Chapter 94: Sudden Change

"Clang!"

In the dimly lit cave, sparks scattered.

The finely crafted standard cleaver glinting with cold light fiercely chopped at the stone wall surface.

But only crushed scattered fungi and moss.

Awkwardly dodging the other party's attack.

I rolled and stood up, beheading longsword tip touching the ground.

Breathing heavily, forehead hair matted with sweat, a few mud spots still staining my cheeks.

The outer side of my thigh's long pants were torn, vaguely visible beneath was gradually seeping blood.

—This was a cut scratched by the cave floor's sharp angular stones accidentally during battle just now.

Fortunately the wound wasn't very deep. With my Constitution it would quickly scab and recover on its own. No need to worry about excessive bleeding.

And before me, the enemy currently fighting with me.

Was a humanoid monster the size of an adult male with reddish-brown skin.

"Hobgoblin!"

Like bear goblins, this type of creature was also one of goblin's subspecies.

Like two branches from the same tree limb.

If bear goblins' evolutionary direction was size and strength;

Then hobgoblins were wisdom and command ability.

A challenge rating of "0.5" meant an ordinary hobgoblin without other talents, in a one-on-one situation, basically wasn't a match for its burly cousin.

But intelligence far exceeding their kind gave them higher potential.

These natural-born leaders and commanders, after reaching adulthood, could easily become chiefs of large goblin settlements, and by using plundering experience passed down through generations, develop the tribe at extremely fast speed into a scourge threatening other intelligent creatures.

In some extremely special situations, some elite individuals among them could even, under their main god's protection, master combat skills, obtain professional levels, even manipulate magic particles...

Of course, these had nothing to do with the one I was currently facing.

"ROAR!!!"

From the ends of yellow-brown fangs, viscous drool dripped.

The hobgoblin waved the cleaver in its hand, roaring furiously.

After intense engagement with me, it naturally couldn't be unscathed.

Arms, waist and abdomen, calves—all covered with sword blade scratches.

And gradually flowing life and stamina made its heart increasingly impatient.

"Damn flea, I'll chop off your head and feed your brains to the maggots in the cesspit!"

Just, this tribal-flavored cursing didn't disrupt its opponent's rhythm, making the other party perform poorly due to agitated emotions.

My expression was calm.

Inwardly even wanted to laugh a little.

In my previous life typing on keyboards, battling with experts from all corners in forums for thousands of days and nights.

The hobgoblin's threats had absolutely no attack power to me.

If I really wanted to anger the other party.

Taking any one or two sentences from the countless retort phrases unconsciously flashing through my mind right now and speaking them out.

This "innocent" tribal youth before me would probably immediately break down and charge over to fight me desperately.

No need for that.

I actively entered the cave to use actual combat as much as possible to accelerate combat skill learning.

Right now with the other party's injuries gradually worsening, combat ability rapidly declining, losing sparring value.

Didn't want to waste more time either.

Kill and be done with it.

"Clang!"

The iron-gray beheading longsword was held horizontally before my chest, firmly blocking the hobgoblin's downward slash.

The sword body trembled slightly from violent collision.

As if about to enter the sword-strength-wrestling stage, my arms tightly holding the sword hilt suddenly relaxed.

"Bang."

Leather boots stained with ice crystals, crushing the filthy mud and moss on the cave floor, suddenly exerted force!

Scenery on both sides retreated. Air around my body instantly congealed, as if immersed in deep water.

In my ears seemed to be some beast cry brewing and accumulating.

And just when the beast cry grew increasingly loud, as if the next second it would completely explode.

Suddenly, it came to an abrupt halt.

"Pity, just a bit short."

Thoughts surfaced inwardly.

I, who should have directly teleported behind the enemy under 【Fang Hunt】's effect.

Because the combat skill wasn't yet completely mastered, only displaced to the hobgoblin's side before speed slowed down.

But already enough.

Like a tightly strung lute string, I exerted force with my waist and abdomen, using forward charging momentum to rotate my torso. The beheading longsword traced a perfect arc.

【Whirlwind Slash】!

Whooom—

A waning moon-like iron-gray sharp arc light flashed briefly in the air.

