“I’ll tell you my story. The story of why I wanted to become the longest.”

With the gentle orange glow of the campfire at their backs—softly illuminating the darkness around them—the short, purple-haired elf and the large, shirtless man sat atop the log next to One Swing, listening in with keen intent as he began to recount his story.

“It all started twenty-four years ago, the day the Capital of Gran Torte fell into ruin…”

Throughout all of history, the world has been ravaged by a breed of monster with no equal. Demons they were called. These giant, mindless beasts would roam the land, destroying, devouring, and defiling all who were unfortunate to find themselves in the path of their indiscriminate rampage. In the same way that goblins are a male-only species that can only propagate through the abducting of women from another species, demons were the same. Different to goblins though, demons were female. And also unlike goblins, demons were strong.

Huge, mindless beasts whose most notable features were their coal-black hair, blood-red eyes, and the long black horns that sprouted up from their heads. Their blackened claws were thick, and their teeth were as sharp as knives. It could take an entire army to fell even one of these creatures.

But over the years, their numbers started to decline. Demons didn’t care for the survival of their species, after all, and most chose to fight their spawn to the death shortly after giving birth to them. They were beings that lived only for violence.

Eventually, only a handful remained. Demon Queen Gluttony was the most well-known of the group. The most devastating beast in all of history. Mother of the Bloodstained Blackspawn. The Wandering Calamity. The Black Death. She had many names, and everybody from every culture across the land feared her like no other. And unlike the demons before her, she never slaughtered her own children. They seemed to move as a pack. They were the only demons that remained, yet their mindless rampage was an unstoppable force of nature that tore through the land to seemingly no end.

Until twenty-four years ago. Twenty-four years ago, Gluttony and her Blackspawn descended upon the Capital of Gran Torte. On that day, the entire city was torn asunder. It had only been a matter of minutes since the start of their rampage, but the Capital already lay in ruins and hundreds of thousands of people had already lost their lives. It was the worst tragedy in the history of the world.

At that time, the woman who now serves as Queen—Kokoro la Peppyseed—single-handedly repelled Gluttony and her Blackspawn from the ruins of the city, never to return again. And in these past twenty-four years, they never did. There hasn’t been a demon sighting since, and the world has been at peace.

But One Swing was there on that day, twenty-four years ago. As one of the survivors, he witnessed first-hand the destruction the demons caused to the Capital. He was only a young boy at the time, but that was a day One Swing could never forget. The way those creatures stampeded through the city, tearing through fleeing crowds in a shower of gore and shredded limbs, the way the air itself turned to a blackened red, a miasma of blood and dusted rubble hanging thickly across the entire city. It was a day One Swing could never forget, and so these images were forever burned into his mind.

“That’s… pretty heavy,” Arrow chimed in weakly. “Sorry for making you bring that up… Since you were so small at the time, I guess you regretted not being able to do anything and that’s why you always wished you were ‘longer’… It all makes sense now.”

Grapple gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. “Don’t let it get to you, brother. There’s nothing you could’ve done back then. The demons were unstoppable. I’m sure everyone you knew back then is happy you made it out alive.”

Shaking his head, One Swing balled his hands up into fists and struck one down against the log in frustration. “The reason I remember that day so strongly… The reason I wanted to become the longest so badly…”

“It’s okay, brother. Let it out.”

“Mm. We’re here for you.”

One Swing nodded, and recounted the rest of the story.

“That day, I was with my parents at the fair. There was a new attraction that had just been set up. Something crafted by the dwarves. It was a contraption that stretched high into the sky, and if you sat in one of the seats, it would take you all the way to the top where you could look down on the city from high up above. It sounded magical. I waited in line for that ride for two hours, and when I finally made it to the front, the man working there told me, ‘sorry, kid. You need to be this tall to ride.'"

One Swing punched at the log in frustration once again.

“Dammit! If only I had been longer! I wouldn’t have missed out on such a magical experience! Two hours I waited! For what?! For some puny dwarven man to tell me I wasn’t tall enough to ride! Curse you, dwarf scum! One day I will become the longest in all the land and be able to ride all of your exciting contraptions to my heart’s content! Once I’m an S-Rank adventurer, nobody will be able to deny me entry to all the cool rides! That’ll show you!”

