Harvest Festival (Part 2)

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

Unlike at the beginning, the thirty-meter-high ball of light had regained its brightness, spilling illumination throughout the entire space. As he walked along, he saw that the fruit trees he had planted were already blossoming 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 them, and little by little, an expression caught 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, heaps of food and books, and finally credit cards and various currencies—it really made him smile bitterly.

If he had known beforehand, he would have filled it with 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 nonstop, and he devoured an entire roast chicken in barely ten minutes.

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

In Shennong Horn's space, food would not rot if left on the ground, but if buried beneath it, it would rapidly decompose. It was a very peculiar phenomenon.

After thinking about it, he took out a machete as well. It was an excellent Earth-made machete, specifically designed for wilderness situations and extremely sharp. After another thought, he put on the bulletproof vest too. It was protective gear he had obtained for trips into the wild; presumably, it could offer some protection in this world as well.

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

Clear water carried bits of silt along, with fish of all kinds swimming beneath the surface. Romon crouched beside the riverbank and dipped one hand into the water. He could hardly wait to catch a few small fish and raise them in the space.

The stream was not deep, but perhaps Romon was simply not good at catching fish. After quite a while, he still failed to catch any.

Romon could not help feeling annoyed.

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

"What a huge beast!" Romon licked his somewhat dry lips and carefully concealed himself. His physique was not particularly strong—only that of an ordinary person.

Wild boars were not plump domestic pigs that simply waited to be slaughtered. Even from far away, Romon could tell that the boar was far sturdier than he was.

Moreover, Romon was a bipedal human with too high a center of gravity, making it particularly difficult for him to withstand a boar's charge.

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

Romon raised his head to look at the sky, judging from the sun's position that it was around one in the afternoon.

"Give it another hour. If I still can't find a chance, I'll have to return empty-handed today." Romon was somewhat dejected, but he could only endure it.

Just as Romon was about to give up, a sharp howl suddenly shattered the silence. His gradually relaxing body jolted as if a cat's fur had stood on end. Romon hurriedly crouched down and edged forward a few steps, covering himself with plants. He kept his head still, only narrowing his eyes as his pupils darted about to scan the area.

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

Romon's eyes widened at once as he tried to see more clearly. From afar, he vaguely made out the creature's appearance. It had a body shaped roughly like that of a grayish-green human, but it was short and skinny, only about as tall as the boar. It wore crude leather armor, held a spiked mace in one hand, and had the other hand empty. The short sword lodged in the huge boar's back had clearly been carried by this creature as well.

Romon immediately found it exceedingly strange. Clearly, it was a Goblin.

Goblins, also called Goblins, were filthy little thieves. Romon had followed a certain Druid in his studies, and with the memories of a transmigrator, his knowledge was not narrow.

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

"But... since when have Goblins become this brave?" Romon felt sweat dripping down his forehead. "Could this one be a Goblin warrior?"

The next second, the herd scattered with a crash, while the enraged lead boar, ignoring the short sword embedded in its body, charged furiously at the Goblin.

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

The "Goblin warrior" fled for its life while the boar chased after it with all its might. Before they knew it, they had run far away. After fleeing more than a hundred meters, the Goblin finally could not run any farther. It was rammed straight to the ground amid shrill cries of pain, then trampled all the way over, blood spraying 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 around on the ground, shrieking strangely, while the huge boar bared its tusks at it. If Romon understood Goblin language, perhaps he would have known what those strange shrieks meant. But right now, Romon had absolutely no interest in paying attention to it.

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 while the huge boar had run far away, then he could only weep silent tears.

The piglets instinctively ran toward relatively safe places. Romon picked a direction and sprinted after them. Before long, he was about to catch one. Though the fleeing piglet looked swift on its four legs, its legs were too short; no amount of rapid movement could make up for the resulting disadvantage in speed.

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

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

Five Goblins happened to emerge ahead of him.

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

So this was a wild boar hunt planned by a Goblin tribe. The strange actions of the Goblin Romon had mistaken for a Goblin warrior now made sense—it had merely been a discarded pawn thrown out as bait.

But at that moment, Romon had charged headlong into them and entered the Goblins' encirclement.

The Goblins reacted quickly. In only a few moments, unknown thrown weapons struck Romon one after another. Fortunately, he was wearing a bulletproof vest and suffered no real harm.

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

The other three turned to flee, but the somewhat crazed Romon caught up with them and cut them down one by one.

Only after finishing them off 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.

Every Goblin had been wounded by the sharp machete, blood streaming everywhere.

At that moment, the huge boar seemed to sense something wrong in the distance and came charging back with angry cries. Romon hurriedly ran away and hid far off, watching the boar roar in fury. Then several more piglets emerged from hidden places and joined it.

The huge boar circled around the dead piglet, letting out a grief-stricken cry. After crying out, it trampled the Goblin corpses several times, making Romon break into a cold sweat. Then the boar led its remaining piglets away.

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

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

Of course, that was only under normal circumstances. Under abnormal circumstances, one could not generalize.

But after thinking it over, Romon still put both the wild boar and Goblin corpses into the space. He buried the Goblin corpses underground, where the space would rapidly break them down. Mm, mm. Before reaching the town entrance, I must take out the wild boar and Goblin scalps. Otherwise, people will find it strange. Five scalps equal twenty-five silver coins!

The forest was unsafe, so after finishing this, he immediately withdrew. As he walked, yellow wind brushed past him, rustling the swaying leaves, while a faint mist drifted through the woods.

Sunlight shone through the branches onto the ground, scattering tiny flecks of broken gold. In this dim forest, those weak rays were exceptionally precious, allowing him to see the plants on the ground. Then, suddenly, a flash startled him.

He stepped forward and picked up a short sword beside a pine tree.

This short sword was no ordinary iron weapon. It seemed to be made of steel, and its sharpness was naturally on another level. There was still blood staining it.

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

Could this be the dead person's short sword?

But if it had been Goblins, why had they not taken it? Goblins greatly coveted iron and steel weapons. If they killed someone, they would never leave a weapon lying on the ground.

Perhaps the person had been killed by a beast. That was entirely possible; beasts had no need for weapons. As for why the blame had fallen on Goblins, perhaps people had encountered Goblin activity nearby and simply pinned the crime on them.

The sun gradually sank. Romon picked up the short sword, and a plan formed in his mind. He would not visit Master Jefa today. He would bring this and the Goblin scalps back with him, and let people interpret them however they wished. Then he headed toward the 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 blood-soaked Goblin scalps out of the space.