“Are you all ready?”
“I am . ”
“Aye . ”
A short while had now pa.s.sed since we formed the party .
We had accepted a quest from the guild and were just about to leave the town .
The quest was to investigate the location of a B-Rank monster known as an Earth Dragon .
Not only that, but if we made reports of any other B-Rank and over monsters, we would receive an additional reward .
“Alright, let’s go then . Rodis will be in the front and I’ll be in the middle . Lisa can guard the rear . ”
“Okay!”
“…Understood . ”
Tina gave the order .
Apparently, she was the leader of this party .
Rodis was the highest in rank, but I suppose it was best that an Archer, who could see everything, gave out the orders .
Speaking of which…
“And what am I supposed to do?”
“While you’re a B-Rank Scout, you can’t fight as a Tamer, right? So you don’t have to join in . You should continue to search the area at a distance where you can remain safe . The speed of this mission depends on how much time it takes you to find the Earth Dragon . ”
“Yes, a quest isn’t worth taking if it goes on for too long . ”
I see .
If I wasn’t going to be useful in battle, I should focus on my role .
They had formed a party that allowed them to fight with just three people, so it was probably best that I didn’t interfere .
“By the way, what should I do when I find this Earth Dragon?”
“You should tell me about the location . Then I will write it down and the quest will be complete . ”
Tina said as she took out a small magic stone .
It was apparently a magic stone that recorded the location it was activated in .
We talked about it as we ran towards the forest that the quest had specified .
It was known as the Forest of Delight, and was located about 40 kilometers away from Kiria .
As it was estimated to take us about three days, we had to carry lots of heavy equipment .
Since I didn’t know if I could trust them, I hadn’t told them of my Tamer skills… When I knew that I could, I could use ‘Slime Storage’ to have the slimes carry everything .
I thought of this as I activated ‘Monster Mutual Understanding . ’
This was to talk to the Proud Wolf .
‘Are you alright over there?’
‘Yes! We’re prepared!’
This time I had the Proud Wolf and about 30 slimes move separately .
There were two reasons for this .
The first was to scout, which was the main objective of the quest .
The other was so that if any of my party members acted suspiciously, I would be able to ambush them from afar .
And so I had not told them about the Proud Wolf .
‘Good . Be careful that you are not seen while you search for monsters in that area . It would be great if you could find the Earth Dragon, but don’t do anything dangerous . …If it comes to a battle, I will deal with it with Magic Transfer . ’
‘Understood!’
Just as I finished giving the order to the Proud Wolf…the slime on my shoulder raised its voice .
‘Yuji . There are monsters!’
It seemed like they had found monsters already .
When I heard this, I activated Shared Senses and found out the location of the monsters . Then I told the other members .
“It’s about 2 kilometers straight ahead . There are five wolf-type monsters! They look pretty weak!”
“You can tell that there are monsters 2 kilometers ahead!? Isn’t that too far to see!?”
“Do you really have the distance right? I don’t think it’s possible for even B-Rank Scouts to know the location of something they can’t see?”
Tina and the others looked at me doubtfully .
Apparently, the scouting abilities of a B-Rank Scout were lower than that of slimes with upgraded tamer skills .
“No, I’m sure they are 2 kilometers ahead . Of course, we’re getting closer now . ”
I answered Tina while continuing to monitor the monsters through my slimes .
While I didn’t need to tell them how I did it, there was no need to hide the range of which I could detect monsters .
And then several minutes pa.s.sed .
“Woah, they really are here!”
We encountered the monsters in the exact place I had said we would .
“They don’t look like much . You can handle them, Rodis! Are you fine doing it alone?”
“Easily!”
Tina looked at the monsters and gave Rodis the order as she readied her bow .
As arrows were limited, she likely wouldn’t want to use them here, but just readied them as a precaution .
After receiving the order from Tina, Rodis charged towards the pack of monsters while swinging his sword .
He was clearly quite skilled with it and was able to kill all of them without ever appearing to be in danger . It all happened in a flash .
“Still, you were exactly right about the location…”
“Maybe Yuji’s scouting ability is top cla.s.s among B-Rank Scouts…”
Tina and the others muttered as we continued on our way .
This brought a question to my mind, and so I asked them .
“So do Rank Scouts have an even wider range for detecting things?”
“Well, if there were any Rank Scouts, they would probably be able to detect a wider area than you . …But, there aren’t any Rank Scouts . ”
“…There aren’t?”
“Not right now . Sometimes you hear of confident B-Rank Scouts taking the test, but I never heard of anyone pa.s.sing . …Actually, I did hear that one person pa.s.sed about 10 years ago . ”
I see .
So it was very rare to be an Rank Scout .
We talked about this as we continued our way through the Forest of Delight .