tracking the goblins back to their encampment. With the story told and no need to stick around we headed back towards the Capital. We knew it was at least a two day walk back to the Capital so we took our time making our way back. Much like our trip to the village the trip back was just as uneventful. We would walk until midday and stop for lunch and then continue until night time. We would stop at night, set up camp, and have supper.

We made it back to the Capital on the third day. It was still fairly early in the day, not yet noon. We made our way back into the city and headed back for our inn for an early lunch. We made it back to the Inn and were greeted by the maid. She told us to have a seat and that she would bring us something for lunch. We walked over to the table and had a seat. Within a few minutes she had us each a plate piled high with vegetables and a full roasted chicken quarter. It was a lot of food but after a long journey and a large battle. It was a nice change to have food we didn't have to cook over an open fire. We ate heartily and talked about what we would be doing today. We would turn in our contract and tell the story of our battle. We were really hoping that with this contract we had proven ourselves worthy of advancement in the guild. With advancement it would open up more interesting contracts that could lead to better adventures. We made our way towards the guild and went inside. It was pretty lively inside. It was midday so the adventurers that weren't currently out on a contract right now were hanging out with other adventurers. They were just drinking and generally having a good time.

The adventuring life could be hard and there were never any guarantees that any of us would make it back from our next contract. We made our way through the pandemonium to the receptionist that we normally interacted with. She asked us if we needed help with anything. We told her we were her to turn in a contract and to tell about what we had encountered while we were there. She led us to the conference room so that we could recount our tell and receive our reward for the contract. There was the standard reward for the contract as well as a reward for each goblin we had killed. She told us to sit down on the couch and to tell her everything that had happened. I told her everything that had happened. “ We found a goblin encampment near the village we were sent to. We killed 37 goblins and one hobgoblin that was their leader.” At this statement I heard an audible gasp. “ There shouldn't have been anything at that high of a level or anywhere near that level of difficulty that close to the village. That number of goblins this close to the Capital is almost unheard of. Was there any more information that you can supply about these goblins and the hobgoblin. I will have to report this to the higher ups, but before that please finish your story.” I handed over the bag of ears which she looked through and tallied up how many we had. After she was done looking through our gruesome bounty I recounted my story. “We tried to locate the goblins by looking at the locations they had attacked from. After spending time looking at every location to no avail we decided to set up an ambush for them. We hid in the woods and waited for them to come. They did come late in the night. We snuck up on them and killed the three that had come. After that we followed the trail back and came across the goblin encampment. We studied the encampment and after some discussion we were going to set it all on fire. That was before we saw the hobgoblin. With us seeing a leader that made us think they would be more responsive and we would lose the element of surprise. So we decided to sneak into the tents and kill the goblins while they slept one by one. It was working well until the guards made their way into the tent I was in. I fought them off and Sora had to dispatch the few that were left in her hut. After the two guards were dealt with I made my way out of the tent and the leader was there waiting for me. What was surprising was that he was able to speak. Not well but he could still make his intentions known. I fought him for a while and Sora snuck up behind him and dealt the killing blow. After the fight was finished we collected the ears and burned everything else that was left there. We then made our way back to the village to let the elder know the goblin threat had been dealt with and then we came back to the Capital.” She looked at me with wide eyes. It was as if she had heard a fantasy tale. She seemed to snap out of it and said. “Wait here. I must inform the guild leadership as to what has happened. I will bring her here and you can tell her what you've told me.”

