Playing around...

Whoever left them tried to be sneaky, but it was quite interesting that from Lin's perspective, it was hard to believe that the guards hadn't spotted them right away.

…unless that sneaky individual knew exactly when the guards were at any given moment and skillfully used the very limited cover to escape their eyes with careful timing…

"...and they just… not bother with tracking someone like that down…?"

Lin muttered to himself, now very intrigued by the situation.

"..."

He glanced to the sides, making sure that he was out of sight of the mansion's guards, and changed the course of his stroll, following the trail he locked on to with a conviction to get the hell away if the area turned dangerous or too suspicious.

Curiously enough, the tracks ended up leading north to one of the monster spawning grounds…

The thing was, that area was well known to the locals and, technically speaking, open to the public only once per year.

As for the reasons, it was a spawning ground for monsters called common shrumshrums, which were low-level, low-intelligence, plant monsters that didn't qualify as dangerous but did count as food. And a delicious one, too. A delicacy even.

The area was open only once per year to prevent overhunting of the nutritious monsters with delicate but flavorful flesh and let them repopulate. It wasn't even recorded as an official rule; everyone knew about it and respected the tradition.

"...huh… so… like, did the mansion's cook snuck out to get their hands on a shrumshrum for duke's dinner…?"

Lin tilted his head, feeling a bit disappointed.

*rumble*

"...!"

But just as he was about to turn around and leave, the earth under his feet trembled, and a few birds flew up from their nest high in the treetops, loudly expressing their distress.

It couldn't have been a mistake this time! Lin could ignore a random phenomenon that happened once, but two times begin a pattern, and a rather suspicious one at that!

"...the hell…?"

Lin cowered instinctively and muttered.

With his curiosity rekindled, the adventurer began sneakily following the tacks again, this time even more vigilant.

Whatever it was that caused the ground to shake seemed like overkill when it came to common shrumshrum hunting…

The area wasn't fit to spawn a champion or ruler type monster, it wasn't attractive for any romaing boss-class monsters, and the common shrumshrums had only one type of natural predator, plate-teeth maned wolf, which also was considered low tier monster.

And it shouldn't even be around because it would hamper the repopulation of common shrumshrums.

Still…

"..."

The longer Lin had to walk, the more worried he would become.

The distance he traversed wasn't negligible, and there still was no trace of combat or anything that could have caused the ground to shake…

How powerful the attack must have been to travel such a long distance and cause such commotion…?!

"!!!"

After walking even more, Lin finally began to discover some clues.

A body of three-foot tall common shrumshrum that seemed to have been punched right through its cap…

…the thing was, the mushy carcass was abandoned in front of a massive cone-shaped crater that could easily contain the mansion that Lin left not that long ago…

To make things even scarier, his tracking ability clearly showed the tracks belonging to the individual Lin was following, and it appeared that said individual ended up losing their balance in front of the monster…

"Hold up. Hold, the hell, up! It looks as if they misjudged the firmness of shrumshrum's body and… punched through… but…"

Line gulped down his saliva, becoming pale as he stepped toward the crater's edge and glanced down in search of the bottom…

"...but that means that this was made… by a punch…?!"

The adventurer muttered to himself, trembling as he stepped away from the edge and stared at the tracks leading even further into the area.

There was no doubt that the destruction had to be caused by the person that Lin was tracking. After all, the only other type of footprints beside theirs were the tracks of common shrumshrums waddling away into safety.

Common shrumshrums had barely any sentience and were intelligent enough only to waddle between decomposing plants and damp spots for nutrients. They had no eyes, ears, noses, or mouths, solely figuring out the world through their sense of touch and a minuscule amount of mana sense.

To instill enough fear in them to make them actually escape and go into hiding…

"Nn-nnn. Nah. Nope. Not my business. I don't even like this city all that much anyway!"

Lin shook his head, turned right around on his heel, and sprinted the hell out of there without looking back. The survival instinct of his completely decimated any shred of curiosity he held on to at the start.

His destination was clear - the room he was renting in the inn across the street from the adventurers' guild to gather his belongings and leave.

Where to, exactly?

Even he didn't know yet.

He just wanted to run as far as possible from whoever caused such destruction.

—-------

"This is stupid. Am I not low-level enough or something? I did level up by killing a few common shrumshrums, but why didn't they aggro on me properly?! They should charge me en masse! I wasted so much time looking for them! I can't have a proper practice session like that…!"

Melinda grumbled, pulling the hood of her cape over her face on the way back home.

The session wasn't a complete waste; she did gain a level so she could proudly state that she was no longer a level 1 noob but a level 2 one instead. Even so, she could not see any benefits of continuing to go down that path.

Common shrumshrums didn't attack her; they only waddled away and hid, and it was really annoying to find them once they would do that. They might have lacked the spore-type skills like some other mushroom monsters, but they were surprisingly good at blending in with their surroundings.