The Forest Feeds No Idle Goblins

The screams finally subsided. Matel grimly pulled the crossbow arrow from his shoulder, gritting his teeth as one of the Healing Personnel cast a Healing Spell on him.

"How many are still alive?" he asked, looking at the floor littered with the corpses of Brain-Eating Monsters before turning to Qige the Mage.

"Twenty-three," Qige reported.

"Damn it." Matel furiously kicked away the corpse of a Brain-Eating Monster.

This single battle had cost him fifteen men, many of whom were veteran members.

"Our opponent is clever. They started by using Slimes to defend against common Adventurers, and now they’re using Brain-Eating Monsters against organized, experienced Adventurers," Qige said grimly, walking to his side. "And just like before, this entire room is a trap."

"There’s no light in the room, so anyone holding a torch becomes a target for crossbow snipers. At the same time, with limited visibility, a sudden siege by a large number of Brain-Eating Monsters is bound to cause chaos."

Qige looked at Matel for a few seconds, then said softly, "I don’t know what we’ll encounter up ahead. I’m just giving you a choice now: whether to turn back or not."

Matel fell silent. He flexed his shoulder, where the bleeding had stopped, and bent down to pick up a torch from the ground.

"No. From the moment we entered this Relic, we lost the option to turn back." He stared toward the end of the stone chamber, his gaze resolute. "The Count’s Mansion won’t give us a second chance. The Adventurers who weren’t chosen won’t give us a second chance. And those disgusting Royal Capital Nobles *definitely* won’t give us a second chance. Our only chance now is to move forward."

Qige sighed. "That’s why I said it was just a choice. But it should get easier from here."

Matel looked at Qige, waiting for his analysis.

"Brain-Eating Monsters are typically raised only by Heart Stealers. If there are any here, I doubt there are more than three. A larger number of Heart Stealers would require abducting a significant population for Enslavement or breeding, but there haven’t been many reports of missing people in Yangjiao Town. Besides, I came prepared with a Demon-Banning Scroll."

"If it’s not Heart Stealers up ahead, then I’m inclined to believe it’s an unintelligent Race, because the Brain-Eating Monsters wouldn’t attack them."

Matel thought for a moment, then asked, "So it’s possible they’re really goblins?"

"It could also be Gnolls or something else," Qige said with a nod. "That would be easier to deal with."

"However, I’m leaning more toward there being a single Heart Stealer in this Relic," he added after a two-second pause.

"Boss, there’s a door at the end of the chamber," Ricardo said, walking over. "Yak and the others have already gone ahead."

"Let’s go. We’ll check it out." Matel motioned for the remaining members to gather and follow.

Even before they got close, they could hear Yak’s booming voice. "I’ll be damned! This cursed Relic has everything."

The burly man had cuts in many places, even a few scratches on his bald head.

"Is it going to be dangerous behind the door?" a newly joined Apprentice Member whispered.

"Dangerous? What’s so dangerous about this? The tomb relic we explored before was way more dangerous than this. There were over thirty of us back then, and when we pushed open the crypt doors, hordes of Skeleton Soldiers charged at us with blades and spears," Yak said nonchalantly.

He then gave the thick wooden door a push and found that it wasn’t barred.

CREAK. He pushed the heavy door open with force and discovered that the ceiling and walls were covered in Blue Fluorescent Mushrooms.

Before them was a corridor. Seventeen wooden chests were lined up in a row against the wall.

"Beast Cores," Yak said, grinning from ear to ear as he read the sign on one. A teammate next to him stepped forward and shouted, "Gold Coins!"

"After all that work, we finally get a reward." Yak slid his axe into its sheath on his back and stepped forward to open a chest.

"Don’t open—" Qige yelled from a distance, but it was too late. The burly Yak had already flipped the lid open.

A thick, purple pseudopod, like a massive tongue, shot out in an instant and wrapped around Yak. Startled, he instinctively jumped to the side, but in doing so, he knocked over two other chests.

Soon, three pseudopods were wrapped around Yak. He struggled with all his might, but to no avail. Immediately after, three wooden chests lunged at him, their lids agape like giant maws.

"Save him!" Matel roared. The stunned crowd instantly snapped out of it and frantically surrounded the Shape-shifting Monsters to attack.

In less than a minute, they finally killed the Shape-shifting Monsters, but Yak and another member who had gone for the chest of Gold Coins were already lying in pools of their own blood.

Shape-shifting Monsters are a lot like crocodiles. They have no real chewing ability; once they bite down, they spin wildly back and forth until their prey is torn to pieces.

Half of Yak’s body was mangled. His mouth was agape and his eyes were wide open, as if he had died with great reluctance.

"He’s dead." Ricardo looked at the burly Yak’s corpse, a pang of regret in his heart. ’If only I had given another warning before going to report to the boss, he wouldn’t have died such a painful death.’

BOOM. Several consecutive Arcane Missiles slammed into the remaining wooden chests, and the rest of the Shape-shifting Monsters began to stir.

