“Are you all ready?”

“I am.”

“Aye.”

A short while had now passed since we formed the party.

We had accepted a quest from the guild and were just about to leave the town.

The quest was to investigate the location of a B-Rank monster known as an Earth Dragon.

Not only that, but if we made reports of any other B-Rank and over monsters, we would receive an additional reward.

“Alright, let’s go then. Rodis will be in the front and I’ll be in the middle. Lisa can guard the rear.”

“Okay!”

“…Understood.”

Tina gave the order.

Apparently, she was the leader of this party.

Rodis was the highest in rank, but I suppose it was best that an Archer, who could see everything, gave out the orders.

Speaking of which…

“And what am I supposed to do?”

“While you’re a B-Rank Scout, you can’t fight as a Tamer, right? So you don’t have to join in. You should continue to search the area at a distance where you can remain safe. The speed of this mission depends on how much time it takes you to find the Earth Dragon.”

“Yes, a quest isn’t worth taking if it goes on for too long.”

I see.

If I wasn’t going to be useful in battle, I should focus on my role.

They had formed a party that allowed them to fight with just three people, so it was probably best that I didn’t interfere.

“By the way, what should I do when I find this Earth Dragon?”

“You should tell me about the location. Then I will write it down and the quest will be complete.”

Tina said as she took out a small magic stone.

It was apparently a magic stone that recorded the location it was activated in.

We talked about it as we ran towards the forest that the quest had specified.

It was known as the Forest of Delight, and was located about 40 kilometers away from Kiria.

As it was estimated to take us about three days, we had to carry lots of heavy equipment.

Since I didn’t know if I could trust them, I hadn’t told them of my Tamer skills… When I knew that I could, I could use ‘Slime Storage’ to have the slimes carry everything.

I thought of this as I activated ‘Monster Mutual Understanding.’

This was to talk to the Proud Wolf.

‘Are you alright over there?’

‘Yes! We’re prepared!’

This time I had the Proud Wolf and about 30 slimes move separately.

There were two reasons for this.

The first was to scout, which was the main objective of the quest.

The other was so that if any of my party members acted suspiciously, I would be able to ambush them from afar.

And so I had not told them about the Proud Wolf.

‘Good. Be careful that you are not seen while you search for monsters in that area. It would be great if you could find the Earth Dragon, but don’t do anything dangerous. …If it comes to a battle, I will deal with it with Magic Transfer.’

‘Understood!’

Just as I finished giving the order to the Proud Wolf…the slime on my shoulder raised its voice.

‘Yuji. There are monsters!’

It seemed like they had found monsters already.

When I heard this, I activated Shared Senses and found out the location of the monsters. Then I told the other members.

“You can tell that there are monsters 2 kilometers ahead!? Isn’t that too far to see!?”

“Do you really have the distance right? I don’t think it’s possible for even B-Rank Scouts to know the location of something they can’t see?”

Tina and the others looked at me doubtfully.

Apparently, the scouting abilities of a B-Rank Scout were lower than that of slimes with upgraded tamer skills.

“No, I’m sure they are 2 kilometers ahead. Of course, we’re getting closer now.”

I answered Tina while continuing to monitor the monsters through my slimes.

While I didn’t need to tell them how I did it, there was no need to hide the range of which I could detect monsters.

And then several minutes passed.

“Woah, they really are here!”

We encountered the monsters in the exact place I had said we would.

“They don’t look like much. You can handle them, Rodis! Are you fine doing it alone?”

“Easily!”

Tina looked at the monsters and gave Rodis the order as she readied her bow.

As arrows were limited, she likely wouldn’t want to use them here, but just readied them as a precaution.

After receiving the order from Tina, Rodis charged towards the pack of monsters while swinging his sword.

He was clearly quite skilled with it and was able to kill all of them without ever appearing to be in danger. It all happened in a flash.

“Still, you were exactly right about the location…”

“Maybe Yuji’s scouting ability is top class among B-Rank Scouts…”

Tina and the others muttered as we continued on our way.

This brought a question to my mind, and so I asked them.

“So do A-Rank Scouts have an even wider range for detecting things?”

“Well, if there were any A-Rank Scouts, they would probably be able to detect a wider area than you. …But, there aren’t any A-Rank Scouts.”

“…There aren’t?”

“Not right now. Sometimes you hear of confident B-Rank Scouts taking the test, but I never heard of anyone passing. …Actually, I did hear that one person passed about 10 years ago.”

I see.

So it was very rare to be an A-Rank Scout.

We talked about this as we continued our way through the Forest of Delight.