Harvest Festival (Part 2)

After leaving town and seeing no one around, Romon opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and focused his mind into the space.

Unlike at the beginning, the thirty-meter-high Light Orb had regained its brightness, illuminating the entire space. As he walked along, he saw that the fruit trees he had planted were already in bloom and about to bear fruit.

The bee boxes he had prepared were all inside, buzzing as the bees busily worked for this tiny space.

Romon walked over to inspect the place. Gradually, an expression somewhere between laughter and tears appeared on his face. Many of the things he had brought before boarding the plane were still stored here.

An instant camera, clothes, a machete, huge piles of food and books, and finally credit cards and various currencies. It was enough to make him smile bitterly.

If I'd known beforehand, I would have stuffed this place full of supplies. Now... Romon silently regretted it.

He casually picked up a bag of roast chicken, returned to reality, and began wolfing it down.

This body had an incredibly strong reaction to such food. His mouth watered, and he practically devoured an entire roast chicken in just ten minutes.

Romon carefully tossed all the bones into the space and buried them underground.

In the Shennong Horn's space, food would not spoil if left on the ground. But if buried underground, it would rapidly decompose. It was a very strange phenomenon.

After thinking it over, he took out a machete from the space. It was an excellent Earth-made machete, specially designed for wilderness conditions and extremely sharp. After another moment's thought, he put on the bulletproof vest as well. It was protective gear he had obtained for trips into the wild, and it should provide at least some protection in this world too.

Before long, Romon found a stream, and his eyes immediately lit up.

Clear water carried bits of mud and sand, while fish of all kinds swam beneath the surface. Romon crouched by the bank and dipped one hand into the water. He could not wait to catch a few small fish and raise them in the space.

The stream was not deep, but perhaps Romon simply was not good at catching fish with his hands. Even after quite a while, he failed to catch any.

Romon could not help feeling annoyed.

There would always be prey near water. After a while, Romon heard what seemed to be the sound of animals drinking in the distance. Looking toward the sound through the grass, he vaguely spotted what appeared to be a huge wild boar with many piglets.

"What a huge fellow!" Romon licked his slightly dry lips and carefully concealed himself. His build was not particularly strong; he was merely of ordinary physical ability.

And a wild boar was not some plump domestic pig waiting to be slaughtered. Even from afar, Romon could tell that the boar was far stronger than he was.

What was more, Romon was an upright-walking human, with a center of gravity too high to withstand a boar's charge easily.

Though Romon had noticed the boar before it noticed him, even with his sharp machete, the advantage of striking first was not enough to guarantee victory.

Romon looked up at the sky and judged from the sun's position that it was around one in the afternoon.

"I'll wait another hour. If no opportunity comes, I'll have to go home disappointed today." Romon felt somewhat dejected, but he could only endure it.

Just as Romon was about to give up, a shrill scream suddenly shattered the stillness. His body, which had gradually relaxed, jolted as though a cat's fur had bristled. Romon quickly hunched over and edged forward a few steps, covering himself with vegetation. He kept his head still, only narrowing his eyes as they darted around to search the area.

A strange gray-green creature had suddenly leaped out and thrust a sword straight into one of the wild boars!

Romon's eyes widened as he tried his best to see clearly. From afar, he vaguely made out the creature's appearance. It looked like a gray-green human from a distance, but it was extremely short and thin, about the same height as the boar. It wore crude leather armor, held a spiked mace in one hand, and had the other hand empty. The shortsword stuck in the great boar's back had clearly been carried by this creature as well.

Romon was immediately baffled. It was obviously a Goblin.

Goblins, also called Goblins, were filthy little thieves. Romon had studied under a certain druid and possessed the memories of a transmigrator, so his knowledge was not particularly limited.

There were several Goblin dens in the wilderness and forests outside, and Goblins reproduced remarkably quickly.

"But... since when did Goblin become so brave?" Sweat seemed to bead on Romon's forehead. "Could this one be a Goblin warrior?"

The next second, the herd scattered in all directions. The wounded lead boar, ignoring the shortsword embedded in its body, charged furiously at the Goblin.

Then... there was none of the thrilling battle Romon had expected.

The "Goblin warrior" fled desperately while the boar pursued it with equal desperation. Before he knew it, they had run far away. After fleeing more than a hundred meters, the Goblin finally could not run any farther. It was knocked straight to the ground with shrill cries of pain, then trampled underfoot. Blood immediately splattered everywhere.

Romon was utterly dumbfounded.

Since when had Goblins become synonymous with overestimating themselves and being brain-dead?

