Episode 3.
The thorny road

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Three days later, in front of the eastern gate.
We decided to meet here, but the appointment time was not accurate.
It was to gather around the time the sun rose.
It wasn’t like there is no watch or wristwatch, but it was too expensive for an individual to own.
It was not an item that mercenaries, who are mostly at the bottom of their lives, could carry, however, high-class merchants and aristocrats might have it.
Fortunately, the mercenaries who will work together this time are those who can be trusted.
They were all diligent because they were the only aces of the local mercenaries who had proven their worth, enough to be commissioned by the magic tower.
When Ivan arrived at the eastern gate, two mercenaries had already arrived, and the other also appeared soon.
“One is a ranger, and the other is a swordsman.
Is the last one a fighter?’
Among them, it was the fighter who caught Ivan’s attention.
A woman wearing leather armor over an old uniform, metal gauntlet in both hands, and nothing else.
In the midst of everyone else who uses a sword, spear, bow, and weapon, bare-handed fighter or martial artists without weapons may seem like a fool, but it’s not ridiculous in this world.
Ki, internal strength, mana, or chakra.
Anyway, such transcendental power exists, and you can use the ability to strengthen your body with it.
Still, I think it would be stronger to use a weapon, but here, fighter was also an ascetic who tested his limitations and trained his body.
It was their idea to make their own progress by dealing with the enemy without taking weapons.
Of course, Ivan didn’t care about such a complex background setting.
This place was originally a game.
Isn’t martial artist a common job in fantasy games? I just decided to think that way.
“But if you’re a martial artist, you are definitely good.’
Of course, if you don’t know how to use this skill skillfully, dealing with the enemy bare handed is simply foolish.
In the martial art schools, if the disciples does not reach a certain level, they will not send the apprentice outside, so it means that her skills were reliable.
“I think all the mercenaries are here.”
“What about the wizard?”
“You have to understand that they are late.
Isn’t a magician the one with heavy butt?”
It was the swordsman who introduced himself first.
A muscular man who is quite big and with a red beard.

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“I’m Ralph.
As you can see, I usually use swords and shields, and I’m used to getting attacked in frontline.
Sven is the ranger.
He’s from Eastern Front Ranger, so he’s reliable in the forest.”
“Ralph, I wanted to introduce myself alone.”
“Haha, you’re not a good speaker.
Oh, and the lady fighter here is…”
“Julia Miller, Thunderbolt Fist disciple.”
She might have a very friendly personality, but it doesn’t bother me.
To be honest, it was because she was pretty beautiful.
“Thunderbolt, it’s been a long time.”
“Have you met our thunderbolt disciples before?””
“That’s right.
At least once.
Was it at Andorel?”
It was difficult to see it easily because martial artists itself were rare, but if it was Thunderbolt, it was still quite a major faction among martial artist factions.
It was not strange to say that Ivan had seen a disciples at least once after going through a lot of dog trouble over the past few years.
“Can you tell me who you met?””
“Matthias.”
“Senior Matthias? Did he look healthy?””
“Until two years ago, yes he was.
He was a very pleasant man.
I received a lot of help from him in Andorel.”
“That’s good news.”
Perhaps because of their connections in the same region, the three of them seemed to know each other well.
Ivan is the only stranger here.
“Ivan Esirsson.
I can do this and that, but I’m most familiar with the sword.
It hasn’t been a few days since I came here.”
“Yeah, I heard you caught Hydra in the west.”
So that’s the story again.
I’ll catch a snake and make it for years.
Ivan replied heartily.
“It wasn’t a big deal.
Maybe it wasn’t Hydra, it was just a mutant snake.”

