Chapter 145 Goblins and Adventurers

The rain gradually slowed to a stop.

A faint fragrance of earth and grass lingered in the heavy, humid air.

Yet the cooling corpses, and the pools of crimson blood rippling in the breeze, added an unshakable stench of gore to the wind.

After the battle, the people's first reaction was excitement and joy.

They no longer had to worry about getting their heads smashed in by wooden clubs, nor did they have to debate whether to end their own lives before the goblins dragged them back to the nest.

Xia Nan returned carrying the head of the village's last goblin, which he had found in a pigpen happily gorging itself on a freshly killed piglet.

The villagers' cheers and applause upon his arrival naturally proved as much.

But after the passion faded, a cold reality set in.

The villagers rejoiced at their survival, but the mangled corpses on the meadow, the low groans of the wounded, and the scorched ruins of their homes quickly washed away their fleeting elation, leaving behind only a hollow sorrow.

The atmosphere was nowhere near as lively as one might expect.

With the deafening shrieks of the goblins gone, the injured villagers helped each other bandage their wounds. Middle-aged men with bloodstained faces numbly gathered the dead, and every now and then, a muffled sob echoed from some dark corner.

As the cold, damp breeze brushed against their cheeks, the entire square was surprisingly quiet.

Xia Nan stood at the edge of the square, looking toward the door of a distant wooden house.

A plainly dressed middle-aged woman, covered in mud, wept as she pulled two children who had just run out of the house into a tight embrace.

The children must have hidden in the cellar during the goblin attack. Only now, with the battle over and their mother calling for them, had they finally left their hiding spot.

His gaze swept over their dusty, terrified little faces as his thoughts drifted.

The "Mass Taunt" cast by the bugbear hadn't been nearly as powerful as he had imagined.

Although it forced the afflicted targets to fight and prevented them from fleeing, it still allowed them to maintain their normal cognitive functions amidst the surging battle lust. In fact, their actual combat prowess was slightly enhanced.

As the caster, Red-Mane himself seemed bound by the side effects of the Taunt skill; he was unable to leave the battlefield and forced to fight them to the bitter end.

If his targets were just ordinary villagers who lacked proper equipment, this side effect would naturally be negligible.

But when the enemy was someone like Xia Nan—whose mobility far exceeded that of standard adventurers and who couldn't be taken down quickly—it became a massive burden on the bugbear itself.

On the other hand, the range of its "Mass Taunt" was indeed absurdly large.

In reality, it had only radiated across the area near the entrance of Emerald Creek Village.

The only reason it had caught so many people at once was that some adventurers happened to be causing a scene, drawing most of the villagers there.

As for the remaining civilians in the village, a portion of them had been swept up by the crowd and pushed to the front lines despite not being affected by the "Taunt."

However, a considerable number of villagers had rationally chosen to flee, heading to Rivervale Town to seek shelter and help.

Because of this, the overall civilian casualties in Emerald Creek Village weren't actually that high.

The total number of people who actually died in the goblin attack could be counted on two hands.

It was a far lower toll than any true battlefield.

But even so, for a small village with a population barely over a hundred where nearly everyone knew each other...

...it remained an incredibly heavy blow.

Since the battle ended, Xia Nan hadn't spoken deeply with a single villager.

Yet he could still feel the sorrow flowing through the air just by looking at their exhausted, numb faces.

The Green Blood Squad had also suffered casualties.

For an adventurer, death was a common occurrence.

In the hundred-plus days since his transmigration, Xia Nan had personally witnessed the deaths of more than a few teammates.

From the gnome, the half-orc Gagu, and the hunter Maji at the very beginning, to Larry and Doris later on.

Perhaps because he hadn't known them deeply, he hadn't felt any agonizing grief over their passings.

He only reminisced about them occasionally in the dead of night.

To some extent, this was one of the reasons he resisted operating in a squad for long periods of time.

As for Berg, he naturally couldn't be called a "stranger."

But they were far from "life-and-death companions," falling well short of even being "close friends."

Therefore, toward this teammate who had underperformed against a powerful enemy and given the foe a chance to crush his head, Xia Nan felt a sense of pity, but he didn't feel overly sorrowful either.

Abi was different.

The Green Blood Squad was his first official team since entering the trade, and Berg and Adeline had been his guides on the adventurer's path.

Compared to their silent and reliable leader, it was the old veteran Berg who usually answered his questions and taught him the common sense of an adventurer in a teasing, joking manner.

The relationship between the two had long surpassed the general concept of "teammates."

Right now, the one collecting Berg's corpse was Abi.

