Chapter 9

On the morning of the fourth day of our party formation, I quickly prepared myself. I sent our clothes to the laundry, bought breakfast, bento, and a few days' worth of emergency rations at the market, and then visited the weapon shop again to buy a knife. After that, I headed into the wilderness area I had been frequenting recently.

I couldn't wait to try it out.

"Alright! Let's start!"

I didn't really need to say it out loud, but it was a way to boost my morale. I was incredibly hyped up, almost to the point where I couldn't calm down.

"Clone 1, ready!"

"Clone 2, ready!"

Two of my clones appeared, striking sharp poses.

"………………"

Seeing my clones appear in such a cool pose...

Yeah, my excitement dropped a bit.

Calmed down, I had the clones carry bamboo spears and sent them ahead. Today, I was determined to hunt goblins seriously, but the wilderness area actually had a very low encounter rate. That's why it was called an unpopular area—essentially, you wanted to fight, but there were no enemies. I thought about hunting in a popular area, but I immediately dismissed the idea.

So, I decided to take a bit of a risk and advance to the Second Area by passing through the gate within the area.

We headed straight for the gate.

We didn't encounter any goblins along the way, but we did pass a party of four. They were probably returning from the area we were heading to.

Judging from their attire, they were a group of two warriors, a mage, and a healer, a classic formation with one front-liner and one back-liner.

Since there was nothing special to talk about, I nodded and tried to pass by, but they noticed the bamboo spears and the fact that three of us looked the same, and comments like "Eh, bamboo spears?!" and "Triplets?!" leaked out.

It wasn't particularly amusing, but it wasn't worth getting angry over. After all, I was aware that our party was far from orthodox. Still, I didn't really want to go to a popular area.

We reached the gate without any further incidents.

I didn't immediately enter; instead, I informed everyone, or rather, Fureru, about our plan.

"Beyond here is the Second Area, also known as the Goblin Labyrinth. As the name suggests, it's full of goblins, and the structure is a complex maze. Most importantly, the King Goblin reigns as the boss at the end."

"Understood."

Fureru nodded, looking a bit pale.

The area ahead was a typical dungeon-type area with no gate to the next area. Instead, it had a boss monster. While the boss was powerful, it offered high experience points and always dropped valuable magic stones, so confident adventurers often challenged it. Of course, many of them died in the process.

"Don't worry. We're not planning to challenge the King. We don't intend to go deep into the maze. We'll just hunt goblins near the entrance. Shall we go?"

"Understood."

We sent the clones ahead to check for safety before slipping through the gate.

As a side note, the generally recommended level for tackling the Goblin Labyrinth in the wilderness is Level 6 for a four-person party. Of course, we came here because we believed we had a chance, but it was quite an adventure.