"...Hey, you don't get my hopes up just to pull something like this, do you?"
Vihera muttered in exasperation, having swung her fist the moment a creature burst from the bushes, effortlessly crushing its skull and killing it.
The reason for her annoyance was that the thing now staining the fresh snow with blood, brains, bone, flesh, and bodily fluids from its shattered head was a Goblin.
A monster leaping from the bushes in the middle of a winter forest had led Vihera to expect something powerful, but if it was just a Goblin with no worth fighting, her lust for combat was left unfulfilled.
The other Goblins that had burst from the bushes alongside it—ones that happened to escape Vihera's initial strike—were already turning to flee even as they surrounded Rei and the others.
Goblins typically possessed the courage... or rather, the reckless bravado, to attack without fleeing even against an opponent like Set.
But at the same time, they also had the cowardice to immediately run away if they understood their opponent was strong.
The fact that these Goblins hadn't fled yet was probably because the one Vihera killed had been struck the moment they encountered each other. They thought it was a fluke.
Anyone with a discerning eye—or rather, anyone with a certain level of skill—would immediately realize she had overpowered it with sheer strength, but the opponents were Goblins with barely any judgment to speak of.
Because of that, even now they raised cries of "Kyakya, Gyogyo," wielding clubs made from broken tree branches to keep Vihera at bay.
If they pointed the broken end of the branch at their opponent, wouldn't it be more effective as a weapon since it'd be sharper?
Casually thinking this, Rei shifted the Twilight Spear to his left hand and slipped his right into his Dragon Robe.
He then touched the Eye of Nebula at his waist, channeled magical power into it, and produced an arrowhead made of pure mana.
Confirming the feel of the arrowhead in his hand...
"Ha!"
With the hand he pulled from the Dragon Robe, he swiftly flicked the arrowhead.
The released arrowhead cut through the air in a straight line toward a Goblin, striking it square in the face.
The arrowhead slashed its face open, destroyed its eyes, and pierced its throat...
"Gyaguaaagya!"
"Gyogyagya!"
Along with those screams, it writhed on the ground.
For the Goblins, they probably couldn't even comprehend what kind of attack they had just suffered.
Goblins, whose physical abilities were never particularly high to begin with, couldn't even track Rei's arrowhead with their eyes.
And without even realizing what had attacked them... they easily lost their lives.
"For something that came out acting so dramatic, that was disappointingly quick, huh?"
Looking at the Goblins collapsed on the ground, Vihera muttered in exasperation, looking thoroughly bored.
Vihera enjoyed fighting, but she didn't enjoy fighting opponents who were clearly weak.
For someone like Vihera, Goblins—near the bottom of the monster hierarchy—were plainly unfit to be her opponents.
"Well, you can say that, but Goblins are among the most numerous of monsters, so you'll end up fighting them a lot regardless."
"...I know that, but it's still a fact that it's not interesting."
At Rei's mediating words, Vihera muttered in displeasure.
To her, Marina offered a calming smile and spoke up.
"Still, from the Guild's perspective, we'd be happier if you killed as many Goblins as possible, you know? You understand that their reproductive rate is a threat, right? If you find one, there are thirty... no, fifty of them."
Marina let out a sigh.
She would soon hand over the Guild Master position to Worker, but she was still the Guild Master for now.
And when thinking as a Guild Master, Goblins were an extremely troublesome opponent.
As the earlier fight had shown, a single Goblin was very weak on its own. This time they had faced opponents like Rei and his party, but even someone who wasn't an adventurer could take down one or two Goblins without much difficulty, as long as they had some confidence in their skills.
As if to compensate for that weakness, their reproductive rate was high, which only further increased how troublesome Goblins were.
If they would only refrain from attacking after gauging an opponent's strength, things would be somewhat easier, but in reality, they had a temperament of attacking first and asking questions never, as evidenced by the way they had attacked Rei's party despite Set being present.
