"Hey, rookie, what are you staring at?"
Lin Mo looked up. Before him stood a middle-aged man with weathered, coarse skin and deep, furrowed wrinkles across his face.
"Here, your weapon. Hold onto it tight. A soldier losing his blade on the battlefield is no different from losing his head."
With a wooden expression, Lin Mo took the sword handed to him. The blade was about a meter long, its edge marred by patches of rust and dark, stubborn bloodstains that had long since dried.
He stared blankly at the grime on the steel, his thoughts a chaotic swirl.
Old Wright patted him on the shoulder and moved on, leaving him to his thoughts. He understood the dazed terror of these newcomers; after all, they weren't career soldiers, nor were they battle-hardened adventurers. Had the situation in town not turned so dire recently, the Lord would never have conscripted these greenhorns to hunt goblins in the Lolan Forest.
He could only hope this would actually work. The number of young women abducted from the village was rising by the day. If left unchecked, and those damned goblins were allowed to grow their numbers, this place would end up just like Lager Town—completely overrun and fallen.
Shaking his head, Old Wright turned back to the pile of scrap metal delivered by the authorities, picked out a weapon that looked halfway decent, and handed it to the next recruit.
"Sigh..."
Lin Mo stared at the sword in his hand and let out a long, weary sigh as memories came rushing back like a tide.
He was a transmigrator.
In his previous life, Lin Mo had no extraordinary talents. He had survived the grueling decade of schooling, gotten into an unremarkable university, and landed a job at an unremarkable company, living a perfectly unremarkable life.
Paltry wages, constant overtime, a body that was slowly breaking down, and the frequent phone calls from his parents nagging him to go on blind dates...
And yet, even that felt far superior to his current predicament.
For some inexplicable reason, he had transmigrated to another world. While his body seemed a few years younger, he had immediately been swept up in a "voluntary" conscription to hunt goblins.
There was no running away. It was "voluntary" in name only. Now that they were already at the camp, any attempt to retreat would be branded as desertion or inciting mutiny. The guards' gleaming halberds were more than ready to teach anyone a terminal lesson in discipline.
On the way to the camp, he had seen a few who tried their luck. Some were whipped until they were half-dead and dragged along. Those who resisted too violently became the "chickens killed to warn the monkeys"—their heads were lopped off with clinical precision right in front of the crowd.
Lin Mo shifted his gaze to the weapon he had just received.
If there was any good news at all, it was the line of text floating at the edge of his vision.
[Damaged Inferior Sword]
Type: One-handed Sword Quality: Inferior (Grey) Description: A rusted piece of junk. It's likely too blunt to even slice a vegetable properly. Of course, even when it was brand new, it probably wasn't much sharper.
A "Golden Finger," or a "Cheat."
That was how the novels from his past life usually described it.
Perhaps because of this cheat, he had naturally gained fluency in the language of this world. Utilizing this advantage during his short time here, Lin Mo had gathered some basic information through eavesdropping and subtle questioning.
First, this was a world of supernatural power.
Those with talent could obtain great strength by training and learning skills to become "Professionals." Unfortunately, the vast majority of people lacked both the opportunity and the innate gift.
Commoners who couldn't become Professionals mostly survived through manual labor or by serving the nobility. A few chose the life of an adventurer—living on a knife's edge, risking their lives against low-level monsters for bounties.
The pay was far lower than that of a true Professional, but it was still better than being a common laborer. The cost, of course, was the constant threat of death.
And that was exactly what he was about to do.
Hunting goblins wasn't like a standard war where a grand army was dispatched for a purge. In truth, a place like Roland Town didn't even have an army of that scale.
Even if they did, those green-skinned runts were as cunning and cowardly as they were cruel. The moment they spotted a large human force, they would vanish into the deepest parts of the forest, making them impossible to track. Once the army withdrew, they would crawl back out to resume their raids on supplies and civilians.
As a border town near the Lolan Forest, the people of Roland had long ago figured out the best way to deal with them.
They mimicked the adventurers, forming small squads of three to five people. This allowed them to move without spooking the goblins into hiding, and as long as the goblin numbers weren't overwhelming, a squad had a decent chance of success.
