I Am Not A Goblin Slayer

The strange goblin that had charged into the Kobolds casually snatched up a weapon. Agile as an ape, it wove freely through the panicked monsters. The broadsword in its hands danced like the wind, sending streaks of blood shooting into the air. As the blade halted, multiple heads slid off their necks simultaneously.

THUD THUD THUD THUD!

The sounds of them hitting the ground were perfectly uniform.

The few remaining Kobolds stared in horror at their headless companions, the Kobold leader among the survivors. Of course, it didn’t feel much relief at the moment. The tall goblin had already slowly turned around, its cold eyes sweeping over the leader’s body. The Kobold leader felt as if it were being eyed by a troll that loved to feast on its kind, and it trembled uncontrollably.

Driven by despair, it pulled the trigger of its hand crossbow aimed at the goblin.

THWIP!

A crossbow was the best weapon for most low-tier combatants, whether human or monster, because its firing power would not decrease even if the wielder’s body went limp from fear. Perhaps its survival instinct had kicked in, for this Crossbow Arrow was shot with exceptional Precision. Perhaps... A glimmer of hope flashed in the Kobold leader’s eyes.

CLANG!

The strange goblin raised its broadsword, the blade blocking the Crossbow Arrow’s trajectory with utmost Precision. Sparks flew as the arrowhead scraped against the steel before being effortlessly deflected. In the next moment, the goblin turned, crouched, and threw the weapon in one fluid motion. The broadsword was hurled like a spear, embedding itself into the Kobold leader’s chest with deadly Precision.

After instantly killing the Kobold leader, the goblin bounded forward, snapping the necks of the last few Kobolds that attempted to flee. It turned and surveyed the surroundings. Only after confirming there were no survivors did it head off into another direction through the jungle. From beginning to end, neither its face nor its body language revealed any emotion. It was as cold as a machine.

***

"Total Monsters Killed: 85,497"

"Total Monsters Killed: 85,665"

"Total Monsters Killed: 85,722"

"..."

Every lump of clay Gauss tossed out loyally fulfilled its mission. Right before their Magic Power ran out, they would return, flocking back to Gauss like birds to their nest. Flying, scanning via "radar," releasing clay birds, harvesting monster lairs, retrieving the clay, and searching the next area... Gauss mechanically repeated this routine, sweeping across the vast, uninhabited land. It might have sounded tedious, but that wasn’t the case at all. How could killing monsters ever be dull? Watching the total kill count on the Monster Atlas rapidly rise, Gauss felt nothing but a profound sense of accomplishment. His mood was akin to grinding mobs to level up a character in an online game from his past life.

"Total Monsters Killed: 86,615"

"Oh?"

Just as Gauss, seeing it was still early in the day, prepared to continue, a new notification on the panel interrupted his actions. It turned out that just moments ago, a Clay Spider nearby had hunted down a Rot-Tongue Demon—a creature he had never killed before. Combined with a Black-Bone Vulture casually shot down by a clay goblin not long ago, the categories of Ordinary Monsters in his Monster Atlas had finally reached exactly one hundred. Gauss figured that the sheer number of corpses on this battlefield must have attracted scavengers looking for a feast. Regardless, this was excellent news since he needed to hunt a wider variety of species.

"Ordinary Monsters Atlas categories have reached 100: goblin, Slime, ordinary Skeleton... Black-Bone Vulture, Rot-Tongue Demon."

"Randomly extracting a Racial Talent Ability and modifying it to adapt to your Constitution."

Looking at the prompt, Gauss felt a twinge of regret. He had just used his Wish ability yesterday when extracting the Talent of an Extraordinary Demon. The Wish was still on cooldown and would likely take another day or two to reset. But he didn’t dwell on it. For one, he knew he couldn’t deliberately slow his pace and halt his monster-sweeping operations for days just to stack a luck buff. Moreover, this was only a Talent extraction from an Ordinary Demon. At his current level, the Talents of Ordinary Demons were all fairly similar; their true value lay in how well they scaled after being upgraded with points. Therefore, it was better to keep an even temper and see what his baseline luck would yield. He had already hit the jackpot before, so he could tolerate one mediocre draw. He’d just treat it as building up good karma. It wouldn’t be too late to use his Wish ability when the Elite Demon Atlas hit fifty categories.

Hundreds of Ordinary Demon names flashed before Gauss’s eyes as the extraction process got underway. Looking at the vast variety of Demons, Gauss couldn’t help but sigh with emotion. These were his medals of honor, milestones that witnessed his growth. He waited patiently. Meanwhile, his clay creatures continued their diligent work. They were ruthless monster-harvesting machines. As long as Gauss didn’t order them to stop, they would work tirelessly until their energy ran dry and they could move no more.

"Extracted one of the abilities from the Crowman race: [Scent of Decay]."

"Modifying into Racial Talent: [Corpse Perception] — White Quality (Upgradeable)."

"Oh?"

When Gauss saw the extraction results, he paused in surprise. The Crowman was a monster he had killed a very long time ago; he certainly hadn’t expected it to be randomly drawn from a pool of one hundred species. Scent of Decay, and its upgraded version, Corpse Perception... what use were they? He read on. He discovered that this Racial Talent was exactly as literal as it sounded. Upon actively triggering the Talent Ability, he would be able to pinpoint the locations of corpses with ease. The Talent would even allow him to sense the presence of the dead without relying on his physical senses at all.