Since the Guild also purchased their Magic Stones and Subjugation Proof Parts cheaply, Goblins were, quite frankly, a nuisance for the Guild.
Especially in Gilm's case, it was situated on the frontier and had many skilled adventurers, but as a result, there were also many who didn't bother dealing with Goblins.
Moreover, when there were plenty of other monsters that could earn them money... it was only natural that not many would want to bother with Goblins.
There were always Goblin subjugation requests available, but most of the time, adventurers would accept other requests and then kill any Goblins they encountered along the way as a bonus.
If these were subjugation requests for High-ranking Species or Rare Species of Goblins, a few more people might take them.
Those who would actively accept Goblin subjugation requests were mostly eccentrics who assumed Goblin subjugation was what being an adventurer was all about, much like Rei when he had first arrived in Gilm, or those who had only just become adventurers in the city.
"Setting aside the Magic Stones, wouldn't it be better to raise the amount paid for Subjugation Proof Parts a bit?"
It was an idea Rei had somewhat casually come up with, but the response he got was a slightly exasperated look from Marina.
"Do you think there's a Guild that hasn't thought of that?"
"...In other words, it didn't work out?"
"Exactly. The amount paid for a Subjugation Proof Part is three Copper Coins. But even if you raised that to four or five Copper Coins, it would have almost no effect. If you absolutely had to, you could make it one Silver Coin, but... you understand what would happen then, right?"
"They'd only hunt Goblins, huh."
"Right. Even if they hunted a stronger monster, they'd get less money than for a Goblin, so naturally they'd target only Goblins, wouldn't they? If that happened, we'd need to raise the amount paid for other monsters' Subjugation Proof Parts too, and then Goblins would be ignored again..."
"Ah... I see."
Rei nodded in understanding, but Marina continued.
"Besides, I don't want to sound harsh, but the Guild doesn't have an inexhaustible budget, you know."
"...Yeah, sorry for asking for something unreasonable."
Sensing that the conversation was about to veer into raw financial details, Rei honestly lowered his head.
The Guild had various sources of income.
The sale of materials and Magic Stones purchased from adventurers, donations from large merchant guilds and nobles, the revenue from the tavern attached to the Guild—there were many other sources of income, but there was no doubt that the main source was the mediation fee collected when requests were accepted.
Raising the purchase price for Subjugation Proof Parts meant they would have to scrape together that money from somewhere... and there was simply no way they could afford to pay Silver Coins for Goblin Subjugation Proof Parts.
They obviously couldn't raise request fees just to increase the payout for Goblin parts, either.
Thinking about it that way, Rei could understand that as a Guild Master, Marina had to make all sorts of difficult decisions.
It would be a different story if, like with the Unbris incident before, a horde of Goblins appeared and went on a rampage.
"Alright, alright, more importantly, let's just keep moving. There might be monsters that only appear in winter."
At Vihera's words, Rei remembered why they were out here in the first place and reached out to collect the Goblin corpses into his Misty Ring.
"Rei, you're collecting those too?"
Seeing Rei collect the nearly useless Goblin corpses, Vihera gave him a puzzled look.
At her reaction, Rei nodded without hesitation.
"Yeah. If we leave the corpses here, there's a chance they could become Undead... and besides, it's better to have Goblin meat on hand."
"Come to think of it, you were looking for a way to make Goblin meat tasty to eat, or something like that, right?"
To Vihera, who asked while recalling what she had heard from Rei before, Rei nodded again.
"That's right. If it works out, food conditions should improve significantly. Well, those who would benefit the most would be people who just became adventurers or those living in the slums, though."
"If you could pull that off, I'd honestly think it was amazing, but... is it going well?"
Probably impossible.
Sensing that sentiment from Vihera as she asked, Rei let out a small sigh and shook his head.
"Not at all. For one thing, the person who was mainly continuing this research is apparently busy with various things right now and can't focus on it. So for various reasons, the research hasn't progressed."
