A Middle-Aged Man Becomes the Strongest in Another World: The Physical Specialized Awakener - Chapter 17

After the battle, we handled the cleanup and returned to the town of Tolson.

Naturally, they couldn’t just leave the corpses of over 2,000 goblins lying around. We piled them up in one place and burned them using magic and oil. That alone took more than half a day and really proved how troublesome goblin infestations could be.

I took the rest of that day off, and by the next morning, it was back to my usual routine: clearing F-class dungeons and doing daily training.

Two days later, in the evening, I stopped by the guild. Kisara handed me the reward for the Great Subjugation mission along with the payment for the rare boss horn I’d submitted earlier.

“I’m sorry for the delay,” she said. “We finally got a response from HQ. It turns out that horn was pretty rare, so the buying price is… this.” She handed me a pouch containing 1,700,000 rom. For materials from an F-class dungeon monster, that was a staggering amount.

“This is great. I spent a lot preparing for the subjugation mission, so now I can finally afford the trip to Euronn.”

“You’re really leaving, Okuno-san? I’ll miss you,” Kisara said with a soft smile.

“Thank you. Honestly, I owe it to you that I got such a strong start as an adventurer. Once I reach D-rank, I’ll come back, so I hope I can count on your support again then.”

“Of course! There aren’t many people who can take down a Goblin King at E-rank. I believe you’ll become really strong. Good luck out there.”

“Thanks. I’ll do my best to stay alive. Take care.”

I bowed to Kisara and left the guild. 

That night, we had a little farewell dinner, me and the four members of Silver Wheel.

“So, the old guy’s really leaving, huh? That’s a bit sad,” Kaim said, sipping his drink with a rare touch of sentiment.

 Next to him, Meribe nodded in agreement, her eyes a little misty. “Soushi, you always seemed so calm. Being around you felt really reassuring. It’s a shame you’re going, but I guess it’s not surprising for someone strong enough to beat a King.”

“I was honestly shocked,” Lannan added, speaking quietly as she kept eating. “Goblin Kings are supposed to have pretty tough hides. To crush its skull in one hit… that’s some serious strength.”

Lavelt, sitting beside him, kept nodding enthusiastically. “Thanks to you, Soushi, I realized that fighting with a mace is totally doable. I’m gonna focus on boosting my strength skills too.”

“Good idea. If you can swing a heavier mace, your power increases that much more. Might be worth training by just swinging something heavy over and over.”

“What kind of training do you do, Soushi?”

“I swing around a dark metal rod I bought from a weapons shop.”

“Wait, dark metal? You mean that ridiculously heavy and pretty much useless stuff?” Kaim jumped in, clearly intrigued.

“Yeah, that’s the one. I bought three rods and swing them around, or go running while holding them.”

“Whoa, I didn’t know you were doing that! No wonder you’re strong,” Lavelt said, eyes wide.

Lannan cut in from the side. “Actually, carrying around three dark metal rods is already beyond what a normal adventurer could manage. That alone makes Soushi pretty abnormal.”

“Really?”

“No question. Maybe high-rank adventurers could, but for E-rank, it’s definitely impossible.”

“Then why can Soushi do it?” Lavelt asked.

Meribe answered this time. “Probably because he Awakened with an affinity for strength. Kisara mentioned before that some adventurers have that kind of advantage.”

“You can be born with something like that?”

“Even among Awakened, there are big differences. The speed people grow varies too, even when they’re doing the same dungeon work.”

“Well, that’s just like regular people too,” Kaim said, glancing at me with a hint of envy. “Maybe you’re just one of the special ones.”

Honestly, that kind of attention made me a little uncomfortable. But now that they mentioned it, it did make sense that people have different levels of talent. Even in my previous life, there were plenty of people you just couldn’t beat no matter how hard you tried. If I’ve ended up on that side of the equation now… what am I supposed to do with it?

“…Yeah, I kinda suspected I was a bit weird. If that’s really the case, I guess I’d better take my training even more seriously.”

“I’m super curious to see what you’ll become,” Lavelt said. “Hey, can I try holding your mace? I want to know what kind of strength I should aim for.”

“Sure.”

Ravelt picked up the mace leaning against the wall. He grabbed it with both hands and managed a single swing, but he stumbled badly doing it. The old man at the weapons shop said it was meant for muscleheads around D-rank. Seems like he was right.

If I’m already starting to feel like that mace is light, then maybe I really am a strength-specialized adventurer.