Translator: CinderTL
Deep in the dense forest northeast of Pine Wood Town, sunlight filtered through layers of overlapping leaves, casting dappled shadows on the forest floor covered in decaying leaves.
"Crack!"
The crisp snap of a broken branch echoed through the woods as a group of goblins, brandishing rusty weapons, pushed aside the obstructing bushes.
They chattered excitedly, their hoarse, grating voices betraying their unrestrained glee.
If it weren't for their grotesque faces and the fresh bloodstains on their weapons, they might have been mistaken for a group of merry travelers on an outing.
The Goblin Leader at the front gestured wildly, miming something with exaggerated movements. Suddenly, a flash of cold steel glinted from the bushes behind him.
"Swish!"
The goblin's ugly grin froze on its face as a thin red line silently appeared across its ashen-gray neck.
The next moment, its severed head thumped to the ground, blood gushing forth like a fountain, splattering across the surrounding fallen leaves.
"Gah-gah-goo!"
Before the other goblins could react, several more flashes of silver light sliced through the air.
Their terrified screams died in their throats, replaced by gurgling sprays of blood.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
As several corpses fell one after another, Roland shook the blood droplets from his longsword and slowly furrowed his brow.
"Did they just... mention... moving?"
Unlike the silent, frenzied goblins he had encountered while hunting with Darco in the forest, these goblins lacked the eerie red markings and behaved much more normally.
While lurking in the shadows, Roland had used his Animal Companion ability to carefully listen to their conversation.
Unfortunately, goblins' intelligence was severely limited. Their speech was not only disjointed and nonsensical but also frequently interrupted. Roland had to strain to piece together the keyword "moving" from their fragmented utterances.
This reminded him of Joe, the Red Squirrel he had met in the forest. Since becoming a hunter and awakening the Animal Companion ability, Joe had been the most intelligent non-human creature he had encountered.
Shaking his head lightly, Roland set aside this irrelevant memory and swiftly dragged the green-skinned monsters into a nearby thicket.
After confirming the goblins carried nothing of value, Roland drew the dagger from his belt and sliced off their ears one by one, placing them in the pouch at his waist.
"This is the fifth patrol team already."
Roland cautiously scanned his surroundings, confirming the area was secure before exhaling a sigh of relief and retrieving the slightly crumpled commission from his breast pocket.
Mottled sunlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves, illuminating the hastily scribbled lines on the parchment.
"Exterminate the Goblin Camp"
Roland's brow furrowed.
"Such frequent patrols, such tight defenses... is this really just a camp?"
After double-checking the coordinates on the parchment to confirm he was indeed at the designated location, Roland carefully folded it and put it away.
He then lowered his posture and continued cautiously through the dense forest.
Though his current strength allowed him to handle dozens of goblins simultaneously with ease, he knew even a lion gives its all when hunting a rabbit. He wouldn't let the vast difference in their power make him careless.
As he ventured deeper, he encountered two more goblin patrol teams.
Benefiting from the enhancements of adaptive training, Roland's agility attribute had risen to seven, nearly matching his strength.
This allowed him to move through the dense jungle like a wraith, each strike precise and deadly.
A flash of cold steel, and two goblin patrol teams fell silent before they could even raise the alarm.
"Twenty-nine," Roland counted silently.
Based on the goblins' patrol formation of three to five members per group, he had already wiped out seven squads along the way.
His progress toward the Warrior Class Change requirement of killing one hundred hostile creatures had rapidly advanced from zero to twenty-nine.
Under the influence of the Theory and Practice trait, his Lion Swordsmanship experience points had also increased by nearly seventy.
Compared to the progress he usually made through Combat Readiness training, this rate of improvement was astonishing.
As he continued forward, Roland suddenly caught the sound of commotion ahead.
He immediately dropped to the ground, moving forward stealthily.
His boots crunched softly on the decaying leaves, making no sound.
They finally stopped before a dense thicket of bushes.
Roland gently parted the branches with his slender fingers and looked up.
This was a clearing in the forest that had been brutally cleared.
Seventeen or eighteen ramshackle huts, constructed from branches and mud, were crammed together haphazardly.
At the edge lay several corpses, their faces gnawed beyond recognition. Judging by their tattered clothing, they were likely merchants who had passed through or mercenaries and adventurers who had come to hunt the goblins.
Dozens of goblins scurried back and forth through the camp like ants.
Some were roughly stuffing stolen vessels into baskets, the sound of pottery shattering echoing through the air.
Others were fighting over a moldy piece of jerky, their mouths bloody from biting and tearing at each other.
From above, the entire camp pulsed with a morbid vitality, like maggots writhing within rotting wood.
At the center of the camp, a goblin wearing a bone necklace barked orders in a shrill voice.
It was similar in size to the other goblins, but its cloudy yellow eyes gleamed with cunning.
Whenever a goblin's movements lagged, the leader would leap up and slam its bone staff down hard on their heads.
"They really are moving... But where are these goblins going? The Black Cedar Forest?"
Roland, while inwardly speculating, narrowed his eyes and carefully counted the goblins.
"One... two... three... thirty-one goblins..."
He muttered the count under his breath, quickly calculating in his mind.
