Sword, Magic and Academic Society

“Ahahaha! I knew you caught on, with your lax attitude. I couldn\'t appear weaker, right? Anyway, if it ends well then all\'s well!”

“Sigh… fine. But I better not see this happening again— alright!?”

Thump

I followed with a surprise attack on his stomach while I was talking, however, his abdominal muscles were like a piece of iron— hard. And when I held up my balled-up fist with tears almost squeezing out from my eyes from the pain, Uncle Shell burst into laughter.

“Fuhaha. You\'re quite a cheeky bastard. That said, you’ll have to learn to handle that much if you want to be an explorer, your being a brat doesn\'t mean jack shit.

And Lynd too, the heck was he doing? How could he have not told me about you? I would have liked to meet an interesting fella like you earlier.

Hey, Ren. We\'re going to the forest north of the capital. Honey ants have made their colony there.”

“What? No. Didn\'t I tell you I\'m busy—”

“But you were just sitting around in a trance earlier. Enough, grow a pair, and come with me. What do you prefer— do you want to be knocked out cold and wake up in the forest, or you will go there on your own?”

“The hell’s with that absurdity!? Elimination of Honey Ants should be a B-rank quest, ain\'t it? Just so you know, I\'m mere E-rank. I\'m not qualified to join your temporary party.”

“Oh? I\'m surprised you know about it, I\'m sure such cases are rare even in the Royal Capital’s vicinity. Studying hard, eh? But if you know, that\'s just fine! Besides, don\'t sweat over it. It\'s not a quest. They’ll target all the magical plants if we leave them alone, so this is more of a voluntary act. We can\'t afford to let those monsters run rampant with the already scarce magical plant materials.”

“What do you mean ‘that’s just fine’? I\'m not budging from here, the end!”

“That place is 60km away from here so we\'re running there. What? Don\'t want to follow? Then I’ll knock you out and carry you by myself.”

He\'s really deaf when it comes to listening to others…

“Are you kidding, it\'s already dark! You can\'t go there unprepared. Not that I\'m going!”

“Why would I need preparation just to handle the neighborhood? It\'s piss easy like taking a stroll in the park. Let\'s settle this quickly and hit some booze. Man, you should be rejoicing more, Ren. You\'re going to see the performance of Shell Monstel from up close.”

Uncle said and snapped his fingers.

What, Shell Monstel?!

“... Who the heck are you!?”

◆

We took a ride on a Magic Car to the 3rd Avenue intersection and then sprinted out of the Royal Capital.

The world was already dyed in darkness.

<You don\'t even know me despite being an explorer in the capital? How oblivious can you be, brat?>

That was his reaction when I said I didn\'t know him. I explained I was just a country bumpkin who had just arrived from the Dragoon territory this summer.

I might be interested in monsters but getting to know about the bigwigs wasn\'t on my list of interests. But I was still surprised when I heard that he was one of the few S-rank adventurers in this Kingdom. He had looked at me with skepticism that I didn\'t even know that.

60km wasn\'t a big distance but Uncle\'s pace was fast. I was already having a tough time running on the dark, unmaintained path with just strengthening my eyes, however, he didn\'t even stop somewhere to rest while keeping a pace that I could barely follow.

I was panting like a dog when we reached our destination.

“W-what speed… You have my respect, Uncle. Huff But I need to take a short rest, or I would be out of commission to do anything.”

“Ahahaha! I was pushing you to exhaustion and then I would have carried you, but I never expected you would be able to catch up. You’ve got some stamina, kid!”

He appeared to be in a good mood, apparently finding the whole ordeal amusing. Then, he entered the forest, treating my request like air.

“Let\'s wrap this up quickly, my throat is in some dire need of a good beer.”

“Let\'s block every other entrance of the nest except two and then chase them from one end. They might dig a sub-tunnel and escape from there if we don\'t leave them an escape route.”

“Hmm, impressive~. Well, that much was to be expected from a Class A talent.”

“...You noticed?”

“It was obvious even if I didn’t want to notice. The Royal Capital might be vast being the heart of the kingdom but not every 12-year-old, E-rank brat is capable of trodding on the night-veiled path with that pace, looking all dandy.”

“Hey, I\'m not dandy at all! I really want some timeout…”

“Leave the chatting for later. Time to clean up these pests. We\'re going to have honey ant barbeque and beer, baby!”

Don\'t try to be a selective deaf, damn baldy!

Well, at least it didn\'t seem like he was going to give me special treatment. If anything, I guess I was now curious about my open-minded yet bold Uncle who, despite having a status, looked no different than any other explorer.

I was right: explorer meant a whimsical life.

◆

“We\'re here, this is the anthill. It\'s apparently 30m in height and 150m in diameter. And they have yet to finish constructing it.”

