Goblin Heavy Dependence

Chapter 306 Goblin Nest and Gravity Core?

Deathly silence.

The cold air, which was usually filled with shrieks and strange cries, fell into complete silence after a brief period of mournful howls.

The campfire crackled, and the skinned wild boar, slightly charred by the flames, was cooked to perfection—provided you could ignore the pungent odor of the intestines mixed with the aroma of the meat.

Wisps of mist drifted gently from outside the cave, tinged with a blood-red hue, as if formed from the extremely strong smell of blood in the air.

"Gululu."

A small, cloudy, yellowish-green eyeball, like a sugar icing sphere often enjoyed by nobles in Newme, rolled out from the half-eaten skull. At the end, it was adorned with some chewy, sticky "mochi," and a few bits of meat were sprinkled on it like red spices. A few drops of milky, viscous "cream bean liquid" were sprinkled on top, and finally, it was coated with a layer of scarlet "hawthorn honey syrup" that had just been cooked and was still warm. The shape was then complete.

However, the country boy who came from the fields on the field clearly doesn't have the appetite for such delicate "desserts".

*Sizzle*

The muddy leather boots stomped heavily, making a soft cracking sound underfoot.

As he lifted his leg and took a step, accompanied by a sticky, slurring sound, blood mixed with an unknown, murky liquid slowly dripped from the sole of his shoe.

Standing on the ground covered with blood and severed limbs, Xia Nan held a piece of gauze in his hand and carefully wiped the silver-white longsword in his hand.

A faint, barely perceptible trace of the soothing afterglow of unrestrained enjoyment lingered on her face.

Although it was just a temporary weapon used during the reforging of the decapitation sword, the good habits he had developed during his year-long adventurer career still made him obsessively wipe away the blood remaining on the surface of the sword after battle, keeping the blade as dry and clean as possible.

More meticulous care will be taken during the night when camping, along with armor, leg armor, and other equipment.

Just to be on the safe side, Xia Nan did not sheath his sword, but instead held it in his hand.

His gaze swept across the nest.

Although I had a premonition about the size of this nest when I was in the extremely complicated and long passageway at the entrance.

But now that he's actually standing there, he can't help but be amazed by how vast and open the space is.

It's like a green anthill dug by countless goblins, with countless holes of varying sizes covering the walls on both sides.

Some of the shallower ones can be seen to their bottom at a glance, while the deeper ones are just a deep, dark expanse, with no idea where they lead.

The entrance to the tunnel from which he came was just one of the most inconspicuous of these dozens of cave entrances.

It's hard to imagine what a massive goblin colony it would take to dig and build a nest of this size.

The number of goblins would be unimaginable.

Only now did Xia Nan truly grasp the reality of the ordeal suffered by the high-level adventurer team that had lost so many men in this area.

The lair was too vast; the goblin tribe of fifty or sixty goblins that he had just wiped out only occupied a portion of it.

In addition, the overall dim environment resulted in relatively low visibility, which slowed down Xia Nan's collection of spoils after the battle. There were remnants of torches on both sides of the wall, but they should have been left by the original owner of the cave. This goblin tribe that had taken over the cave only lit up the area near their dwelling, and the rest of the area was basically identified by the fluorescence emitted by the fungi on the walls.

Fortunately, his perception was exceptional, and his improved physical abilities also slightly enhanced his night vision. After searching for about twenty minutes, he found the goblin's stash through a hidden hole in the wall next to him.

Some loose coins, plus a few sparkling pebbles.

It can probably fetch around thirty gold coins?
Xia Nan guessed to himself.

Lacking relevant mineral identification knowledge, they could only take it back to the general store in River Valley Town for processing.

Counterintuitively, the rewards for goblin extermination are often much greater for small goblin tribes located on the edges of the Misty Forest than for larger tribes in the heart of the forest.

The reason is actually very simple.

The small goblin tribes on the outskirts of the forest, though far weaker in actual combat than the latter, often come into contact with low-level adventurers exploring the forest. They even have the opportunity to raid villages and passing caravans. Even though they don't usually have the concept of actively collecting treasure, the gold coins carried on the corpses of intelligent creatures can accumulate to a considerable amount.

