Nightmare Fantasy Online

Chapter 36: The Goblins & the Survivors



Three days since I became an adventurer~. Soon, my waiting will pay off~.

I skipped as I walked through the forest to look for the targets of my chosen Quests while humming a song. As for why I'm so happy..., it's a secret~. Good mood or not, I gotta stay on my toes in these woods..., but I can't~! La, la, laaaa~.

Ah, a wolfie. KILL! 

*Whine-!*

The wolf fell to the ground after a [Mystical Thread] pierced its head, dead as a rock. I drew the dismantling knife I'd bought from the tool shop in the village and touched the corpse with it. A notification popped up and asked me if I wanted to auto-dismantle it or do it manually.

Having no big desire to do so by hand, I selected the auto-option. [Dismantling] is such a handy skill~. Especially since this game doesn't have an automatic kill counter or something. 

Skill: Dismantling
Skill Type: Passive Skill
Skill Tier: General
Element: ---
Effect:
  • Positive correction to dismantling corpses.
  • Extends the time limit before a corpse starts decaying.
  • [Active Effect]: Consume 1 SP and 1 MP to automatically dismantle a corpse.
    • Higher success rate with higher skill level.
    • Automatic dismantling can have a lower success rate compared to manual dismantling.

Quite nice. But I'm a noob at dismantling corpses, I'll hand over this honorable task lord [Dismantling]. Until Jorgen from the Union teaches me how to do it more efficiently. 

And with this, I have one "Wolf's Tail" and one "Wolf's Meat". Jorgen could get 5 of the latter though, while I get one every fourth wolf, auto or not. The difference between our skills is clear as day, and I need to close the gap. Auto-dismantling has a limit to how high the quality of the obtained materials can be, so I need to learn how to do it by hand sooner or later if I wanna be a full-fledged adventurer.

Now I have 10 tails, so I've cleared the E-rank Quest I took before I left the village. The rabbit meat has also been secured, so the last thing to do is that "unlimited" Quest. 

There are limitations to how many monsters the Union wants dead. Without any predators, the forest's ecosystem would collapse after all. But there are a few exceptions for this, and they are placed on a "kill on sight"-list.

Goblins.

Green-skinned humanoids at the size of small kids. The wild goblins living in these woods are like locusts and will attack and devour anything they can find, even if they don't stand a chance. I mean, a normal Goblin is a G-ranker. Some of the adventurers even said that "the G in the G-rank stands for Goblins". 

With that said, the violence of numbers is not something to be underestimated, and Goblins are damn fertile. The Union has been trying to remove those pests from the woods for ages now, but the Goblins are still present solely due to their high birth rate.

They're not part of the forest's natural ecosystem, so we adventurers are free to kill them all if we find them. The "urban" and more intellectual kind, however, is off-limits. It's only the "barbarian" Goblins that live out here that's counted as a monster.

The Goblin subjugation Quest requires you to hand over five left ears from the Goblins you kill, and if you have multiple of them, you can hand in as many ears as possible to clear the Quest multiple times. Honestly, I can only imagine those guys as bags of potential AP. Come here, gob~gob~gob~.

But even after looking for those guys whenever I went into the forest these last three days, I've yet to encounter any goblins except for one time when I found (and killed) a party of three Goblins. And they gave no clue to where they were living...-!

Speaking of the devil, or the Goblin, there are some right now! Four of them, but they seem different. Two of them are using swords instead of the primitive-looking clubs that Goblins normally use, just like that one companion of theirs. The last Goblin is holding a staff and is wearing something that looks like a robe, even when the other three are wearing cheap-looking clothes and armor. 

I'm no expert, but those three special Goblins don't feel like G-rank monsters. Did they evolve? I mean, it's not just their equipment, but compared to the simple-looking guy with them, those three Goblins seem more powerful for some reason. 

It's been a long time since I saw any gobs, and these four will give me enough to clear the unlimited Quest once. 

In the shelter of [Lurk], I snuck on behind one of the gobs, the magician-looking one with the staff and robes. Those guys seem too busy talking about something, but I have no clue about what. I don't understand "gob, gob". Silently, I removed an item from my Item Pouch, which I'd bought during the event, and retrieved a special bottle.

