"Finish the final checks!"
In front of the long line of wagons, Ivan, the steward, was loudly reminding his subordinates of their duties.
Beside him, a young apprentice held a ledger and checked the supplies listed inside one by one.
This wasn't the first time he'd checked them.
But this was the Red Dragon Group's first large-scale extermination operation since its founding, so no amount of pre-departure checking was excessive.
Out in the wilderness, supplies that were easy to obtain in the city could become a hundred times harder to find if they ran out.
"Why are we taking so many people this time?" Alya asked.
"It's a large nest with nearly two thousand goblins. If we rely on Aike to carry everything like last time, it'll take forever. Besides, the destination is much farther away than it was last time."
"Better to organize a caravan and bring them along. It'll be good training for them, too." Gauss looked at the caravan.
The others didn't have much to say in response.
The field team about to accompany Gauss and the others, however, was clearly far less composed.
Debbie noticed her longtime teammate Donovan trembling slightly beside her and patted him on the shoulder.
"Come on, Donovan. Don't tell me you're scared?"
"D-don't talk nonsense!" Donovan took a deep breath, then rubbed his cheeks.
He glanced around, and only after confirming that no one was watching did he lower his voice and ask her,
"Is it really that obvious?"
"Heh, relax," Debbie said with a soft laugh.
"How could I not be nervous? We're talking about two thousand goblins," Donovan muttered.
Though he'd been an adventurer for over ten years, he'd never faced an enemy on this scale.
The most he'd ever fought was around thirty goblins, and that had been