The Mages and Rangers then focused their fire and eliminated all of the Shape-shifting Monsters.

"Our opponent is very clever. It seems he anticipated our every move." Qige lowered his Magic Staff. "He is a formidable adversary."

"So, are we still going deeper?" Ricardo asked, stroking the red squirrel on his shoulder.

"We continue." Matel walked past them and came to the large door at the end of the corridor.

"There won’t be many more traps ahead," Qige told Ricardo. "Monsters in the forest don’t set up elaborate systems of traps for themselves. Three or four is the most you’d expect. These contraptions require a lot of time and resources to maintain, which they don’t have."

"I hope that when we push open this door, we’ll see our final enemy standing before us," Matel said with a smile. Despite everything he’d been through—losing nearly twenty members, including one of his old comrades—he still managed to force a smile.

CREAK. The door was pushed open just a crack. Matel pulled his hand back and looked at Qige. "This Heart Stealer didn’t bar either door. It’s almost like it’s waiting for us to enter."

"It’s also possible that it intends to kill every last one of us," said Qige.

"Let’s see what’s behind this door—traps, monsters, or our future." Matel called over a few Warriors, and together they pushed open the two heavy wooden doors.

Before them was another huge, rectangular stone chamber. Their path was blocked by a cheval de frise made of several thick tree trunks.

"Hm?" Matel stared at the strange setup, momentarily stunned. He had expected crossbow bolts to fly out, spiked rollers to come at them, or a horde of monsters to charge—he never imagined his path would be blocked by chains and a cheval de frise.

He had cleared out several Relics before, but this was the first time he had seen such a peculiar tactic.

"A simple obstacle like this? We just have to push it aside. Qige said you were clever, but why set up something so simple?" Matel laughed. "It seems you’ve run out of defensive tricks."

"Now it’s the Storm Brotherhood’s turn." He waved his hand, calling a few strong Warriors over to push aside the "wooden frame."

A strange, chittering sound echoed through the stone chamber.

Immediately after, Matel saw numerous black dots flying toward his group. "What is that?"

...

One-Eyed clutched a Hand Grenade Fruit, hiding in a small room.

Earlier, the chief had told everyone that the enemy was preparing to attack the Fortress. At the time, his first instinct was to escape through the tunnels.

But the chief had said this was the place where they all lived, a place where every goblin could sleep in peace, the home of every goblin in the clan.

One-Eyed didn’t yet know what "home" meant. ’Maybe it’s the same thing as a burrow.’

But he understood what the chief meant. He had helped dig several of the tunnels here. He had helped clean this huge stone chamber. His bed was here, and under his bed was the wooden plank where he had just carved a new vertical line.

’Maybe this is what home means.’

Winter was coming soon. If he ran, where could he go? There was nowhere else like this, where he could eat two full meals every day—meals that were a hundred times more delicious than anything he’d eaten before.

This time, he didn’t want to run.

’Where could I even run to?’ One-Eyed thought with a bitter smile.

New goblins had been joining the clan constantly over the past few days. They were just like he used to be: panicked, afraid, sitting bolt upright at the slightest sound, their legs bent, always ready to flee.

Even when the older goblins kept telling them it was safe here and that the chief was powerful, they didn’t say a word, merely avoiding eye contact.

’I was the same way at the beginning,’ One-Eyed thought with a smile.

Now, the chief said they had to fight back. They had to hurt their opponents, kill them, and make the Adventurers never dare to venture this deep again. They had to let the Adventurers know that there was another Race in this forest that wanted to survive.

One-Eyed didn’t fully understand until the chief asked if everyone still wanted to eat two meals a day and sleep on wooden beds with wool-padded cushions.

He did. He wanted it desperately. No goblin who had ever been well-fed and slept warm would refuse such things.

The chief said the Adventurers outside wanted to take all of it away, to kill every goblin in the clan.

Red Eyes and the others had started shouting then. One-Eyed heard them yelling, "Fearsome Claw Bear! Fearsome Claw Bear!"

He knew that monster. It had been driven off by two Giants before, but the Giants had been heavily wounded in the process.

Now, when Red Eyes and a group of goblins ate, they would still gather around the Fearsome Claw Bear’s skull, talking and laughing.

He had once asked the chief why they kept the Fearsome Claw Bear’s skull where everyone ate. The chief had just smiled and said that he would understand one day, when he personally defeated a powerful enemy with his own hands.

Now, perhaps, the enemy was right outside the door.

CREAK. As the large doors opened, One-Eyed’s palms were slick with sweat.

He pressed himself tightly against the wall, terrified of making even the slightest sound. From the direction of the cheval de frise, he heard an unintelligible language and laughter—it was them, the fearsome, vicious Adventurers the other goblins had talked about.

"Everyone, throw the Hand Grenade Fruits!"

Hearing the chief’s command, One-Eyed ran out of the small stone room he was hiding in and threw his with all his might.

Dozens of black dots flew toward the doorway, followed immediately by a series of violent explosions.

BOOM.