“Hurry up, Chris.”

I laughed out loud while beckoning Chris to find herbs faster. In my backpack were all the herbs that I needed to collect according to the mission I picked.

“Tch.”

Chris just clicked his tongue and didn’t mind me any further.

“Ehh~ How boring.”

I decided to stop teasing him by his lack of response. It’s been a week since Harry, Chris, and I became adventurers. On our first mission, my performance was very poor due to me not reading the herb collecting guide before going on the mission and Chris kept mocking me for the whole time. Since then, I finished reading the guide and frequented the library to study more about plants and herbs.

For the whole week, I decided to choose only herb collecting missions so Harry and Chris had no other choice but to do the same. The reason I did that is for redemption; on my second mission, I finished my mission earlier than Chris and continued to do so for the rest of the week. As a result, I’m the one mocking Chris now. Although for the whole time I couldn’t beat Harry at all, he always knows where to find any kind of herbs. Well, he’s an expert in alchemy after all.

I was never interested in alchemy and the only reason I studied so hard for the past week is to beat Chris. Now that I’ve lost my motivation I have no reason at all to keep collecting herbs.

That settles it; I will stop taking herb collecting missions from today onwards.

“Let’s start hunting monsters tomorrow,” I told Harry and Chris.

Chris's face brightened up and he shouted excitedly.

“Finally!”

I didn’t like that he was happy with it but finding plants was getting boring. Harry on the other hand just smiled and didn’t say anything.

I’m looking forward to the next mission.

***

“By the way, you can rank up now.”

“Eh?”

Rebecca suddenly told us a piece of good news.

“You completed so many herb collecting missions for the past week that you made a new record. The merit you received is enough to rank up to E-rank now.”

“Isn’t that too fast?”

“You’re the one completing missions too fast. 10 missions in a day? Nobody does that!”

“But they’re just herb collecting missions though.”

“Do you have any idea how far the forest is? Beginner adventurers don’t usually travel that fast! Besides, finding the plants itself takes a long time for beginners. You completed 10 missions in a day while others take a whole day to complete at most 2!”

Rebecca told me a surprising fact. Never mind the first time, but since I started studying finding plants wasn’t too hard for me. The same goes for Chris who could keep up with me despite losing every time and Harry who’s an expert. I asked Chris since he didn’t seem to be studying plants as I did.

“How did you collect plants so fast?”

“Of course I studied too! Since you decided to make it a competition and all.”

“And yet you still lost.” I covered my mouth and laughed at him mockingly.

“That-!” Chris couldn’t refute my statement, he sighed and looked down in defeat.

I stopped mocking him and turned to Rebecca.

“Don’t the adventurers read the guides too?”

“Most adventurers aren’t the studious type, and just because you studied about the plant doesn’t mean it’s easy to find.”

“Huh.”

I decided to not dwell on it. Besides, just because Chris and I are good and finding plants doesn’t mean we could become experts in alchemy. Those kinds of fields require years of studying, not just plant-finding skills.

“Well, let’s rank up then.”

“Okay, give me your Adventurer IDs, I will update your information.”

Harry, Chris, and I became E-rank adventurers that day.

***

[Grey Wolves Subjugation]

[Goblins Subjugation]

[Orcs Subjugation]

We looked around the mission board and saw many monster subjugation missions. Monster subjugation missions start at E-rank. That’s why taking monster subjugation missions as an F-ranked adventurer would help you rank up faster.

Since I’m an E-rank now, I could take missions up to D-rank. I looked for a mission that’d be suitable for me and one mission caught my eyes.

It was the goblins. If I’m going to start hunting monsters I will have to get used to killing. I didn’t bat an eye slaughtering the assassins sent to the Hale manor but I needed to confirm.

I took the mission notice to the receptionist and walked out of the guild, Chris and Harry following behind me.

Grrrr!

My stomach growled as soon as I exited the building. I kept a straight face despite the embarrassing moment. Chris was laughing by the way.

“Before hunting, let’s eat first.”

Hunting on an empty stomach would be dangerous.

***

Besides being an adventurer-focused place, Cale was also a merchant town. Due to adventurers bringing in monster materials, a market focusing on those materials had been rising steadily here.

We’re currently at the marketplace in the middle of Cale. There were plenty of stalls and buildings where shops were built were concentrated on the wide paved road. Various things were sold at the marketplace including the thing I was looking for - food.

There was a section of the marketplace that focused on food. I’ve always wanted to eat here but I was too invested in my competition with Chris and was busy studying at the library instead. The meals I had were from the inn too.

I smiled gleefully at the amazing sight of street delicacies. There were foods reminiscent of my previous world like takoyaki and fried banana. As I was marveling at the heaven in front of me I heard a divine ringing sound of a bell that I would always remember from my past life.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

‘That is-!’

I turned towards the sound and there it was.

“Ice cream!”

I always ate ice cream back at the Hale manor. However, it’s been a week since then and my ice cream-loving self grew excited at the appearance of an ice cream man. I ran while crying tears of joy towards the ice cream stall.

“Has he gone crazy?”

I heard Chris insulting me from behind but I ignored him.

“Let him be. The young master has always loved ice cream.” Harry answered Chris’ offensive question.

“I know that, but should he be that excited about it?”

“It’s fine.”

I arrived at the stall and looked up to the middle-aged-looking ice cream man. He let out a surprised voice.

“Oh? A new face! Do you want ice cream, young boy?”

I nodded excitedly and gave him a copper coin which amounts to about 10 cents in my previous world. The ice cream here is pretty cheap.

“Here you go. Enjoy!” the friendly ice cream man cheerfully gave me ice cream.

The sweets in this world only have one standard flavor, which was odd since everything else was pretty advanced. Should I revolutionize the sweets industry? The standard ice cream is still really good but I still miss the diversity of ice cream flavor from my previous world. I could start a candy business too in the meantime.

Harry and Chris bought ice cream too and we ate ice cream together while looking for a place to eat. We finally settled down in a restaurant that sells rice bowls.

It was a delicious meal.

***

“Geee!”

The goblins screamed as I cut them down in cold blood. I cut all 4 of them at once.

As I thought, my heartbeat didn’t rise a bit when I kill them: and it’s not like the goblins didn’t show any fear of being killed either. I’m convinced now, I have no problem taking a life. Is it because I was never taught compassion in my past life? I have a loving family now but my mentality is heavily influenced by the memories of my past life. I was an orphan and had no one that I truly loved. Life wasn’t that hard but it wasn’t easy too. In the end, I was shot to death by another human.

I decided not to dwell on it any longer. I cut the goblins left ears off as proof of subjugation.

“Let’s go find more goblins.”

I continued finding goblins with Harry and Chris behind me.

“He’s talented at killing isn’t he?” Chris said to Harry.

“Indeed.”

“I had seen the corpses of the assassins that night when he killed them alone but I never thought he could be this cold-blooded. He didn’t even flinch taking those goblins' life just now.”

“Well, that’s good for him isn’t it?”

“I wonder if it is; he’s supposed to be a child after all.”

Harry and Chris were talking about me behind my back but I ignored them as I was searching for goblins to hunt down.