"These adventurers are pretty strong. At least, if I were in my current state and hadn't hidden in the shadows to poison them, I'd definitely have been crushed under one stomp."
Beside the Hobgoblin's corpse, Lu Minghao looked at its body, covered in wounds. Judging from the bear trap clamped around the Hobgoblin's foot and the black blood flowing from its injuries, Lu Minghao was absolutely certain that the adventurers had used traps—and poisoned them at that. They might have even coated their weapons with poison. His wariness toward these adventurers instantly rose to its peak.
After all, adventurers who knew how to use traps and poison clearly had functioning brains. Back when Lu Minghao watched comics and anime, he had always been baffled by how adventurers would know where a demon's lair was and which paths it had to take, yet still insist on charging in head-on and sliding straight into its mouth as food.
If you already knew where the demon's lair and its obligatory route were, why not use poison and set traps? To go even further, why not make a whole pile of bombs, throw them into the lair while the demon was sleeping, and send its entire family to the afterlife? Wouldn't that be better?
Why insist on fighting head-on? Some even went so far as to have a fair one-on-one duel. Once you knew someone was your enemy, killing them by any means necessary was obviously the correct approach.
Thus, Lu Minghao had always been utterly confused by adventurers' baffling behavior. However, after witnessing these few adventurers' battle today, his former misconceptions about adventurers had been completely overturned. Real adventurers were indeed entirely different from those in comics and anime.
These were the true adventurers. Comic artists and anime creators simply had no idea what real adventurers were!
"Still, although you really are genuine adventurers, I'll be taking your spoils now."
As he spoke, Lu Minghao looked at the Hobgoblin's corpse before him and the corpses of monsters scattered across the ground, then laughed. The formerly hideous corpses and the sewer floor covered in blood and sludge now looked so adorable.
There were so many monsters. If he had hunted them himself, setting aside whether he could have killed them successfully, the Hobgoblin alone was far beyond what he could handle at his current stage. With Lu Minghao's tiny body, he probably wouldn't even have been reduced to dust after one swing of the Hobgoblin's club.
But now, all of this belonged to him. Sure enough, freeloading was the best.
"Gluttony!"
The next second, Lu Minghao's body leaped high into the air. His liquid body writhed in midair and, in the blink of an eye, completely enveloped the Hobgoblin's body. That familiar sensation of being saturated surged through him once again. With the massive influx of nutrients, Lu Minghao's body and magical essence began to grow rapidly.
A few minutes later, Lu Minghao's body dropped back to the ground. The nearly two-meter-tall Hobgoblin had vanished completely, and the magical essence within Lu Minghao had grown by nearly half again. Unfortunately, he hadn't gained any new skills this time.
He was still rather envious of the ability that had suddenly driven the Hobgoblin berserk and greatly increased its strength.
"Forget it. It's only one skill. There'll be another chance next time. Right now, the most important thing is to eat all these monsters before those adventurers return. Only what I eat truly belongs to me."
As he spoke, Lu Minghao looked at the remaining monster corpses. There were more than ten Goblins and seven or eight giant rats, which amounted to an enormous feast for him. There had also been a few slimes, but perhaps their strength was too weak—all of them had been stomped to pieces.
That left Lu Minghao with nothing to eat. What a waste!
As for the fact that those slimes were his own kind, well, sorry, but aside from the slimes in the sewer where he had been born, there was nothing Lu Minghao couldn't eat. To put it another way, what gave birth to him was forbidden; everything else was fair game.
"Time to eat, time to eat."
The next moment, Lu Minghao bounced toward the monster corpses like a farmer heading toward his harvest, brimming with joy. As he devoured the corpses one after another, the magical essence within him began to grow again. His body grew stronger, the power of his talents increased accordingly, and he ate faster and faster.
In less than five minutes, he had swept up all the Goblin corpses and even eaten two giant rats. Just as Lu Minghao leaped toward the third giant rat, the faint sounds of footsteps and conversation came from behind him.
"Hm? They're back so soon? Those few Goblins that escaped were really useless!"
Looking at the giant rat corpse within arm's reach, Lu Minghao was filled with reluctance, but his body honestly leaped back into the corner where he had hidden earlier. Then his magical essence began to flow, and his sky-blue body turned pitch-black, merging into the shadows like liquid.
In an instant, aside from the vanished monster corpses, the sewer fell silent once again. The footsteps approaching from the distance drew closer and closer. Before long, tiny points of light appeared in the pitch-black sewer.
Within the light, Tuka approached with a glowing Magic Stone raised in one hand and a blood-dripping longsword in the other. The other three followed behind him, chatting and smiling, though they still gripped their weapons tightly. Their positions also ensured that they could immediately counterattack if danger arose.
That alone showed they were truly capable adventurers. Even knowing that the monsters had been dealt with, they still maintained their vigilance—even in a sewer inhabited only by Lesser Demons.
"Wait!"
Suddenly, Tuka, walking at the very front, shouted and stopped his teammates. The relaxed expression on his face became extremely solemn. He raised his sword before his chest in a defensive stance and warily examined his surroundings. The other three immediately heard Tuka's voice, pressed their backs together, formed a circle, and entered combat readiness.
"Captain, what's wrong?"
A few seconds later, after finding no movement, Gordon warily looked toward the dark corner ahead and asked Tuka.
"The Hobgoblin's corpse is gone. And it isn't just the Hobgoblin—the other Goblins' corpses and several giant rats' corpses have disappeared too."
Tuka stared gravely at the empty ground before him. Traces left behind by the dead monsters' bodies still marked the black sludge, while the blood that had not yet dried proved that a battle had taken place not long ago. Yet the corpses had now vanished without a trace. Judging from the marks they had left behind, the corpses had not been dragged away by monsters attracted by the smell of blood after they departed.
"The monster corpses disappeared."
Gordon and the other two became even more solemn after hearing Tuka's answer. They had never encountered anything like this when clearing sewers before, but they had heard of similar situations from other adventurers. According to those adventurers' descriptions...
There were only two possibilities in such a situation. One was that weak monsters had come to steal a meal. The other was that a powerful monster had been drawn by the smell of blood, eaten not only the monster corpses but also hidden nearby, waiting to kill the adventurers.
Before you continue