NOVEL NEXT Chapter 22 (A walk in the Park)
Shaking my head I didn’t know what it meant, but seeing as it had neither failed nor succeed I guessed the best course of action would just be to wait and move on as turning away from the gruesome scene of the pile of dead goblin corpses, I started to walk through this new world I found myself in. Seeing as I was swallowed by the light like last time, I hope that I can get out by doing the same thing as last time—well, hopefully a bit more successfully than that. These enemies seem a lot weaker than the ants as well, so it shouldn't be an issue. Playing with the ornate knife in my hand, I gave a silent prayer for the poor thug, thanking him for gracefully providing me with another weapon and one that fits me so well. "I’m sorry to see you depart, Mr. Thug, but rest assured I’ll keep this safe, and all your friends’ gear as well."
After walking through the trees I came out onto the peak of a hill where I stopped for a moment to take in the sights. In front of me was a long grassland filled with tall golden grass. They had the thin body of reeds with leaves like corn stalks. Up above, a warm light shone down on me, which was extremely refreshing. Despite the grasslands being extremely flat, it seemed like in the very far distance, the lines and visage almost distorted, losing the exact form of their shape.
The entire space was strange, seeming almost like a game in its perfection, and yet seeming alienation from everything but itself. Walking among the tall grass, I came across a roving band of the creatures I had seen earlier. These ones seemed far less well-equipped and the perfect test for my new weapon.
Lunging forwards with a burst of speed, I fell upon the first one, slashing across its neck with a clean motion, sending a burst of odd blood flying out, much to the confusion of its comrades. With a slight smirk despite the circumstances, I really had to praise this knife. Ignoring one of the goblins trying to scratch at me, I moved to the one who was armed, slashing his crudely made weapon in half. My blade continued forward, meeting little resistance as it cut into the goblin’s shoulder blade, eliciting a shriek as it fell to the ground.
I sighed to myself; this place really wasn’t romantic at all. Swatting away the improvised weapon of one of the goblins in front of me, activating my Monarch's Reach on the three of them, I half-wondered if it was even worth the trouble of killing them as I ignored the flurry of system notifications popping up in my vision. "Huh, does this thing have a mute function?"
System:
Raising soul inquiry failed
System:
Raising soul inquiry failed
System:
Raising soul inquiry failed
System:
[+1 gp]
[+1 gp]
[+1 gp]
[+1 gp]
[+1 gp]
[+1 gp]
[+1 gp]
[+1 gp]...
Moving quickly away from the last group of goblins, I came across another one who seemed to be picking something in the grass. Rather ungracefully, I came up behind it and plunged my knife through the top of its head, ignoring the painful cry as it fell to the ground, followed by the continued dinging sound of the system notifying me of my Monarch's Grip success on the last group.
System:
[+1 gp]
[+1 gp]
[+1 gp]
[+1 gp]
[+1 gp]
[+1 gp]
[+1 gp]
[+1 gp]...
"I get it, I get it already. This isn’t going anywhere, you bastard system, so just quiet down already," I said, continuing to blot out the cries of the goblin as I used Monarch's Grasp to try to at least suck a few gp out of it. I quickly scanned around the system's UI, actually half-wondering if it did in fact have a mute button, but besides the elit icon indicating Monarch's Grasp was still active, I didn’t see anything that would indicate anything like that.
I sort of wondered if it’d be worse using the so-called “customer support line,” but I couldn’t really bring myself to rely on that crappy goddess for anything, certainly not something as reliable as not having my support system attempt to block my vision with something every time I had finished a battle.
Maybe the system wasn’t meant to have a skill like Monarch's Reach which constantly drained gp from something, giving it a constant source of gp to tell me I’ve gotten. Looking back over at the goblin, it seems that it’s been finished off as its body is now reduced to a shriveled-up husk. I didn’t get much of a good feeling from doing something like that to a being which, although not entirely close, was still pretty close to human. But the warm, fulfilling feeling collecting the gp gave me wasn’t all that bad either, even if it was just a little bit of it.
Continuing onwards, I thought back a little to how Mairtsm might be doing and wondered if it was really okay for me to have done what I did. I can’t say I had any great moral compass inherited from my last life, but it’s not like I was some ruthless mob boss either. I really didn’t have those types of character traits which could say something like, “How cute,” while stabbing someone, with a smile on my face. Muttering idly to myself, I walked through the long grass, on the lookout for any more goblins.
Suddenly from behind me, I heard a strange cry:
[Unknown Goblin] “Keee Keee Kreeeel!”
Behind me was a smaller goblin pointing a thin stick, slightly sharpened at the end towards my chest. Behind it were two other ones around the same size, despite their aggressive stance I could see their arms shacky as they held up their weapons. I wondered if the goblins I had fought before were the elites, as this enemy in front of me screamed nothing but “mob”. I was a little confused why the two other goblins behind the one in front were acting so passively, but whatever; if it was some sort of trap or something, I’d just need to get to it when I came there.
I can’t say I wasn’t feeling overconfident at this point, but after my experience with the ants last time, I’d like to think I had gotten a pretty good feel for what was dangerous. Plus, I don’t think a goblin that was generously half a meter high could be much of a threat. Brandishing the delicate silver knife in my hand, I rushed forward at the goblins, causing them to let out a high-pitched squeal dropping their “weapons” in the process.
Stopping in my tracks, I was a bit confused. What the hell was that? Are they running away? Looking onward, I saw the three tiny bodies scrambling through the high grass, only for one to trip, eliciting cries from the other two. As it hastily recovered, it quicked it’s pace until it was nearly running with it’s arms to ground as it cut a line through the grass.
I thought I could maybe catch them, but they were surprisingly nimble as they ran, like rabbits they bound in, and out of sight using the terrain for concealment. I could only barely make out their bobbing green heads as they disappeared beyond me.
Sighing, I checked my quest window, and surprisingly, still nothing had popped up yet. Back in the ant cave, it seemed like every other second I was getting some new life-threatening mission, but despite having killed quite a few goblins so far, the only message I had got was its attempts at raising my soul integrity resulting in failure.
Watching the goblins run off, I had a thought: if they were running away, wouldn’t they be running away towards something? Looking around the empty grasslands, I reconsidered. I could either run after the fleeing goblin like some larger, smarter, and probably more pretty... handsome, goblin, or I could do the civilized thing and stalk back the way I had come and try to see if I could find any additional information from the things I had gathered from the thugs.
Taking a moment to ponder what’s the best thing to do, I readied my knife in the air with a slight smirk on my face, as I tried to suppress the images of the thing's corpse which flashed in my head, letting out a war cry of my own, I followed after the goblins, a strained smile on my face.
I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but it felt nice to run in the open air, on a field, without having to worry about much, well, besides being stabbed to death by some strange creatures.
As I ran unopposed through the field, I had to admit, I was getting more than used to this body. I didn’t even think about it anymore. It was almost a little scary how I had attempted without ever being aware of it I barely felt like I was breaking a sweat as I rapidly approached the fleeing goblins, seemingly making them only run further and faster than before.
At this point, I was starting to get confused. Weren’t they trying to lead me into some sort of trap, or something? Why does it seem like they’re just fleeing in fear? Well, that couldn’t be right, though checking my map, I did see a few red dots nearby. They were in a similar place to where they would be if they had just been walking normally, not like they were going to attack or anything like that.
Still a little confused, I ignored the bad feeling I had as I caught up to one of the goblins. As I did so, it let out a series of scratches, trying to bite my hand and shake me off. Not bothering any longer with it, I directly used Monarch's Reach and made after the two others who didn’t seem to slow down even a little as their comrade fell.