In the dense forest northeast of Pine Wood Town, sunlight filtered through layers of leaves, casting dappled shadows across the ground carpeted with decaying foliage.
"Crack!"
Amid the crisp sound of a dead branch snapping, a group of goblins waved rusted weapons and shoved aside the bushes blocking their path.
They chattered among themselves, their hoarse, grating voices filled with undisguised excitement.
If not for their ferocious faces and the blood that had yet to dry on their weapons, their cheerful appearance might have made them look like a group of travelers out on a trip.
The goblin at the head was gesturing wildly as it spoke when, all of a sudden, a flash of cold light swept through the bushes behind it.
"Swish!"
The goblin's ugly grin froze on its face as a fine line of blood silently appeared across its gray-green neck.
The next second, its head thudded to the ground and rolled away, while blood spurted like a fountain across the surrounding fallen leaves.
"Gah gah goo!"
Before the remaining goblins could react, several more flashes of silver streaked past.
Their terrified shrieks had yet to leave their throats when they turned into sprays of bloody foam.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
As several corpses fell one after another, Roland shook the blood droplets from his longsword and slowly furrowed his brows.
"They seemed to be saying... something about... moving?"
Unlike the silent, crazed goblins he and Darko had encountered while hunting in the forest before,
the goblins before him had no strange red patterns on their bodies, and their behavior seemed much more normal.
So while lurking in the shadows, Roland had used the [Animal Companion] trait to listen carefully to their conversation.
Unfortunately, goblins' intelligence was simply too limited.
Their conversation was not only disjointed but also frequently broken off.
It took Roland considerable effort to barely pick out the keyword "moving" from their fragmented words.
This reminded him of the Red Squirrel named Qiao in the forest.
Ever since he had changed classes to become a Hunter and awakened the [Animal Companion] trait, it was the most intelligent nonhuman creature he had ever encountered.
Roland gently shook his head, set aside this memory unrelated to his current mission, and efficiently dragged the green-skinned little monsters into the bushes nearby.
After confirming that they carried nothing valuable, he drew the dagger at his waist and cut off their ears one by one, placing them in the pouch at his waist.
"This is already the fifth patrol."
Roland warily surveyed his surroundings. Only after confirming that it was safe did he let out a quiet breath of relief and pull the slightly crumpled commission from his chest.
Dappled sunlight filtered through the gaps between the leaves and fell across the lines of scrawled writing on the parchment.
"Exterminate the Goblin Camp."
Roland's brows gradually knitted together.
"With patrols this frequent and defenses this tight, is this really just a camp?"
He checked the coordinates on the parchment again. Only after confirming that he was indeed at the location specified in the commission did Roland fold the parchment back up and put it away.
Then he lowered his body and continued cautiously through the dense forest.
Although with his current strength, facing dozens of goblins at once would be no trouble,
even a lion used its full strength against a rabbit.
He would never let his guard down simply because the difference in strength between the two sides was too great.
As he went deeper, he encountered two more goblin patrols.
Thanks to the boost from [Adaptive Training], Roland's Agility had risen to seven points, nearly matching his Strength.
This allowed him to move through the dense jungle like a ghost, every strike precise and deadly.
A flash of cold light passed, and the goblins of the two patrols died on the spot before they could even sound an alarm.
"Twenty-nine."
Roland counted silently.
With goblin patrols consisting of three to five members, he had wiped out seven small squads along the way.
The progress of the class-change quest requiring him to kill one hundred hostile creatures had also rapidly advanced from zero to twenty-nine.
With the support of [Theory and Practice], the experience of Lionheart Swordsmanship had also increased by nearly seventy points.
Compared with the progress he made training with the [Battle Readiness] trait on ordinary days, this rate of improvement was astonishing.
As he continued forward, Roland suddenly caught the sound of noise coming from ahead.
He immediately crouched down and crept forward, lightening his steps.
The soles of his boots pressed into the soft decaying leaves without making the slightest sound.
He eventually stopped before a dense thicket.
His slender fingers gently parted the branches, and he looked up.
It was a forest clearing that had been crudely hacked out.
Seventeen or eighteen shacks made of branches plastered with mud leaned crookedly against one another.
Several corpses, gnawed beyond recognition, were piled along the edge. From their tattered clothing, they were probably merchants who had passed through, mercenaries who had come to exterminate the goblins, or adventurers.
Dozens of goblins were scurrying back and forth through the camp like ants moving house.
Some were roughly stuffing stolen vessels into baskets, while the sounds of pottery shattering rose one after another.
Others fought over a piece of moldy dried meat, biting one another until their mouths were covered in blood.
Seen from above, the entire camp displayed a kind of diseased vitality, like maggots writhing inside rotting wood.
At the very center of the camp, a goblin wearing a necklace made of bones was shrieking out orders.
Its build was similar to that of the others, but a cunning light flickered in its murky yellow eyes.
Whenever a goblin moved too slowly while carrying something, it would leap up and viciously strike the other goblin's head with its bone staff.
"So they really are moving. But where exactly are these goblins moving to? The Black Fir Forest?"
While secretly speculating, Roland narrowed his eyes and carefully counted their numbers.
"One, two, three... thirty-one goblins..."
He counted under his breath as his mind rapidly calculated.
