Similar crimes

Passing through the gate to enter the forest, I take a look at the map given to me. Since my right kneecap is still broken, I am using a walking stick for stability. Can't just hop everywhere on one leg, can I?

Strauss is following me without any complaints.

"What does this job exactly say?" (Strauss)

When I was thinking he was being quiet, he was just asking me about the details. Well, I haven't looked either.

"Let's find out together."

I take out the job flyer. It has a short description and the conditions. A certain village is being terrorized by a bunch of ogres. I just need to get rid of those ogres.

"Isn't that pretty easy? You are an S rank adventurer. You need to take jobs of your caliber." (Strauss)

Why is he starting to sound annoying? I mean, S rank jobs are rare to begin with.

"I just wanted go recuperate. Anyway, tell me more about this mess your family has made. There has to he other reasons for this so called political marriage."

We are slowly walking to our destination. Since the time isn't specific, I can take as long as I can to complete this job.

"It all began from a simple trigger. The library triggered the change in my father. He read something he should not have and after that, everything changed." (Strauss)

He's being vague. Well, I will let him dance around for a while longer. Let's just go and kill those ogres.

The direction seems easy enough and I think I have been in that area before. It's next to the Yves lake. I think a bit away from where I drove away the drakes from.

After walking for about half an hour, we reach our destination. There's a village. If you call it a village, it is still a village. But that is pushing it a bit. Because the village looks like it's a haunted place.

Even that dogkin village was looking better than this.

"This village is pretty desolate, isn't it?" (Strauss)

"Yeah. Still, I am here to do my job. I will do it thoroughly."

We enter the village. The gate is just three wooden planks stuck together like a gate. It can crash any moment.

The huts are old and full of holes. The thatched roof is barely thatched. There are about 20 huts. But not a single soul is in sight.

"Clive, there seems to be no one present." (Strauss)

"Let me search."

This village is under attack by ogres. Maybe they ran away and hid themselves somewhere.

The results did not surprise me. I had a huge reaction coming from a cave further in the forest.

"They have gone in the forest and hud inside a cave."

"Let's go get them." (Strauss)

More walking. Since I am using a walking stick on cane, it's kinda annoying. I can just use magic to heal myself but I have been warned.

"You sure obey them a lot." (Strauss)

He said as if he had read my mind.

"Well, they didn't ask for much. It's for my own good. Besides, they do what I ask them to do so it's only natural that I do the same as well."

I never thought too deeply about this matter. Our relationship is pretty normal, I think.

"It's true but can't you be a bit more assertive. Like expressing your love for them and stuff like that." (Strauss)

"I have been bad at those. My attempts only made them worry about me more. So I gave up. When we were on Earth, I tried to find a diamond for everyone. Back then, I wasn't this powerful. So I had to spend a lot of time mining. In the end, I found nothing and on top of that, I got scolded, heavily."

Remembering those days makes me nostalgic. Two years have passed. So many things have happened.

We reached the cave where they were hiding. Two men were hiding behind a rock at the entrance. They suddenly jumped out and pointed sharp wooden spears at us.

"Calm down. I have accepted the job. I am Clive Belmont, S rank adventurer."

They gave me a weird look and told us to wait outside. They went inside the cave and came back with a short man. He looks about 70. Has white beard and no hair, dressed like a farmer.

"Show me your adventurer card."

He demands in a haughty tone. Maybe he is trying to hide his fear behind bravado.

I rummage through my storage since I just shoved everything in there before going. I found it soon and showed it to him. He stared at the card with eyes like a hawk and even came closer to examine it.

"It seems that you are indeed an adventurer. I thank you for accepting our request."

He sounds a little polite and grateful.

"What is the situation?"

Let's ask about the situation and deal with it.

"About a week ago, a group of ogres settled near our village. It attacked us during night and took our food, grains, vegetables and even cattle with them. Since then, they kept coming back to take more from us."

Sounds more like an organized crime than monster activity.

"Where is their settlement?"

"We do not know. We only know that they come from that direction."

He pointed ahead. So they come from even further in the forest.

"Okay, I get the situation. I will deal with situation as fast as I can. You all can return to the village. There's no one there at the moment."

I take Strauss and head deeper into the forest.

"You have a hunch?" (Strauss)

"A while ago I did a similar job with Hazel. Back then, a bunch of humans were pretending to be ogres and they kept looting a dogkin village. I caught them and handed them to the army. But this sounds awfully similar to that."

I may be wrong but humans can do that. Many have done that and many are trying.

Before long, I could sense a lot presence ahead of us. There are 23 presences ahead of us. I use <Spirit > to look at the scene.

I see two big cages, packed full with ogres and 15 humans. Hmm…indirect involvement.

I won't go into details about how I dealt with it. I caught and incapacitated the humans. I killed the ogres since I can't exactly not kill them. It kinda felt bad since those were just enslaved ogres.

After cleaning up the scene, I retrieved all the stuff that was taken from the village and returned to the village.

"Here you go. The stuff that the ogres took."

It was a lot of vegetables and cattle.

"How did you manage to defeat so many monsters at such a short time?"

"It wasn't all monsters. Those ogres were tamed. They were doing their master's bidding. I have caught the ones responsible for this so don't worry. And I need you to sign on this."

I don't have to collect the signature but it's a habit. I store the flyers of all the jobs I have done. As a memento.

Then we say our goodbyes to the village and come back to the guild.

I found guild master at Ms. Maria's place.

"You are back earlier I expected." (Christopher)

"Temporarily. I was injured so I had to retreat. But I will be going back. The job is done."

I show him the flyer and he stamps it and gives me the reward. I didn't ask the reward and it honestly isn't much. Only 20 silver coins. Only a D rank would agree for that kind of reward. And I hand over the captured humans to the guild master.

"You sure made light work of those humans." (Strauss)

"They were no big deal. Besides, I can't waste too much time here. We need to head back and finish our preparations. I'll have you spit everything out."

With that, our short detour is finished. Let's focus on the main topic now.