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I told her to continue.

 

“I think there might be ten or twenty inside.”

“Wonderful.”

“Th-thank you.”

 

Nia’s tail wagged slowly.

 

“Of course, it’s possible that there are less than five in all or that the two guards are the only ones.”

“Yes.”

“However, that is just an optimistic guess. As an Adventurer, its best to expect the worst.”

 

I said admiringly and patted her on the head.

Kathe watched this exchange with a curious expression.

 

“You humans do think about a lot of things.”

“Humans are much weaker than dragons. We have to think or we will die easily.”

“Gahahahaha! But you are stronger than me, Locke.”

 

Kathe was in a good mood. A sharp contrast to Grulf, who was still hiding behind me.

 

“Well, now that we know they are goblins, let us burn them out.”

“Wait a second.”

“Hm? Is there something else?”

“There is still a possibility of humans being inside.”

“Hm? You mean humans who are in league with the goblins?”

“No, I mean humans that were captured by the goblins.”

“I did not know that such things happened.”

 

Goblins ate people.

And so the chance of there being living captives was quite low.

 

“I’ll go and explore the ruins with Nia and Grulf…”

“Huh?”

 

Nia looked surprised.

 

“Oh? If you don’t want to, you could stay outside with Kathe?”

“No, I was just surprised. I will definitely go with you.”

“I see.”

“I would like to go too.”

“Hmm. You’re too big, Kathe.”

“But it is a dragon ruin, so it is big inside, you know?”

“That’s true… But I want you to wait by the entrance and kill any goblins that try to escape.”

“I see. That is an important job, yes.”

 

Kathe was satisfied by this.

 

“What about you, Grulf? Do you want to wait outside?”

“Grr-grrr.”

 

Grulf growled weakly. Then he lifted both paws towards my hand.

He would rather hunt goblins then stay with Kathe.

 

“Alright. Let’s go then.”

 

And so I told Nia and Grulf what we would do.

We wouldn’t be able to talk once we got close, so we needed to prepare in advance.

 

After that, we approached the ruins. Nia and I would kill a goblin each.

It was important that we did not let them scream while we did it.

When that was finished, we would go inside of the ruins, and Nia and Grulf would follow after me.

 

This would be good stealth training for Nia.

Even for a Warrior, stealth training was important in becoming a first-rate Adventurer.

It would be completely ridiculous if you couldn’t even hide from mere goblins.

 

I had told her that before we began.

And so she quietly approached and jumped at the goblin at the perfect distance. And then she thrust her sword into its neck.

I killed my own goblin at the same time.

 

I nodded approvingly to her and then we stepped foot into the ruins.

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