Experienced adventurers would handpick their teammates to maximize their combat power, but for conscripted wretches like them, there were no such luxuries.
Lin Mo looked up to inspect the teammates he had been assigned.
Two scruffy middle-aged men were huddled together, whispering complaints under their breath.
A youth who looked no older than fifteen or sixteen gripped his sword tightly, head down in silence.
The last one was a young man who had received his weapon right after Lin Mo. He was currently looking around with wide eyes. When he noticed Lin Mo's gaze, he flashed a toothy grin.
"Hey, brother... your clothes look really cool."
The attire from his former world did indeed look out of place here. Fortunately, he hadn't been wearing anything too eccentric, so he hadn't been branded a suspicious heretic just yet.
Seeing that Lin Mo didn't respond, the youth leaned in closer, inspecting him thoroughly before nodding. "Really nice. How about you let me wear them for a bit?"
Lin Mo studied the youth. He was short, gaunt, and sallow-skinned, wearing a blackened old tunic with patches at the elbows and hem.
"Do you know what we're about to go do?" Lin Mo asked instead.
"Go die?"
The youth laughed with a shrug of indifference. "Whatever happens, happens. It's not like staying in town is any better—I'd just starve to death eventually!"
In peaceful times, farming or working for the nobles could provide a meager living. But now, monsters were rampant. They stole grain, destroyed fields, and made trade routes perilous. Many merchant guilds had suspended their operations. If the wealthy lords couldn't do business, the poor had no way to earn their bread.
"Do you know when we're heading out?"
"How should I know? You'd have to ask Old Wright, though he probably won't tell you... Anyway, enough talk. Are you lending me the clothes or what?"
"No."
"Tch."
The youth curled his lip and sat back down, disgruntled. "Fine. Once the goblins smash your head in, I'll just strip them off your corpse."
Lin Mo couldn't be bothered with him. Since he couldn't get any more information, he needed to focus on his Golden Finger and find a way to survive the coming battle.
Recalling the sensation from earlier, Lin Mo concentrated his mind and looked down at himself.
A few seconds later, several lines of translucent text appeared before his eyes.
As expected, it wasn't just items; he could see his own attributes as well.
[Name]: Lin Mo
[Class]: None
[Attributes]:
Strength: 4 (Maximum physical force output)
Agility: 4 (Movement and reaction speed)
Constitution: 4 (Vitality, defense, and endurance)
Spirit: 5 (Mental fortitude, insight, and focus)
Mana: 0 (A power reserved for the lordly Mages)
Unsurprisingly, as a modern man who rarely exercised, his stats were underwhelming.
However...
[Skills]: The Art of Slacking Lv. 4 (99/100): You have mastered the habit of loafing on the job. When acting in a group, your presence is diminished, reducing the probability of your "laziness" being detected.
There it was!
Lin Mo's eyes lit up. It seemed his lifelong philosophy of "If you aren't slacking, you aren't working" hadn't been in vain. He had dedicated himself to the research of avoiding work without being caught, and now it had manifested as a tangible power.
This skill might just be his key to survival.
"New recruits, get ready to move!"
While Lin Mo was busy analyzing his panel, a burly man in plate armor marched over, slamming the butt of his poleaxe against the ground.
"Those damn goblins have been getting too bold lately. This is your chance to earn glory and change your lives! The Lord has decreed that for this sortie, you will all receive the same treatment as adventurers. For every goblin killed, you will be rewarded 100 copper coins!"
"Whooa!"
The moment the words left his mouth, the deathly silence of the camp vanished. Eyes lit up with a feverish greed, including those of the two older men and the scrawny youth who had wanted Lin Mo's clothes.
Normally, because goblins provided no valuable materials, the bounty for killing them was a mere 20 copper—a pittance provided by local lords to encourage pest control.
But now, the price had quintupled. A hundred coppers was equivalent to half a month of grueling labor. In times like these, where no work was to be found, it was a fortune. Kill one goblin, and you could buy a hundred loaves of black bread. It was enough to stave off starvation for at least a month.
Amidst the cheering crowd, Lin Mo's brow furrowed in secret.