…

A heavy silence fell over the camp after One Swing’s outburst, before the hesitant squeak of Arrow’s voice eventually broke it with a puzzled inquiry.

“… A-and the demons?”

“Oh.” One Swing waved her question off. “They showed up later. That was unfortunate too, I guess. My traumatic experience at the fair really burned the events of that entire day into my mind so I remember them quite vividly. I remember being jealous of how long they were at least. I’m sure they definitely would have been allowed on all the rides.”

…

“Give it back! Give me back the feelings of sympathy I gave you and the time I wasted listening to your nonsense story! Why do I have to be put on first watch with this lunatic?! Why are all adventurers such weirdos?! I still have no idea what becoming the longest is supposed to mean! You’re worse than that guy who keeps licking his own eyeball!”

“H-hey…” The croaky voice of Eye-Licker called out at Arrow’s loud tirade.

“Ah…” As Arrow turned around, she noticed the entirety of the camp now awake and glaring at her angrily. “… S-sorry.”

After a lot of apologies and bowing of heads, both One Swing and Arrow were promptly removed from watch duty, and the rest of the night went by smoothly in relative silence without any incident.

As the morning sunlight began to peek its head out from between the trees and brush, the adventurers packed up their belongings and continued the trek onward again. Shortly after—

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“Wait.” The shaggy-haired wolf-lady stopped the group, poking her nose up into the air. “I smell monsters. Lots of them. Coming this way.”

“Goblins?” Another adventurer asked, peering cautiously ahead of them through the trees.

“I… I can’t tell. The stench from up ahead is so foul that I can’t—”

“Useless,” Shashlik spat from beneath his hood, and continued onward, barking orders to the ones behind. “I don’t care what role you think you are, or what formation you’re used to back in whichever sandbox, make-believe party you’ve been playing in before, but I want the B-Ranks up at the front with me, and everybody else to stay out of the fight. You’ll just get in the way.”

There’s a resigned murmur of acceptance from the group as they follow Shashlik’s command. With only three adventurers at the front now, most were forced to hang around the back, alongside One Swing.

“Eh? Mr. Krumble, why is a veteran like you back here with us? Shouldn’t you be at the front?”

“Well, somebody’s gotta take care of you rookies, right?”

“I—I suppose so…”

As they continued onward, cautiously aware of their surroundings for any approaching monsters—

“Kiiikiii!” A swarm of little green creatures jumped out from the brush, noisily waving their jagged sticks around in the air while shrieking in their savage, incomprehensible speech. Goblins. And from what One Swing could see, there were at least twenty of them. Although more were surely lying in wait behind the trees.

As One Swing gripped the handle of his blade and began to lift it in the air—

“Pathetic,” Shashlik spat, and then his arms twitched.

In an instant, the entire surrounding area was awash with blood. Thick streams of it shot out in every direction, before splattering loudly against the trees, leaving a residue of crimson mist to linger around each trunk. In unison, every single one of the attacking goblins had been reduced to a pincushion of knives, each crumpling to the floor in a wet heap, their fresh blood pooling into the soil below.

One Swing was impressed. Although Shashlik's weapons were short, it seems his technique was not to strike his opponents with them in close combat, but to throw them from length instead. To use such short weapons in such a lengthy way… That truly is the genius of an A-Rank for you, One Swing thought. Grapple was right. Shashlik was the real deal. And One Swing knew he still had a lot to learn…

“W-what? Why are you smiling at me like that, F-Rank?”

“Ah, my apologies. I just find your use of length to be very inspiring.”

“My—? W-whatever. Stop dragging us behind and let's go.”

As they continued on through the forest, the wolf-woman began to retch. “The smell is… It’s really bad.”

One Swing agreed. He could smell it too. And judging by the looks on the other’s faces, everybody else could as well

As they grew nearer and nearer to the source of the smell, they eventually found themselves atop a low ridge, peering down into a clearing below. Crouching below the foliage, they each stared in disbelief at the sight of the scene unfolding before them.

