I carefully tipped a few drops of reagent from the vial I had purchased from Sylvia as part of my standard adventurer starter kit. The moment the drops of liquid fell into a small cloth pouch filled with dried Sournettle, it started fizzling and producing yellow smoke that smelled sour.
I quickly threw the pouch into one of the burrow entrances I found near the goblin lair and stoppered the vial, placing it back into my potion pouch. The Sournettle were cheap enough, it was a common weed found near the fields. The expensive item was the special reagent that created smoke from the dried herbs.
When I told Sylvia my first mission was hunting goblins, she had suggested I get these items to help me drive them out of their lair. Apparently this was common knowledge among adventurers, which made me wonder what other 'common knowledge' I did not know. It would be great if I could team up with some adventurers that did not mind showing me the ropes.
I kept both the modes of my perception spell on, making sure that I would not be caught unaware. It took a minute or two but I could start to hear some muffled shrieking, followed by the scattering of the pile of bodies I saw through Electro Perception earlier. This reminded me of fumigating pests back home.
I saw most scattering towards the two other closest exits, while a few headed deeper into the ground before I lost sight of them, probably down some other tunnel. None appeared from the hole I threw the dried Sournettle in as the smoke concentration there was the highest.
KIEEEK
Before long, the first goblin appeared in my view. Whoever depicted goblins with loincloths was way off base, at least in my world. The first goblin that popped out was completely naked. At least other animals had fur or some kind of mechanism to hide the more sensitive parts. However, the goblin in front of me started running in its full glory, its obscene bit flailing wildly as it ran towards me.
Nooo, my eyes! I internally screamed before firing a bolt of lightning at it.
CRAK
The first goblin had probably forgotten its stone weapon in a hurry, not realizing they were under attack. I realized I spoke too soon as I saw a stone javelin flying out from the burrow at me. It was not too fast and I could side step it easily.
That moment of distraction was all the goblins needed as four of them came out another tunnel closest to me. "Dammit, there goes my plan of taking them out one by one as they come out". Two of the goblins started running towards me with their small javelins while the other two at the back started pelting stones at me.
I dual casted Lightning Bolt with both my hands at the two approaching me while I dodged the stones thrown at me. While the stones were not sharp, their flying speed seemed to be boosted by their Earth manipulation and I had no doubt they would hurt if they hit the wrong spot.
The two stone pelters also went down without fanfare after two quick lightning bolts. But they seemed to have fulfilled their purpose as I saw two larger goblins cresting the mound, while another 4, 2 on each side, surrounded me. The 6 of them formed a sort of a triangle around me, with each pair holding at least one spear.
Well shit, I should know better than to underestimate them after watching Goblin Slayer.
It had seemed like they had sacrificed the 4 goblins earlier so that they could set up this ambush. It was a really basic tactic to surround a foe when you had the numerical advantage, and it seemed like the goblin had a modicum of intellect. The largest goblin who seemed to be the leader mocked me with a grin, showing me its dirty yellow teeth. I tried not to look at its pecker but it was at eye level for me, considering it was standing on the mound.
"I need to sanitize my eyes after this."
The second larger goblin seemed to be physically different, which I assumed was a female goblin. Thank the gods I could not see anything else too obvious.
KYAA—KIEE
The largest goblin shrieked, which seemed to be some signal for them to gang up on me. One of the goblins to my right threw its javelin at me, which triggered my Lightning Steps to dodge in another direction. The problem was there were another two spears thrown from my left and front at the same time.
The first spear had prompted me to jump right into the path of two incoming spears. I managed to duck the one from my left as it came a little too high, but could only twist my body at the one coming from the front.
The spear thrown by one of the larger goblins was faster and more accurate, which left a large gash on my left arm as it flew past. When I recovered, I quickly fired two Lightning Bolts at the pair on my left, knocking them out before repositioning so that I would not be surrounded again.
"Well, now you've ruined my last good shirt!" I cursed at the goblins.
I thought with the last attack, the goblins had exhausted their spears but then I saw another javelin flying at my face as I turned to face the last 4 remaining goblins. I dodged the single spear easily and realized that one of the goblins on the mound had its hand on the ground, seemingly forming another javelin for the largest one to throw.
I quickly fired a bolt of lightning at the one making the javelin which made it dodge to the side. The last 4 goblins probably decided then that I was too much to handle and decided to turn and flee. Each pair running off in a different direction.
I chased down the two larger goblins, made quick work of them as they had already lost their fighting spirit, before turning back and trying to hunt down the last two. However, they were already long gone by the time I went back.
