Chapter 45: The First Operation, Kobolds and the Camp

An hour later.

Several people walked along a slightly rugged road outside the town.

Ed acted as the vanguard at the front. Bailis stood in the second position. 

Sylvia was in the third. Kelta brought up the rear as the team’s rearguard.

The young adventurer with a bump swelling on his head held a map covered in countless marks in one hand. 

His other hand gripped a short knife tightly. His gaze darted back and forth between the roadside bushes and the map.

“Kelta!”

Ed’s voice rang out from the head of the group.

“There’s another fork ahead. Which way should we go?”

The young adventurer pulled his eyes away from the bushes and back to the crumpled map.

“Right!” 

He tried hard to make his voice sound steady and reliable, but it still trembled slightly from nervousness. 

“We’re only a few hundred meters from their camp now!”

“Good!” Ed answered. 

“Keep your eyes on that map. If you keep looking around like that, I’m worried you’ll crash into another tree!”

Clear laughter from the girl and young woman came from up ahead, carried by the wind into the young adventurer’s ears.

Kelta scratched his head awkwardly.

Mr. Ed was right. Just earlier, because he was too nervous, he had slammed straight into a hard tree. That was exactly how the bump on his head had appeared.

“Don’t worry.” 

Ed held his sword in one hand, his sharp eyes scanning the surroundings and checking every possible spot where an enemy might burst out. 

“Leave the vigilance to me. I have far more experience than you in this area. Your job is to lead us correctly to the edge of their camp, not let us stumble blindly into their nest.”

He paused for a moment before continuing.

“So in a sense, your role is especially crucial to whether our operation succeeds. If you want all of us to return safe and sound, you need to buck up. Understand?”

Kelta looked ahead.

His lover, the girl with the ponytail, also turned back to look at him.

Sylvia smiled gently. 

Her ponytail swayed in the wind as if brushing across the young adventurer’s heart.

“Go for it, Kelta.”

The young adventurer took a deep breath and nodded heavily.

“I understand!” His voice was dry but incredibly firm.

Seeing that Kelta had finally stopped staring at the ordinary bushes by the roadside, Ed relaxed and focused fully on keeping watch.

Their first operation targeted a kobold camp near the town.

Kobolds. 

The name included the word “man,” so they sounded like fairly intelligent creatures, right?

In reality, that was not the case.

Although kobolds were slightly smarter than the lowest-level magical beasts, humans still classified them as magical beasts rather than demons.

That alone said plenty.

They could not forge their own weapons. 

Their small brains only allowed the most primitive plundering and killing. 

If they had stolen shields, armor, and weapons, kobolds might look like imposing warriors.

But if not?

They would simply cover their private parts with grass or cloth from who knew where and wield stones or wooden sticks as weapons.

What distinguished them from ordinary magical beasts was that they attacked passing merchant caravans in groups, carrying away what they considered valuable and dumping it into their camps until it rotted.

In official assessments, a lone kobold was rated only as a first-tier magical beast. Only tribes of more than fifty kobolds could be barely considered to have “second-tier threat.”

And this threat was not mainly from the increased numbers. In tribes that reached this size, a very special second-tier individual often appeared.

“Ed.”

Bailis suddenly sped up her steps and walked beside the youth.

“Are kobolds very strong?”

“Strong?”

Ed raised an eyebrow and smiled silently.

“They’re just a bunch of bullies who prey on the weak and fear the strong. Without stolen weapons and protective gear, an unarmed adult could easily handle two kobolds at the same time.”

“Then why has this kobold camp been left alone until now?” 

The girl blinked, asking curiously.

“It means there must be something inside that ordinary adventurers can’t deal with,” Ed explained. 

“For example, a group of kobold warriors who gained some fighting ability by plundering merchant caravans. Or perhaps a kobold that can use magic.”

“Magic?” Bailis showed a look of surprise.

Ed nodded slightly.

The group turned in a new direction. 

Through the gaps in the trees, the kobold camp that had plundered several merchant caravans was now visible in a blurry outline.

“We generally call it a kobold priest,” Ed continued explaining.

“It sounds quite a bit stronger than ordinary kobolds,” the girl muttered.

“Don’t be scared off by the name.” Ed smiled with a relaxed expression, lowering his voice. “If we’re being honest, the magic it knows might not even be as much as what you know, Bailis.”

“What do you mean?”

The girl glared at him, quite unconvinced. But after thinking about it, she realized she truly didn’t know many kinds of magic—fireball, wind ball, wind blade, summon wind…

That was all.

There was nothing more.

The girl immediately wilted.

“Ed, am I really that useless?” she said dejectedly. “I’m almost being outdone by a single kobold.”

“Don’t say that.” Ed patted her head and comforted her. “How can a person be compared to a magical beast? It will only ever know this much in its lifetime. But you can still learn. In a few years, when you look back, you’ll find that the few spells it knows are nothing but laughable toys in your eyes.”

The girl felt the warmth coming from his hand even through her hood, just like last time, and did not protest.

“Thank you…” After quite a while, she said somewhat indistinctly.

“No need to thank me.” Ed withdrew his hand. “This is what I should do as a companion.”

The wind around them gradually grew stronger.

“Companion, huh…” The girl’s voice was faint and unclear in the wind.

“Mr. Ed!” Kelta suddenly called out in a low voice. “The kobold camp is less than a hundred meters away!”

“I can see it,” Ed said in a deep voice. “Let’s get a little closer. We need to observe the structure of their camp more carefully.”

“No problem!”

The young adventurer looked left and right, his eyes suddenly lighting up.

“Mr. Ed, there’s a slope about thirty meters to the left. We can overlook their camp from there!”

Ed looked in the direction he pointed.

A small hill clearly higher than the surrounding terrain stood not far above the kobold camp.

As an observation point, its location was quite excellent.

“Good.” Ed agreed. “Let’s head up and see what those kobolds are doing inside their camp.”