Two months later.
On the outskirts of Thin Mist Forest, at a certain Goblin Nest.
Quiet.
Strangely quiet.
"Drip."
Crystal-clear bloody water refracted the pus-green glow emitted by the Fungal Moss, fell, and splashed a fine layer of ripples across the pool of blood.
The terrifying shrieks that had echoed between the stone walls were reduced to the faintest phantom remnants, and the excited, twisted howls had vanished into nothing.
The air was still filled with a filthy, nauseating stench, but compared with before, there was now a thicker tang of blood.
This was a goblin community with a population as high as twenty-three.
Even without any elite individuals among them.
These lowly, wretched bottom-tier Monsters still relied on the primal hunting instincts inherited from deep within their bloodlines, moving in packs with near-frenzied aggression and an exaggerated reproductive ability that seemed to belong to another species entirely, to carve out a place for themselves in the danger-ridden Thin Mist Forest.
Tree bark and grass roots, wild fruits and muddy fungi, ordinary beasts, careless adventurers... Their broad diet, along with a Bug Beast-and-plant-like tenacious life force, allowed them to survive as long as they had even a single bite to eat.
As if they were born with biological traits proliferated and strengthened solely for survival and reproduction, goblins were like those disgusting, omnipresent mosquitoes, flies, and cockroaches.
You might see only one out in the open, but in truth, their nests had already silently bred in the darkness, spreading into every corner you had failed to notice.
To a certain extent, more than twenty Green-skinned Goblins, if the timing and environment were right, already possessed the ability to attack a human caravan.
And if there were one more leader-type elite individual such as a "Hobgoblin," their numbers and actual combat