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Over the Infinite – Chapter 12 (2)

Translator: mii

In the midst of that, an adventurer came to our village, so I talked to him to know more in details about this occupation.

That adventurer was called Volcan, a dark-skinned, brown-haired old man.

Actually, I heard that he was still in his late twenties, but I could only see him as an old man when I looked at his beard.

「Hey, uncle. I want to be an adventurer, but how can I become one?」

「Uncle…at least call me “big brother”, can’t you?」

I’d been quite rude in the last few years of my childhood. Calling someone who I asked for instruction as “uncle” was improper.

But I wouldn’t correct it.

「Well, adventurer is a good-for-nothing without any position in the society. It’s something people will do when they have no other choice.」

「But in the fairy tales, they defeated dragons and everyone treated them as a hero.」

「I never saw a dragon before. If I see something like that, I’ll definitely run away.」

「Then, what kind of monsters are you fighting, uncle? Is it goblin? I heard that they’re so weak.」

I never saw goblin before, but they seem to roam around this place.

「I exterminate goblins too, but what this old brother kill the most is orc. I can also whip them off in one-on-one fight.」

「Orc? Is it the pig-ish monster?」

「What, so you knew? That’s right. Once you can finally defeat an orc alone, people will call you an independent adventurer. You also gain an advantage when applying for jobs, like being guards.」

「Gahaha!」Uncle boasted and laughed, sounding even more like an old man,

In my mind, orc wasn’t a very strong monster. Especially in those RPGs. It’s more like a basic small fry monster, I guess?

Anyway, this uncle became an adventurer to become a guard, huh? So this was his temporary job?

「Uncle, you’re not very strong, eh?」

「Oi, oi. I’ll get angry if you look down on me, okay. Orc is very, very strong. I’m sure once you see them, you’ll wet your pants, kiddo.」

「I won’t!」

I never used it, but I still have《Super Combat Power》and《Super Magic Power》gifts. They’re amazing. Probably.

「By the way, isn’t there any wizard adventurers?」

「I’ve never seen one. Maybe they exist, but there’s other job opening if someone can use magic. Why would they become an adventurer?」

Even if I have《Super Magic Power》gift, I don’t think I would be able to meet anyone who could teach me magic.

When I was a baby, I wanted to do magic training like how they usually did in fictional stories, but I didn’t know how to use magic in the first place.

After having a lot of disappointments towards adventurers, my first encounter with the uncle… Volcan, was over.

In the winter of that year, Volcan who came into our village almost every year didn’t show up recently.

Since the damage caused by the goblins would increase in this kind of season every year, the village would send a request for goblin extermination to the town. But we had a poor crop this year, ending up with no money. Plus someone got an information that there’s not many goblins in sight, so everyone decided not to send the request. 

My expectations for the adventurer profession had drastically dropped since I chatted with Volcan, but I continued to train myself in case it would become useful one day.

Like what Volcan said, being a guard sounds nice. I could also become a soldier and go to war to move up my career ladder.

Also, all of the information I knew about adventurers were all from Volcan. There’s a possibility that it would be different for another adventurer.

I’m sure adventurers who was stronger than Volcan would be treated well. Not just defeating an orc like that uncle, but able to defeat a dragon.

While thinking so, I swing my wooden sword I made on my own.

Thanks to my training, I grew into the strongest child among the children in the village.

My family only relied on my mother. We didn’t even have our own field. That’s why I didn’t think I would become an adventurer.

I would become a guard, a soldier, or anything related to that once I had grown up. That’s what I believed.

Until that fateful night suddenly came one day.

At that day, a horde of goblins attacked the village.

The village burned right in front of me. The familiar villagers were killed. Those dwarf green monsters swaggered through the village as if it was their territory, killing and preying on the villagers.

「Mother! Mother!!」

My mother fell down as she shielded me from the goblin’s attack. With only one blow, her brain splattered out. I knew that she had already died, but I kept screaming at my mother’s body. 

The goblin was approaching us. With my wooden sword in my hand, I decided to fight back.

…That thing was my mother’s enemy.

「Uwahhhhh!!」

I swung down my wooden sword towards the goblin who killed my mother.

I couldn’t finish it with a single blow. The goblin glared at me with its beast-like eyes and jumped at me.

