Berek Village is located on the southeastern edge of the Kingdom of Camellia's capital. Due to the dense forests and numerous hills nearby, it has become a breeding ground for mountain bandits and robbers. As a result, the village’s Adventurer’s Guild is always receiving escort or bandit extermination tasks.
The Berek Forest is quite a mysterious place, much like a monster spawn trap in a game. You can never know how many groups of mountain bandits are hiding within the vast forest, or how much they have grown in strength.
Historical records state that those arrogant bandits eventually grew in number to over a hundred, causing havoc in the area. In the end, their arrogance drew the attention of the king, who sent the Fury Dragon Knights to exterminate them.
After that purge, Berek Village enjoyed peace for a long time. However, as mentioned, the Berek Forest is like a monster spawn trap. The knights, skilled in battling organized armies, aren’t specialists when it comes to dealing with bandits. Many areas of the forest weren’t fully searched, allowing several bandits to escape. As a result, the problems around Berek Village were never fully solved.
In fact, the bandits’ subdued behavior led to an "invasion by foreign species." While the bandits were no longer a problem, goblins emerged.
Today, the goblin nests near Berek Village are no secret, but these goblins are even more cunning than the bandits from before. They’ve made their nests difficult to attack. Low-level adventurers can’t enter, mid-level adventurers find it too troublesome with poor rewards, and even if they form a party, there's still a risk of failure. Thus, the goblin issue has been left unresolved.
Moreover, who knows how many new goblin nests have appeared in this "monster spawn trap" of a forest?
If you are reading this translation anywhere other than Novelight.net, it has been stolen.
The Berek Village Adventurer’s Guild, marked by the crossed long swords, gathered many adventurers. Most of them were low-level adventurers, because any adventurer with any real skill would never come to this small village for work.
However, today, an unusual person arrived.
A young girl at the counter of the Adventurer’s Guild was half-asleep when she suddenly looked up as the sound of heavy footsteps and clanking armor reached her ears.
The other adventurers also turned to look at the door, all drawn to the figure entering.
The silver-scaled fish scale armor gleamed in the sunlight, shining brilliantly. The heavy armor made each step sound heavy, and one could tell just from the sound that it was incredibly weighty.
A closed helmet with a metal fringe gave only a faint glimpse of a calm and composed gaze through the dark slits of the helmet.
Silent, yet full of killing intent.
The newcomer had one hand resting on the scabbard of his sabre, walking in silence until he reached the counter.
As he entered the Adventurer’s Guild, the previously noisy room fell into silence.
The reason was simple: the silver fish scale armor was so imposing that anyone who wore it seemed like a big shot showing up in a small place.
Little did they know, this "big shot" was visiting the Adventurer’s Guild for the first time, and as he entered and saw everyone stop chatting, those who had been dozing off suddenly woke up, and those who had been playing chess also stopped. Everyone was staring at him, making him feel a bit uncomfortable.
What the hell? Why is everyone staring at me? Keep playing your music, keep dancing! Pretend I’m not here!
Trying to ignore the gazes, Winnie, fully armored in his "Iron Rampart" suit, rested his hand on the hilt of his sword and stood in front of the task board, contemplating for a moment.
What the hell? What are you looking at? Do I have flowers on my face or something?
After some thought, he picked up a sheet of paper from the center of the task board and walked to the counter.
"I’ll take this task." Winnie spoke in a low voice, keeping it brief.
"Ah, okay, is it just you?" The girl at the counter snapped out of her daze and quickly began the registration process.
"Yes."
"Alright, please show me your Adventurer’s Guild ID card."
"Can I register now?" Winnie asked after a brief silence.
"Huh??" The counter girl was stunned, looking Winnie up and down, completely bewildered.
No way, right? The Adventurer’s Guild ID card is universal, any Adventurer’s Guild can issue one, but such a big shot doesn’t have one?
It wasn’t just the girl at the counter who was surprised; the other adventurers in the room were also confused, quickly reassuring themselves in their minds.
Could it be that they were fortunate enough to witness the emergence of a hidden master?
"What? Is there a problem?"
"No, no, of course not. Please tell me your name."
"......Winnie."
"Winnie?" The counter girl tilted her head, then looked at Winnie with a confused expression.
It sounds like a girl’s name?
"No, it’s Winnie."
"Ah, sorry! I misheard!" The counter girl apologized quickly, feeling that the name was oddly familiar but didn’t think too much about it. She walked into the back room and soon came back out, handing Winnie his ID card and the Adventurer’s Guild rules.
Winnie looked at the ID card, which was made of copper, symbolizing the lowest rank of adventurer. His name was engraved on it.
"Thank you." After saying that, Winnie took the form and the rules, hung the ID card around his neck, and turned to leave.
After Winnie left, the adventurers in the guild began to discuss.
"Hey, did you see that? His armor is so cool! Wonder how much he spent on that?"
"Yeah, it looks awesome. Tsk, how many years would it take me to save up for something like that?"
"Who cares about looks? That heavy armor is outdated. One or two magic attacks and it’ll be useless."
"Hey, did you see what task he took?"
"I think it was a goblin extermination task."
"Ah? Goblin extermination? Seriously, that’s kind of embarrassing, isn’t it?"
"You don’t get it. With that iron-clad guy, you can tell he’s no amateur. Maybe he just wants to start with something easy and practice. Also, goblins might be weak, but you should know how troublesome they can be."
"Exactly, those savage goblins won’t stand a chance against someone in that armor. Their weapons won’t even scratch it, and they don’t even use magic."
Exactly, as the scarred adventurer at the guild had said, the reason Winnie took this task was because it was a good match—he could easily deal with the goblins, who couldn’t use magic.
That’s what only the Iron Rampart could do.
After deciding to make some money first, Winnie gave up on buying spells and decided to head to the weapon shop the next day to buy a suitable weapon before heading to the village’s Adventurer’s Guild.
He chose a sabre, the one currently hanging on his waist, which drained the last of his money.
This was a do-or-die situation; failure meant death.
Following the path indicated on the task form, Winnie walked out of the village and into the dense, shadowy forest.