A clean piece of silk cloth, found who knew where, had been gently draped over the corpse's shattered head.

Abi stood quietly to the side, his head bowed.

He would bring the body to Rivervale Town, then hire a carriage to transport it back to Berg's hometown for his family to handle.

'Two daughters, and maybe a son?'

Xia Nan recalled.

The man rarely mentioned his family in front of them, but from the few words he let slip when drunk, it was clear that there were indeed people waiting for him at home.

Xia Nan didn't want to dwell on it any further, nor did he intend to let sentimentality cloud his mind.

At the very least... judging by Berg's relatively modest spending habits among adventurers and his many years in the profession...

He should have saved up a decent sum of money.

Enough for his wife to raise their children decently and comfortably.

On the other side, in the center of the battlefield.

Adeline, wrapped in bandages, stood before the corpse of the bugbear.

She remained perfectly still.

She just kept inhaling, exhaling, inhaling, exhaling...

With her back turned, her expression was hidden.

The mud beneath her feet, long soaked by the rain, remained damp.

Since she had never revealed her past prior to becoming an adventurer, Xia Nan naturally had no way of knowing what this red-maned bugbear meant to her.

But since she didn't bring it up, he didn't plan on asking.

He simply found a spot on the ridge at the edge of the wheat field, sat down, and quietly wiped his longsword clean.

Suddenly, he felt a touch of warmth.

He instinctively looked up.

The heavy dark clouds that had blanketed the sky were now mostly gone.

Radiant, gentle sunlight spilled down, chasing away the last trace of the biting chill in the air.

Squinting, Xia Nan looked away.

'By the time we finish cleaning up the battlefield and head back to Rivervale Town, it shouldn't be too late.'

'I should hit up the White Titmouse for a bowl of mushroom soup first.'

'It's been a while since I've had it. I'm craving it.'

...

...

"Roar!"

A brutal, ferocious roar echoed through the empty stone cavern.

Two massive hands, capable of smashing the hardest mountain rocks to powder like iron hammers, were currently squeezing a green-skinned goblin.

It wailed and shrieked.

Its body, swollen to the size of an adult human under the empowerment of a pus-green light, was bound by those thick, tough fingers like a cheap clay toy.

There was zero resistance.

It was effortlessly stretched, snapped, and torn to pieces. Clenched tightly in the giant palm, it was squeezed into a crimson bloody froth like a lemon, then swallowed whole by a hideous maw reeking of acrid sulfur.

The Barlgura excitedly beat its chest, letting out a strange, ape-like bellow.

Surviving in the Bottomless Abyss, a realm riddled with magma and blood swamps, it had always been surrounded by equally dangerous and powerful demons.

These screaming, fragile green-skins in front of it were practically the perfect outlets to vent its rage and bloodlust.

It was just a shame they tasted so mediocre, carrying a slight stench.

They weren't appetizing.

As if recalling something, a deep flash of greed and hunger suddenly crossed the Barlgura's crimson eyes.

It remembered a long time ago, back before it had claimed its own territory and was still wandering the endless wilderness.

It had once eaten an unlucky long-ear who had been teleported to the Abyss by a spatial turbulence.

That flavor... was easily ten thousand times better than these green-skinned goblins at its feet.

Rumor had it that in the massive forests of the Material Plane, there were hundreds, even thousands, of long-ears just like that one.

'If only...'

As it fantasized, thick, corrosive, yellowish acid drool dripped from the corners of its mouth, searing the ground and sending up plumes of white smoke.

But just as it was pondering whether it should first roll those pale, tender long-ears through the molten fire of the Abyssal wasteland twice to crisp up their skin, or just toss them into its mouth alive to savor their wails on its tongue...

A familiar suction suddenly erupted from the void behind it.

Its expression instantly froze.

"No!"

"You can't do this!"

The Barlgura spun around abruptly, roaring frantically at the fragile human in the indigo robes standing in the distance.

"It isn't time yet..."

"More! I need more!"

The shockwaves from its violent roar sent the scattered goblin limbs on the ground flying.

Yet the suction behind it only grew stronger. Even after plunging its thick fingers deep into the rock, it was still dragged backward, leaving behind several deep grooves of reluctance in the stone.

Beside it, a heavily armored Warrior wielding a longsword walked past in silence.

He shot it a brief glance.

Without a word, he simply lifted a leg and gave a light kick.

The Barlgura's massive body was instantly sent flying off the ground, tumbling backward into the spacetime vortex behind it and rolling right back to its Bottomless Abyss.

The battle on this end had also concluded.

