Gauss, Aaliyah, and Gray Wolf Ulfen walked through the desolate wilderness.
Pedestrians and carriages were much fewer than in the past few days, as the cold grew more intense.
Their constitutions were both quite good, especially Gauss. Even without the warrior profession tier bonuses and lacking powerful combat skills, his attributes might not be inferior to some warriors.
As a result, he hadn’t been sick for a long time, and his resistance to the cold far exceeded that of ordinary people.
"Two more tasks." Aaliyah crossed off an entry in her portable notebook, exhaling a breath of white air.
"I feel like the efficiency of this is quite high." Gauss commented.
"I don’t really mind." Aaliyah shrugged, then added with a teasing tone, "But it seems like recently someone has started giving our team a nickname — ’Goblin Slayer Squad’. "
"..."
He admitted that the frequency and number of goblin kills had been a bit high lately, but wasn’t that because the most active monsters nearby were goblins?
As the weather turned colder, he didn’t want to travel far, so he focused on sweeping up the local small commissions.
After applying to the guild, he obtained permission to simultaneously execute two neighboring or same-route ordinary commissions.
As a result, a single outing could complete two tasks, with the number of monsters slain often reaching about thirty, and the time to return to Gray Rock Town was even shorter than most beginner tasks.
In terms of efficiency, it was not inferior to beginner 1-star tasks, and was even safer.
However, whether someone had noticed his task movements, or nearby villages had spread his "achievements".
After a few outings, the title of "Goblin Slayer" had quietly spread around Gray Rock Town.
Now, quite a few bronze professionals knew of a "madman for tasks" in their rank who was keen on sweeping up goblin mobs.
Most bronze adventurers didn’t care about such "three melons and two dates" [small gains], having mostly completed their task arrangements, resting and conserving energy for the winter hunt.
Only Gauss continued competing in slaying small monsters with bottom adventurers at this juncture.
"Ignore them, we focus on training hard. Once we level up, there should be fewer people talking."
Gauss recalled a saying he had heard in his previous life.
When you succeed, you’ll find everyone around you is a good person.
Aaliyah didn’t respond.
Currently, she didn’t have Gauss’s determined confidence that she could certainly advance to a high-level professional.
Although many had praised her talent, she felt her talent was just average.
"Total number of monsters killed: 573."
Recently, they had gone out for three rounds, with a total of six ordinary tasks completed, and killed 115 ordinary mobs.
Gauss was calculating in his mind.
Unfortunately, the number was still far from a thousand, and before the official start of the winter hunt, it seemed unlikely to pile it up to a thousand kills.
There was good news, though; recently, the proficiency of the skill [Enhanced Jump] had increased to Lv3.
The speed of activation was faster, and the distance of each leap was slightly more than ten centimeters farther than before.
It didn’t seem like much, but considering the step frequency during actual movement, the increase brought by this proficiency was considerable.
Running fast is undoubtedly a good thing, whether to chase down enemies or to escape, it can buy him more opportunities.
Mage’s Hand and Magic Missile should also be close.
Braving the cold wind, they walked with their heads down.
As they got closer to the town, the pedestrians gathered from other paths gradually increased.
Gauss observed the other passersby.
Suddenly, among a shabby adventurer party, he saw a familiar figure.
Marlin?
He squinted his eyes.
His gaze lingered on the freckled face.
After comparing it with the person in his memory and confirming that he hadn’t misidentified the person, he finally recognized the identity of Marlin.
He was precisely a superficial friend of his original self, met while working at the blacksmith shop.
Indeed, last time when I went to the blacksmith shop, I heard he had just left, saying he wanted to become an adventurer.
So is he starting to take on commissions now?
Gauss looked at him and his teammates’ state, it didn’t seem too optimistic.
Besides the visibly low morale, their equipment also seemed to be in varying degrees of wear and tear, and looking closely, you could also see some scrapes and bruises.
As Gauss approached, he could hear the voice of someone, presumably the "captain", complaining to a teammate.
"...I said don’t fight recklessly! Now look, we’ve lost several weapons, and the commission wasn’t completed! Winter is almost here, I think our team should disband early!"
The captain grabbed his hair in frustration, directing his frustration towards Marlin, "And you, Marlin! How many times have I told you, don’t panic! But what did you do? As soon as the fight starts, your hands shake like a sieve...ugh, this is the hardest batch I’ve ever led!"
The team quickly fell into a low-pressure atmosphere under the captain’s pressure.
A group of them trudged along numbly.
It didn’t look very good.
Faced with such an awkward scene, Gauss didn’t know if he should speak up and say hello.
Thinking about it, they were about to speed past the team together with Aaliyah.
But Gray Wolf Ulfen was too eye-catching.
The team and other passersby instinctively glanced over, also casting their eyes on Gauss and Aaliyah beside the big wolf.
Gauss’s gaze happened to meet Marlin’s in the air.
"..."
Gauss could keenly sense Marlin recognized him, his eyes widening rapidly.
No need to be conflicted now.
"What a coincidence." Gauss smiled awkwardly. "You registered as an adventurer too, huh."
"Y-Yeah." Marlin half-covered his mouth, touching his nose, instinctively wanting to cover his face, his gaze evasive.
He had imagined many scenes of meeting an acquaintance, but in his fantasies, he was always imposing, riding a mount dragging a bounty of loot back to town.
But right now, it was undeniably the most embarrassing situation.
Having just been scolded by his teammates, he could barely raise his head, and judging by the distance, he had likely heard everything clearly.
Meanwhile, Gauss’s breeze-like walk and well-equipped appearance sharply contrasted with him.
It made him want to find a hole to crawl into immediately.
Recalling months ago, he was spurred on by Gauss’s acquired loot, the urge to become an adventurer was irrepressible.
He finally persuaded his parents, secured funding, bought a set of warrior sword skills, trained for a period, and then registered as an adventurer.
He thought he would be like Gauss, start earning a lot of silver coins, upgrade his equipment, and quickly shake off the status of a bottom adventurer.
But the reality was unbelievably harsh.
His adventurer life was full of hardships.
The first party was dissolved after a bloody accident with members blaming each other.
This second party seemed to be heading down the same path.
Only after actually becoming an adventurer did he realize the life of an adventurer was completely different from what he imagined.
He could only struggle to take the simplest ordinary tasks; even when completed, everyone ended up with little money. And if not completed, besides not receiving commissions, there were losses of provisions and various supplies, and even damage or loss of precious weapons and armor.
These were risks that bottom adventurers had to bear.
And it was extremely easy to fall into a vicious cycle.
Low commission completion rate, no earnings, unable to repair, buy, upgrade equipment, lack of combat power, further lowering commission completion, team dissolves, insufficient experience, could only join a new ragtag party...
"I only knew you left when I last went to the blacksmith shop..." Gauss tried to ease the tension.
"Mm." Marlin’s voice was still very low.
"Take care, let’s catch up when there’s a chance." Seeing that Marlin had no interest in chatting, Gauss politely said a few words, then he and Aaliyah quickened their pace and swiftly moved away under the gaze of the passersby.
Their figures gradually faded into the distance under the watchful eyes of the crowd.
"..."
After the two of them walked off.
Marlin’s teammates gathered around cautiously speaking.
"Marlin, you know that guy just now?"
"We met while working at the blacksmith shop, why?" After Gauss left, Marlin felt less uncomfortable seeing his teammates all looking tense, a look of confusion on his face.
Although Gauss’s equipment was clearly much better than theirs, it shouldn’t warrant such cautiousness.