The Hero Party Plus One Porter’s Adventure
Even after that night with Almeria, requests for the Hero Party to go subjugating monsters kept coming... and I still had to do the porter work.
Still... it was hard to face Almeria now.
“Ah!”
I carelessly turned a corner and bumped into a pink-haired girl.
Yep. Almeria, the girl things are most awkward with right now.
If this were Japan, this is where a romance story would begin... but with an ex-fiancée after everything’s already over... man, what a joke.
By the way, Julius firmly believes the girl should be running with toast in her mouth. Adds twenty percent more cuteness.
While I was thinking about something completely pointless…
“Julius... why did you leave the inn? You could’ve told me.”
“Well... call it a clean break, I guess. I haven’t really been useful anyway. A normal inn is more than enough for me.”
Truth is, I just don’t want to watch you people flirting.
“So you’ve finally realized it. That you have no value!”
His Highness the Crown Prince was in top form with the sarcasm today too. Winning by a landslide.
“Yeah, well. Your Highness, just me staying at a normal inn is fine, right?”
“Obviously. Use the money you save to make our meals more extravagant, useless one.”
“As you command, Your Highness. Almeria, if His Highness says so, then it’s fine, right? Well then...”
I started walking without waiting for an answer.
Even Narcissus Highness can be useful once in a while.
Whew... I want to act normal, but this feels like the day after getting rejected by a girl in class at school, you still have to see each other no matter what. Rough stuff.
Well, I’ll just put up with it while we’re with the Hero Party.
Today’s mission was exterminating a goblin nest.
Goblin reproduction was notorious, they used females of other races as hosts.
They’d definitely rank high among the monsters female adventurers wanted to avoid.
This request involved a goblin settlement that had grown to village scale, around two hundred of them.
The larger the scale, the stronger the command-type individuals became... at this size, there’d probably be upper variants like Goblin Knights and Goblin Magicians.
Maybe even something higher...?
---
[Almeria’s POV]
That mana overflowing the other night... it had definitely been Julius’s. But normally, I couldn’t sense anything from him at all.
And when we were little, he’d been great at magic. He could use it even before receiving a class, and he used to teach me too...
So why all of a sudden? The more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed.
While I was lost in thought…
“Probably goblin scouts. Coming from the left. Three of them,” came Julius’s report.
Come to think of it, Julius always noticed enemy contact first, didn’t he?
As I thought that, Julius suddenly stepped backward and threw a stone at a goblin trying to attack from behind, startling it and buying time...
The knights and adventurers immediately pinned it down, and the heroes delivered the finishing blows.
“Julius is controlling the flow of battle after all? But... something feels off...”
We arrived at the goblin settlement. There were lots of houses, just as reported... huh?
Women had been gathered in the center of the goblin village... and were being assaulted? Had they been taken from nearby villages?
The Hero Party lost themselves at the sight and charged straight at the goblins.
A little later, the knights and adventurers followed.
My role was healer, so I had to secure safety first and prepare to treat the wounded.
“Come to think of it, where’s Julius?”
When I looked around, he was throwing something into the goblins’ houses, then moving to the next one... then the next...
Multiple goblins stumbled out of the houses he’d thrown things into, sneezing and coughing. Their faces were covered in tears and snot... some kind of item?
“He’s scattering something? Amazing. He’s neutralizing most of the goblins.”
Thanks to Julius’s quick thinking, the Hero Party wasn’t receiving reinforcements, and the goblin numbers kept dropping.
And Julius carried wounded people back to me, or used potions for first aid...
Whenever things got dangerous, he was there… throwing stones, blocking with a shield, stepping in wherever things turned critical.
“This really is strange. His technique is amazing, but his physical ability and mana are low? Unnaturally low...”
“GUOOOOOOH!”
A tremendous roar sounded, and from the largest house in the center emerged a goblin far larger than the others...
A Goblin General, with three Goblin Knights, two Goblin Magicians, and eight Hobgoblins as escorts. That was probably this settlement’s strongest force.
As expected of a goblin bearing the title of general, it moved with disciplined coordination.
Most of the surrounding goblins had already been suppressed.
The captured women were being rescued by the adventurers and retreating...
The Goblin General raised its greatsword and roared, “GUOOO!!” Then the surrounding Hobgoblins charged the Knights Order.
Much larger and more muscular than normal goblins, they rushed forward at terrifying speed.
The Knights Order was blown back, but the Hobgoblins had stepped on caltrops scattered at their feet before they knew it, and howled in pain.
“It was Julius, after all. Is he predicting enemy movements and setting traps?”
Fireballs came flying from the Goblin Magicians, but Julius threw what looked like a jar. The fireballs struck it, and the water inside extinguished them.
Meanwhile, the Hobgoblins whose advance had been halted by the caltrops were slain by the Hero Party and the Knights Order...
“GUOOO!!”
Another roar from the General, and the Goblin Knights charged.
The Goblin Magicians cast spells to support them, and in the middle of that fierce back-and-forth, Julius suddenly shouted:
“Ahhh! Almeria’s completely naked!!”
Everyone turned toward me, the rearmost position. (Knights and adventurers too.)
At that exact moment, something flashed, and every goblin clutched its eyes and writhed.
“Now! Everyone attack...!”
The goblin army had been hit by a blinding attack. They couldn’t see now.
At Julius’s shout, everyone snapped back to themselves, and with a full assault from all sides, the Hero and Crown Prince together finally slew the Goblin General...
“Why am I the one who was naked... was it to make everyone turn away so they’d be protected from the flash too...?”
But were they all really that eager to look at me? Still... Julius really is hiding his strength? No... maybe it’s more like he can’t use it...”
Almeria had begun to realize something, but…
“A goblin of all things dares stand before me? Insolent creature!”
With the Goblin General already dead, the Crown Prince swaggered around kicking the corpse.
As Almeria felt disillusioned by how small-minded His Highness truly was, she also felt unease about the path she herself had chosen...
What do you think about this chapter?