“W-what the hell is going?” Eye-Licker said, his tongue frozen in shock halfway up his scaly face. “What the hell are they all doing?”

From down below, they could see the entrance to—what looked like—the den they were looking for. A wide gash in the side of a rocky hill that travelled deep into the bowels of the earth and into the Underground. This is where the goblins were presumably all coming from, but—

“Kobolds, direwolves, giant spiders, horned rabbits…”

‘There’s so many of them…”

“Wait, is that— Is that a troll?!”

“Where the hell are all the goblins? What the hell are all of these doing here?”

All manner of monsters were coming in and out of the entrance to the den. Seemingly every kind except for goblins. Hundreds of them too. Some of them would fight and tear at one another as they crossed paths or got in one another’s way, but they all looked to be entering, and then reemerging a short while after, carrying something between their claws or in their mouths.

From what One Swing could tell, it looked like some kind of dried meat.

“Is that… jerky they’re carrying out of there?”

“Of course not, dumbass. Why would there be jerky in some stinky goblin den?”

As the adventurers squabbled with one another about what they were seeing, Grapple nodded his head knowingly at the scene before him. “Oh. So that’s what’s going on...”

“Hm? You know what’s happening here, Mr. Krumble? Care to explain?”

“W-well, Shashlik’s the one leading this party. So he should be the one to explain it. Not me.”

“You clearly have no idea! I’m starting to doubt the fact that you are a veteran adventurer! Why did you even come along?! You’re not even carrying a weapon! And put on a shirt already, dammit!”

As Arrow started tugging at the man's moustache in frustration, Shashlik silenced them with a short click of his tongue.

“Tch. The goblins are already dead,” he said.

“... Huh? What do you mean?”

“That goblin attack on the town the other day was a last-ditch effort from whatever was left of their forces. The ones we encountered in the forest back there were just escapees, trying to find another hole to crawl into. The goblins are all dead, as well as whatever was leading them.”

“… But how? And how does that explain what we’re seeing down there?”

“It’s simple,” Shashlik spat from beneath his hood. “If you can’t work that out, then you should quit being an adventurer now. Obviously, something stronger than a pack of pathetic goblins showed up, wiped them all out, and left their rotting carcasses inside. Now every monster within miles has caught a whiff of dead meat and wants to grab a piece.”

“That would explain the smell…”

“Wait, so… If the goblins are gone, does that mean our job’s done and we can all get paid and go home, or...?”

"Pathetic!" Shashlik snapped, and quickly flicked one of his knives up threateningly at the throat of the man who had just spoken. "If you weaklings want to go home, then go home. But the job's not done until that den is cleaned out. If any one of you is okay with that monster-infested stink-pit living right next door to that shithole of a town, I suggest you quit being an adventurer right now."

“O-okay, sorry… My bad…”

As Shaslik flicked his knife back into its holster—

“Skreee!” The shriek of a kobold rang out into the morning sky, drawing the attention of all the other nearby monsters. As the small and scraggy rat-like lizard-creature hopped up and down on the spot, it pointed one of its dirty claws up in the direction of the ridge.

At once, the eyes of hundreds of vicious beasts were now focused on the hiding place of the adventurers, a cacophony of low and high-pitched shrieks and growls filling the air.

“Dammit, how did they know we were here?” An adventurer cursed, recoiling back at the sight of all the angry monsters.

"They must have caught wind of our scent." One Swing nodded, watching as all the monsters began to claw, scuttle, and stomp their way up the ridge. "It's the only possible explanation."

“…”

At One Swing’s words, every other adventurer on the ridge turned their eyes up into the sky.

Rising high above the treetops and into the deep blue beyond, a colossal metal beacon of violet light shone a bright gleam of purple across the entire area, glittering brightly beneath the morning sun. Trailing their eyes down its sharpened edge, they eventually found their eyes resting on the source of the issue at hand. The reason they had so clearly been detected…

“… What’s the matter?” One Swing asked, tilting his head in puzzlement as he suddenly found everybody staring at him for some reason.

In response, the angry shouts of adventurers echoed out across the forest, melding with those of the monsters quickly making their way up the ridge towards them.