Finally Food

After that short celebration, they started cutting off some of the hobgoblin's body parts into small pieces and placing them inside a cloth bag.

"What are you guys doing?" I asked, wondering why they were cutting off the hobgoblin's parts when I assumed that they could bring its entire body.

[Notice: The individuals before you do not have the skill "Inventory" which allows them to store non-living things, objects, etc., in a dimensional subspace.]

[But that is just my speculation since I cannot analyze their skills.]

"Eh, but don't I have one? I'm sure they also have it since this is a fantasy world." I replied to Grand through thought communication.

Arthur swiped off the sweat on his forehead and inhaled.

"We're bringing proof that we killed the hobgoblin, Sir Heinz." said Arthur, who once again cut off some small parts of the hobgoblin's cut-off head.

"Proof?" I mumbled, wondering what he meant.

Rin walked toward me and explained everything.

"Adventurers like us need to bring some proof in order to receive the legitimacy check and reward. Since the hobgoblin was a quest we've taken back at the Adventurer's Guild. And by the way, we're a five-man party, and we call ourselves the Wild Life. Isn't it a bit cringe? Arthur named our party, we all disagreed at first..." Just as Rin began whispering the last sentences about how their Party name was lame, Arthur coughed and went close to us.

"Enough of it, Rin. I'm sorry for her behavior, Sir Heinz. She's not usually like this." said Arthur, who glanced at Rin with a satisfied look. As if he was trying to embarrass her in a nice way.

Tate, Lucas, and Rosalie chuckled a bit.

"Here they go again. Haha!" Lucas said, trying to hold his laughter.

Meanwhile, Arthur and Rin were staring at each other in a not-so-nice manner.

And I began pondering what Rin said earlier about the Adventurer's Guild. I guess it's a place where adventurers hang out and get quests.

Just as I was about to speak, a loud growl rumbled from my stomach, causing everyone to pause and glance at me.

"Are you hungry?" asked Arthur.

"Well, sort of; I mean yeah." I said, chuckling slightly.

"We should immediately head back to the village so that Sir Heinz can eat." Arthur said, informing his party members who were further away and gathering proofs from the hobgoblin's headless body.

"We can't; we still need to cut off the body parts of this hobgoblin and burn it." said Rosalie, who intervened.

Burn it?" I wondered, mumbling inside my head.

"Yes, I almost forgot. It'd be bad if others were to find out about the hobgoblin's body and take some of its body parts as proof and give it to the adventurer's guild." Tate said, slicing off one of the fingers of the dead hobgoblin.

From then on, they all talked about it. And I learned that there are also frauds in the adventurer's world.

Some of the adventurers might be legit, but there are others who cheat in order to easily pass and earn. And most of them were frauds.

Frauds are adventurers that follows other adventurers and observe them from a far. After the followed group finished dealing with the monsters they've slain, the frauds would claim some of the monster's leftover after the group that defeated it left.

And once they get their hands on some proofs, they will immediately give them to the adventurer's guild, while some of the fraud members will try to delay the real group from going to the adventurer's guild.

Of course, there isn't any battle involved when they try to delay the real group. They only use tricks such as luring them with fake information, seducing them in a casual conversation, or sometimes, women fraud members would take the risk and sleep with them in a quickie in order to secure their delay.

That's how frauds are in the Adventurer's guild, and by the time that the real group could pass on the proofs they'd gathered, the reward of the quest had already been taken by the frauds.

"You've gathered everything, right?" asked Lucas, who turned his head behind him and stared at Rosalie.

"Of course." Rosalie replied.

"Everything's settled; burn it." said Arthur while raising his hand.

The headless corpse of the hobgoblin was lying on the ground and was struck by Rosalie's consecutive fireball attacks, which burned the corpse in an instant.

Smoke rose above, and the hobgoblin's corpse slowly turned into dark ashes. And after some time, it became dust and dispersed into the air.

"Phew, all done." said Rosalie, who took a deep breath after releasing several fireballs.