Uncle Shell said as he destroyed the unsteady entrance sticking out outside while bare-handed, crushing the Soldier Ants, who jumped out of the holes feeling threatened, in a 50m area.

Insect-type monsters usually had tough carapaces… I feared his strength was even higher than Dante-san, a member of the knight order known for his strength. This uncle of mine was a monster in human skin as well, huh…

“And groundwork is done. I’ll start pursuing the monsters from the opposite side, while you, Ren, stand guard by this entrance. Don\'t mind the others, just make sure to target the queen— it’s the one with the wings. She’ll most likely try to get out first.”

“Understood.”

It should have been around two minutes when I started hearing the sounds of Uncle Shell fighting from the opposite side of the Anthill.

It was easy to catch the sound or magic in caves like this even from a distance. However, this also made pinpointing the location of the sound a headache.

I picked up the sound of a group heading towards this direction in a straight line while what seemed to be a flock of Soldier Ants were swooping down at Uncle to earn time. The first group must be the Queen’s, no doubt.

I waited and when I picked up the sound of the Queen Ant convoy turning around at the last corner, I shot an iron arrow.

My arrow crushed the eye of the leading Soldier Ant that let out a death throe-like ‘screeee’ sound and turned into a lifeless husk. In a heartbeat, three other Soldier Ants rushed towards me.

The Queen Ant however turned back inside the cave. I immediately followed with another arrow, aiming at the ant’s eye, only for it to be repelled by her tough carcass.

The ants retaliated by shooting their acid.

I hurriedly dodged the acid, closed the distance, and kicked one to overturn it. With its stomach left vulnerable, I swiftly stabbed it with my Banry firm knife to end its life.

I opened the distance between us and re-used scouting magic to read the cave’s internal situation while keeping an eye on the Queen Ant.

……This is bad. Uncle was busy kicking down the other ants while they had opened another entrance in the cave. The Queen\'s convoy was now directly aiming for that exit.

Uncle had yet to notice this path in his advance and that he was about to miss the Queen Ant.

I activated my body-strengthening magic to its full extent, leaped out of that hole, and circled the cave to rush toward the newly formed entrance.

I was there in nick of time.

I hesitated for a moment before pulling out the arrow with the MacAquate mineral arrowhead.

The Queen Ant had already leaped out of the hole. My enhanced vision wasn\'t on par with night vision, but the sound of its wings flapping in the dark night was enough. I turned my aim in that direction and released my arrow, which easily pierced the Queen Ant and it dropped to the ground.

Truly, money solved problems. My 2000 rea arrow showed its worth tonight.

I headed to the Queen Ant\'s direction and by the time I reached her, she had already drawn her last breath.

“Hey, sounds like you have my ass covered… But boy, you already have one heck of a scouting range at your age. I did hear from Godorfun about your visits to the 3rd Legion. So what, are you now Dew\'s subordinate or something?”

Uncle Shell said as he approached from behind.

“Right. I have taken Dew-san as my mentor and have been under his tutelage.”

“Aha! I heard you talk him down, but I guess that old man is still an old fox… Just how long have you been dancing on his palm, eh?”

I shrugged my shoulders in response.

“He really knows how to make others dance to his whims. My guess about his goals is no better than the others. No matter how much you roast that old man, it\'s hard to tell what he actually is cooking.”

“Hahaha! No shit. Anyway, let\'s collect the honey from the Queen Ant\'s belly. Someone else will come at a later date to retrieve the materials here. It\'s beer time!”

Alcohol, huh?…

Intoxication wasn\'t a problem with the magic in this world, so the general drinking age was 12 when the kid\'s magic organ had finished developing.

Well, I was still a bit appalled about drinking in my current appearance. However, I have no plan to be adamant about it when my goal is the outlaw life.

“What\'s with that mystified expression? Alcohol is a part of being an explorer if you want to tread on this path, just so you know. Whether it\'s merry-making with comrades or resistance to poison.”

“Wait, you can increase your resistance to poison with alcohol?”

“Hn? You don\'t even know that? You have quite the mismatched knowledge. The elimination of foreign substances through mana relies on your experience in drinking. This is why the pompous aristocrats also make themselves familiar with alcohol. The same goes for first-class explorers. Too much drinking is also no better than poison but leaving aside likes or dislikes, try to have alcohol once in a while as training. Alright, time to go.”

I really wasn\'t aware of that! But if that was true, then I guess I really couldn\'t ignore it! Yes, definitely. It was all part of training.

“Ah, can I retrieve my knife first? I left my knife lodged into a Soldier Ant at the first entrance when I rushed here.”

I said, and so I returned to where the Soldier Ant was. However, the ant I stabbed with my knife was nowhere to be seen.

Haa, and here I had finally gotten used to it after using it every day. Bummer…