Who Says I'm Not a Proper Adventurer?

Lance felt as if something had been forcibly shoved into his head.

A flood of fragmented battle scenes flashed through his subconscious in a blur.

But the throbbing pain vanished in an instant, as if the sharp pang had been nothing but an illusion.

Before he could focus his mind to examine the changes to his panel, a hurried rustling came from the nearby bushes.

Cecilia came jogging out from her hiding spot.

The magical forest camouflage covering her body had already faded.

As she hurried over, her skirt hem and cloak were inevitably covered in dry leaves and thorny burrs, and there was even a dusty smear of mud across her fair cheek.

But right now, she couldn’t care less about her appearance.

When she was hiding earlier, seeing that huge Warhammer nearly graze Lance’s body as it slammed down, she felt like her heart was going to stop.

It was only when she rushed up to him and saw that, other than his clothes being spattered with green Goblin blood, Lance had no obvious wounds, that Cecilia finally breathed a sigh of relief.

The tension in her shoulders finally eased.

Lance glanced down at his sorry state, then raised his left hand. With a flicker of his will,

the Cleaning Skill enchanted on his ring activated instantly.

After cleaning himself up, he turned to look at the filthy yet deeply concerned Half-Elf maiden before him.

Lance found it a little amusing. He took a step forward and placed his large hand directly on Cecilia’s small head.

While he was at it, he cast a Cleaning Skill on her too.

Cecilia froze.

It was the first time in her life that a man other than her elders had so intimately tousled her hair.

The warmth from his palm carried an incredibly reassuring feeling.

It was as if all the panic and fear she had accumulated during the battle was completely smoothed away by that gentle touch.

The very air around them seemed to change.

The breeze blowing through the woods grew strangely quiet, and the rustling leaves seemed to stop swaying altogether.

’Is it because all those noisy Goblins are dead?’

The strange question surfaced in Cecilia’s dazed mind.

As the white light of the Cleaning Skill faded, her coarse cloth cloak was spotless once more, and she looked completely refreshed.

Standing amid the bloody camp, filled with severed limbs and chunks of viscera, the two of them looked completely out of place.

Lance had no time to dwell on the maiden’s subtle feelings.

He turned, walked over to the bushes, and pulled out the large gathering pack he had hidden earlier. He dropped it onto the blood-soaked ground with a THUD.

He pointed at the mangled corpses strewn across the ground and urged in a lighthearted tone.

"Time to get to work."

"We still need to gather the proof for the quest to turn in."

Cecilia, who had been lost in her own little romantic fantasy, froze for a moment.

The atmosphere shattered in an instant.

"Oh, oh! Right."

The maiden could only make a face, resigned to her fate. She crouched down, drew her Skinning Knife, and began cutting the ears off the Goblin corpses on the ground.

Meanwhile, Lance walked over to the massive corpse of the Big Goblin, dagger in hand.

He pried open the monster’s heavy jaw and patiently began to cut away the flesh from the gums, preparing to extract the two thick canine teeth intact.

These were the unique quest items for a Big Goblin.

A long time had passed by the time the two had finished packing up all the valuable materials from the camp and started heading back to Gray Rock Town the way they came.

Although the Goblin Camp was only in the middle section of Copper Creek Forest’s outer region on the map, the complex terrain made their return journey take even longer.

This long trek made Lance realize a serious problem.

If he wanted to take on higher-level quests deeper in the forest in the future, spending the night in Copper Creek Forest would be an unavoidable challenge for any Adventurer.

Lance opened his system panel as he walked, his eyes jumping directly to the Knowledge section.

[Wilderness Survival Level 1 (89/400)]

Since he had always been making day trips, the Skill Level for this skill had been increasing very slowly.

If he was serious about spending the night in the wild, he would have to find a way to level up this Knowledge Skill quickly.

Learning just by fumbling through it on his own out in the field was far too slow.

Looking at the progress bar, a guess suddenly formed in Lance’s mind.

’If combat Skills grant extremely powerful Specialties at certain levels, what about Knowledge Skills?’

’If I raised Wilderness Survival to Level 4, would I get some kind of special benefit too?’

He glanced at the balance in the top-right corner.

[Knowledge Experience: 260]

Unfortunately, that wasn’t nearly enough to even reach Level 2.

Lance shook his head, deciding not to think about it for now.

He focused his mind, turning his attention to the special enhancement the system had given him after he killed the Big Goblin.

’Let’s see what good stuff Biological Research gave me.’

[Weakness Insight (Mutated: Action Prediction)]

[By personally killing a mutated elite of the Goblin species, your research into the basic Goblin’s physiological structure and combat patterns has deepened. You can now predict the attack movements of individuals of this species 0.5 seconds in advance.]

The moment he finished reading the description, Lance’s eyes lit up.

’This ability is ridiculously powerful! In a life-or-death battle, a 0.5-second head start is huge. It basically means that against Goblins, as long as their Agility Attribute doesn’t surpass mine, it will be incredibly difficult for any of their attacks to cause me any real harm.’

’This is basically a specialized cheat just for fighting Goblins.’

With other types of Demons, encountering a mutated elite would be extremely difficult.

But Goblins were a disgusting race that evolved through sheer numbers. You could say variants were a dime a dozen; anything from a Big Goblin or a Shaman to even a Goblin Centurion could appear.

And as long as he killed these special variants, his Biological Research panel would continuously mutate and strengthen his research results.

Looking at this highly specific entry, Lance had a strange feeling.

’It’s like this system panel has a special grudge against the Goblin race.’

’Did you watch Goblin Slayer in your past life, too?’

Lance silently joked to the system.

’If so, then we’re kindred spirits.’

...

By the time the two of them finally emerged from the forest and returned to the Adventurer’s Guild, the streetlights on both sides of the road were already lit.

The main hall was a clamor of voices.

This was the Guild’s busiest time of day, with Adventurers who had just returned from the wilds everywhere, carrying large and small packs.

The smell of sweat mingled with the din of loud boasts about their exploits.

Lance scanned the room, his heavy gathering pack on his back.

He saw a long line snaking in front of the counter where Nia worked.