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When I said that far, the wizard of the magic tower finally appeared.
He was wearing a long robe and holding a large cane, whether he wanted to let everyone know that he was a wizard, but when Ivan looked at him, it looked like he had not properly packed his travel gear.
“Khmm! I’m sorry I’m late.
I have a lot to prepare for this and that.”
Tallang tallang.
As the young wizard, who appeared to be in his early twenties, bowed his head, a loud noise echoed from the backpack he was carrying.
This is because the hanging things are not properly fixed.
“If we go on like this, we will gather all kinds of forest monsters.”
Ranger Sven muttered in a barely audible voice.
For Ranger, who was used to move secretly in the forest as his talent, his current appearance seemed like a disaster.
Perhaps he heard that, but the wizard’s ears heated up a little.
At the same time, seeing that he didn’t say much, he seemed to realized that he prepared poorly.
And seeing that, Ivan was rather relieved.
‘It’s rare to see a normal wizard.
Was it because you’re still young, so you haven’t heard about other wizard?’
It was very dangerous and cumbersome to go directly into the forest and investigate abnormalities.
It seems that the old people of the tower with heavy hips did not want to move themselves, so they sent a young wizard roughly, but from Ivan’s point of view, this person was much better.
The behavior is clumsy, but you still understand what people say.
“Give me your backpack here.
I think I need to clean up the inside.”
As expected, it was the burden of a beginner who had never properly traveled around.
A lot of inefficient bags that you don’t need and shouldn’t have.
“Glass flask? Why do you need this? Are you going to do alchemy there? You won’t be able to afford it in the forest.
And there’s too little food.
You need more beef jerky and grain flour.
There’s not enough water.”
Of course, wizards are not allowed to carry heavy loads as they are high-quality personnel.
However, you don’t know when and what will happen, so you should at least bring a wizard with you to eat when you break up with each other.
“You were recommended by mercenary guilds, so your skills will be above average.”
In fact, that was enough.
Sometimes, when I partied with people from all over the place for a request, unimaginable morons would pop out.

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There’s a famous idiom that when five people gather, there is always one trash.
It was only in the game that they would have happily asked each other how their parents were doing and broke up, so sometimes they were serious enough to cut.
Ivan didn’t become good at this and that for no reason.
Even though I knew it was a waste of skill points, I became a miscellaneous character because there were many situations where I couldn’t trust my colleague.
I was relieved to know how to do everything on my own.
‘Compared to that, it is heaven to carry around a normal wizard who was only studying magic in the magic tower.’
Somehow, the departure was delayed, but the party atmosphere was not so bad.
This is because the young wizard, Emin, read the atmosphere better than expected.
The wizard is a high-quality manpower, so there were many arrogant and cranky people.
If you are a mercenary with a certain amount of experience, you will have at least encounter a wizard few times, which will give you a pretty boring experience.
In the meantime, there was no one to frown at the fact that the departure was delayed by a few hours.
“I used to be a commoner.
This is the first time I came out after following my teacher to the magic tower when I was young.”
Emin, who was scratching her head embarrassedly, began to talk about his boring life at the top of the tower.
“There are times when it explodes during an experiment.
But magic tower’s sound resonates all the time.
So if you want to sleep…”
Everyone listened to it quite interestingly.
This is because magic tower was such a closed place that the general public could not know how the inside worked.
It wasn’t a very big secret.
However, it was a story that is difficult to hear normally, so it should be sufficient as a snack to take out with a beer later.
Of course, that was for a while.
It was because everyone shut their mouths when they went deep into the forest to the point where they could no longer see the castle gates.
su su suk!
ji ji jik!
The sound of branches swaying in the wind, the sound of leaves rubbing against each other, the chirping of insects, and the chirping of birds.
The quiet forest was much louder than I expected.
Finding subtle clues among them and moving around was quite difficult.
“I heard that the place where the magical reaction was felt is near a lake deep in the forest.
You will have to pass through a lot of dangerous places, so please follow my instructions.”
Sven, the guide, began to take the lead.
Perhaps it was not a lie to say that he was a ranger from the Eastern Front, and he moved quietly without a sound of footsteps even in the forest.
He was scouting from a reasonable distance without going out of his sight.
Others moved forward little by little at his hand signal.

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stop!
A signal came from the front.

– Found a monster.
number is two.
After thinking for a while, Ivan sent a hand signal about what kind of monster it was, and Sven made a surprised expression.
This is because he used a complex hand signal that only rangers could understand.
Sven gave an answer with a curious look.

– Easy opponent, blade horn boar, I’ll take care of it by myself.
When Ivan nodded, Sven pulled out a bow, fired it quickly, and moved forward.
There was no need to ask the results.
Subsequently, Ivan recovered the arrow and checked it, and it was definitely good.
“Once per each.
You killed him by penetrating the forehead.’
Sven smiled when Ivan raised his thumb.
That’s when the system message came to mind.
Tring!
[Linked quest: Secret of the East Forest – 1]
[Recently, the eastern forest of Andorel has become strange.
Let’s dig into the secret.]
[Reward: A lot of experience, skill point +1, ???]
“Linked quest?”
There have been many urgent quests and sub-quests, but there have been no linked quests.
And then suddenly, there’s a linked quest?
The reward was weird, too.
It means that the question mark has not been confirmed, even so, beside skill points and a large amount of experience, it was a reward that I had never seen before.
Ivan’s expression, who realized something, hardened on its own.
“It’s connected to the main story!”