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The Rising of Tanaka – 8 part 1

Pasifista

Bandits

「Huoacha!」

Charging forward, Tanaka swiftly swung his short sword while letting out such a strange cry. A huge one-meter-long caterpillar let out a strange cry before ceasing to move.

「Worry not. I used the back of my sword….」

Declared Tanaka to the dead giant caterpillar as he sheathed his double edged short sword. There were so many things to retort about. However, he said those lines simply because he felt that the mood was calling for them, nothing too deep about it. An action very typical of Tanaka.

In an accustomed movement, Tanaka stored the carcass of the giant caterpillar into the item box. He then continued to push through the forest in search of his next prey.

It had already been about a month since Tanaka returned to Hazama town upon the completion of his magic training. In the meantime, he had been diligently carrying out E-ranked subjugation requests one after another.

「Hmm, that one over there seems to be a horned rabbit. Isn’t it a relative of my followers, the black horned rabbits? But well, I guess it’d be inappropriate of me to lay a hand on their relatives, huh. Ufufufu, you’d do well to thank the black horned rabbits!」

Murmured Tanaka, as he walked away from the horned rabbit, and wandered through the forest in search of another prey. Lately, Tanaka had been steadily hunting monsters other than the horned rabbit. This was an action that was born out of a complete misunderstanding. To the horned rabbits, though, it could be said to be a fortunate event, as they were no longer the target of Tanaka’s slaughter.

After that, Tanaka systematically defeated any monsters he encountered one after another, and stored them all into his item box. That was right, Tanaka’s manner of hunting was quite out of the norm. Tanaka possessed a close to inexhaustible space of item box. That was why he could simply hunt any monsters he encountered, and then stored them all into the item box.

He would enter the forest early in the morning, continuously hunting monsters all day long, and then returned to the town before nightfall along with a large amount of prey. Upon returning to the town, he would always head to the guild first. There, he then proceeded to the receptionist counter while comparing the content of the E-ranked subjugation requests with the preys he had stored inside his item box. There were numerous E-ranked monsters around the forest surrounding the town. Numerous enough that there were constant requests to subjugate them. As a result, Tanaka would always be left with only a small number of them remaining in the space within his item box. He would then carry over them for the next day, and continued with his daily monster hunting routines.

Tanaka wasn’t the least concerned by his own perverse power. As far as he was concerned, though, he’d simply sought to do his jobs as efficiently as possible, using all the cards available on his hands, due to how powerless he was. From outsiders’ point of views, however, what he’d been doing was nothing short of abnormal. Even Jody, the receptionist, was also a bit taken aback by his abnormality at first. However, maybe thanks to the foolish ways Tanaka tended to carry himself with, she’d gotten over and thought not too much about it now that they’d been acquainted with each other for a month.

As a result of this circumstance, Tanaka’s level and money in possession had been improving continuously at an abnormal rate. It could be said that he had been having a smooth sailing these days. However, shadow was slowly creeping over his peaceful days.

◇ ◇ ◇

「Bandits have been attacking traveling merchants, you say?」

「That’s right, and it’s already the third time this month.」

That day, Tanaka had finished his daily monster hunting routine, obtained a large number of prey, as usual, and was returning to the town while carrying nothing in his hands. However, as he was passing by the entrance gate, Hachi suddenly called out to him.

「If it’s just a temporary occurrence then that may be not so much of a problem, but… Wait, I mean, I do think people getting attacked by bandits is bad in itself, alright? It’s just, you know, I think things could go worse if they decided to settle down somewhere around here or something, that’s all.」

Hachi was still as casual as he had always been. However, the matter he was bringing up was a pretty serious one in contrast. Kuma, who was standing next to him, was also showing a serious expression on his face.

「Is that so? Can’t they just submit an escort request to the guild or something… Nah, perhaps it may be better to directly request for their subjugation then?」

Escort requests were all D-ranked or above. That was why Tanaka could speak up his opinions so casually like that, as though everything were someone else’s business.

「Well, you may be right, but…. The thing is, out of the three bandit incidents, one of them still fell victim to it even though they had already hired several guild members as guards. Isn’t that like real dangerous?」

「Pretty dangerous bandits, huh… Well, why don’t they just ask for the stronger guild members then?」

「You… you must’ve paid no much attention to this town where you live in, haven’t you? Well, let me tell you then, all guild members active in this town are either D or E-ranked.」

Tanaka was the type of person who didn’t care much about his surroundings. So, the matter regarding the situation of the guild members in this town was news to him.

「For real?」

「Well, that’s pretty much the extent of people willing to stay in a backwater town such as this one. Those of C rank or above would rarely ever settle down in a place like this, most of the time they’d only pass by here as they were looking for information about powerful monsters. Either that or they were heading to Gokuri as mercenaries.」

「If I remember it correctly, civil war is brewing there currently, right?」

Tanaka replied, recalling what General White told him when he had just come to this world.

「Yeah, it is. That’s why having those bandits to settle down around this area would definitely be a bad news for us. It’s either we have to wait for a C-ranked guild member or higher who is unknown when they’ll pass by here, or perhaps get in contact with Hinoki and wait for them to dispatch soldiers here.」

Hinoki city could be said to be the metropolis of this region, with hinoki as the specialty of the city. It was said that in times of emergency, they would dispatch soldiers to various places. By the way, hinoki was supposed to be the king of all mushrooms, according to Hachi. It wasn’t surprising that Tanaka was desperately holding himself back from retorting to the world when he heard that.

「Hmm. Well, I guess I’ll just stick with my monsters hunting routine as usual then.」

The situation did seem serious, no doubt about it. However, Tanaka concluded that it was unlikely for this matter to affect him so much. Feeling that there was no need to hear the matters regarding the bandits any further, he was about to bid his farewell. However, Hachi’s following words forced him to change his mind.

「Are you really a guild member? … If such a dangerous level of bandits decided to settle down around here, the guild would issue an emergency request until the punitive forces arrived here. And even if they were only E-ranked, they’d still be obliged to participate in this request.」

「What?! Are you serious?!」