"I figured. If Goblin meat could be made tasty to eat that easily, it would be an incredible invention, after all. Well, whatever. Let's go."
Nodding at those words, Rei and the others started walking through the forest again.
They continued walking through the snow for about ten minutes, but despite encountering monsters back-to-back with the Snow Salamander and the Goblins, this time they didn't run into any other monsters.
Even so, the fact that the tension wasn't very high was probably because so many of them had high scouting abilities.
Set with his sharp senses; Rei, whose senses were somewhat lower than Set's but still high; the thief Byune; Vihera, whose combat instincts were highly developed because she loved fighting; and Marina, who had high detection abilities through Spirit Magic.
Everyone in the party had detection abilities above a certain level. For an ordinary party, there would probably be many who would feel envy to the point of jealousy.
Though not as much as a Young Mage, the number of thieves who excelled at detecting enemies was not that large.
Moreover, there were several people here with detection abilities surpassing even that of a thief.
Of course, as with the Goblins earlier, if an enemy was lying in ambush, it was somewhat harder to spot.
"Hmm... I want to fight a stronger enemy, though. A Cyclops would've been nice."
Perhaps remembering a previous battle, Vihera's eyes grew moist with lust and she licked her lips with her red tongue.
That sight would have been extremely provocative to any man who saw it, but fortunately or unfortunately, Rei hadn't been looking.
The sight of snow piled on the trees growing around them was not something Rei found particularly interesting.
Even so, thinking there might be other monsters about, he couldn't just ignore it entirely...
"Ah, Rei. Hey, look, over there."
Vihera, who had completely erased the indecent atmosphere from seconds ago, called out to Rei while looking at a tree some distance away.
For a moment, Rei wondered if it was a monster, but the voice calling his name didn't have anything resembling tension in it.
Of course, Vihera had a predisposition for enjoying combat, so if an opponent she should fight appeared, it wouldn't be strange for feelings of joy to be mixed in.
If anything, it was understandable.
Harboring such thoughts, Rei followed Vihera's gaze and spotted a squirrel with a green and red mottled pattern on the snow, a creature that looked assertive at a glance.
"...An animal? No, a monster?"
"Ju!"
Perhaps sensing danger from Rei's murmur, the squirrel stuffed the tree bark it had been holding into its mouth, leapt from the branch, and hid itself.
"That's an animal. It might have looked like a monster from its appearance, though."
"That's a pretty flashy squirrel."
At Rei's dumbfounded murmur, Marina, who had been listening from behind, let out a small laugh.
"Mn."
Byune, leading the way at the front, let out a short sound as if to caution them about their exchange.
For Byune, who was currently making full use of her abilities as a thief, the chatter behind her was probably not very welcome.
Noticing this, Vihera lowered her voice, and Rei likewise fell silent.
Keeping their gazes directed toward the direction the flashy squirrel had gone, they continued walking.
That was a pretty flashy squirrel. I wouldn't have been surprised if something like that had turned into a monster. Well, it didn't show any hostility toward us, so it's probably not a problem.
Perhaps because it was such a flashy squirrel, its appearance left a strong impression in Rei's mind.
And so, as if led by Byune, Rei and his party continued through the forest.
There were times when sounds rang out, but what appeared was mostly animals.
And time passed...
"Rei, it's about time. We should head back."
At Marina's words, Rei turned his gaze upward.
What was there was the sun, beginning to dip.
Since it was winter, the sun set early this time of year.
As Marina said, if they pushed any further, the sun would set before anything regarding monster subjugation could happen.
If it were just Rei, Vihera, and Byune, they could have gone ahead and camped out using Rei's Magic Tent, but with Marina, the Guild Master, present, they couldn't go that far.
Even the fact that she was here with Rei and the others now was the result of considerable effort in managing her schedule.
"...Got it. Let's head back."
Making that decision, Rei concluded today's exploration then and there.