Chapter 306 Enjoyment and the Wonderful Taste

The core region of the Misty Forest.

His dark eyes fixed on the deep cave ahead, which faintly exuded a foul stench. Xia Nan remained calm, his face showing not a ripple of emotion.

The journey had been smooth.

Compared to when he first left Rivervale Town, he hadn't changed much by the time he reached the quest location.

Only the scattered bloodstains on his Plate-Chain Composite Armor, along with the grass clippings and mud splattered across his trousers and leather boots, hinted at what he had encountered along the way.

He was still essentially in peak condition.

Of course, it was impossible for him to have avoided combat entirely.

After all, he possessed no special abilities for stealth or concealing his aura as he traveled from Rivervale Town, cut across the entire outer perimeter of the forest, and finally reached this core zone.

He had run into quite a few low-level monsters and beasts along the way, such as goblins, packs of jungle wolves, and giant badgers.

It was just that none of them posed much of a threat to him.

Against solitary enemies with strong individual combat power, Xia Nan—who possessed an elite template and a Challenge Rating even higher than his Class Level—could easily slay them relying purely on his physical attributes, at most throwing in a [Spinning Slash].

Group-type enemies fared even worse under the terrifying impact of [Fang Hunt]. The moment the wolf's howl rang out, the countdown to the end of the battle began.

Coupled with Xia Nan's keen Perception, which allowed him to spot and avoid dangerous terrain and the territories of powerful monsters in advance, his journey had been remarkably smooth, encountering basically no trouble.

He only occasionally stumbled across a few Goblin Lairs and couldn't resist going down to take a look, which delayed him slightly, but it was harmless overall.

Xia Nan arrived at the quest marker earlier than estimated.

Though they were all Goblin Lairs, the quest location in front of him was far more recognizable than the ones he had encountered on the road.

This was clear just from looking at the entrance.

He judged this based on his goblin-clearing experience, which was rich even among the bottom-tier adventurers who fought them year-round.

Nests dug and built by ordinary small goblin tribes often relied on natural terrain. They might be hidden caves, depressions concealed by bushes, or abandoned beast dens.

More often than not, they possessed the awareness to camouflage their homes, deliberately placing dead branches and leaves at the entrance or pushing fallen, massive tree trunks in front of it.

It was incredibly crude, but surprisingly effective in the dense forest, successfully confusing many low-intelligence dangerous beasts.

But the cave entrance before him now was arranged in a way that could only be called "arrogant."

It was a massive stone shed jutting out from the ground, cobbled together from rocks and clay.

There was absolutely no refinement to speak of; it was just a crude amalgamation of oddly shaped stones of varying sizes, forcefully glued together with clay.

Yet at the same time, the bloodstained leather armor of dead adventurers, torn banners, and crude totems made of branches and bones suspended above the entrance like trophies added a certain wild, savage aesthetic to the whole structure.

There was no attempt at concealment. Even the surrounding oak trees had been chopped down and their roots dug out.

This formed a large, glaringly obvious clearing around the cave that stood out sharply within the dense forest.

And the cave entrance, like a throne built from stones and spoils of war, sat right in the center of this clearing.

Just this "arrogant" aura—this complete lack of hiding, showing no fear of being discovered by other creatures in the forest—was enough to prove the formidable power of this Goblin Lair, or rather, the goblin tribe that had once excavated and built it.

'Is this the so-called "super-giant goblin tribe" that required an advanced Adventurer Squad to wipe out...'

Xia Nan thought, his gaze carefully examining the cave entrance ahead.

Speaking of which, before setting out on the quest, he had asked Molly for detailed information regarding the commission.

It was said that the original owners of the cave before him—that massive goblin tribe—had been annihilated during the Hunting Day when he was promoted to a Class Holder.

Rumor had it that even a high-level team of that caliber had lost people when facing the goblins' siege, only managing to wipe them out with great difficulty.

It was hard to imagine just how many of those thin-armed, spindly-legged goblins it would take to pose a substantial threat to high-level Class Holders.

Or was there a mutated goblin variant even more advanced than monsters like Bugbears?

Shaking his head, Xia Nan stopped dwelling on it.

They were completely wiped out anyway; it had nothing to do with him.