"At this rate, if the Kobold Lair has a similar number of demonic beasts as this goblin camp, completing these two quests should be enough to meet the kill requirements for the Warrior Class Change."
At this thought, Roland licked his lips excitedly and reached for the short bow at his waist.
He had crafted this bow under Hawk's guidance just before leaving. It was perfectly suited to his grip and shooting style.
The dark brown yew bow was meticulously polished, devoid of any unnecessary ornamentation. Only the grip was wrapped with several layers of leather cord.
Though plain in appearance, this weapon felt far more natural to use than the short bows he had borrowed from John and Darco.
Roland's only regret was that, perhaps due to insufficient practice time, he had yet to awaken any carpentry-related skills.
With steady hands, Roland drew the bowstring back, the bow flexing into a perfect crescent moon.
Thwack!
With a dull thud as the bowstring snapped back, the arrow shot through the air like lightning.
With Basic Archery maxed out, shooting down a stationary target was child's play.
The next moment, the Goblin Leader, its neck adorned with a bone necklace, let out a piercing wail and stumbled backward.
A razor-sharp arrow had pierced its eye socket with deadly precision, burying deep into its skull. Blood gushed forth in a torrent.
The Goblin Leader, which had moments ago been chattering orders, twitched a few times before falling silent forever.
Before the remaining goblins could recover from their shock, the sound of arrows whistling through the air filled the air.
One after another, deadly arrows flew through the air almost without pause.
Amidst the rising chorus of screams, the goblins' expressions rapidly shifted from blank confusion to sheer terror, finally collapsing into utter chaos as they scattered in all directions.
Seeing that the green-skinned creatures had completely lost the ability to mount any effective resistance, Roland no longer concealed himself.
With a swift draw of his iron sword, his lithe figure leaped from the bushes like a tiger pouncing into a fleeing herd of goblins. The iron sword flashed in the sunlight, leaving a cold arc of light in its wake.
In just a few minutes, all thirty-one goblins lay dead in pools of blood.
Roland shook the blood from his sword, surveyed the battlefield littered with corpses, and confirmed there were no survivors before slowly sheathing his blade.
"Easier than expected."
He crouched down and idly rummaged through the scattered loot.
Crude wooden clubs bound with sharp shards of stone, rusty short daggers, and spears crafted from animal bones lay scattered across the ground.
These crudely made weapons weren't worth a single copper coin, causing him to frown.
"Can't rely on these impoverished demonic beasts, after all."
He muttered under his breath, preparing to leave, when his peripheral vision caught sight of a dilapidated wooden chest beside the Goblin Leader's corpse.
Half-buried in the dirt, the chest was covered in scratches, suggesting it had been dragged roughly across the ground.
Roland used his sword tip to pry open the lid, and several copper coins immediately clattered out through the gap.
His eyes lit up. He leaned in for a closer look and found the chest haphazardly filled with a few silver coins, a small handful of copper coins, and...
"These guys..."
He couldn't help but burst out laughing.
The chest was stuffed with a collection of shiny but utterly worthless trinkets: polished seashells, colorful glass beads, and even half a broken mirror.
These "treasures" were carefully wrapped in rags and mixed in with the coins.
At the very bottom, there were even a few packets of iron nails, rusted to the point of near-corrosion.
"Truly a goblin's taste," Roland muttered, shaking his head as he stowed the silver and copper coins in his pouch. "Three silver and seventy-two copper, plus the reward for the goblin ears... not a bad haul at all. No wonder those mercenaries and adventurers keep rushing into danger despite knowing the risks."
After confirming there were no other hidden treasures, Roland expertly severed the left ear from each goblin, placing them in a specially designed leather pouch. He then retrieved the arrows he had fired, wiped them clean, and returned them to his quiver.
After a thorough sweep of the battlefield to ensure nothing was overlooked, he immediately retraced his steps, moving swiftly.
He slung the bulging loot bag over his horse's back, then effortlessly mounted the steed. From his breast pocket, he pulled out a yellowed parchment map and studied it carefully in the fading sunlight.
Once he confirmed the precise location of the Kobold Lair, he gently nudged his horse's flanks and urged it forward at a gallop.
Two days passed in a flash.
In stark contrast to the goblin camp, Roland encountered no kobold patrols as he traversed the dense forest.
To Roland's surprise, his journey to the location marked on the mission went smoothly.
When he cautiously pushed aside the dense undergrowth and peered into the shadowy cave, he was stunned.
The clearing before the cave was a mess, strewn with discarded household items and abandoned belongings.
Inside, aside from scattered footprints, the cave was deserted. Only the central campfire still smoldered, sending wisps of blue smoke into the air, proof that someone had been living here recently.
Roland knelt and held his hand over the embers.
The Furnace Heart's unique sensitivity to heat allowed him to gauge the fire's temperature with extreme precision.
"Still warm. They must have left only a short while ago."
This discovery prompted him to immediately retreat from the cave and begin a thorough search of the surrounding area.
After careful investigation, he finally found a trail of scattered kobold footprints in the muddy ground to the southeast, leading deep into the forest.
Roland slowly stood up, his brow furrowing involuntarily.
If he remembered correctly, this direction...
perfectly matched the area of demonic beast activity mentioned in the Adventurer's Guild's latest commission.
(End of the Chapter)