By the Grace of the Gods

Today, five chapters are updated simultaneously.

This story is the third chapter.

The next day.

“Be careful!”

Seeing off Ms. Miyabi, I headed toward the North Gate of the city. Along the way, I strolled leisurely while watching the hustle and bustle of the city, but as I got closer to the gate, I tightened my focus.

At the gate, I was naturally stopped. However, when I showed that I was an e-rank adventurer, I passed through without any problem. From here, I was going to harvest medicinal herbs at a cluster near the place where smash boars appear.

Today’s equipment consisted of a bow and a knife. I also had a spear prepared in the Item Box, but I had no plans to use it. Spears and greatswords are reportedly effective against smash boars, but to make it seem like I just happened to encounter the smash boar by chance, I deliberately decided not to use weapons effective against them. After all, my Guild Card already listed “bow” as my specialty weapon when I registered, so if I seemed too prepared for hunting smash boars, I’d easily arouse suspicion.

So, I continued harvesting medicinal herbs, but... I couldn’t find any smash boars.

Since they are magical beasts, they don’t stay in one place like herbs just because I was given their location, but it felt like the first time I couldn’t find my prey for this long. I even used detection magic, but couldn’t discover any smash boars. In fact, there were no other magical beasts either. Just as Ms. Miyabi said, it really seemed like magical beasts rarely appeared around here.

While searching for medicinal herbs outside the cluster and gathering them, and continuing to look for smash boars, I ended up collecting the required amount of herbs first. The deadline was the day after tomorrow, so I didn’t have to finish in one day... but apparently, due to the current travel restrictions, herbs had become hard to get, and they would buy as much as possible anyway, so there was no harm in gathering more. While thinking that, a faint voice reached my ears.

“—Uwaaah”

A human voice? It seemed a little far away. Or maybe it was just my imagination?

“—Help meee—”

...I heard it again! It wasn’t my imagination; this time I clearly heard a call for help!

I took up my bow cautiously, concealed my presence, and headed toward the source of the voice. I caught sight of two adventurers being chased by a magical beast that seemed to be a smash boar.

Its appearance was more like a pig than a boar? It had something like tusks, but they were small and not sharp. However, its size exceeded my expectations. About the size of a cow?

No, I shouldn’t be thinking about this now!

I nocked an arrow, waited for the right timing, and shot. The arrow slipped through the trees, piercing the right eye of the smash boar as it charged through, breaking aside slender trees with its massive body. The pain caused the massive beast to thrash wildly, and screams echoed around.

The two adventurers being chased stopped and turned around. What are you doing?!

“Don’t stop! Run and escape!”

My voice made them spot me, and they panicked. I tried to say more, but it was no longer possible. The smash boar noticed me and glared with its remaining left eye.

This wasn’t how I planned it at all, but I had no choice... I slung my bow on my back, circulated my qi through my body, and stared down the opponent.

The smash boar was characterized by its pig-like body and small, blunt tusks protruding from both sides of its face from the lower jaw. The tusks weren’t poisonous, but its frontal charge was powerful and required caution. The real problem was its physique. Although pig-like, it was about one and a half times the size of a cow I knew, covered with thick flesh. Its skin was marked with many wounds, likely inflicted by those two adventurers, but it was doubtful whether those wounds reached the muscles, let alone the internal organs.

Attacks to the torso would likely be ineffective... so my target was the head, where there was less flesh!