What he had to face was merely an ordinary goblin tribe that had temporarily occupied this burrow, like a turtledove seizing a magpie's nest.

As long as he was a little careful and stayed vigilant, there shouldn't be any danger.

He checked the surroundings one last time to ensure there were no other ambushes or visible hidden exits.

Then he measured the dimensions of the cave corridor with his eyes, confirming there was enough room to maneuver.

Only then did he draw his two-handed longsword, conceal his aura, and step toward the cave entrance.

...

Inside this Goblin Lair located in the core region of the Misty Forest, the corridor behind the entrance was exceptionally long and unusually spacious, capable of accommodating a large number of traversing goblins at the same time.

This was something Xia Nan had never encountered before.

Moreover, crude defensive traps were laid out on the floor and along the walls, and there were even goblin scouts stationed at key chokepoints.

This was actually quite common. It was standard procedure for monsters with higher intelligence like hobgoblins, and he had seen plenty of it over the past year or so.

He handled them with practiced ease.

Without making any extra noise, he severed the ropes of the trap mechanisms before they could trigger, and chopped off the heads of the goblin guards before they could open their mouths to shriek. It was simple and clean.

Speaking of which, cases like this "turtledove seizing a magpie's nest," where newly appeared goblins occupied caves left behind by previous ones, were not uncommon. In fact, they were everywhere.

When Xia Nan first discovered this phenomenon, he had also been confused.

Why did the Association never encourage or issue quests for adventurers to completely destroy the Goblin Lairs they cleared out to eliminate future trouble?

Even just collapsing the entrance would obviously greatly reduce the chances of other goblins discovering the empty nest.

At first, he thought the Association was deliberately ignoring it to cut down on quest reward costs.

Later, as Xia Nan delved deeper into this line of work and talked more with adventurers in the taverns, he slowly grasped the reasoning behind it.

The Adventurers' Association wasn't ignoring these cleared-out Goblin Lairs; they were intentionally preserving them.

The reason was quite simple.

To describe it using gaming terms from Xia Nan's past life, these lairs were like "mob spawners" for the Association and the adventurers, regularly refreshing with new goblins.

After all, the unique reproductive method of these creatures—almost as if they sprouted right out of the soil—made them far more troublesome than bugs like cockroaches. Wipe out one batch, and another would appear. They could never be killed off entirely.

Under such circumstances, if all the cleared-out Goblin Lairs were completely destroyed...

Then the newly spawned goblins nearby would scatter, forming numerous tiny, independent groups.

This would fracture large goblin tribes that should have gathered around a lair into dozens of dispersed bands.

In that case, goblins might become more common in the forest, but you would only encounter three to five of them at a time at most.

This would drastically reduce how efficiently adventurers could earn money, and it wouldn't benefit the Association either. Because of their erratic wandering and overly scattered distribution, the guild wouldn't even be able to issue extermination quests.

But if the Goblin Lairs were left intact, the situation was completely different.

These "natural" shelters left behind by the previous generation held a massive appeal to goblins with a modicum of intelligence.

Like a moth flying into the flame, an empty Goblin Lair would naturally attract goblin groups from a radius of several kilometers.

And as long as the locations of these lairs were recorded, the Adventurers' Association only needed to regularly dispatch extermination quests. This snuffed out the goblin tribes before they could grow to a troublesome scale, while also greatly relieving the goblin pressure within the Misty Forest.

It was equally convenient for the adventurers. They just had to follow the coordinates given by the Association to find the Goblin Lairs, earning dozens of gold coins in one go. It was far more efficient than hunting them down three or five at a time.

Of course, there were more specific technicalities involved, such as the "approximate reset time of a Goblin Lair," the "linear relationship of population growth," and the "lair selection of elite individuals."

But these weren't things Xia Nan needed to consider.

All he needed to do was kill.

The corridor was dark and long. Combined with the need to deal with traps and goblin sentries along the way, he was delayed quite a bit.

As a result, Xia Nan navigated the maze-like underground passages for over an hour before finally reaching the core of the lair.

"Scree!"

Excited shrieks rose and fell like ocean waves, echoing between the stone walls.