She left the room and was gone for a few minutes. She came back followed by a tall woman who was very muscular. She reminds me of stories I had heard of ancient female warriors from long ago. Her skin was very tan and she had long blonde hair. She made her way to the couch opposite the one we were sitting on and looked at me for a long time. “So, you’ve seen a hobgoblin and you even say you heard it speak. I've heard rumors from the south that there has been increased monster activity in the area. For right now can you just retell the story you told Kathrine. My name is Veronica and I’m deputy guild leader. The current guild leader is out on important business right now so you'll have to make do with me.” I told her the same story that I had told to Katherine. She looked lost in thought for a few minutes but eventually said. “I’ll need to send some more seasoned adventurers out to investigate the monster activity. As for you two. Your service to the guild so far is more than enough to get you promoted to Iron rank. I’ll have your new placards made and Katherine will bring them to you. This is all you need to be involved with for now. Wait in the main area and Katherine will be out soon with the new placards. We have some more sensitive information that we need to talk about so that will be all for now. She will also present you with the reward from the contract as well as a bonus for going above and beyond.” We thanked her and left the room. We made our way over to one of the tables in the tavern area. We sat down and a maid brought us over some drinks and some fruit and cheese to snack on while we waited. Sora asked me.“What do you think they are talking about?” I thought for a minute before I replied. “They probably have even more information on the monster activity than we do. We may have overheard those bandits talking about the monsters, but it's the guilds job to know what is going on in the kingdom. They may even know of the Demon King that is supposed to have risen. If we work our way up higher in the guild we may discover more about what is going on. Though that will have to wait. For now we have to settle for being Iron rank adventurers. With our new rank it opens up new opportunities for us.” Sora looked thoughtful for a while and then nodded. “Yes, that sounds about right to me. Well we will relax for a couple of days and then we can look into the Iron rank contracts.” I agreed. We talked for a while longer and then Katherine came up to us. She was holding a small cloth sack as well as two Iron placards. “Here you go. Inside the bag are three silver, eight bronze and five copper coins. We gave each of you an extra silver for killing the hobgoblin and then five copper for each of the thirty seven goblins. Also I have your new Iron placards.” We took the bag and the placards from her and she took our pewter ones. With that accomplished we were done with what we needed to do today.

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We left the guild and decided we would walk around the Capital. We visited the different food stalls and shops throughout the city. As we went through the shops we grabbed some supplies that we needed. We also went to a blacksmith shop to have our swords worked on. After all of that combat our swords were a little worse for wear. We had been cleaning and oiling them but they had still built up some burrs along the edges that needed to be worked out. We look at the different weapons and armours on display but the equipment we had was good enough for now. Once we made it to Bronze rank we may need to upgrade our equipment to something tougher. We would be fighting stronger monsters and need our equipment to be able to last. We each bought an extra set of travel clothes while we were out as well. We spent the rest of the day just wandering around the Capital. We made it back to the Inn just before nightfall and decided we would have a meal and a bath before turning in for the night. The Innkeeper saw us when we came in and congratulated us on our advancement. We thanked her and made our way over to a table. The Innkeeper brought us bowls of stew with fresh bread and told us it was on the house. We thanked her and dug into our food. We ate and chatted. We decided tomorrow would just be a day of relaxation and wandering the city again. We would also see if we could find the Capital library to look for information on the Demon King. It may also be a good idea to look for some trainers while we were in the capital to learn more about how to fight with our weapons.

We finished our food and I went to the room while Sora went to take a bath. I waited for her to return and when she did I went down to take my own bath. I washed off the grime of the day and just relaxed in the bath for a while. It felt nice to just relax. It had been a few weeks since I had left Lancia but it felt like a lifetime. I was free of my past and could now look towards the future. I would try to find a contract that would take us on a journey so that we could see more of the world and I also wanted to put some space between myself and my past. We would try to find what information was available about the Demon King tomorrow and also get some training set up. After we got that done we would relax for the rest of the day and then we would pick a contract that would take us out of the Capital for a while. Hopefully while we were gone from the city Veronica could find out more information about the monsters. That was however a little bit too high up for me to think about. We needed to concentrate on the things that we could handle. I got out of the bath and dried off. Once I was dry I got dressed in a fresh set of clothes and headed back to our room.

Sora was there waiting for me. We had grown a lot closer over these weeks traveling together. We had shared our secrets with each other and had been living together for a while now. I said. “I was thinking that tomorrow we should do a little bit of research and also maybe find someone who could provide us with basic combat training. I know we have gotten through everything that's been thrown at us so far but a little training could go a long way in keeping us alive.” She looked thoughtful and answered. “I agree. We do need to look into the Demon King. Also that training really would help. We've survived by luck and being much bigger than our opponents. We won’t always be fighting goblins and the different sized monsters will all present different hazards. That's without mentioning humans that may have equal or greater strength than we do.” I agreed with her assessment. With the next few days task decided we chatted for a while before we went to bed. I had grand dreams for the future. I wanted to be the Hero that killed the Demon King. I wanted stories to be written about me, but that was foley. I needed to concentrate on the day to day tasks we had to complete. Visions of grandeur would be of no help to us. We needed to grow our strength and rise in rank. We had to play the long game. We would make it to Diamond rank over night, but if we worked hard and stayed alive anything was possible. With these thoughts in mind I drifted off to sleep.