The First Duty

……What did this guy want to say?

I kept my hand hovering over the handle of the knife on my waist while meeting Castro’s piercing gaze. It seemed that even that attitude of mine was displeasing for him. He slightly raised a single eyebrow before speaking as though to spit out.

「People at the slum are humans who behave like a spoiled child due to the environment where 『there is nothing』 and lose their mettle to live a proper life. That’s why they can dirty their hands with crime as naturally as breathing and betray other people just from a small greed even when they are given work. How can you possibly believe that kind of human?」

「…………」

Seeing me not reacting and also not averting my gaze from him after he said that, Castro slightly clicked his tongue inside his mouth and turned his back on me.

「I’ll only give you that needle dagger and a work. Your workplace is over here.」

「……Understood.」

The thin knife that Castro threw……needle dagger? I pulled it out from the ground and then I followed behind him.

Among the slum residents, there were also those like the siblings Gil and Shuri who had no parents and had no other choice but to live there. Similarly there were also hopeless adults living there like the drunkard who ripped off their money.

An aspect of the slum was as a receptacle for people who couldn’t live normally. You couldn’t understand the truth if you only looked from one side, you had to look at it from many angles. I didn’t know what happened to him in his past, but I was just a street urchin who didn’t even live in the slum, so it was bothersome for me if he expected some kind of reaction.

Castro led me to inside a forest that was located to the west direction from the back of the castle. As I wondered what I was going to do in this kind of place, Castro pointed toward even deeper into the forest.

「The area ahead from here is a woodland that doesn’t belong to any noble. There is the recuperation resort here so there are forest guards who will periodically patrol this area, but in a very rare occasion, there will be animals like stray wolf and the like entering here. Your work is to watch over this place. Viro has boasted so much like that, so you can at least chase away a wolf right?」

The content of the duty was very crude. Even a child could do a work like watching over a place, but I imagined that a normal child would run away within several days if they were told to do something like that.

「……The time period?」

「One month at the very least. There should be foods at the guard cabin inside, use them as you please.」

「……Roger.」

Castro really told me just that before leaving me inside the forest and returned back to the mansion. It seemed he didn’t have the intention to give a proper work to 『a slum kid that couldn’t be trusted』.

Guessing from what Viro and he told me, the intention of the actual client was to hire a child because the protection target was also a child, so a guardian with the same point of view with them was necessary. A selfish child might be unable to understand the danger that might befell them and sneaked away from the adults’ supervision to run away. The client seemed to anticipate that kind of situation, but apparently Castro was denying that. No, that wasn’t it. What he was denying was using 『slum children』.

Well fine. For me this kind of work made me more at ease rather than getting involved with noble. For now I tried heading to the direction where Castro said the so called guard cabin was at. There I found a half rotting shed that was a cabin in name only.

「……keho」

When I opened the rotten door that couldn’t fulfill its purpose anymore, the inside was covered in dust with empty wine bottles carelessly scattered around. The sign showed that it hadn’t been used for many years. Most likely there was a proposed budget under the pretense of storing reserve foods and so on for the use of the guards patrolling this area at night, but perhaps that budget was actually embezzled. Naturally there was no way this place had any proper food remaining. Even if there was, at most it would be moldy dried meat that had been gnawed by insects. Such thing wouldn’t be edible at all.

「……No other way.」

I put down the baggage on my back and checked what I had on hand.

My weapon was the black knife and a steel knife for reserve. I had six knives for throwing, and one skewer. Other than them there was only the weighted cord made from my hair, and the slingshot that I previously made. There was also that needle guard, but I didn’t really know how to use it. It had thickness but without blade at its sides, so perhaps it was a weapon specialized for thrusting.

The food that I had in hands were a bit of dried meat, one black bread, small amount of nuts in a pouch, and a bit of sugar and salt.

Other than them, there was the small wild grasses book that woman stole from her teacher’s place and two healing potions, but I didn’t think that there would be any use of them.

「……Water.」

For now I washed my dusty hands and face with daily life magic and wet my throat, then I lifted up my baggage again.

「First is securing a base and food I guess……」

.

This cabin wasn’t suitable as a base. Its defensive power was nonexistent, and its location was highly visible. Furthermore it was full of dust.

After that I looked around the area and confirmed that there was no other watering place than the lake, then I decided a tree that was around fifty meter away from the cabin to be my temporary base. I used martial art skill to climb the tree and hid my baggage there before strolling around the forest. I found what I was looking for and pulled out my knife from my waist.

「──Thrust──!」

When I unleashed the monosyllabic non-elemental magic, a Battle Skill of short sword, the young tree with height nearly three meters fell with cracking sound.

I tried using the Battle Skill also for training. It consumed around 10 MP. It seemed few but, it wasn’t something that could be used that many times when you were using it while using body strengthening too. It looked like it would be better to keep my usage of it to the maximum of two times until my magic power increased more. Even so I cut around three young trees, cleared their branches, and brought them back. I tied up the young trees that I had turned into poles with diameter around five cm using vines and pulled them up above the tree. After I laid the three wooden poles across the tree’s braches and tied them up with vines, a simple sleeping place was completed.

It would be a bit more comfortable if I increased the poles more later on. Just in case I tied the branches that I lopped off and hid my sleeping place. Then I smoked the spot with bug repellent grass while having a meal of black bread and water. After that I started looking for food.

This area had a lot of large trees. I didn’t see many shrubberies of the blackberries, but in exchange I found nuts with black shell and deep purple fruits growing from vines.

I also tried throwing my knife at the green snakes that I sometimes saw for practicing my throwing, but I who hadn’t obtained throwing skill couldn’t hit a small target.