"At this scale, if the number of monsters in the kobold lair is comparable to that in the goblin camp, then after completing these two commissions, I should have enough kills to meet the requirement for changing to the Warrior class."
At that thought, Roland excitedly licked his lips and reached his right hand toward the shortbow at his waist.
He had crafted this bow under Hawk's guidance before setting out, and it perfectly suited his habits.
The dark-brown bow made of Chinese mulberry wood had been carefully polished, with no unnecessary decorations. Only a few loops of leather cord were wrapped around the grip.
Although its appearance was plain and unremarkable, compared with the shortbows he had previously borrowed from John and Darko, this weapon felt perfectly natural in his hands.
The only thing Roland regretted was that, perhaps because he had not practiced long enough, he had never managed to awaken a woodworking-related skill.
Roland calmly nocked an arrow and bent the bow, slowly drawing the string into a full-moon shape in his hands.
"Bang!"
With the dull twang of the bowstring snapping back, the arrow shot through the air like lightning.
With [Basic Archery] at max level, killing a stationary target was effortless.
The next instant, the goblin leader wearing the bone necklace around its neck suddenly let out a shrill wail and staggered backward.
The sharp arrow pierced straight through its eye socket and sank deep into its skull, sending blood gushing out.
The goblin leader, which had been chattering and giving orders moments ago, spasmed only a few times before falling completely silent.
Before the remaining goblins could recover from their shock, the sounds of arrows tearing through the air rang out one after another.
One sharp arrow after another shot toward them almost without pause.
Amid a chorus of screams, the goblins' expressions rapidly changed from confusion to terror, and finally to complete collapse as they scattered and fled.
Seeing that the green-skinned little monsters could no longer mount any effective resistance, Roland stopped hiding.
He smoothly drew the iron sword at his waist, his agile figure leaping out of the bushes and charging into the fleeing goblin horde like a tiger. The iron sword carved cold arcs through the sunlight.
In just a few minutes, all thirty-one goblins lay in pools of blood.
Roland shook the blood from his sword and scanned the corpses scattered across the ground. Only after confirming that none had escaped did he slowly return the sword to its sheath.
"Easier than I expected."
Roland crouched down and casually sifted through the scattered spoils.
Crude wooden clubs with several sharp stones tied to them, a few rusted short knives, and several spears carved from beast bones.
These shoddily made weapons were not worth even a single copper coin, making him frown.
"I really can't expect anything from these penniless monsters."
He muttered under his breath and was about to leave when the corner of his eye suddenly caught sight of a battered wooden chest beside the goblin leader's corpse.
The chest was half-buried in the dirt, its surface covered in scratches. It looked as though it had been dragged around roughly.
Roland pried open the lid with the tip of his sword, and several copper coins immediately rolled out through the gap with a series of tinkling sounds.
His eyes lit up. He bent down to look and found several silver coins, a small handful of copper pieces, and...
"These guys..."
He could not help laughing.
The chest was stuffed full of shiny but worthless odds and ends.
Several polished seashells, a few colored glass beads, and even half of a broken mirror.
These "treasures" had been carefully wrapped in scraps of cloth and mixed together with the coins.
At the very bottom were even several packets of iron nails so rusted they were nearly corroded away.
"Typical goblin taste."
Roland shook his head and put the silver and copper coins into his money pouch.
"Three silver and seventy-two copper, plus the reward for the goblin ears. That's quite a substantial income."
"No wonder those mercenaries and adventurers keep flocking here despite knowing how dangerous it is."
After confirming that there were no other places where money had been hidden, Roland skillfully cut off the left ear of each goblin and put them into a special leather pouch.
He then retrieved the arrows he had fired earlier one by one, wiped them clean, and placed them in the quiver on his back.
After carefully inspecting the battlefield to ensure nothing had been missed, he immediately returned along the route he had taken.
He swung the bulging sack of spoils onto the horse's back, then nimbly mounted and pulled the yellowed parchment map from his chest, studying it carefully in the afterglow of the setting sun.
After confirming the exact location of the kobold lair, he lightly squeezed the horse's belly and galloped toward his destination.
Two days passed in the blink of an eye.
Unlike at the goblin camp, Roland did not encounter a single kobold patrol while traveling through this dense forest.
The unexpectedly smooth journey soon brought him to the location marked in the mission.
When he carefully parted the thick bushes before him and looked toward the deep cave, he could not help but freeze.
The clearing before the cave was in complete disarray, with various household implements and abandoned items scattered everywhere.
Apart from the chaotic footprints, the cave was empty. Only wisps of smoke still drifted from the bonfire in the center, proving that creatures had lived here not long ago.
Roland crouched down and held his hand over the bonfire to test it.
The [Heart of the Furnace] trait made him extremely sensitive to the temperature of flames.
"There's still some warmth. Looks like they left only recently."
This discovery made him immediately withdraw from the cave and begin scouting the surrounding area.
After searching carefully, he finally found a series of messy kobold tracks in the mud to the southeast, stretching toward the depths of the forest.
Roland slowly stood up, his brows unconsciously furrowing.
If he remembered correctly, this direction...
seemed to perfectly match the area of monster activity mentioned in the Adventurer's Guild's latest commission.
Before you continue