Conversely, goblin communities that are able to establish themselves in the core area of ​​the Misty Forest are significantly stronger in terms of the number of elite individuals and their combat capabilities.

However, their enemies are mostly ferocious monsters that pose a high challenge level and are extremely dangerous.

Daily hunting was just about filling their stomachs; there were hardly any spoils to be had.

As for adventurers...

It can only be said that for an adventurer like Xia Nan, who is able to traverse the outer perimeter of the forest and reach the core area, both strength and experience are indispensable.

It was impossible for him to be defeated and captured by green-skinned goblins like those so-called "adventurers" who were only wearing more armor and carrying more weapons than ordinary people.

Unless you're extremely unlucky or encounter some other unexpected situation where a goblin gets the lucky break, you're unlikely to fail.

As a result, it is foreseeable that these goblin communities with large numbers of goblins will have very little loot.

In response, efforts were made to promptly eliminate the horde deep in the forest and nip them in the bud before they grew to an unmanageable size.

The Adventurers' Guild's targeted measure was to increase the difficulty rating of the corresponding cleanup missions, using the gold and points rewarded by the missions to compensate professional adventurers for their losses and encourage them to go to the heart of the Misty Forest to exterminate goblins.

This is equivalent to replacing the loot from the original lair with commission rewards.

Take the mission Xia Nan has just taken on as an example. With only a few dozen goblins, can it really be considered an "E" level mission, rewarding a full three hundred gold coins or ten points?

Most of these subsidies come from the Adventurers' Guild.

When you are able to overcome the countless dangers along the way and travel safely between River Valley and the core area of ​​Misty Forest, the goblin tribe, as the mission objective, will only be considered an extra.

He gladly accepted them and stuffed the loose gold coins and pebbles into his backpack.

With a debt of over four hundred gold coins on his back, Xia Nan certainly wouldn't look down on these small extra earnings after the battle. Even if he used them as food expenses, they would be enough to buy quite a few bowls of mushroom soup.

After confirming once again that the severed limbs and pieces of flesh on the field had no chance of reviving, he did not rush to leave after completing the collection of spoils.

Instead, they began to carefully examine the enormous nest, searching for any missed finds.

With such a scale, it's like a large church in a big city. If the high-level adventurer team that was in charge of the cleanup last time didn't clear it out completely and left some scraps for us, the funding gap for the longsword reforging might just be covered.

Unfortunately, Xia Nan wasn't so lucky, and he underestimated the search capabilities of high-level professionals.

They searched the entire lair twice, but still couldn't find any more valuable loot.

However, it wasn't entirely fruitless; Xia Nan's keen perception allowed him to discover something unusual.

In the center of the entire nest, there is a patch of ground that is noticeably different from the surrounding area, being flatter and slightly lighter in color.

It has an area of ​​approximately ten square meters and is a square with rounded edges.

It gave him the feeling that some kind of small structure, such as an altar or statue, had been there for a long time and was then suddenly taken away, leaving behind traces.

Most importantly, around this square patch of ground with a distinct color difference, Xia Nan discovered many fragments of corpse bones.

Very strange. Based on some highly recognizable details in the bones, he was certain that they came from green-skinned goblins.

They weren't even variants of goblins or bear goblins, but rather the most common and classic grunts.

Strangely, these bones, which should have been the size of human children, appeared to be enlarged proportionally before his eyes, some even reaching the size of a bear goblin.

Xia Nan had never seen this type of goblin before.

The way the remains were arranged caught his attention even more.

It wasn't like the situation on the battlefield where the ground was almost completely covered, haphazardly piled up and collapsed.

Instead, they are arranged in a regular, concentric circle pattern, with the square piece of land at the very center as the center, forming concentric circles.

In a daze, Xia Nan had the illusion that when he had just advanced, the gravitational burst had left similar marks on the meadow.

"Advanced Adventurer Squad", "Hunting Day", "Promotion", "Gravity"...

The flood of information in his mind suddenly reminded him of the rainy day when he was promoted to a professional.

The tossed "Coin of Fate" and the "Gravity Core" that appeared out of nowhere and blocked the sword's edge.

Even the high-ranking mage I'd only met once, and the blonde elf who seemed to be possessed by an evil god.

