With one punch, the goblin's chest was ripped open, exposing his internal organs and manastone. Guts and blood flooded the once green grass, making it a crimson bloodfield. After finishing my business and securely pocketing the manastones, I saw something on his waist. Ripping it off its makeshift belt, I open up the small leather pouch. A powderly purple substance glittering in the sunlight… My goblin instincts must have accidentally triggered, because the next thing I know, I was screaming my lungs off. "Fuck fuck fuck!" I screamed as I felt the pain creaking up my arm. Luckily my finger wasn't too deep inside the purple powder, or else who knew what would have happened. To think there exists items like these aren't surprises, but why would a goblin have these? While I regained control over my arm, I couldn't help but swear I had seen this before. The color purple is nearly impossible to find naturally in natural, and extreme pain with just a touch? Taking out a small bottle from my bag, I slowly insert the powder
Inside, using the leather pouch for an additional layer of protection if the glass breaks. I'll have to research this later.
After making sure my body is back in peak condition, I went back on my journey. Exiled goblins tend to camp out near their tribe, so there's a good possibility that there is another goblin dungeon nearby. "But it isn't my problem." Telonio thinks to himself. When it comes to the rules of adventurers, there is only one: You don't mess with other adventurer's prey. Even if someone hasn't taken the quest for that dungeon, I got my own quest to finish. As Telonio walks through the forest, he sees a team of adventurers near what seems to be a dungeon. "Alright team, let's do this!" A tall brown haired man wearing silver armor and carrying a longsword and shield says to the other 3 members of the team. A female human archer, a male elven mage, and what seems to be a wolf humanoid. They all wear great equipment, making Telonio think if they're actually raiding the goblin dungeon. "Don't steal my kills this time Draworen." The archer says to the wolf humanoid in an angry tone. "Then how about you shoot better this time bronze rank?" He responds in a sarcastic tone as he flexes his iron rank badge on his shoulder. "Hey! I only started two months ago, you know?!" The two continued arguing, leaving the poor mage to sort it out.
"Ouch… my head…" I said as my head suddenly flipped back in pain. This always happens whenever I encounter situations involving teams and parties. Any normal adventurer would go to temples of the Goddess Ariyana or Mother Giai for healing, but their overly expensive prices always forces the poor back. I silently walked away, enduring the pain. The sun shines upon the forest, lighting the path for me. But it seems I can never have even a peaceful walk to the Rat Eater dungeon, as I sense around 5 creatures within my vicinity, hiding in bushes. Stopping in my tracks, I slowly withdraw my greatsword from my back, just so done with fighting inconvenient monsters. With 1 slash, the iron-wolf behind the bush was diced like firewood. Iron-wolves are agile creatures, with their fur sharp like iron, giving their entire body like a sort of spike armor. They hunt in groups, as being born with only 1 set of teeth makes them very cautious, yet ignorant at times. Even though they saw my greatsword slicing the iron straight off the iron-wolf, they seemed to have lost their instinctual intelligence. 3 more pounces at me, believing in their numbers; as one of them bites my arm holding the greatsword, and the other two bite each one of my legs. But soon they realized it was futile. My mithril-infused armor can be considered the peak for diamond rank adventures, as the material itself provides resistance to nearly all elements other than unholy and dark magic. They continue biting my armor, or more like they kept trying to. With my spare hand I send a powerful punch to the second ironwolf, knocking it out onto one of the nearby tree trunks. The two iron-wolves had enough of trying to take my legs down, and instead went for my neck. "I am done…" Iron-wolves are monsters, even copper rank adventures can take down with a good strategy, so it just makes me feel like I'm fighting children. Holding each wolf by the neck, I crushed it, giving silence to the battle. As I started digging for their manastones, I said: "Just come out…" Without looking up. The last of the iron-wolf has appeared, and I can sense a bigger one behind me, probably their leader. They jumped at me in unison, but they met Lady Death seconds later. I quickly finished them off, cutting off their flesh for my journey. Iron-wolves are said to possess a naturally born layer of iron on their skin, so strong most adventurers wear their fur as armor until they reach bronze or Iron rank. But their insides are just like any other monster, soft and delicate flesh. As a goblin I can eat most meat raw, so it saves on time by a lot.
"10 manastones… and 5 from the big one..." I mumbled to myself, as I used my knife to carve out the last manastone from the big iron-wolf. Iron-wolves aren't the rarest of creatures, but their teeth have alchemical properties used in almost every stamina potion. I took a decent amount of meat, as it's a hunter's job to make sure they use up every part of the prey, their sign of respect. I let the rest return to nature. Time flies when you're unbothered, as I check my clock: 09:43. Sounds about right. The Rat Eater dungeon is a medium-large size dungeon from what the adventurers guild could gather, a dungeon too big for me to raid it alone like I did with the goblin cave yesterday. However, I'm not here to hunt, but to survey and explore. I look towards the left of the cavern, hearing sounds of river water splashing. Walking towards it, I bent over and applied the fresh mud onto my armor. Mithril armor, while having great resistances to most elements, tends to stick out like a torch in darkness as it has too many reflective properties; so this mud will help get rid of some of it. Now it's time to explore. The report also states that the rat humanoids were reported to only come out during the night, with no signs during the day, so I have more than plenty of time to finish this quest. Lighting a torch using a nearby branch and some spare cloth, I start my journey.