A Feeling That Something Wasn't Quite Right

The Goddess Priestess and the others watched Lin Yun walk toward the bone chair in confusion. Lin Yun suddenly thrust out his foot and kicked it.

"D20+2=17, hit." Well, destroying an object still required a hit. You had to strike the part of the object that was most tightly joined—or the weakest part. For example, with a rectangular table, anyone would know the middle was the easiest part to hit, but you might insist on hitting one of the legs. Well, unless you were swinging horizontally.

In short, you had to hit an object to break it. Then it came down to the object's hardness: only damage greater than its hardness could destroy it. This bone chair was clearly very flimsy.

So even damage as low as "1+2=3" was enough to break the chair apart. Once it collapsed, the boards behind it were exposed. There, behind the bone chair, was a hidden passage.

The chair had almost completely blocked this hidden passage, which was shorter than the others. A small wooden door stood inside it, and the boards Lin Yun had just seen belonged to that door.

"Help me open the door in a moment. I'll get ready first," Lin Yun said to the young warrior.

"Uh, what exactly is this..." The young warrior clearly hadn't caught on and asked in confusion.

"Get ready first. Ask questions later," Lin Yun replied. He held his shield in one hand and prepared himself, while gripping a mace in the other—one that had probably been dropped by one of those player-Adventurers. Lin Yun knew exactly what was coming.

If he could help it, he didn't want to sully his Lantern Staff. Lin Yun had a fastidious streak in some rather particular ways...

Seeing what Lin Yun was doing, the young warrior realized the room might not be safe and quickly got serious. He moved beside Lin Yun and waited for him to nod before yanking the door open.

Inside, more than twenty Goblin younglings huddled together, trembling. Once they grew up, this Goblin tribe would probably become the dominant force in the area.

The original story hadn't mentioned so many... No, that wasn't right. The anime and manga probably just hadn't shown them, but the novel might have. Lin Yun couldn't quite remember the exact numbers from the novel. After all, it cost money to draw all those scenes, so there was no need to include too many. The anime and manga had probably just gotten the idea across.

The room also held all kinds of weapons and equipment. They were made of stone, but the important thing was that the Goblins had the strength to arm themselves. The place was practically packed with food, too.

Clearly, even if the Goblin Shaman was dead and Lin Yun's group had cleared out the cave, a new tribe would rise again if they failed to find this shelter.

"What is this..." The Goddess Priestess stared at the Goblin younglings in surprise. She'd already realized what Lin Yun was planning to do. Just as she was about to say something, a Goblin youngling suddenly dashed out from a blind spot and flung a cloud of some unknown powder at Lin Yun and the young warrior.

"D20-2=14, saving throw successful." Lin Yun reacted quickly. The Goblin Slayer in the original story had never been ambushed, but Lin Yun didn't dare trust the plot—not with that Giant Goblin, which was clearly much larger, and at least four or five extra Elite Goblins.

Since he'd been prepared for this, he reacted instantly. He raised his shield, shut his eyes, and held his breath. He couldn't rule out the possibility that the powder was poisonous.

"Ugh, my eyes!" Unlike Lin Yun, who had been ready, the young warrior couldn't help lowering his guard when he saw the Goblin younglings. The powder hit him in the eyes, and he stumbled backward, clutching his face.

Once he felt enough time had passed, Lin Yun narrowed his eyes slightly. But he still didn't breathe. Holding his breath, he charged inside with the mace in hand.

They were only Goblin younglings, after all. They'd caught Lin Yun and the others off guard, but that was all. They'd planned to escape in the confusion. In their minds, once they took care of the easiest target—the male—dealing with the foolish, softhearted females would be a piece of cake.

But Lin Yun had been ready. As he charged in, he seemed to enter some kind of one-man-army mode, knocking down one little Goblin after another. Some might not have died from a single blow, but after Lin Yun's mace struck them, they were barely alive.

It wasn't that they didn't want to fight back. They simply hadn't grown enough to handle their stone weapons, and even though Lin Yun's Shield spell had worn off and his Armor Class had dropped to 16, they still struggled to hurt him. Some of them could barely even lift their weapons.

That wasn't to say none of the Goblin younglings tried to slip past Lin Yun and run outside.