【Chopping Master】's five percent slashing damage bonus stacked with the longsword's five percent beheading affix.

Diagonally upward,

Just one sword.

Cut off the hobgoblin's left shoulder bone and half its head.

"Thud."

The incomplete corpse fell powerlessly. I wiped obvious blood marks from the sword body, slowly sheathing it.

At this moment, four full days had passed since I followed the barbarian into the forest.

Boring daily training plus large amounts of actual combat tempering made my familiarity with 【Fang Hunt】 surge at astonishing speed.

Right now, from truly getting started, just that final kick at the door remained.

Perhaps... one more high-quality battle and I could completely master it, making 【Fang Hunt】 appear on my attribute panel.

Pitch-black pupils glanced at the hobgoblin on the ground. I instinctively turned around, sweeping a circle around the obviously cleaner and more spacious goblin cave than previous nests.

A thoughtful expression appeared on my face.

Having killed my way down from the ground entrance, I knew all too clearly.

Right now this exceptionally spacious nest like a small square.

Actually only had fewer than twenty goblins dwelling in it.

Hobgoblins—combat power far inferior to bear goblins.

But in terms of troublesomeness, far surpassed the latter.

Intelligence close to humans, plus various military methods seemingly innately understood, made them suppress their goblin underlings' chaotic nature with harsh means.

Like an army, making them obey orders and follow commands.

Just over ten goblins, under the hobgoblin's leadership, could build the nest as intricate as an anthill, full of branches and narrow passages.

Parts even had some crude traps arranged to guard against invaders.

And when facing me breaking into the nest, those green-skins usually reckless and crazy, just waving clubs and charging in a swarm.

Actually under the hobgoblin's commanding voice, strangely showed a bit of tactical literacy—flanking front and back, surrounding left and right, even keeping some in the rear responsible for throwing stones at me.

If only the goblins' numbers were greater, or they had a few proper ranged weapons... no, as long as they'd been on guard against my invasion.

I wouldn't be able to kill through all the way to the hobgoblin in the cave's deepest part like now.

I'd estimated inwardly—just adding 10 more goblins, even with both swords in hand and fully armed, for safety's sake I could only temporarily retreat.

"Awoo~"

From the cave corner came canine whimpering sounds.

Those were two wargs at adult thigh height, just separated from the juvenile stage.

Yes,

Just like other intelligent creatures that had already formed civilizations on the continent.

Livestock providing meat, cattle and horses transporting goods, birds and beasts delivering messages...

Besides certain military capabilities, hobgoblins also possessed the ability to domesticate animals.

Techniques passed down in tribes let them raise wargs from young, making these creatures with equally vile natures obey their masters' commands.

After reaching adulthood, paired with goblins possessing corresponding skills, they became low-budget versions of "wolf cavalry."

Similarly possessing decent intelligence.

I even felt these two wargs' intelligence was considerably higher than ordinary goblin soldiers.

I just walked two steps closer toward their direction.

The two wargs whimpered, lowering their bodies and lying on the ground.

With one hand extended, they stuck out tongues and rolled over, exposing soft bellies under their gray-black fur.

Not caring at all about my just having slaughtered their master, incredibly docile.

One cleverer even wagged its tail, bringing over that half hobgoblin skull, ingratiatingly placing it at my feet.

I couldn't help clicking my tongue in wonder.

But before I could act, the next second, accompanying slow footsteps from behind, forest-cold wind suddenly blew past.

In the blink of an eye, the wargs before me transformed into two crystalline ice sculptures, completely losing life force.

Even retained their previous tail-wagging fawning posture from life.

"Can't be tamed, don't touch."

The black obsidian small axe lightly swayed at his waist. Forgan slowly said.

Normally, if just ordinary beasts, there wasn't any distinction between good and evil. Everything done was just for survival instinct.

But wargs were different.

Their intelligence was very high, almost reaching young human levels.

Some individuals even understood simple Common and Goblin.

In this situation, they with naturally vicious and cunning dispositions undoubtedly belonged to the evil alignment.

Wild wargs would often roam the wilderness in packs, stealing livestock raised by humans, hunting isolated farmers, attacking passing caravans.

