Tracking the Goblin

The Emerald Forest was dense and lush, its towering ancient trees making it difficult for sunlight to penetrate.

The cold, gloomy atmosphere made Gauss shiver. He constantly felt a chilling presence at his back.

Compared to ordinary low-ranking adventurers visiting the Emerald Forest for the first time, Gauss had a natural advantage.

As a hunter active along the forest's outermost edges, he was not entirely unfamiliar with the environment here.

He had several familiar "Hunting Grounds" and had left markers throughout the woods leading to them.

Combined with the "map" guidance in the Adventurer's Handbook, which illuminated the surrounding terrain wherever he had traveled—

—he would not face the first hidden danger awaiting novice low-ranking adventurers: getting lost.

Yes, compared to monsters that had to be fought with real blades, this vast, boundless forest itself was the true lurking danger. Its impenetrable trees and monotonous scenery made it impossible for ordinary people to determine their bearings within it, let alone find their way back to the forest's main road and return to human civilization.

Every year, countless novice adventurers were swallowed by this forest and lost their lives. Gauss had come across human skeletons several times while hunting in the past.

Unfortunately, the clothes and equipment on them had vanished without a trace, likely stripped clean by the forest's native residents—monsters of every kind.

If not for those monsters, Gauss might have achieved his dream of buying a house just by scavenging adventurers' inheritances.

While Gauss pondered, his feet did not slow. Relying on the Original Body's memories and the various marks left on oak trunks, he arrived at a rarely visited Hunting Ground.

There were definitely goblins near this Hunting Ground, and not too many of them.

The reason Gauss had come here first was also because of the information in his mind.

It had happened a month ago, not too long ago.

At the time, he had gone several days without catching prey, so he had opened up this "Hunting Ground," setting traps several times and gaining a modest harvest.

However, one early morning, when dawn had barely broken and the forest mist was thick, he had come to collect his traps, only to find bloody traces left by a triggered trap.

The prey had clearly been taken first by "someone."

He quickly concluded that the thief was a goblin.

There were humanoid footprints on the ground. Though they were few, they were all clear.

Those prints were smaller than Gauss's, roughly the size of a human adolescent's footprints. They were barefoot, and perhaps because it had rained shortly before that day, the impressions in the soil were exceptionally distinct.

Obviously, there would not coincidentally be a barefoot teenager wandering deep in the Emerald Forest. Once that absurd possibility was ruled out, only a few kinds of humanoid monsters remained.

Among them, the size of a common monster like a goblin best matched the footprints.

After guessing that this Hunting Ground lay within the activity range of a small goblin tribe, the cautious Gauss had abandoned it and never returned afterward.

He gathered his thoughts and returned to the present.

I still need to be careful. Although I didn't see many footprints nearby that time, and they all seemed to come from the same goblin, that doesn't mean only one goblin is active around here.

Gauss thought silently as he began recalling information about goblins.

Goblins were male Dwarfs with pointed ears, dark green skin, murky eyes, thin limbs, and no great physical strength. They were social creatures.

They preferred meat and occasionally picked berries, but their low intelligence and the vile traits ingrained in their blood made these infamous monsters—incapable of any productive labor—live by plunder and theft from birth to death.

Not only did they need to plunder food, but even reproduction, a normal process for living creatures, could not be accomplished within their own race. They could only reproduce by abducting females of other races.

They particularly favored humans, whose builds were similar to theirs. As a result, many villages had long suffered goblin ravages and attacks. They looted food, tools, and women, threatening the survival of human settlements and caravans. Their crimes were countless.

As for a goblin's actual combat strength—

In Gauss's memories, these little Green-skins were about as strong as he remembered from his previous life. Unless they were special individuals, they were not particularly powerful alone. In a one-on-one fight, even an ordinary farmer could handle one if armed.

But precisely because of this, goblins usually made up for their individual weakness with numerical superiority. They excelled at ambushes and group attacks, and once their numbers grew, they became a terrifying disaster.

Worse still, these filthy creatures possessed a reproductive capacity as rampant as rats and cockroaches. A mother carrying Goblin Cubs could often give birth to an entire litter at once.

Goblin young also had an extremely high survival rate. In less than a year, they could develop from newborns the size of little rats into adults capable of reproduction.

After reaching adulthood, goblins continued to be driven by the primitive desires in their bodies, abducting females for the next round of breeding.

It could be said that they were a race that could never be fully killed off or eradicated, like an original sin of nature itself.

And because goblins loved harassing humans, especially small villages, humanity's understanding of this monster race was among the deepest of all monsters.

Even illiterate village children could describe several of their traits with impressive accuracy.

"Goblin, I'll start with you!" Neither the Original Body nor Gauss, who had received a normal modern education, could feel anything resembling pity or sympathy for goblins.

Forget theories about disrupting nature's ecological balance. The best outcome for humanity would be for this species to be completely exterminated.

Though he was psyching himself up, Gauss did not lower his guard.

The goblins in his memories were weak, but practice was the only test of truth. He had never killed a goblin before, so he naturally had to treat this seriously.

There was only one life, whether for him or for the goblin.

Any living creature possessed an instinct to survive.

This was a real fight to the death, not some adventure!

Gauss took a deep breath.

He first removed the bundle from his back and buried it under fallen leaves beneath a large tree.

The tip of his Wooden Spear had already been coated with Paralysis Poison.

While eating lunch, he had deliberately found a sunny spot by a window and let the herbal juice dry and harden over the spearhead. The originally pitch-black tip now glimmered with an eerie green light.

He did not place much hope in this cheap Paralysis Poison.

You got what you paid for. It might have some effect, but it definitely would not work instantly.

The real battle would still depend on the weapon itself.

As he tightened his grip on the Wooden Spear, memories of this body using it gradually surged into his mind.

After briefly adjusting, he crouched down, pushed aside the piled leaves, and searched the ground for traces.

It was a hunter's habit. Any creature's activities would leave traces, especially creatures lacking intelligence that would not conceal them.

Footprints, fur, droppings, food scraps, signs of movement.

The seemingly tranquil forest actually concealed endless information.

Though Gauss was young, he had trained with his father since childhood. So even though he was merely a fledgling hunter, his ability to gather information was up to standard.

After all, as the second son, Gauss was destined to go out and make his own way. For a hunter—or rather, a mountain man—who dealt with nature, information-gathering ability was the most important thing.

Hunting skills and trap-making skills were secondary. If one's ability to gather information was lacking, one could not be considered a qualified hunter.

"Found it!"

Gauss delightedly discovered another clear footprint.

It looked very fresh, perhaps left only within the past couple of days.

That meant the goblin had still been active nearby recently.

Maybe it found my prey that time and was deeply impressed by it, so it occasionally comes back here, hoping to get something for nothing again?

Gauss felt that he had guessed the reason.

With this clue, Gauss began searching the area around the footprint more carefully. Before long, he found more footprints and traces of droppings.

The subtle traces on the ground soon led him deeper through the forest.

Not long after, he reached a Small Pond not far from his "Hunting Ground."

Carefully pushing aside the bushes, he took in the scene before him.

He had found the target of this trip.

A little Green-skin was leisurely sitting atop a stone about knee-high to an ordinary person, grinding the stone weapon in its hands—a Stone Spear.

Goblin, I found you!

Gauss held his breath, but the eyes hidden within the bushes gradually brightened.

To him, this was not merely a goblin. It was the starting point of his career in this other world.