"What the hell did I do to deserve this c*ap?"

Nathaniel was standing in the middle of a forest, covered in blood and sweat. The area around him was covered with corpses of small, green skinned creatures. His breathing was heavy and he felt like he could collapse at any second. He looked around and observed the knights in white and blue armour fighting, burning things or doing whatever. This was a proper battle between holy knights and goblins!

'F*ck my life'

He tripped while walking and almost fainted out of exhaustion but screaming of a certain someone brought him back to reality.

"Hahaha! YES! Kill them all! Burn them all! Make sure even their ancestors feel the fire! Hahaha!"

The voice belonged to a blonde-haired woman that was swinging her sword left and right, decapitating goblins wherever her sword went and her smiling face that was covered completely with blood could be clearly seen from a distance. Nate looked at the scene and that was the first time he felt truly horrified by a person.

***

"...help us with... purifying evil"

'Great he left me with a murderous psychopath...'

"This... Of course, I'd like to help out but I am afraid I won't be of much help since I don't have much experience in combat so..."

"Oh? So you are willing to help, how wonderful!"

'F*ck!'

Sara seemed to have heard only what she wanted to hear and it was quite clear she won't take a no for an answer.

"Then I will tell you what I planned for our first mission together"

'F*ck!'

"Together? I was informed I would accompany just a small group of holy knights..."

"Well, you're our little hero and of course I will accompany you to make sure you will come back safe and sound~"

'F*ck!'

"Are you certain on your decision? Don't you have many duties to attend to as a grand master?"

Nate was trying his best but it was like talking to wall.

"Duties? Of course, I have those! Like killing those DIRTY FIENDS that live in the forest nearby"

"Is that so..."

'I should've just said I was close to a breakthrough or something and reject the emperor...'

He finally gave up on trying to reason with Sara and simply started to listen to what she had to say since it could quite literally determine his life and death.

"Anyway, what was I saying? Right! It will be me, you and other ten holy knights, twelve in total and our mission is quite simple: population control"

"Population control?"

"Yes! You see our city has a slight problem inside of a forest nearby..."

She suddenly paused and her expression turned to an extremely ugly frown, she also put her hands up and seemed to be imagining something very vividly. All of this was so full of expression that Nate could swear he saw her grabbing a small goblin and trying her best to crush its skull.

"DIRTY... UGLY... GOBLINS! I swear I will offer their heads to the Goddess as an offering! THOSE RATS! They bother our pious believers in their daily lives. SUCH CRIME! The only suitable punishment is a complete extermination of this evil!"

After saying all of this with a crazed expression, she shook her head with disappointment.

"Ahh... but sadly it's not possible to completely eradicate this evil so we are forced to go out from time to time and limit their population since they replicate faster than rabbits..."

"Is... that so...?"

"Yes! Sadly no one listens to solutions I offer... Everyone just gives those mediocre excuses like: Burning the entire forest just to kill some goblins is not a very good solution or using high mages to bombard everything to the ground is counterproductive... do you understand what I have to deal with?"

"Yes...?"

Nate at this point was too afraid to disagree with her but him saying so seemed to have energized her a bit too much.

"Ahh! Finally! Someone sane that agrees with me!"

'Sane!? You must be jesting...'

"Sigh... Then when are we heading out?"

He was starting to go a bit numb and simply wanted to finish his task as fast as possible and distance himself from her.

"Look at you so eager to help! We will head out in an hour since some things need to be arranged but, in the meanwhile, we can chat a bit if you want"

"NO!"

"Huh?"

"I mean... I have to do some maintenance on my equipment! I... want to be at my peak condition. It is my first mission after all I want to make sure everything goes well Haha...."

"Haha, I understand... Then I won't bother you for now"

'Thank the f*cking God'

Nataniel was terrified at the prospect of talking with Sara for over an hour so he made some stuff up and hurried to a corner trying to appear as busy as he possibly could.

"Ahh... It almost reminds me of my first mission to eradicate some heretics..."

Nate got goosebumps when he looked over and saw Sara smiling "affectionately" while looking at him. He decided that the best solution was simply to not look at her.

This was easily one of the longest hours he experienced in his life...