It didn’t take long before Alexis and her Paladins had found their next target, thanks to the help of some local Trolls.

"You guys do know that there are safer villages, right? You don’t have to be out here in the monster zone to get food. Just ask any of the Larry’s in town, and they will get you set up," she commented after seeing the small group of trolls in nothing but ragged pants picking wild mushrooms.

The Trolls laughed. "Yep, boss lady. We know where the village is. We just like it better out here. You see, we’re fighting trolls, we’d get too bored in town, and there is plenty to fight out here."

"Oh, I see how it is. You’re not the sort that likes to sit around all day in town. I’m like that too. Now, have you seen anything that my Paladins and I could go fight?" 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

The Trolls smiled. "Yep. Not far over that way, you’ll find a whole bunch of bugbears. More than the few of us can take on."

Alexis smiled and patted the troll on the shoulder. "Thanks for that. Here’s a reward for your efforts. For the soup."

She handed the troll a bag full of assorted vegetables she had prepared for exactly that reason, and the Trolls cheered. Most of these things didn’t grow in the wild, so they had to go to town, meaning one of the Trollish villages, to get them. They didn’t like to do that, so they didn’t get the good soup all the time.

"You know, if you’re in the area, the Adventurers should also trade soup ingredients for valuable information. Just make sure they know you’re trolls and not wild monsters."

The troll nodded. "That’s where we got the pants from. They’re not too tough though, wearing out pretty quick. Not even a full season."

Apparently, they were extremely hard on equipment.

Though, that shouldn’t be surprising if they went around constantly picking fights with monsters. Anyone who was fighting all the time would naturally end up damaging their clothes quite frequently.

"I can have someone find you more durable stuff if you want?" Alexis offered.

"We’re good. If the pants get too damaged, we just hang out with our wangs out until we find a good monster pelt and make a loincloth."

The Royal Guards snorted with laughter, and the troll smiled as someone finally got his sense of humour. Of course, they were capable of making their own clothes. They were trolls, not incompetents. They just liked the look of these human pants better than the usual Trollish leather, and they didn’t have a village to make them cloth items.

"Best of luck with the soup. We will head off and take care of those Bugbears."

The trolls waved happily, already planning what they might find for spices to improve their dinner even further. Unlike most other trolls, this clan preferred a heavy dose of meat in their stew, and some of the species simply needed to be heavily spiced to be edible.

As promised, the Bugbears were not a long walk.

They were clearly avoiding the area where the Trolls were, as they had scouts spread from their camp in every other direction. But that was normal when facing an enemy that simply wouldn’t die. The bugbears didn’t have fire going in their camp, so they wouldn’t have any sort of defence against the Trolls if they attacked.

Not that they would have much more defence against the Paladins. The bugbears weren’t nearly as individually dangerous as the Ogres, their danger lay in greater numbers and intelligence.

They weren’t particularly smart monsters, but they were generally smarter than most of the Ogres.

Silently, the Paladins spread out, preparing for a full ambush.

The tactic was subtly different than the ones that they had practiced as children. Now they had rifles and pistols instead of relying on bows to deal damage while they closed the distance. The increase in firing rate didn’t seem like much at first, but the pistols were deadly against the Bugbears, and they fully expected the later stages of the battle to be much different.

With the trap set, the Paladins raised their rifles and began to fire.

The Bugbears realized the danger immediately, and after their recent run in with the trolls, they were in no mood for another ambush.

So, they ran.

Unfortunately for them, that was the worst possible reaction to a group of riflemen in relatively open ground. The Paladins simply continued to shoot until there was nothing left moving to shoot at.

It was satisfying in an entirely different way than a sword fight.

Watching the monsters fall under the firepower of a single team, without anyone risking injury, was an incredible feeling, no less exhilarating than the anticipation before the real fight began in a traditional battle.

All the good stuff, none of the danger and injury.

Still, it wasn’t quite the same as getting to hack them apart with a sword. That was satisfying in a visceral way, and reminded everyone that there was more to their bodies than their eyesight and hand eye coordination.

"Well, it might not have been much of a fight, but the area looks clear now, and we’ve got plenty of monster cores.

That will keep the Duke happy. He’s always going through them for his smithy experiments. Not as many as I would expect, but still, he’s constantly complaining about a lack," Ella noted.

Alexis laughed. "It’s not that he’s running out of cores. It’s that everyone asks specifically for level five and ten items, and there are only so many monsters that are exactly the right level to make a hundred identical copies of something."

"That’s what it is? Customers just not understanding that the level of items can and will vary? I shouldn’t be surprised, since the Royal Family and the militia are such big customers of his that they will want everything equal, so nobody feels like they are losing out.

But still. It’s a bit excessive."