*4 hours later*
Anna's POV
These were the most stressful, fun and surprising times I've ever had in my life since I got my first elevation (completely against my parents' wishes, but I've always been good at convincing others). If I had to describe what happened after the "point allocation", it would be interesting to say the least, we spent 3 hours in the Ordeal exploring the areas that had only been superficially checked.
But now with our new strength we have got complete information of what lies beyond the river hut, one of which was the discovery of mineral deposits full of iron and copper, and some other mineral that I'm not sure what it was, but I was sure that it was a rare mineral, my instincts screamed that. A little further away we found another mineral deposit but this time of precious crystals such as emerald and amber (Kaio: yes I know that amber is not a mineral, but in the system store it is listed as a mineral, probably because it is only found deep in the earth), Discovering an amber deposit was certainly one of the main points of our exploration, after all there are only 3 sources of this substance in the entire kingdom and it is well used in decorations and low-level Aeter tools.
However, the most important point was that we discovered the rustic town or village of the green demons, which according to Cali's "evaluation crystal" we now know are called goblins.
The place was surprisingly well organized with the demons having specific duties, from what we could tell, some went out in armed groups or alone, most likely to hunt (including us), some came out with wooden sticks and what looked like poorly made leather bundles. heading towards an area of 3 fruit trees, probably to harvest it, others stayed in the village making more of these bundles, roasting things (which we definitely didn't want to know what they were) in pots or over a fire, others made more rustic weapons of stone and iron (probably taken from the deposit "nearby" and from the weapons of unfortunate people) and others who just watched others.
The one they observed had better clothes and weapons and seemed better nourished than the others, but not as much as the green demons, that is, goblins, who live in the largest hut in the rustic village. While the "normal" goblins were the same height as a 9 or 10 year old child, these 5 were the height of a young adult, still with green skin, unnecessarily pointed noses and ears, wide mouths full of teeth, and poorly maintained hair. and lumps, and wrinkles all over the body. However, they had a kind of aura of strength, of grandeur and a disgusting and frightening beauty despite their ugly features, including the tallest one with what seemed to be somewhere between 1.60 and 1.70, being much bigger than me and a little smaller than the Max and Mav.
I couldn't be sure, but from what I felt I think the largest of the goblins was around a knight's worth of the 4th garu or even the bottom of the 5th garu, while the other 4 "smaller" goblins were around the top 3 degree or at the lowest point of 4 garu, these would be the minimum levels to be a captain of an elite squad in any order or even a palace guard (a common guard, but still with the duty of taking care of the royal family ). In other words, we have no chance at all, even counting on my supernatural luck and everyone else's surprising combat ability.
Luckily they didn't have any guards against attackers, which made our little reconnaissance mission much easier to achieve. But I won't forget the feeling that that bigger goblin gave, even more so when he looked directly in our direction, I and everyone else were sure of one thing: he knew we were there but he didn't do anything against us, maybe because we hadn't We did nothing worried about the "village" or simply because we were no threat against him and the other 4 larger goblins.
The fact is that he looked at us for almost a minute before losing interest and going back to making a kind of patrol around the village, intimidating those who were fooling around, hitting those who seemed to want to cause trouble and those who tried to steal from others ( when he and the others could see), and checking out the final products that the "artisan goblins" made.
While the biggest one did this, the other 4 seemed to have slightly different roles, 2 who had a stronger physique, seemed to act as trainers to some of the common goblins, one taught how to use a sword and another how to use an axe, while another who He dressed in a loincloth and wore a staff with necklaces of feathers and bones, seemed to make potions in front of a stone obelisk that he occasionally seemed to revere.
And the last one seemed to be a wizard (if that was possible for these creatures) who seemed to be trying to teach how to use the Aeter to other goblins, I honestly don't know if I should tell the authorities about this as this would certainly reach the orders of wizards, who advocated that the most "complex" Aeter techniques could only be understood and used by special individuals and that there was no species other than humans capable of such a feat, even with the examples of quasi-humans who could use Aeter in almost the same way as the humans, if it were discovered that the demo-goblins also had this ability, and still taught their kind, the excuses of the orders regarding not sharing information would fall apart.
Needless to say, almost every known order would do everything possible and impossible to prevent something like this from happening, so you can have an idea of what they would do to me, my family and my friends, even though our connections are quite substantial. .
But even without that, the return I got from this trip to the Ordeal turned out to be much more substantial than I expected, with this the fame of my family and our merchant companies will increase even more ♪ \(^ω^ \ ).
—Why have you been so smiling and quiet since we left the cabin, Anna? — Connor asked me, taking me out of my thoughts and my calculation zone to get the most out of the information and items we could.
—Ah nothing, nothing, I just imagined what my parents will do when I show them everything we achieved. — I said, being partially honest, it's not that I don't trust Connor, quite the contrary, I already consider him one of the most trustworthy people I've ever met.
I just think he wouldn't quite understand what I meant by the value of this information. Yes, he certainly also knows how important these things are but he has no idea how much this information is worth to merchants. And as I said, I intend to get as much out of them as possible.
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POV 3 Person
After all the commotion of the points and the exploration to the "goblin village" the 5 returned immediately using the return crystals. And when the dazzling light of the magic circle passed, they found themselves once again on the stone road of Ordeal. With the slight difference of being full of people on the "stone balcony".