"Good work everyone; now let's go back." Rin said.

Just as they turned around with their backs facing me, I spoke abruptly in a loud manner.

"Wait!"

The five of them turned around and stared at me for several seconds.

"What's the matter?" Arthur asked.

"After smelling the corpse turn into a  crisp, I can't hold it back anymore." I said, raising my hand as I opened a dark portal-like structure above me.

All of them were a bit surprised, but after the Flaming bull's corpse fell to the ground, their eyes blurted out as If they'd seen a ghost.

"Please Rosalie, cook this!" I said loudly, pointing at the Flaming bull's corpse that was lying on the ground.

They stared at it for quite some time without blinking, as if they were completely shocked.

Or is it just my imagination?" I wondered.

"Sir Heinz, where did you get this?" Arthur asked, gasping as his words got hard to understand.

Why does he keep calling me sir? Well, it sounds nice anyway." I mumbled in my head, looking at Arthur's shy gestures.

"Are you an Idiot?" Rosalie uttered with her hands placed on her waist.

The four instantly turned around and attempted to cover Rosalie's mouth from insulting me.

"Yes we can, but there won't be any seasonings if we just cook it in here." said Arthur, while checking the flaming bull's corpse.

"It's alright; I've been pretty hungry since earlier." I said while rubbing my stomach.

"Rosalie, just fry it up until it's edible." said Lucas, who somewhat agreed to my request.

Rosalie inhaled and said

"Fine, just stay away from it."

We all took a few steps back and watched Rosalie cast several fireballs from her staff and strike down the flaming bull's corpse.

Its body began heating as smoke and an attractable smell came from the burned flaming bull's corpse.

"It smells really nice." I muttered, staring at it as it got cooked.

They all stared at me differently as I gawked over the burning meat in front of me.

After three minutes passed, the meat was fully cooked.

"Let's eat." I said, while they all refused and portrayed a disagreeing smile.

And so I began eating it as I cut off several parts of it with Tate's dagger and leisurely ate it all.

"That felt good." I said with a satisfied look in my face, while the Wild Life party was staring at me intently with worried thoughts.

"How can he eat so much?" whispered Lucas while covering his mouth.

"I don't know. He basically ate everything, leaving only bones to be left." replied Tate, who also whispered towards Lucas's ear.

"Hey, isn't he human, right?" asked Arthur, who quietly stared at me with a worried expression.

"I don't know." said Rin.

They continued gossiping in a whispering tone as they stared at me cautiously.

Just then, Grand suddenly detected something.

[Warning: An anomaly has been detected within the northern part of your current location.]

I got up and asked Grand, "What did you detect?"

[Answer: It is a unique creature possessing extraordinary power and intellect comparable to humans.]

"So a creature with intellect?" I muttered openly while gazing beyond the northern location as trees covered the forest.

"What's wrong, Sir Heinz?" Rin asked, suspecting that I was worried about something.

"Don't tell me that the meat you ate is poisonous?" Lucas uttered with a straight face as If he had just discovered something genius-worthy.

"Nothing's wrong about the meat I ate; to be honest, it tasted great." I said, hoping to clear up the misunderstanding they're having.

"But what's gotten you so serious all of a sudden?" Arthur asked, taking a few steps closer towards me.

"It's just that I sensed a presence beyond the north of our location. It seems to be a unique creature." I said, pointing in the direction where Grand had noticed the creature.

"A unique creature, you say?" Rin muttered as they all glanced at each other.

"I think it's better to leave it alone." Rosalie said while wearing a completely horrified expression.

"Yes, let's just leave it be and return to the town." Lucas said while being completely flustered all of a sudden.

Just as they all turned around and wanted to leave immediately, convincing me to return to the town with them, the creature that they didn't want to bother suddenly appeared behind us.

"I guess it came to us." I mumbled, slowly turning my head around, wanting to see what Unique creature it was to be feared by the entire party.

Chapter End.