It hit me with its club and bit me, but I lost my mind and attacked it back.

Again and again, after hitting and beating the goblin up with my wooden sword, the monster began to melt like it was rotting away.

「Haah! Haah!!」

I watched the goblin I had messed up in front of me. There, I realized that it had died.

I stopped swinging my wooden sword. After a while, I noticed that the corpse gradually became fog.

My eyes widened at the mysterious phenomenon. Then I was reminded of the villagers… I looked around.

I was surrounded by countless goblins.

「…Ha, haha…」

I could only laugh dryly.

I didn’t know what happened to the other villagers, but I’m sure that I would die here.

Who said that goblin was weak?

I just defeated one, yet I already reached my limit.

I lost my will to fight after realizing that there were too many of them. My wooden sword fell to the ground. I fell off my knees, giving up everything.

As I lied on the ground, I could see the goblins steadily approaching me. I prepared myself and waited for my death. But at the next moment, I could see Volcan’s figure.

…Ah, what’s that? That uncle is super strong, isn’t he?

Volcan cut down the goblins and defeated each of them only with one swing. Even though I struggled hard to defeat one.

While getting impressed with Volcan’s heroic appearance, I lost my consciousness.

-3-

The village was annihilated, leaving me as the sole survivor.

I woke up in a carriage heading to the town. I went frenzy and continued to rage until Volcan pressed me down.

I’m this weak-willed, yet how could I call myself as some kind of protagonist? Don’t joke with me.

I couldn’t do anything. I lost everything, saved by Volcan who I looked down on, and received his protection. I’m just a helpless person.

Apparently, Volcan liked my mother. He told me that he didn’t know if he had any chance, but he was looking forward to come into my village every year.

Since there’s no request this year, he had no choice but to exterminate the goblins in another village. There, he met a flock of goblins and defeated them.

Attacked by a bad feeling, Volcan rushed to check the situation of our village and encountered that scene.

Rather than me, Volcan was more suited to become a protagonist. Even though he’s an uncle who didn’t have any hope in life, his shaven face made him unpopular, Volcan was a hero in my mind.

「Uncle, I will become an adventurer.」

「…I see.」

I said that in the carriage heading to the city, but Volcan only nodded and replied me dryly. He didn’t try to stop me at all.

I should have been thrown into an orphanage, but Volcan strongly denied that idea and took me with him.

It’s not hard to imagine how much burden a poor adventurer would have to carry by raising a child.

However, Volcan never complained to me. He never threw me away.

When I grew up and my height exceeded Volcan, I started to earnestly work as an adventurer.

Up until now, I had been accompanying Volcan as a support, but I finally could work under my own name. I could easily exterminate goblins now. A group of ten goblins wouldn’t become a problem for me. That’s why I was dispatched to a neighboring village, like what Volcan always did.

I think I did well for my first job.

I found a goblin nest filled with herds of them and I exterminated it.

Everytime I found a goblin, I was swallowed up with anger, fear, and various emotions I felt that day. This emotions become especially stronger when I worked alone.

I wanted to destroy all of them. I wanted to destroy them from this world. The feelings that I had been holding for more than five years continued to permeate deeper into my heart, not disappearing at all. 

Even so, goblin never go extinct.

No matter how much I tried to kill it, they would increase, created from the magic power in the air. They also breed among themselves, so the speed of their increase was on par with cockroaches.

For many years, I continued to hunt goblins.

That didn’t mean that I was hunting monsters all year long.

Adventure was an extremely unstable profession. I couldn’t survive just by doing that alone.

Hired by the day, I would do physical labor and save up the money, spending it for my equipment to fight goblins. But even if I kill many goblins, the reward wasn’t much.

I didn’t drink alcohol, I didn’t play with woman. I spent my days doing labors silently, trained on my occasional breaks, and went to exterminate monsters during their breeding season for cheap wages.

My colleagues who worked on the same labor site with me became the chief one day, and I started speaking to him in horoficis.

In the village I visit from time to time, I’ve seen the little kids grow up, the villagers get married, and the children are born.

When I noticed it, I almost reached thirty years old. I also started to feel my physical decline.

Even after reaching this age, I haven’t taken a step forward since that night.