Without the black-robed goblin to pin them down with its threats, the remaining goblins on the field—even those reinforced by divine arts—posed no challenge at all for high-level adventurers like them.

A single Wall of Fire swept through, a Fire Elemental howled past in two circles, and the Barlgura was left to mop up any survivors.

With that, the massive tide of goblins that had originally crammed the nest was more or less wiped out.

Nodding at the human Warrior walking toward him, Cornell let out a soft breath.

His face was slightly pale. His mental power was faintly overdrawn from the rapid, high-intensity casting of high-tier spells, leaving his head swimming and his forehead slick with sweat.

His heart ached as he glanced at the magical scroll on the ground, now completely useless after its activation.

The spell inscribed upon it had been [Forcecage], a 7th Circle evocation spell.

Its effect was to form an invisible prison within an area designated by the caster, sealing off the space and rendering all teleportation spells inside it inert.

It was precisely this that had allowed him to block the black-robed goblin's escape just moments ago.

As a mage of the School of Conjuration who had yet to advance to the Transcendent Tier and whose Class Level was only "9", Cornell naturally didn't have the ability to cast 7th Circle Spells on his own.

He had only managed to purchase this scroll from a senior alumnus at an exorbitant price and by cashing in some favors.

He had kept it as a trump card to use when absolutely necessary.

As for the exact price...

Suffice it to say that under normal circumstances, just the "ruby dust" required as the material component to cast [Forcecage] cost 1,500 gold.

Once it was inscribed into a magic scroll... let's just say that even a man of Cornell's substantial wealth felt his heart bleeding.

The investment was completely disproportionate to the quest's payout.

To make matters worse, the biggest prize of this expedition—that Silver-White Device with an obvious history behind it—had actually broken through the restraints of [Forcecage] and teleported away.

"I've practically taken a total loss."

Cornell swept his gaze over the surrounding goblin corpses.

Forget whether their scorched, charcoal-like ears could still be exchanged for bounties as trophies.

He didn't even care about that petty cash anyway.

Stepping forward, he ascended the stairs in the center of the cavern.

The last ring on his left thumb flashed with silver light.

The corpse of the black-robed goblin, along with the dim-runed altar behind it, vanished from the spot instantly.

Cornell could only hope that those two things would fetch a decent price from the goblin historian he knew.

His wooden staff tapped lightly against the ground, and magic once again condensed and flowed through the air.

Space distorted.

The golden-haired Elf's corpse, neck snapped, vanished as well.

Resurrection from the dead had never been a problem for mages—or rather, for wealthy mages.

Once they returned to Chromatic Ring City, he could begin preparing for the resurrection process.

Unfortunately, the body of their other fallen teammate, the half-orc Volga, had been left in tatters by the gravitational pull of the Silver-White Iron Ball.

If he wanted to resurrect him... it would cost several times the price of resurrecting the Elf.

And given that guy's personality, even if he were brought back to life, he probably wouldn't have the slightest intention of paying back the money.

'Yeah, forget it.'

Looking away from the half-orc's remains, Cornell solidified his decision.

The man had only joined the party halfway through anyway, completely different from the golden-haired Elf who had been his teammate since the squad's founding.

Dead was dead; they could just recruit another one when the opportunity arose.

He would have to remember this lesson, though. Next time, he needed to find one with an intelligence level at least on par with a normal human.

Just the warning traps the half-orc had carelessly triggered and destroyed along the way were probably enough to buy a small house with a garden in Nym City.

"Orcish bloodline, Barbarian class... tsk tsk."

Cornell couldn't help but shake his head, recalling the cruel jokes often thrown around during their free time in the laboratory.

Suddenly, a hoarse, deep voice rang out from behind him.

"So, why doesn't the Association just hire a large warband and end this once and for all?"

"Instead of sending those little guys who haven't even earned their Class Levels out to risk their lives against goblins?"

Cornell raised a brow, surprised that the normally reticent human Warrior would ask such a question.

Then he suddenly remembered that it had actually been the golden-haired Elf who brought this up earlier. However, they had been nearing their destination at the time, so he hadn't said much.

He had only brushed him off, saying he would explain after the quest was over.

He hadn't expected the Warrior to take it to heart.

And to actually ask him now that the mission had wrapped up.

In response, Cornell simply gestured toward the ground with his chin.

Over there, the mangled corpse of the half-orc Volga had already blended into a gory mess with the severed limbs and minced meat of the surrounding goblins.

"It's Hunting Day. There are so many goblins; of course they need to be culled."

"But... there's also no shortage of adventurers."