Return of the Woodcutter

Every goblin in the nest halted at the sight of their leader's death by the hands of another golden one. 

The new golden one was standing on top of the previous leader's corpse in front of them. Mighty and tall. Just like the previous leader.

However, he shone brighter! 

Being accustomed to the darkness, the light felt unfamiliar to their eyes. Even though he looked ugly like a human, he smelled like goblins!

So, he could only be a new golden one. 

The new golden one appeared strong. Much stronger than the previous leader. 

That's when the new golden one kicked the previous leader's head that flew into the air only to land amidst the goblins who gazed at it with looks of fear. 

No one has been able to contend against the previous leader. No one…, until now. 

Then, the new golden one took the ring of power to wear it on its powerful metallic bright hands. He was wearing the symbol of leadership. 

The mighty golden ring! 

All the goblins stared at he who was victorious with gazes of admiration. 

'What the fuck are those disgusting things doing?' Aito wondered, ready to kill every last one of them. 'Could it be…' 

Remembering the golden goblin's words, he decided to take a gamble. He inhaled deeply, taking in as much putrid air as possible, then shouted. 

"BLAAA!!!" 

To Aito's astonishment, most goblins in the nest trembled, and knelt, for some reason. 

'Interesting.' 

The goblins didn't move an inch. Aito walked amongst them, unhindered. Only a few remained standing. He headed their way. Without prior notice, he brought down his ax, slashing a goblin in two. 

"BLAAA!!!" 

Immediately after, the few standing got to their knees. 

'So… what now?' He thought, eyeing less than a hundred goblins. With the illusions gone after the shaman's death, he could now more accurately assess their real numbers. 

Aito waited a minute, but the goblins remained on their knees. He killed another, just to see their reaction. Nothing happened. Just gazes full of fear. 

He had officially become the leader of this group of goblins. That's when something unexpected showed up in front of him. 

BING! 

___

[Congratulions! You have achieved a feat never before seen!] 

Achievement: Becoming a goblin leader 

Rewards: 

-System Update: Goblin's Language 

-Title: Goblin Leader 

-Active Skill: Lifeless Illusions Lv1

-1000 Glory Points 

-10000 Tutorial Points 

___

Suddenly, a lot of information were transferred into Aito's brain in but a second. He felt lightheaded, as if drunk or high, but recovered fast enough because of his fear of goblins taking advantage of this opportunity to attack him. 

He checked his surroundings. Certain that it wouldn't happen, he opened his status window to check the updates. The new title and skill showed in there. 

'That was unexpected.' 

This unexpected find triggered Gwen's knowledge. According to her, achievements were rewards only given to challengers climbing the Tower. During the first trials or in Iris, such notifications would never appear. 

It was also what made the Tower special. 

By doing what had never been done before, in other words, incredible feats, challengers could gain rewards that would put them above the masses. However, achievements became rarer as time passed. 

Like gaining a new skill. Acquiring new skills was hard, which made them valuable. The most common way to get one was to be given skills by the system during a level-up. Another would be memory beads or creating them yourself—which wasn't an easy endeavor. 

After hundreds of years, many feats have already been accomplished, leaving fewer for the following batch of challengers. 

Nowadays, it was extremely rare for any achievement to be made, but not impossible. To add to the difficulty, no one knew what should be done to get an achievement. One could only speculate. 

Still having difficulty believing what just happened, Aito tried out his new skill, Lifeless Illusion. 

Taking a nearby goblin as a model, he conjured a lifeless image of a kneeling goblin next to him that took only less than two seconds to manifest. 

'Not bad for the first time,' he thought, contemplating his first illusion, a perfect copy of a random goblin. 

A few curious goblins nearby saw this, which triggered a small commotion that, surprisingly, didn't seem like gibberish. 

"Ze New golden one stole ze previous golden one'z power!" 

"Powerful! Powerful!" 

"Praise ze new golden one!" 

Aito turned towards one of the talking goblins. It appeared he could understand them now. Since that was the case, maybe he could actually communicate with them. 

"You! Do you understand what I say?" 

"'Ez brightnez," it replied. 

He translated that to brightness which instantly made him realize he had yet to deactivate Fearless Aura. 

"Why do you call me brightness or golden one?" 

The goblin lifted his small ugly head, "Becauze golden one iz leader. All previous leaderz, golden onez." 

  "I see…," Aito said, thinking about leaving his skill activated for now. "Is that why you are all kneeling?" 

"Ez, ez. Brightnez proved worthy. Brightness slew old golden one. Brightnez lookz like ugly human but zmellz nice and iz powerful, zo we follow you." 

Aito cursed internally. If what the goblin said was true, which probably was, there were a few issues. 

First, the possibility that the goblins find out he was a fake could occur after he deactivated Fearless Aura. It was speculation. Testing it could prove dangerous, so he quickly brushed the thought aside. 

Second issue, Fearless Aura consumed quite a lot of energy, Aito could still hang on for a bit, but he would have to rest soon. 

Third issue, his human smell could reveal the scam. Well, that was easily avoidable as long as he covered himself in fresh goblin shit once in a while. 

"What iz Brithnez allegiance rite?" The goblin asked, interrupting Aito's pondering. 

He promptly asked what that was. Apparently, every new leader would make their subordinates go through an allegiance rite, which seemed to happen quite often with new subordinates arriving every morning from nowhere and the old ones dying by challengers' hands. 

Since the leader never really changed, it had always been the same rite. Goblins would make offerings. However, it didn't mean the rite couldn't be changed. 

Aito was surprised at how the gods had created the goblins. They even thought about adding some kind of simple hierarchy system and customs. 

Why though? Was it for immersion purposes?

Aito had thought they were only mindless creatures present in the Tower to train challengers. So why would there be such a pointless thing as a goblin culture? 

Was there something more to this Tower tha—

'Why am I even thinking about such useless questions?' He wondered, pushing all those questions aside. 

Whatever was the reason for creating those settings for the goblins, it was convenient for him. 

Very convenient.