Xia Nan's expression suddenly turned strange.

He took two steps back and carefully examined the ground in front of him.

"It can't be such a coincidence, right?"

Could it be that the [gravitational core] that flashed by back then... came from here?

Inside a goblin's lair?

He felt it was absurd.

But the various clues before my eyes and my intuition told me that this was the most likely scenario.

With his mind racing, Xia Nan even felt an urge to stay in the nest for a few more days and carefully explore the dangerous-smelling tunnels that led to unknown destinations.

Just then, a strange sound suddenly came from a nearby deep cave entrance.

It made a strange sound, similar to the sound of an insect's shell rubbing against the ground, and was also faintly accompanied by a sharp, high-frequency hissing.

Suddenly alert, all the random thoughts in my mind vanished instantly.

With his longsword held horizontally in front of his chest, Xia Nan took several steps back.

Just as they had created some distance, there was another loud "boom".

The seemingly spacious opening was suddenly forced open!

A colossal creature, reeking of fish and decay, came into view.

It's like a lobster whose size has been magnified countless times.

Its body is covered with a yellowish-brown chitinous shell, and several long, intertwined tentacles extend from its mouthparts. Its huge pincers snap shut with a terrifying, sharp sound.

Xia Nan did not recognize this kind of monster.

Although its physical features looked somewhat familiar, as if I had heard someone mention it before, I couldn't recall its name in the moment.

But what is certain is that this monster, which looks remarkably like a lobster, is in extremely poor condition at this moment.

The tail was only half left, and one of its lower legs was broken off.

His body was covered with scorch marks from the flames, and his left eyeball was gone, leaving only a dark hole from which slime dripped.

Starting from the back, diagonally down the shoulders, and extending to the chest, the entire carapace disappears without a trace, revealing a large, fibrous, light-colored muscle tissue underneath. You can even clearly see the muscle tissue wriggling, stretching, and twitching slightly as the body moves.

The most exaggerated feature is its enormous pincers, which look incredibly dangerous and seem capable of snapping steel in two.

Right now, only the left one remains.

The chelicerae on the right side of the body were severed cleanly at the base where the shoulder carapace connected, leaving several thick, grayish-white nerve cords hanging bare, with translucent, viscous fluid flowing continuously from the break.

This is undoubtedly a serious injury.

In fact, if it were an ordinary creature, it would have been on the verge of death from such injuries. How could it be as lively and energetic as it is now, waving its last remaining pincers and chirping incessantly?

Using his perception abilities to the limit, Xia Nan quickly assessed the opponent's actual combat capabilities and weighed the options between retreating and engaging in battle.

Facing the enemy, he moved his body to a more open angle with quick steps.

The enormous goblin lair, unlike the cramped and restrictive experience of the past, was like a spacious plaza, allowing Xia Nan to fully demonstrate his advantages in speed and explosiveness.

With the [Death Line] ring and the [Tears of Spring] necklace in hand, he has a high enough margin for error.

Go up and try it out first. If it's within your capabilities, that's best. Maybe you can sell the materials on it for some money.
If the monster in front of him is so badly injured that he still finds it difficult to deal with, then using [Fang Hunt] to retreat directly is also an option, since the clearing mission has been completed and there has been no loss.

hold head high--

A long, drawn-out wolf howl suddenly erupted, instantly suppressing the monster's shriek.

The shadowy, pitch-black giant wolf leaped into the air, its silvery-white fangs piercing straight into the severed right arm of the armored monster with terrifying speed far exceeding human reaction ability.

Stir it violently!

"hiss--"

A sharp, pained cry boomed from the empty nest.

The armored monster's entire body seemed to stiffen for a moment under the blow, and its remaining left arm suddenly swung to its side.

The pincers open wide, but when they close, they only grasp air.

As its mane swayed, the black wolf was ready the instant the exposed muscle fibers on its chest stretched.

With a light leap backward, he easily dodged the armored monster's pincer attack, as if he had anticipated it.

A semi-transparent, viscous fluid dripped from the surface of the sword blade, and the [Netherscale Guardian] on the left arm refracted a faint light.

A brief exchange.

Xia Nan already had a good idea of ​​the strength of the monster in front of him.

(End of this chapter)