Aiming at the back of the mage's head, I threw the bottle at him with all my strength. The bottle broke into thousand pieces and the mage fell over. It wasn't enough to kill him, but the sudden strike from behind with a solid bottle was enough to knock him to the ground.

The two warrior Goblins drew their swords while the rank-and-file simply looked scared, but I threw a few bottles at the two warriors before they could get close. After confirming that they were drenched by the nasty-smelling liquid from the bottles, I used Fireball at all three of them. 

And presto~. Goblin barbecue~.

Yup, that's right. The contains of those bottles were a highly flammable substance similar to oil. The damage from the magic spell and the burns easily reaped the life of the three Goblins.

Hmm? Overkill? Hey, these are unknown monsters I found by a coincidence. Who knows what they could do. And the oil's pretty cheap in that item store anyway, and I've started selling Dark Lilies and Crystal Roses to that place, flowers that I have a steady source from thanks to the Royal Garden in the Fort. 

In other words, I'm not short of money. Better to spend it then~. My vault and wallet aren't that big anyway...

Ah, the last Goblin is trying to flee. Sorry, but taste a [Mystical Thread].

SYSTEM MESSAGE:

Your level has increased by 1. You have reached Lv.10.

You have obtained 0.6 Aether Points.

Garami has leveled up~. The steady hunting these days has given me some levels by now, and my AP is steadily growing as well thanks to the Quests. I'm on fire~. Kinda literally. Water! Water! The Magic Staff, quick! There's a forest fire here!!

---

"We have confirmed that you have completed the Quest. Thank you again for your hard work."

The receptionist accepted the monster parts even if they raised their eyebrows over the scorched Goblin ears, but let's ignore that. I also got a System Message that told me that I'd earned 0.3 AP. 0.1 came from clearing the F-ranked Goblin- and rabbit meat Quests and the last 0.2 from the E-ranked wolfie subjugation Quest. 

At this rate, forget about getting enough AP to cover for [Dismantling], I'll have enough to obtain my first Sub Class! Still haven't decided on just what yet, but the idea still excites me!

...is there something going on outside? There's a lot of noise out there..., and now adventurers are storming into the Union building and taking whatever potion that the Union had kept stored.

Feeling curious, I peeked out of the window and saw a bunch of armored and battered guys spread across the street close to the Union building. Some of them look hagged enough to be called zombies. 

I grabbed one of the adventurers who had entered the building and looked free to ask them some questions. And the lucky guy turned out to be Fredrick, the rat-looking man that works as the Union Master's right-hand man. 

"Missy? What's up? This isn't the time to be-" - Fredrick

"I know. I have eyes. But I lack details." - Garami

"Details? The big and mighty guards from Seira Chaos got beaten, that's the details." - Fredrick

"By who?" - Garami

"You seriously don't know? See that request?" asked Fredrick as he pointed at the Quest with the "?" ranking. "They were investigating that."

I read the leaflet and soon I understood. This thing asks the adventurers to look for clues for a possible "something". And out of all, it had to be...

"A Vile Queen..." - Garami

"Yup. The real deal witch who fell from grace." - Fredrick

"...what did you say?" - Garami

"Come on! It's common knowledge! Witches that try to earn too much power end up "falling" and turn into Vile Queens." - Fredrick

"Hmm..., can anyone be a witch? Even a weak one?" - Garami

"That's..., don't ask me! Try figure that out yourself!" - Fredrick

So he doesn't know. Figures. 

I let Fredrick go and walked outside where the boss was talking with some important-looking fellow from the failed expedition group. Let's give them some space. If the latter is the same as the "whippersnappers", then it's better to keep a good distance from him.

Besides, I got something better to spend my playing time with~. Adding the Crystal element demons to the Fort~.

I walked to the central plaza of the village. A fancy fountain with something like a goddess statue was placed in the middle of the place. I touched the waters of the fountain and a doorway appeared in front of me. The door that leads to my Player Room. With a hum, I entered my sweet "home" and started working on the newly recovered DP. Hm~hm~hmm~.


Tip: You can use left, right, A and D keyboard keys to browse between chapters.