After fighting against the bear I would probably be safe from other beasts, as long as they are weaker than the bear. After all a weak monster wouldn't attack someone stronger than a fearsome beast in their eyes. Well I wanted to recover my strength and think about a few things so I sat down and ate the bear meat. I got used to preparing my food alone in the forest, so it tasted better than when I first tried eating food made by myself a few weeks ago and the bear meat also tasted better than any other meat I ate in this forest, so it tasted really good.
"Did it come from there?"
I looked at the mountains in the distance and was thinking that there might be monsters on a completely other level than here. I didn't encounter anything as strong as the gigantic bear ever before in this forest and I also heard a few other animals, weaker than the bear in surrounding area of a few miles, so I guess this wouldn't be the territory of these bears. So why did he come here? Did he flee from some other strong predator? Was he hunted by someone? I couldn't really tell, but I guess I'm going to find out if I go to the mountains.
- a few days later-
As I already suspected I didn't encounter any more bears and i began to find the normal beasts I encountered before the bear, but I also noticed the monsters getting less and less common the nearer I came to the mountains and when I almost reached them I was not really able to encounter any more monsters, so now I was really getting a bit afraid from these mountains or rather from what is lurking in them. After finally reaching the foot of the mountain I was able to see just how big and vast these mountains are. It was the same as with the forest, I couldn't see the end of the mountains from where I stood and they were so high that some of the peaks were breaking through the clouds, I can't even imagine how cold it would get up there, but good for me it was still pretty good at the foot of the mountain, so that wasn't really really what bothered me. The problem is that to get stronger I have to find stronger opponents, of course I could just train in the forest, but the monsters in the forest would get too weak way too quickly, so I wouldn't be able to get any good combat experience from fighting against them, so I would potentially lose time I could use to get closer to my other goals. Also there was one specific kind of place I wanted to go, but finding something that could work perfectly would be pretty hard I imagined so I didn't really believe I would be able to find it, but I still had to search for it and there is no such place in the forest, so I have to go to the mountains. Noticing your opponents before they notice you is one of the most important qualities you have to have in this world if you want to live long. I don't believe I'll really need to protect myself against assassins or those types of monsters any time soon, but it is still a huge advantage, so I have to pursue that ability. So I went into the mountains and looked around, while walking further and further. I was on guard the whole time, because I still didn't know what dangers might be in this area, but I wasn't really able to notice anything.
But then After walking around for a while I finally heard something coming from somewhere in front of me, so I quickly hid behind a few big mountains and waited for it to go away or come to me. I noticed the noises getting quieter the longer I waited and when I carefully looked around the corner I saw what it was. It was a group of little dark blue creatures that had long sharp ears and wore only a few pieces of clothes around their bodies. They were smaller than me and didn't really seem smart. Although they didn't have green skin like the goblins in the books I read about, they undoubtedly were goblins. They were not talked about a lot in "Rēsu ni tsuite no subete", because of their strength. Over the time they got pushed back more and more by all of the major races, because they were not strong nor intelligent, so nobody would like them considering their ruthless nature.
"Well this could actually be pretty good."
It could actually be very good to meet them right here, because the place I wanted to visit was something closely related to the goblin race, so maybe I would actually be lucky enough to encounter it sooner than expected. I decided to follow them for a while, because goblins have to live together to survive, I mean individually they are weaker than even a human child, but they are also more ruthless. They will attack you if they have the chance to, so if you are not emotionally ready you could easily get killed even if they are weak, but against adults of basically any of the major races they don't stand a chance, so they form big groups and hide themselves away from the big cities like Raiken. After following them for a few hours I finally saw what I was hoping for, it was a cave, probably filled with goblins, but looking inside the cave I couldn't see any light from inside.
"Oh I see."
Their skin being dark blue instead of green seems to be one of the results of them living in the dark. They probably evolved from normal goblins, by living in the darkness of caves for a long time and as a result they probably evolved to see better in the dark then in the light.
"That's how they were able to survive, wasn't it?"
Normal beasts would probably not enter a completely dark cave and even if they did they could easily get killed by the goblins from the dark without being able to even see them. It must've only been those goblins surviving in this area, because the other monsters are too strong or something else might be the case that I don't know of yet. But well this is actually really good for me. A cave, I really didn't expect to find one completely dark, but I still have to look at how big the cave is. But this could potentially enable me to strengthen my senses a lot. Well I still have to look out for the danger, because even if it's just goblins I might not be able to survive after entering that cave.