The Goblin warrior was not dead yet. It rolled about on the ground, shrieking strangely, while the great boar bared its tusks at it. If Romon could understand Goblin language, perhaps he would know what those cries meant, but he had absolutely no interest in it now.

A heaven-sent opportunity! That was what Romon thought as he licked his lips and drew his knife.

It would be one thing if he could not beat an adult wild boar. But if he still could not handle a piglet after the great boar had run off, he could only weep speechlessly.

The piglets automatically fled toward relatively safe places. It was animal instinct. Romon fixed on one direction and sprinted for a while, quickly catching up to one. Though the fleeing piglet seemed to run swiftly on four legs, its legs were too short; no amount of rapid movement could make up for the disadvantage in speed.

A heaven-sent opportunity... yes, that was what Romon had thought.

But just as he caught up to the piglet, a chill suddenly swept through his entire body.

Five Goblins appeared directly ahead of him.

However, they did not seem to be targeting him. They were intercepting the piglet, and several spears had already stabbed into its body.

So this had been a Goblin tribe's wild boar hunting plan. The strange behavior of the Goblin Romon had mistaken for a Goblin warrior now made sense. It had merely been a disposable sacrifice sent out as bait.

But now Romon had crashed straight into them and entered the Goblins' encirclement.

The Goblins reacted quickly. In only a moment, several unknown thrown weapons struck Romon in succession. Fortunately, he wore a bulletproof vest and was not hurt.

"Kill!" Fear surged into his heart when he was struck. Romon gripped his machete and slashed wildly. The machete was exceptionally sharp, and the Goblins' wooden spears could not resist it at all. In the blink of an eye, he wounded one.

The other three turned to flee, but the increasingly frenzied Romon chased after them and cut them down one by one.

Only after finishing them did he have time to take a breath.

Looking at the blood-soaked Goblins, his legs suddenly began to tremble, and he nearly vomited.

After waiting a while, Romon recovered and carefully observed the Goblins' reactions.

All the Goblins had been wounded by the sharp machete, blood streaming from their bodies.

Just then, the great boar seemed to sense something wrong in the distance and came charging back with furious cries. Romon hurriedly ran away and hid far off, watching the boar roar in rage. Then several piglets emerged from hidden places and rushed over.

The great boar finally circled the dead piglet and let out a mournful cry. Afterward, it trampled the Goblin corpses several times, making Romon break into a cold sweat. Then the great boar led its remaining piglets away.

"Good, it finally left!" Romon said. Then he hurried back and cut the scalps from the Goblin corpses. Goblin scalps were worth five silver coins each!

He had originally intended to discard the Goblin bodies. After all, in this world, intelligent creatures generally did not eat one another's corpses, and Goblins still counted as intelligent creatures!

Of course, that was under normal circumstances. Abnormal circumstances could not be judged by the same standard.

Still, after some thought, Romon put both the wild boar and Goblin corpses into the space. He buried the Goblin corpses underground, where the space would rapidly decompose them. Mm, once I reach the town entrance, I have to take out the wild boar and the Goblin scalps first. Otherwise, people will find it strange. Five scalps mean twenty-five silver coins!

Since it was unsafe in the forest, he immediately withdrew after finishing this. As he walked, yellow wind blew past him, rustling the swaying leaves, while thin mist drifted between the trees.

Sunlight filtered through the branches and leaves, scattering tiny flecks of golden light across the ground. In this dim forest, those faint rays were especially precious, allowing him to see the plants on the forest floor. Then, a flash suddenly startled him.

He stepped forward and found a shortsword beside a pine tree.

This shortsword was not made of ordinary iron. It appeared to be steel, and its sharpness was naturally on an entirely different level. There was still blood on it.

At once, he remembered the notice issued by the town mayor, which said that Goblins had killed someone.

Could this be the dead person's shortsword?

But if it had been Goblins, why had they not taken it? Goblins craved iron and steel weapons. After killing someone, they would never leave a weapon lying on the ground.

Perhaps the person had been killed by a beast. That was very possible. Beasts did not need weapons, after all. As for blaming the Goblins, perhaps people had encountered Goblin activity nearby and pinned the crime on them.

The sun gradually sank. Romon picked up the shortsword and made up his mind. He would not visit Master Jefa today. He would bring this and the Goblin scalps along; however people wanted to interpret it was up to them. Then he headed toward town.

Before long, Rika Town's stone walls appeared before him. Romon walked along the wall, and when he neared the gate and saw no one around, he quickly took a small wild boar and five bloodied Goblin scalps out of the space.