Volume 1 Chapter 9

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I ran intentlythrough the Goblin Meadow in the night air. Each time I cleavedthrough the bushes and found a sleeping goblin, I swung Greed rightat its neck.


I wonder how manytimes I had already heard this robotic voice. Yet, it was still notenough. More. This did nothing to satisfy my hunger.
However, I had beenrunning without a pause ever since I left the capital. I stopped tocatch my breath. A full moon had risen high into the cloudless skyand illuminated the dead goblin's corpse. If I was huntingnormally, I would have cut off both ears as evidence to claim myprize, although I could not afford to waste time right now. Once mybreathing had stabilised, I stepped over the corpse and headed for mynext prey.
Hm? I could hearfootsteps chasing me from the meadow. No, not just from behind. Fromthe front and two sides, footsteps on the grass were approaching fromall directions. There was quite a number of them. It seemed likewhile I had been focused on running around and hunting in this area,the goblins began to view me as a threat. The goblin being huntingwoken up and called on its comrades for assistance in an effort todefeat me, eliminating harm to their kind.
Sensing theiradvance, I chose a place with relatively low bushes and halted. Then,the sounds of those closely following footsteps died down one afteranother. Looking around, I saw that the goblins had surrounded me.
There were roughly50 of them, perhaps even more. Now that my eyes had adjusted to thenight vision, I could clearly see the goblins.
The opponents werefamiliar monsters, Goblin Fighters and Goblin Guards. With Greed, Icould slice through all their swords and shields. Besides, no matterhow many more of these goblins appeared, the strategy would remainthe same, and they were no match for my current state of starvation.
With these redpupils, any goblin with a lower status was simply immobilised whenthey met my gaze. Glancing around constantly at the goblins who frozein their tracks, I steadily killed them off one by one. Some of thegoblins noticed something strange and tried to escape, however, itwas too late for all of them.
Although they hadintended to form an enclosure to quickly defeat me, it had actuallymade it easier for me to hunt them as they had all assembledtogether. With that, I killed the last one. The goblin fell down ontop of the other corpses.


Whew. I had calmeddown just a little. Using Greed who had been polished to amirror-like shine, I looked at my reflection. My eyes were still red.
"I've eatenquite a lot, but my hunger still hasn't subsided…"
I had killed over100 goblins, however, this state of starvation continued. Upset, Iasked Greed about it.
"How long untilthis state is released?"
"Hm. In yourcondition, it seems that the goblin level will not be satisfactory.You should hunt the higher-ranked Hobgoblins."
Taking Greed'ssuggestion, I left the Goblin Meadow and headed towards the westernforest. Here was the place called Hobgob Forest. Goblins from themeadow who had gained enough power moved to live in this forest asthey evolved into Hobgoblins.
There were threetypes of Hobgoblins; Hobgoblin Fighter, Hobgoblin Guard, andHobgoblin Archer. The fighters and guards should be similar to theirgoblin counterparts. The problem was the archer. Although theirnumbers were few, they concealed themselves well in bushes and theirarrows flew far. The most problematic thing was that they coveredtheir arrowheads with faecal waste, and if hit by them, they couldcause a dangerous infection. Warriors of the Royal Capital referredto these Hobgoblin archers as faecal archers.
I had heard of thisinformation from some of the Heart Family servants who used to bewarriors in their youthful days, and had taught me a lot during ourmealtimes. A majority of the heroic stories ─ he bragged a lot, butthey were quite interesting so I listened to them all. Feelinggrateful to him, I proceeded with caution.
Since Hobgoblinswere not nocturnal creatures, they should be fast asleep at themoment unless I made a commotion. The point was that I should attackthem while they slept as I did with the other goblins.
Look, there was oneof them. Leaning asleep against a large tree was a Hobgoblin whoseheight matched mine. Its physique was much more muscular and firm.The skin colour was hard to tell… Although as expected of ahigher-ranked goblin species, it was greenish.
skill has been activated.
Hobgoblin FighterLv12
HP: 230
Strength: 340
MP: 110
Spirit: 110
Agility: 230
Skill: Two-handedSword Technique
Hobgoblin Fighterhuh? There was a large sword lying at its feet, one that it probablyused to attack with. It had a Two-handed Sword Technique skill too.The status was not a concern.
As I approachedquietly, I noticed another demon behind the large tree. From theshield next to it, I could guess which type this Hobgoblin was,however, I still used .
Hobgoblin Guard Lv12
HP: 440
Strength: 220
MP: 110
Spirit: 110
Agility: 110
Skill: HPEnhancement (medium)
Oh, it possessed aHP Enhancement (medium) skill? As I had expected last time, thereseemed to be several stages in the status enhancement system. Sincethere was (small) and (medium), then from this flow, (large)certainly existed.
After I finishedconfirming, I first sliced the neck of the sleeping Hobgoblin Guard.It died within a deep sleep, passed away without suffering.



Now then, onemonster remained… Ah, it seemed to have woken up. The sound of mysword slicing through the neck of the guard disturbed the HobgoblinFighter, who sensed something was amiss and tried to call out. It wasprobably intending to alert its friends. I could not let that happen.I thrust Greed into its mouth lined with yellow teeth.



The Hobgoblin soulfilled me up more than the Goblin did. If I had known it would belike this, I would have headed straight here to the Hobgoblinswithout wasting time with the Goblins.
As my pangs ofhunger had yet to subside, I used on my own status.
Fate Graphite Lv1
HP: 8041
Strength: 8011
MP: 2501
Spirit: 2501
Agility: 5591
Skill: Gluttony,Appraisal, Concealment, One-handed Sword Technique, Two-handed SwordTechnique, Strength Enhancement (small), HP Enhancement (small), HPEnhancement (medium)
Still, the night waslong. I searched for my next prey as I continued further into theforest.