CHAPTER 68: GOBLINS

Hearing this, Leon exhaled in relief before excitement lit up his eyes. Without wasting another second, he rushed forward and began gathering the leaves.

They were green in color but as thick and stiff as the stem of a strong tree.

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Gravity Leaf 003 has formed a connection with you.

┗━━━━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━━━━┛

. . .

By the time he picked the last leaf and received its notification, another alert suddenly appeared.

┏━━━━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━━━━┓

You have 30 seconds to get out of this dungeon!

TIME: 30 sec

┗━━━━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━━━━┛

"Eh!!!" Leon’s eyes widened. He hurriedly stored all the leaves before sprinting out of the cave.

Just outside, near the entrance, the familiar vortex swirled patiently as if waiting just for him.

He rushed straight into it.

His surroundings darkened, and when he opened his eyes again, he was in an entirely different place.

’Cool teleportation!’

’Unlike what I’ve read in novels, I don’t feel like puking. Is it because of the system? Or my physique? Or maybe puking after teleportation doesn’t exist at all?’

Either way, he didn’t care about such trivial things.

By now, Leon had spent more than twelve hours clearing his first two dungeons — the Bird Dungeon and the Ice Dungeon. He now had less than eleven hours left to reach level 30.

He wasn’t worried. He was confident he’d reach it in no time, especially since he wouldn’t waste hours learning new skills like before when he learned [Mana Sensing] and [Mana Manipulation] — which had eaten up nearly eight hours.

Now, he focused on his surroundings.

He was in a rainforest, filled with tall, thick, and vibrant trees.

One thing was certain — he was at a disadvantage here. Whatever creatures lived in this place were perfectly adapted to the terrain, while he was a complete newcomer to it.

His abilities would be restricted. Unlike his recent dungeon clear, which took place in an open snowy field, here the environment was dense, layered, and filled with obstacles.

Suddenly, Leon felt danger approaching from above.

The instant that danger entered his attack range, he slashed through the air with full force!

Clang!!!

The sharp sound of metal striking metal rang through the forest.

The attacker was sent hurtling into a tree. In that brief moment, Leon caught a glimpse of what it was.

Booooooom!

A loud crash followed as the beast slammed into a thick, sturdy trunk.

’Fuck! What’s with those claws!’ Leon cursed the moment he saw them clearly.

It was a mutant leopard — about 1.5 meters tall. Shorter than the wolf-hybrid dungeon boss, yes, but Leon was certain this creature could easily kill that wolf-hybrid.

Its most terrifying feature was its claws.

’With those claws, killing the wolf-hybrid would be easy. Three to five strikes at most.’

But Leon also knew its fangs were no less dangerous.

Its claws were ten inches long, thick and sharp, while its fangs stretched about nine inches, both stained with fresh blood. Clearly, this wasn’t its first kill. This predator was experienced.

Majestic and beautiful in form, yet domineering and lethal in aura — a single look was enough to make the heart of any lesser being tremble.

Growl!!!

The beast lunged at him again, filled with bloodlust and killing intent. Its speed was blinding.

Despite being repelled earlier, its ferocity hadn’t dropped in the slightest.

It raised its massive, claw-filled paw to strike.

Leon chuckled at its futile attempt.

’Here I was thinking the first creature to attack me would be some kind of mutant monkey.’

Back in the last dungeon, he had actually wanted to face a mutant cat-beast — something like a jaguar or lion. But when he arrived here and saw the forest terrain, he became sure it would be a monkey-type beast that came for him first.

Who would’ve thought his earlier wish would come true?

Seeing the leopard in full, Leon finally understood why cultivators treated mutant cat-beasts as deadly threats even without poison or magic.

Still, he didn’t falter. He was certain he could take this beast down.

The beast rushed at him again. It raised its paw, attempting to claw him to death, but Leon was the fastest one.

Seeing the claw come for his face, he shifted to the side, watching in slow motion as the sharp talons sliced past him. At that exact moment, he struck the beast with his clawed weapon.

