The road out of town was rough as I was expecting, but it was nice and quiet. No one seemed to be around, so I could talk with Alcoroth without issue.

“It will take us a while to get there at this pace.” Alcoroth said annoyed.

“Well if you could’ve made money appear out of nowhere, we could’ve gotten a horse and been able to move much faster.”

“You haven’t done your exercises yet why don’t you get running you little shit!”

I glared at him but the time limit on the task was still there, so I picked up the pace till I was at a nice speed.

We had gotten quite far before I felt myself get tired again, and despite the cheers from Mezu who quite liked riding me as I ran I slowed back down to a walk. I looked at the banner as it appeared in front of me.

Over the past few days of travel, the upper limit of the requirements had each increased, and I was now at the intermediate daily regime level. But yet again I had surpassed the requirement for running.

I felt not overly tired and figured I could start running again if I just rested for a few minutes, so I kept the walking pace.

“Annoyingly, you seem to be improving quite well.”

“Why do you have to say it like that? Wasn’t the whole point of this stupid thing to make me stronger?”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like you all of a sudden.”

Ahh, this fucker. He doesn’t need to be so pissy all the time. Mezu cheered again as if asking me to keep going.

“I’ll start again soon okay? I just need to rest for a little bit.”

He made a noise that usually meant he wasn’t happy, but there wasn’t much I could do about it at the moment.

Now that I was walking, I noticed that we were almost at the top of the path. Running downhill would be much better than going up, so I guess starting again at that point was as good as any.

The air on the mountaintop wasn’t as cold as I was expecting. But what could I expect? Around me, there wasn’t even a small portion of snow.

Once we arrived at the top, I looked around and saw the rest of the mountain range as it spread out separating each of the lands from each other. This mountain range was quite convenient. There weren't many large wars between the races over the years despite the fact that they still didn’t get along with each other.

That wasn’t to say there weren’t attempts or incidents, especially when it came to humans, but the mountains did a good job of deterring any large incidents.

I looked down the path only to see a small group of people fighting off some goblins.

“Oh look, a dungeon break, I wonder how that happened on this trail of all places.”

He was right, a dungeon would have been noticed almost right away in a place like this.

“Maybe it was somewhere off the path so no one noticed it.”

I started to run again.

“Well either way, the dungeon itself needs to be beaten in order to stop the break so there’s gotta be a good reward from it.”

When we got to the fight, many of the people had already been downed. Mezu jumped off on his own sniffing around at the people who appeared to be dead.

“Mezu, come get a snack before I get to work.”

I held out my hand and Mezu bounded over chomping on it in its entirety. His teeth ripped through it quickly enough and I tied the stump up before charging into the fight.

As I sliced through them with ease, I felt my face start to grin.

This was so much easier than fighting them with my bare hands. It wasn’t long till the group of goblins there was dealt with and I glanced around trying to see where they were coming from.

“Thanks for the help!” a girl said coming over to me.

“What happened?”

“We were coming down the path when they ambushed us from over there.”

She pointed to the left off the path where the ground got quite a bit more rough and uneven.

“It’s been awhile since I heard of an incident on the road. We travel so much and this is the first time we’ve actually experienced it.”

While she was talking. I already walked in the direction she was talking about.

“Hey! Are you just gonna go on your own like that?”

Mezu ran over to me, beaming, excited for more.

“Well someone has to and you guys seem to be down, I’d rather keep the rewards to myself anyway.”

I hopped off the main road and caught Mezu as he leaped after me. She looked over the side at me.

“Don’t be ridiculous if the dungeon broke there could be twice as many inside by now.”

“They’re just goblins, why are you acting so concerned?”

I waved her off dismissively. If I hadn't already cleared that goblin dungeon I probably wouldn't have said it that way. 

“Worry about your own people.”

I took off on a light jog following the path it seemed that the goblins had taken. After climbing down into a ravine that the path had stopped at, we found the dungeon surrounded by a small goblin camp.

“It seems they had a lot of time to set up. I wonder how many people they killed before we got here?” Alcoroth commented.

“Yeah well it doesn’t matter does it?”

I made Mezu sit on the rock before jumping down to the ground getting the attention of the goblins in the encampment. I didn't see any hobgoblins or a goblin king, so I wondered if they were still inside.

The goblins screeched noticing me and charged. I unsheathed my sword and steadied my breath letting the first few come to me. The next couple minutes of me slicing off limbs and heads left me almost covered in goblin blood. I sighed, annoyed, I should’ve paid a bit more attention so I wasn’t covered like this.

“Oi! Mezu! Let's go inside!” I called out.

Mezu as usual was already bounding over to me, that same sparkle in his eyes. I sheathed my sword and picked him up walking through the dungeon. The other side was a much different goblin village type than the last one. This one was a cave system. I groaned. I’d have to wander around till I found the right path, what a pain.

I started walking trying to see if there was any evidence of the ground being more worn down than other places, but seeing as they had lived there, I didn’t see anything in particular that stood out.

I took a few wrong turns ending up at dead ends, and I made sure to mark the entrances just in case I got turned around. The whole time I didn’t run into a single goblin. Was most of the force already out of the dungeon? Or were the rest just at the village still?

Luckily we didn’t wander around too much longer, coming across a large throne room with various tunnels branching off from it. On the throne was a goblin king and around him on the ground were either dead humans or ones that were just passed out.

I sighed as two hobgoblins turned to look at me, growling. It was probably best if I killed them if they were still alive, but I honestly doubted it. Goblins weren’t the best at maintaining their captives.

I decapitated the hobgoblins without much difficulty. There really wasn’t much to an E-rank dungeon for me at this point I guess. The goblin roared and stood up, picking up its club. I slid through its legs as it ran towards me and sliced through its ankles. It fell to the floor on its face, making another loud roar.

I climbed up onto its back and sunk my blade into the back of its neck, and used my body weight to help me slice through it to one side and then back to the other until its head was no longer attached to its body.

There was a loud ding, and a banner appeared in front of me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Congratulations on your solo clear.

Rewards are now being calculated

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I walked past the banner and went over to the humans by the throne. I was right, they were all already dead. And I saw the discarded bones of some more humans.

“I’m glad that took less time than the last one.” Alcoroth said.

“Yeah, well, I have a sword now, it’s much easier to kill things with a blade than my fists.”

There was a ding and I went back to the banner.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rewards have been tallied, you will receive them

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The words after that blurred and moved as if being re-written, not again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You will receive rewards once you arrive at the tower. Transportation in

3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What a fucking pain!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2

1

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We were back outside in the remnants of the goblin village.

“This useless system!” I yelled.

“All the more reason to pick up the pace, let's go.”

I grumbled and made my way up the wall of the ravine, my hand back to normal again. I really wished the healing could be sped up, then I could feed him more at a time than just a hand or an arm when I go to sleep.

Once we got back to the road, I was surprised to see the girl from earlier with two horses waiting for me.

“You really came back! What a surprise.”

“Why’d you wait for me?”

I kept my hand ready near my sword.

“Don’t be so on guard, the owner of this horse died so I’ve decided to give him to you as thanks. We only lost a few people since you came along and got rid of the goblins. It's the least I could do.”

“Is that why you waited?”

“That and if you failed, more goblins would have come this way, and I needed to know if I should inform the guild or not about the danger.”

I relaxed a bit and she held out the reins.

“We’re heading back up the mountain and since you’re heading down, feel free to do what you want with the horse, okay?”

“Yeah sure.”

I took them. She got on hers and turned it in the direction of heading back up.

“Good luck on whatever you’re trying to do.”

She kicked her horse and rode off.

“What a strange person.”