The bonfire crackled, its orange-red flames blending with the fluorescent glow of fungal colonies to illuminate the goblins' pus-green skin, which was covered in sores and boils.

Thick saliva dripped onto the filthy floor paved with corpses and feces. They cheered and leaped with joy, dancing wildly around the bonfire like ignorant cavemen from ancient times.

Above the flames, a massive, skinned wild boar was roasting.

The nauseating, charred stench of filth from deep within its intestines mixed with the rich aroma of fat sizzling in the fire, creating an indescribable, primal smell.

Xia Nan concealed his body in the shadows near the entrance, his dark eyes quickly sweeping across the area to confirm the number of enemies and the targets that needed to be eliminated first.

Hmm...

Right now, the number of goblins he could see in the cave was roughly between fifty and sixty-five.

Their leader was a hobgoblin located at the very back of the lair, sitting high upon a stone seat while surrounded by its kin. Its physique was at least twice as bulky as an average human's.

Looking from afar, Xia Nan couldn't ascertain the exact details of its strength.

But just from the aura naturally exuding from its body, he could roughly determine that its combat power hadn't yet reached the level of a typical Class Holder.

Although it wore a full set of armor quite decently, the rust, scratches from a long lack of maintenance, and ill-fitting sections made it clear that the gear had been stripped from adventurers who died at its hands.

What he needed to watch out for were the few green-skinned goblins sitting beside the hobgoblin, whose status was obviously a tier above the rest.

Instead of stinking rags, they awkwardly wore a few pieces of tattered leather armor, and their weapons had been swapped from the wooden clubs of ordinary goblins to slightly better daggers and short swords.

Two of them were even aiming loaded hand crossbows.

This made things very simple.

The aura previously concealed deep within the shadows erupted in an instant.

Amidst the lair echoing with goblin shrieks, a wolf's howl suddenly rang out.

"Awooo—"

The hobgoblin, previously sitting relaxed on its stone seat, froze in shock at the howl.

It had only just reacted—calf muscles bulging and knees bending to support its body as it tried to stand, its fanged mouth opening wide—when its vigilant roar was cut off right in its throat.

The light warped.

A massive, pitch-black wolf with a flowing mane stepped out from the depths of the shadows.

With just one light pounce, the distance between them was crossed in a flash.

'When?'

Its brain working at the speed of a normal intelligent creature, the hobgoblin's thoughts raced.

'Where are the goblins I posted outside? Why did a monster like this break into the lair without triggering a single trap?'

It never got an answer.

Because in the next second, the black wolf bounded right past its body.

A flash of agonizing pain vanished as quickly as it came, and its vision spun rapidly into the air.

The hobgoblin saw its own severed neck spurting blood. It saw the goblin elites beside it—elites it had painstakingly cultivated—now torn to pieces, their severed limbs and organs sent flying through the air by a fierce gale.

It saw the long, slender sword blade glinting with cold light, and the icy, cruel figure of a human beneath the black wolf's phantom.

"Thud."

Along with the severed limbs of the armored goblins beside it, the hobgoblin's head tumbled leisurely from the air.

The excited shrieks of the goblins echoing through the lair ground to a sudden halt.

Deathly silence.

Pairs of murky, beady eyes turned in unison toward the very back of the cave, fixing on the sharp figure holding a longsword.

They looked at the massive, pitch-black wolf with its flowing mane and ferocious, icy gaze.

Hum—

[Night Mother's Gaze] took effect silently.

A total of sixty-two goblins.

At that moment, seventeen of them bravely raised their wooden clubs and shrieked as they charged at the enemy.

The remaining forty-five plunged into endless terror, scattering frantically like cockroaches caught in the light.

The corners of his mouth curled up.

His dark eyes swept away their usual calm, inexplicably carrying a hint of excitement and enjoyment.

The blade swung through the air, its sharp edge reflecting a cold light against the flames.

He savored what had happened moments before under the impact of [Fang Hunt]—the warm sensation of goblin organs and severed limbs brushing past his skin.

He relished the wonderful taste of tearing those despicable mongrels apart like toys.

His right foot slowly lifted, then fell.

A high, drawn-out wolf's howl erupted once more within the lair, filled with agonizing screams and sorrowful cries.