A few days slipped by.
In that time, Gauss led the villagers on several more goblin-clearing runs nearby. With each fight—and the focused feedback that followed—their teamwork and killing skills sharpened fast.
Gauss’s Total Monster Kills count quietly ticked up to 5,631—nea...
When the fight ended, everyone collapsed onto the gore-slick ground, gulping air, not caring how they looked.
More than twenty kobolds lay dead.
Gauss had stepped in at the end. The opening phase went smoothly: the villagers used numbers to crush the lookouts. But when more kobolds ...
Day three in Goat Village.
No one in town had priestly aptitude, so Therandur took over the “melee class,” leaving Gauss free to focus on his little pupil.
Rhein was gifted. In the world of professionals, there’s no such thing as strict egalitarianism—Gauss owed her extra ca...
Goat Village sat beside a clear stream called Maple Brook—a sizable place with around a hundred households. Most folks farmed the rich soil along the water and raised a hardy, wool-bearing breed of mountain goat.
Gauss reviewed the village intel while urging his chocobo along the country...
In a small courtyard, on the open ground—
Gauss could hardly contain himself.
Level 3 spell [Fly] Lv1 (1/10)
“You really have it down?” Alia asked again, just to be sure.
“Want to try it first?” Gauss looked at her.
“Uh… better not. I’m afraid of...
If you closed your eyes, you could almost forget a person was sitting there at all—it felt like a sword, impossibly sharp, resting on the floor.
Alia scratched her head. She didn’t understand Gauss’s current state, but seeing he was unharmed, she fully relaxed.
Vmm.
Vmm...
Rachel saw what was happening and immediately waved everyone out, easing the door shut to keep anyone from barging in.
She knew Gauss was in a rare, deep state of insight—the critical moment. In fact, the reason she’d carved time out of a packed day to coach him was to help him step on...
The pressure was intense.
Sweat beaded and ran down Gauss’s forehead. The bandages wrapped around his limbs looked light, but weighed a shocking amount—because small black stones etched with simple runes were tied into them; activate the runes, and the weight could be dialed up at will...
The clamor of the docks faded behind them.
With heavy purses from selling their loot, Gauss’s party found an inn in the upper harbor district and checked in. Captain Fern escorted them all the way to the door to say goodbye, thanked them again in earnest, and even recommended himself—i...
A man in his late thirties or early forties walked straight toward Gauss, wearing a well-cut light cuirass with the Great Serpent Company’s crest on his chest.
His steps were steady, his presence restrained—clearly no lightweight.
Gauss and the others had been about to turn away...
Night deepened.
A chill rode the sea breeze across the island. A big bonfire crackled on the beach, pushing back the dark and the cold. Repairs on the Seagull were still underway; the tapping of hammers was drowned beneath the waves smashing the reefs.
Gauss’s party and the sailor...
The instinctive, blood-deep terror in the goblins’ veins left most of them stiff and clumsy. Around Gauss it was as if an invisible fear field targeted at goblins was humming. Only a handful of elite goblins could barely keep their composure under that pressure.
His arrival flipped the b...
Consciousness lurched awake amid a violent jolt.
Gauss opened his eyes and took in the faint light from outside. His blurred vision cleared, and what he saw glowed with a dim, phosphorescent green.
What had woken him was…
He looked at the “creature” in front of him.
...
“Then that’s settled. We’ll sell it once we’re ashore.”
Gauss nodded—no objections. He’d known from the start that monster spoils get split; he wasn’t stingy about it. The crew hadn’t done much fighting, true, but without them his party couldn’t have stayed at sea this ...
Beneath the deep blue surface, faint shapes glide in the water.
“Monster attack—everyone on guard!”
Fern, at Gauss’s side, isn’t nearly as calm. Plenty of monster strikes that are nothing to a physical outlier like Gauss could punch a weapon through an ordinary sailor’s ...
“I see a pretty decent job,” Gauss said.
“I see it too—and I bet it’s the same one you saw,” Alia snickered.
Serandur only shook his head. He didn’t speak, but he’d guessed it as well.
“The Shore-Walker Goblins at the Tidal Caverns,” Alia cut in before Gau...
“Great.”
Adèle watched the pure white light bloom along the rapier in Gauss’s hand and nodded with open approval.
“I expected as much, but I’m still surprised you mastered this sword art so quickly.”
Her feelings were a swirl. The past few days teaching Gauss had...
“Vives… the Whitewave family…”
Gauss searched his memory and quickly placed where he’d heard the name: on the road from Grayrock to Lincrown, that talkative cavalry captain had mentioned local powers in passing—and the Vives, a.k.a. the Whitewave family, were a viscount house w...
While Adèle was thinking it through for a split second, Gauss drove off his back foot. With a flicker, he vanished from where he’d stood. In the next heartbeat, he was already in front of her.
“Fast!”
Adèle was surprised.
Boom!
Gauss had switched to serious mod...
Night fell, but the seaside city of Sena didn’t sleep.
If anything, it woke into a different kind of life as the lamps came on.
Windproof oil lamps spilled warm haloes along the streets; the slow sea breeze carried tavern chatter and the smell of fish on the grill. Sailors, arms o...
Gauss wasn’t the only one torn; the others were quietly weighing their options too.
Picking spells is neither a trivial choice nor a life-or-death one—but it matters. First, you may never again see such a complete list. Plenty of spells can’t be bought on demand even if you have the ...
The white tower before them had a strong maritime flair—like a lighthouse on the shore.
It stood on a nearby rise; from the top, the view must have been excellent.
With people coming and going at the entrance, Gauss and the others paused a moment, then went in.
Inside, the ...
The warmth at Lawrence Camp far exceeded Gauss’s expectations—especially the laborers, who couldn’t stop praising and thanking the team—enough to make Gauss and the others a bit embarrassed.
From their point of view, they’d only done what the commission required.
They retu...
…
“Total monsters slain: 4450”
“4460”
“4475”
…
The numbers flickered madly before Gauss’s eyes.
He tirelessly dropped burning charges down through the crevice.
Alia, Serandur, Shadow, the clay constructs, the sprites—everyone to...
The goblin chieftain Grak flung the tent flap aside and charged out.
Behind him, the old shaman—leaning on his staff—shuffled after with deceptive speed.
Outside, the camp was utter chaos. Thick black smoke roiled up with dust; the open ground was splashed with glaring blood and...
“But where are we supposed to get a ballista?” Alia voiced the question on everyone’s mind.
Out here in the wilds, there wasn’t even a decent workshop, let alone a ballista. And even if there were one, building a ballista takes time; it’s not something you whip up overnight.
<...
The raucous battlefield went dead quiet in an instant, as if someone had hit mute.
Only the burning turf not far away and the blood-stink hanging in the air proved the fierce fight had really happened.
Gauss walked over to Shadow and the other two.
Aside from Shadow, Alia and...
Gauss moved.
He burst into a sprint—fast. Power flooded his legs like it couldn’t run out; with a light push, his body shot forward.
So light!
Even he was surprised. It felt as if gravity had stopped working on him.
Maybe his intent was too obvious, because several...
No one could answer the question gnawing at Gauss.
What he had to deal with right now was a goblin host of unknown strength and unknown size, led in the dark by something marshaling a swarm of vassals to encircle them.
If they were all common goblins, then short of a corps-sized hor...
“Huh?”
Sprite Thistle scratched her head, a puzzled look on her face.
“That’s strange. I’m sure it was right here.”
As if afraid Gauss would think she’d lied, she led her kin around most of the camp’s perimeter, hunting for any trace of goblins.
But no ...