Even facing green-skins who'd raised them from young, if slightly dissatisfied, would under hunting instinct's drive bite through throats, turning them into dinner.

Temperament capricious—truly "untameable" in the literal sense.

Only druids who revered nature and lived alongside beasts could, with their own professional abilities, coexist harmoniously with them.

If I raised these two wargs at my side, I'd probably never need to sleep again.

After all, who knew whether some beast, just because there was one less bone at dinner than yesterday, would bear a grudge and bite me to death while resting.

Shrugging, I no longer paid attention.

Turning to collect spoils within the cave.

The barbarian behind, as always, stood in place, summoning wolf spirits to investigate something.

Before I'd still wondered—Mist Forest was so big, monsters suitable for my actual combat were countless, why specifically pick green-skins to slaughter as if bearing a grudge.

These days I'd roughly figured out the reason.

—What he was investigating should be related to goblins.

Just because he'd temporarily accepted the commission to teach combat skills, he incidentally let me practice with various goblinoids in the nest.

After battles ended, even left me half an hour to collect spoils.

Encountering elite individuals like bear goblins, he'd even help freeze and preserve the parts that could be exchanged for bounties.

"Pretty good person."

I praised inwardly.

At the same time guessing he might have also done this line of work when young, knowing how hard it was for bottom-tier adventurers like me to earn money.

Although I lived fairly comfortably, even if ten days or half a month without any income, all used for learning combat skills, I could still maintain a certain quality of life with savings.

But since he actively released goodwill, I had no reason to refuse.

Twenty minutes later.

Standing in the cave center, I crossed my arms before my chest, brow tightly furrowed.

"How strange."

The hobgoblin's left ear was chopped to pieces by me during battle, no longer possessing the function to exchange for bounty.

After all, battle was intense—having the chance to kill, naturally couldn't care about so much.

Missing a few gold in income was acceptable.

But what made me feel strange was that searching this entire cave, I hadn't found even a single copper coin.

This wasn't normal.

You had to know, even those nests with only single-digit green-skins, the most crude nests, could still find a few small stones that could sell for a price.

With the current cave's scale, should have gained more.

And at the same time, that wolf spirit drifting in midair, which usually just circled once before returning to the barbarian's side, actually didn't stop moving either.

As if discovering traces of something, it slowed its pace, carefully searching.

My gaze also followed the circling wolf spirit, sweeping across the cave again and again.

Suddenly pausing.

I saw in the cave corner, a broken rock about half a person's height was clearly blocking something.

Compared to surroundings, the rock's surface didn't have much dust. The surrounding ground clearly showed many friction marks, as if frequently moved.

Quickly stepping forward, I used both hands forcefully to push the rock aside.

Immediately, a small pitch-black wooden box embedded in the stone wall's interior appeared in my line of sight.

Suppressing excitement in my heart, I maintained caution, retreating several steps to the side-rear.

Then drawing the longsword, using the sword tip to hook the box opening.

Gently opening it.

"Whooom..."

Silver-white radiance mixed with a considerable amount of golden gleam came into view with the dim light.

"Whoa!"

Seeing no mechanism triggered, I hurriedly walked closer to carefully examine.

Hand reaching into the small box to grab a handful, feeling the sensation of coins falling through my fingers.

Estimating the value inwardly.

At least thirty gold!

This was still not counting those dozen or so bright little stones in the money box—purely coin income.

Holding the wooden box in my arms.

I'd just turned around.

Whoosh—

An unusually bone-chilling cold wind mixed with some indescribable forest-cold aura suddenly blew up from the cave.

In ice-blue pure eyes, crack-like crimson bloodshot appeared; rumbling in his throat was a muffled, suffocating dangerous growl.

Forgan still stood in place. The wolf-jawed beast fur cloak seemed like some pale cold flame emerging from beneath ice, burning his body.

The wolf spirit's four limbs touched ground, body tense. Ice-cone-like fangs glinted cold light in warning wolf cries.

Ahead was that hobgoblin corpse with only half a head remaining.

At some unknown time, its finger covered with thick hair had merged with some fungi moss on the moist ground.

Fine fungal threads climbed and grew.

Transforming into a light green mushroom swaying in the wind.

"Plans changed."

"Return to town."