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Come again? No, look, we aren’t doing any Goblins, okay?

“No, we are here for this quest!”

Before I managed to respond, Lily pushed out the quest paper with a super nice smile!

“Huh…? This quest…?”
“Yes!”
“Not Goblins…?”
“Not Goblins!”

Damn… that’s quite the pressure there… Lily’s smile is too scary…

“…”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“Please register this quest.”
“Errr… Alright, so this quest then…”

Ohh, the guild’s staff gave in first.

“Ah, this quest… It would really help us, but are you sure? It is a large magic beast…”
“If we judge it to be too much, we will turn back.”
“I see… Alright then. Oh yes, the spring location. There is a narrow path northeast of the town and you will reach it if you follow that road. The specialty cuisine of this town uses small turtle magic beasts that can be caught in that spring, and this quest entails dealing with a large turtle magic beast that has settled there, or more accurately, grew abnormally large.”

Huh, so the specialty cuisine was turtle-based? But since they’re settled in the spring, they should be freshwater turtles, right? I remember those smelling really muddy… But well, this is a world filled with magic, so maybe freshwater turtles taste different too. I mean, they are called magic beasts to begin with.

“You say abnormally large… how large are we talking about?”
“It was reported to us that it was over five meters.”

A turtle that’s over five meters long?! Isn’t that bigger than average cars?! And a lot at that… Wait, hold on, isn’t that too large?!

“Hmm… so at least five meters, and potentially bigger… Ren, what do we do?”
“…For now, let’s just do what we were planning to do.”
“Ah, excuse me for interrupting, but people are troubled with its subjugation because it doesn’t want to come out of the spring, so one has to start planning from how to drag it out…”

Ah… So this is the reason why this quest was left for so long… Makes sense now.

“It appears that the large magic beast is the boss of the spring’s turtle-type magic beasts, and whenever people go fishing, it rampages, destroying nets and traps, leaving fishermen without work, which also troubles this town. And yet, in normal times, it doesn’t come out of the spring no matter what you do, thus the adventurers so far have been failing the quest as they literally cannot lay a hand on it…”

Feeling handcuffed against a turtle really puts humans on the spot huh? I guess I shouldn’t be cracking jokes now.

“So it comes out to rampage during fishing, right? Has no one tried to do something during it?”
“Of course, they did. But it was far too violent and put adventurers in unrecoverable states, biting off their arms and crushing their legs, making them retire one after another… Furthermore, after so many attempts it has destroyed far too many nets and traps, and any more than that would hinder the fishing once it is reopened.”
“In other words, we can’t lure it with fishing. Still, unrecoverable state, you say…”

Oh, Lily’s put on a pensive look! That face is saying she’s gonna give up on this quest, after all!

“Ah! But at first, it was witnessed on the shore acting docile! According to the adventurers who attacked it at the time, it seems that it didn’t counterattack and just slowly walked back into the spring! However… they lacked enough offensive power to deal with it.”
“Lacked offensive power, huh…”

The staff member talked on and on to distract Lily. Were there so few willing to take the quest that she had to resort to that?

“Yes, they said they couldn’t deal a single scratch to its shell. Other adventurers also attempted aiming at that timing afterward, but it eventually stopped coming up…”

Uhh… So basically, it rampages when it’s protecting its friends, but it otherwise remains docile in normal times? And, I don’t know if it’s to bask in the sun or whatever, but it sometimes comes up to the shore, so we could maybe manage if we aim at that timing. Wait, she said they couldn’t deal a scratch to its shell, but why didn’t they aim for its neck or legs? What’s going on… Oh, right, it’s supposed to be large, so there’s a chance its limbs are hard too, huh? Hmm.

“And so, the city is quite troubled about this. We would be extremely grateful if you accept this quest. However, this quest has been stagnating for months already, so I hesitate to recommend it to adventurers with big prospects like you…”

How to put this… It turned out that this quest was quite a bit more difficult than I expected. But hmm…… Well, it seems we’re accepting it, so that’s that?

“Lily, let’s check it out for now.”
“…Right, let’s do what we can. We’ll start with scouting.”
“So you’re accepting it, after all… Well, let’s do this. If you judge it to be impossible when you go and take a look, I will pretend that you have not accepted the quest officially. The Adventurer’s Guild wouldn’t wish to needlessly lower the quest success rate of promising adventurers.”
“Oh, are you sure?”
“Yes, it won’t be a problem. People have been constantly failing this quest, so it would normally be difficult for young adventurers like you to complete it. You could think of it as part of the experience.”

Ohh, this staff member turned out to be a better person than I thought. But she seems like the type who just overworks herself and finds no success in life.

“Putting that aside, would you be willing to also accept a special Goblin extermination quest too?”
“““No!”””

I take back what I said. She’s tougher than I thought.