The Goddess Priestess might have been too merciful, but the Female Fighter, who firmly supported Lin Yun, simply beat them half to death. Well, the Female Fighter was a girl, after all; fighting and killing wasn't nice. Beating them half to death was enough...

Just like that, Lin Yun killed all twenty-six Goblin younglings. From one perspective, perhaps this modified Goblin tribe was too frightening. Or perhaps Lin Yun was.

Seeing Lin Yun covered in blood, the Goddess Priestess instinctively stepped back.

The twenty-six Goblin younglings gave Lin Yun varying amounts of experience, probably because they were at different stages of growth. Some were bigger, some smaller. In any case, after killing them all, Lin Yun gained another 350 experience points in one go. Each Goblin youngling had given him a dozen or so experience points on average. Shouldn't these things give no experience at all?

But never mind. At least this time Lin Yun had finally gained enough experience to level up. Congratulations were in order.

In truth, after that slaughter—yes, it could only be called a slaughter—

Lin Yun's head felt a little foggy. He'd been a tough guy who'd gotten into fights before, but those had just been brawls. At worst, someone might need medicine money, and some people even thought offering to pay for it was an insult.

Basically, nobody died. But today Lin Yun had taken so many lives all at once. It was strange, to say the least.

Lin Yun shook his head and looked outside through his helmet, which was filled with the smell of blood. The young warrior was still off to one side, clutching his eyes... Nobody was paying him any attention.

Of the three girls left, the Female Mage had run off to vomit. The Goddess Priestess looked at Lin Yun in fear and seemed close to throwing up herself. The Female Fighter, however, looked worried about him, which made Lin Yun feel a little better.

He remembered that in the original story, the Female Fighter had been gang-raped by a group of Goblins, and it had become a deep-seated trauma for her. The anime only said that they sent her home and that she never went adventuring again, but as far as Lin Yun knew, she later killed herself.

But now... at least she was still alive, wasn't she?

Thinking of that made Lin Yun feel a little better. At least the young warrior and the Female Mage were still alive, weren't they?

Lin Yun took a deep breath, only to find that his nose was full of the stench of blood. He nearly threw up. Still, he'd made it through. He shifted his attention to leveling up.

At level two, the Priest didn't get much of an improvement. If anything, he just had more hit points. Maybe level one had given him too much, so there wasn't much left to give at level two. Oh, right, he also got one more first-level Spell Slot. No, that should be a Divine Magic slot.

"D8=8"?????? Lin Yun stared blankly at the numbers before him. What the... What kind of roll was that? Had he finally made it to Europe? His D8 hit die had rolled an 8. Incredible! Or was it you, All-Knowing Eye, who'd given him such a fate? Thank you so much. He was about ready to kneel.

After rolling for hit points, he added his Constitution modifier. Lin Yun's modifier was 4, so he doubled the result to 12. With a maxed-out hit die and full health, that made 24.

He had a feeling he'd never escape the path of becoming a meat shield.

Just then, Lin Yun suddenly felt as if something was... there. But he couldn't say exactly what it was. After thinking for a moment, he tried to examine his surroundings more carefully.

"D20+2+3=21, success."

At that moment, Lin Yun felt as if someone had forcibly turned his head, and yet it seemed as though he'd naturally shifted his gaze toward something: a pitch-black iron glove lying in a corner.

Lin Yun studied it curiously, then thought for a moment and used Ritual Casting to cast Detect Magic. A Magical Aura appeared around it, visible only to Lin Yun. Then, according to—

"D20+2=15, success." Based on the knowledge that suddenly surfaced in Lin Yun's mind, this was an aura from the School of Abjuration. Judging by its strength, it was only a very low-level magic item, but it was indeed magical.

Lin Yun examined it carefully. Although it looked pitch-black, that was partly the material's natural color and partly because it was filthy. After all, this was a Goblin nest, and Goblins only liked things that looked impressive. This glove looked pitch-black.

It was made with metal mesh and ceramic, and it seemed to offer good protection. Lin Yun didn't put it on, though. Instead, he picked it up and showed it to the others. "There's a glove here with a Magical Aura. It should be a magic glove."

There was no helping it. Silent was a Lawful Neutral person, and he was also a genuine "noble." Lin Yun might be capable of keeping something for himself, but Silent couldn't do that.