The beast growled in pain as it felt the cold metal blades pierce through its thick skin with seemingly no effort.

Then, half a second after the weapon dug in, it felt a crack tear open along its spine.

Immediately, Leon tried to push the claw in deeper, attempting to injure it further. The beast roared even louder, the agony burning through its body.

Through the pain, the beast tried to twist around and claw Leon to death. Its flexible body gave it the edge it needed.

Seeing its attempt, Leon yanked his weapon free in one swift motion, tearing more pain from the creature, before moving a step back.

’Ugh, why are forests so cramped!!’

The beast’s movements faltered under the sudden spike of agony.

But Leon couldn’t help but wonder — why wasn’t this beast trying to escape? It already knew he was stronger. Then why fight on despite knowing that?

Not that he cared. Apart from leveling up and getting the hell out of this place, he cared about nothing else.

He rushed forward to finish it.

But as he closed in, he caught sight of something — an arrow flying straight for his neck.

He dodged instantly, not wasting a moment. The arrow buried itself deep into a nearby tree.

’What the hell! Arrows!? Which beast is intelligent enough to craft and attack with bows and arrows!?’

His mind reeled in chaos, unable to make sense of it.

Before he could gather his thoughts, danger flared on his side. He immediately dodged again, watching three more arrows sweep through the space he’d just been in.

He swallowed hard, then glanced at the mutant leopard — only to see it lying dead.

An arrow was buried deep into the wound he had given it with his claws.

’The beast is dead! And I got no EXP! And it’s not dispersing into pixels!’

Leon almost screamed like a crazed cat.

This revelation tore at the knowledge and understanding he’d built about the dungeon so far.

More arrows came at him, but he kept dodging, this time using the trees for cover.

Whoever was attacking him, one thing was certain — for the beast he had been fighting to die from a single arrow, poison had to be involved.

And not just any poison — something potent.

He was sure of it. He had a remedy, but getting hit was out of the question. With that kind of poison in their hands, they were dangerous.

Soon, the arrows stopped. He looked toward the direction they had been fired from... and noticed a short, nimble silhouette.

He suddenly caught the shuffling of someone nearby, along with faint whispers. But the sound stopped abruptly, making him doubt his hearing.

’Huh? Did I hear it wrong?’

Still, he knew one thing — he needed to find whatever had made that noise before it found him.

He started moving, but just as he was about to search, danger spiked behind him.

He spun with inhuman speed, sweeping his weapon through the air.

A shriek ripped out as the thing that had attacked him was shredded into minced meat.

And in that instant... he caught a glimpse of it.

’G-Gob!!!??’ he stuttered in his head, the sight making his stomach churn.

But there was no time to dwell on it — more danger closed in, this time from three directions. Luckily, he had a tree at his back; otherwise, he would’ve been attacked from behind as well.

Then another attack came — from above, out of the very tree at his back!

’These things cornered me to the exact spot they wanted!’

With no other option, he activated Mana Jet and shot upward.

An arrow slammed into the ground where he had stood seconds ago.

Soaring higher, he spotted the attacker — a goblin, bow in hand.

Yes. Goblins were attacking him. Green goblins.

He leapt to the tree where the goblin perched and gave chase. The goblin ran, laughing and shouting incomprehensible words, even as it looked back to point at him.

Yet despite looking over its shoulder, it moved through the forest as if it knew every branch and trunk by heart.

A small bow and a quiver perfectly sized for its body hung on its back.

’System, what the fuck are goblins doing in this dungeon!?’ he shouted in his mind, dread lacing his inner voice.

’...’

No answer.

Ding!

He knew what that meant.

’Why aren’t you answering? Do you only know how to dish out missions!?’ he yelled inside his head, anger boiling.

’...’

He stopped the chase. This was going nowhere, and he might get killed if he kept it up. Instead, he turned back toward the goblins on the ground — the ones far from where the pursuit had started.

He grinned when the goblin he’d been chasing suddenly stopped laughing and shouted to alert the others that Leon was coming.

’I made the right choice when I stopped chasing it.’