"Well fuck, that's two large coppers wasted"
One of the reasons that it was difficult to completely eradicate goblins from an area was that they would always split the moment they knew their chances were low. The only way was to organize a large hunting party and systematically eradicate the nests in the area. This would ensure there were no survivors, because as long as there was one breeding pair, they would quickly propagate and infest an area that had an abundance of food.
Even if they did that, goblins from somewhere else could migrate and infest an area cleared of goblins. What the adventurer guild had found was that frequent but small culling of goblins seemed the most cost effective.
I suspected that most of these goblins were red cored and went back to the two largest goblins to absorb their cores first.
"Urgh, why do their skins feel so disgusting" I placed my right hand on the largest goblin's chest to absorb the energy from its core, followed by the second one.
I then used my new hunting knife to slice off their right ear before putting them in a small pouch. The ears served as proof of my bounty and would need to be submitted to the guild to collect my reward. I went back to the other seven smaller goblins I killed and repeated the same thing.
"Only 9 large coppers. This was definitely faster than hunting boars for sure but much slower than harvesting Glimmerwasp Nectar." The nectar would have given me more coin but I needed contribution points as well to improve my rank, and there wasn't any mission to harvest the nectar.
The whole fight lasted less than 10 minutes, and there was still plenty of daylight left so I went about looking for more goblin nests.
In the end, I took down another two nests in the area. Though the last two were a smaller group and did not seem to have any Orange cored ones among them. Or at least none of the ones I killed were Orange as I looked through the notifications.
[You have absorbed an Orange Core. You have increased your Mana Core Capacity by 33]
[You have absorbed an Orange Core. You have increased your Mana Core Capacity by 32]
[You have absorbed a Red Core. You have increased your Mana Core Capacity by 0]...[You have absorbed a Red Core. You have increased your Mana Core Capacity by 0]
I skipped through all the notifications that showed me absorbing the Red with 0 core capacity gain. I had a hunch they were red but I couldn't be sure. And I did not want to waste any precious experience that would progress my core on the off chance that my senses were wrong.
"Oh, a spell level up, about time!"
[Lightning Infusion leveled up 6 -> 7]
[You have increased your Mana Core Capacity by 700]
[Lightning Bolt leveled up 5 -> 6]
[You have increased your Mana Core Capacity by 1,200]
[You have leveled up 2 -> 3]
[Electrolocation leveled up 1 -> 2]
[You have increased your Mana Core Capacity by 400]
[Lightning Infusion leveled up 7 -> 8]
[You have increased your Mana Core Capacity by 800]
I quickly skipped through the notifications informing me of 0 capacity gain in between and only focused on the notifications from the Weave that mattered.
I couldn't help but let out a low whistle. I hadn't had that much of an experience influx since the fight with the Weepwrym. The two bandits did give me some experience but besides the initial ambush, the fight hadn't really pushed me that hard.
The three fights with the goblin had been more challenging due to the number of goblins I had to face at once. Coupled with the fact that these were feral creatures born with the instincts to be violent. The fights had helped push my spells that had been stagnant for a while to the next level. My only Tier 1 spell even went up by two levels throughout the three fights.
I couldn't help but contemplate the irony. To be safe in this world, you need absolute strength. But to get absolute strength, you had to constantly put yourself in danger — whether it was hunting creatures to absorb their cores or to push the boundaries of your spell to level up. The most progress I had in leveling was almost always when I was hunting in the past few years.
Despite the influx of experience, I had only leveled up one time. I could see why most adults were stuck at Orange or Yellow grade their whole lives. Unless they had a Perfect Affinity like me or were constantly fighting, they had little chance to progress further than that.
I pulled on the Weave to bring up my status window.
StatusCore: Lightning Affinity (Perfect)Core Stage: YellowStage Level: 3Mana Core Capacity (MCC) Progress to Next Level: 2,004/2,500Core Mutations:- Lightning Brain- Lightning AdaptationSpells:- Electrolocation (Tier 2) - Level 2- Lightning Bolt (Tier 2) - Level 6- Lightning Infusion (Tier 1) - Level 8Soul Mutations:- Adaptive Soul- Nature's Constitution- Myelin Insulation
"Well, at least I am close to the next level" I said, looking at the slightly less than 500 experience gap.
"And I'm more than 2 silvers richer" I held up the bag that was soaked through with red liquid, the blood from all the goblin ears dripping through it.
"Time to see what other missions I can take after this" I skipped a little while walking back to town.
Here's a picture of the goblin. I can't show you what Ash really saw for .... reasons...