Time passed like that and night came without Castro even coming to check my situation. Far from that, I didn’t even see any soldier patrolling. I returned to my base through the dark forest using my night vision and stealth. I wiped my body with a wet cloth before having meal on the tree. I more or less was assigned a duty to watch the area, so I thought it wouldn’t be good to lit fire at night. I only had nuts and fruits as my dinner and took a breather. Sleep immediately came to me, perhaps because the fatigue from my trip had caught up to me.

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The next morning, I woke up due to the slightly strange quality of the air before the morning sun rose.

I fundamentally never slept deeply. I couldn’t say that I had a proper rest, even so because around here there was no 『other human』 which was the biggest danger for me, I was able to wake up refreshed. Even after the sun rose, there wasn’t any sign of anybody coming here, much less a wolf. In the first place it was strange that a child was ordered to watch an area alone without anybody else to take turn watching, even so if I actually allowed a wolf to escape my watch, would Viro’s evaluation drop because he was the one introducing me to this work?

At the morning I also only had nuts and fruits as breakfast before looking around inside the forest. I did that for patrolling the area, but mostly it was for training, because as someone who was still only level 1, everything could be a training. Right now was the time for me to increase the skill that I could use. If I was allowed to be greedy, I wanted to make my skill to reach level 2 regardless of what skill it was, but perhaps that would be impossible.

It was rare for ordinary commoner to become level 2 before they reached twenty years old. Most likely the cause of that was because physically it was somewhat impossible for them rather than because of the matter of their skill proficiency. Currently the rapid increase of my magic power was making me grow to a degree that was more than my actual age, even so physically I was still nothing more than a child below ten years old. Even that growth was returning to normal perhaps because my magic power hadn’t grown drastically anymore. In that case should I prioritize training to increase my magic power?

That day I was able to hit a rabbit with my throwing knife. I couldn’t use fire at night, so I grilled the rabbit inside the forest while the day was still bright. I noticed it once more but, a knife that was too sharp wasn’t suited for skinning.

I picked a slightly strange wild grass on my way back. If my memory was right, this wild grass should become cardiotonic drug if it was mixed with alcohol. However, in great amount it could also become poison that caused heart attack. Could I use it for something? Let’s also think about using poison soon.

I returned to my base above the tree slightly early. I bit the remaining grilled rabbit meat while starting to ponder about darkness sorcery.

I still hadn’t learned darkness sorcery. Perhaps it was because I was still unable to have a clear image of “darkness” rather than a matter of incantation or its meaning.

Light had clear energy just like sun. But darkness was simply a “shadow” where light didn’t shine. There was nothing existing there. That was why I thought that the actual darkness and magic particle of darkness element was something different.

Even so spirit of darkness could be summoned from inside the dark and magic particle of darkness could become darkness element. ……Perhaps, darkness element was a term that referred to magic particle itself that sprang forth from darkness.

Shadow wasn’t created because there was light, perhaps darkness element itself was a physical energy that blocked light? In that case……I might be able to treat darkness as particles and enveloped thought──sound and image with them and sent them out. No, maybe projecting darkness particles themselves was how 『illusion』 worked.

Light particles were pure energy, so it was possible to convert them into life force. And then darkness element didn’t have shape like the other elements. The inside of Viro’s expanded bag was pitch black and nothing could be seen. Exactly because darkness didn’t have any shape that depending on one’s imagination, it was possible to increase the capacity of the bag. But, perhaps……there wasn’t even any need to be fixated with shape like a bag for expanding space?

「…………」

At that time, it felt like the “color” of magic particle at the corner of my sight moved. My limit was thirty meter if I wanted to perceive the colors as scenery with clear shape, but if it was just looking at the simple movement of the magic particle, I could see within double that range.

It wasn’t a wind’s movement. Was there really a wolf showing up here? Or was there finally soldier appearing here to patrol?

「……No.」

The moving objects were five, no six. They were gradually coming this way. By focusing my mind, their shape was gradually getting clearer.

「……Goblin? But……」

There was just one among them with bigger size. Goblin was a low ranked monster with body the size of a kid. Even so they had combat strength around 40 that rivaled the average adult. Even I could defeat a goblin. ……But what was that one?

When I used appraisal to that thing without regretting the amount of magic power that it consumed, the true identity of that thing surfaced from the “knowledge”.

.

▼ ?? Goblin

【Magic Power : 66/68】【Stamina : 332/340】

【Overall Combat Strength : 101 (With Body Strengthening : 116)】

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「……Hobgoblin?」

Hobgoblin was a higher class of goblin. It was a rank 2 monster. Was it a stray monster? I didn’t know why it was in this kind of place, but it was too much for me. However it was troublesome. The hobgoblin and goblins were slowly approaching my tree looking for prey.

The goblins had approached until less than five meters below me. I was waiting for them to pass with a held breath, then I noticed a small light walking toward the guard cabin. A soldier……no? This silhouette was a maid? Just alone? A small girl carrying a small lantern and a small box was approaching in the darkness with unsteady footstep. If I called out to her from here, both of us would get found out. But if I stayed quiet, it was very likely that the girl would get discovered by the goblins.

「…………」

It couldn’t be helped……. I sighed in my heart and quietly suppressed my emotion to the bottom of my heart.

I pulled out the needle dagger that had high penetration power instead of the black knife. I matched my movement with the flow of magic particles to kick the branch soundlessly and descended right above the hobgoblin while firmly holding the knife with both hands.

*Gakin-!!*

『GUGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!?』

The dagger couldn’t penetrate its skull. It slid off and gouged the monster’s face before stabbing the bottom of its neck. The hobgoblin screamed. Blood spurted up and dyed me dark red.

For now die.