Chapter 26
Once he had made up his mind, he had to move.
“Orcs, defend the dungeon.”
He gave the remaining forces, the orcs and ten warriors, a firm order.
The orcs left behind tightened their grips on their weapons and adjusted their stances.
With Dohyun away, the dungeon’s defenses would naturally grow weaker.
Still, not enough to be a real problem.
The orcs were strong enough to handle even standard Demon Beasts.
Slash—!
And the goblin warriors were still there in the dungeon as well.
That alone was reassuring.
As he stepped out through the dungeon entrance, he remembered that Heok-o had vanished after going to the forest council.
He’ll move on his own.
Dohyun let it go at that.
Whoosh—!
White mist began to coil around his body.
Dragon Flowing Movement.
He took a step forward.
His body slid as though on water.
Even when trees blocked the way, he curved around them naturally, like a current bending around stone.
There was no resistance.
In a brief span of time, the encampment came into view.
A goblin on watch startled at the sight of him.
Geoung raised his head.
“Geoung... master came?!”
Thump—!
The leader goblin struck his chest with his left hand.
Status.
Fatigue.
Supply consumption.
Injuries.
All of it was within expectations.
Then their eyes met with the warrior in his line of sight.
“Kko-kko... dragon.”
There was caution in the voice.
Gyetoo’s eyes narrowed.
Dohyun’s gaze drifted to the place the warrior had been looking at a moment ago.
A yellow flower.
Does he like flowers?
As Dohyun asked himself the question, his hand moved.
Qi flowed from his fingertips.
Pale jade mingled with the white current.
Shrrk—
It touched the ground.
The yellow flower bloomed more vividly than before.
“...Kko-kko.”
For a moment, Gyetoo’s expression softened.
“...Not bad.”
It was a short answer.
The caution in his voice vanished.
With Gyetoo leading them, the troops quickly moved to the next tree where spiders were waiting.
Crack—!
As always, Gyetoo fought at the very front.
Dohyun watched from the encampment.
A goblin warrior’s field of vision is narrower than I thought.
Geoung has a wider view.
The one who stood out most of all, though, was the leader goblin.
He kept checking the formations of the others whenever he could, making sure none of them wandered into danger.
Good.
There were still plenty of rough edges to smooth out.
But compared to the picture he’d seen in the Core Room, everything was clearer now, and the things that needed fixing stood out at a glance.
[The Core absorbs a sufficient amount of experience.]
[The Core levels up.]
The moment they went outside, the experience gain started climbing at an alarming pace.
I should have come out earlier.
Unlike in a game, there was no one making regular attempts to conquer the dungeon.
Before that.
Even while they were wiping out the spiders in the other nests, Dohyun felt something off about how identical their forms were.
...Just as I thought.
It wasn’t enough yet to be certain.
The battle ended quickly in victory.
Just like the time before.
They fought, then rested.
After three days of combat, Gyetoo spoke.
“Kko-kko... dragon, rest.”
Already?
“Warrior... family, meet.”
I see.
In his focus on efficiency, he’d briefly forgotten that even that warrior had a home to return to.
Dohyun nodded and this time gave him a rough direction to the dungeon.
Then Gyetoo said something unexpected.
“Kko-kko... know. Yogul, famous.”
Yogul.
That was the first time he’d learned the dungeon was called that.
Apparently it was fairly famous in the forest.
And so, after collecting their spoils for three days, Dohyun returned together with them.
On the way back, he corrected one flaw after another.
“You there, third hunter goblin on the right. Can’t you feel it?”
Ki-ekk?
The hunter goblins had been writing down rules in blood, but they were still lacking.
“Look at the trace with the slightly different pattern between the trees.”
With Dohyun’s guidance, a nearby warrior goblin hurled a spear.
Thunk—!
A moth-like pest lurking in the air revealed itself from the impact.
Once exposed, it was pierced through and died on the spear of another goblin warrior before falling to the ground.
So that’s how they were caught.
There were many beings in the forest, and just as many ways to hide.
The dragon’s eyes found all of them.
Until the manual is a little more complete, it’s more efficient to keep moving together.
He looked at the back of the temporarily empty goblin line and narrowed his eyes again, reconsidering the need for a proper manual.
Then another three days passed.
The expedition began.
The target was the moth pests.
“Kko-kko... moth. Watch your breathing.”
At first, the moths concealed themselves.
But the instant Gyetoo smashed one against a tree and butchered it, they revealed themselves and started beating their wings.
Then a thick powder rose into the air, filling the surrounding space like a yellow dust storm.
Thanks to the leather masks the hunter goblins had hastily prepared after hearing about it from Gyetoo in advance, the goblin warriors and Geoung were perfectly fine.
“Geoung, this is stuffy. Finish it fast.”
Geoung’s club was unusually eager today.
Whoosh—
The goblins’ spears were still precise.
The moths in the air were numerous and covered a wide area, to the point that even a careless swing might hit them.
That much was obvious at a glance.
They wouldn’t have been visible through goblin eyes.
He’d been right to come in person.
If he’d relied on the system, all he would have seen was dust.
Then Dohyun, studying the moth one of the hunters had brought down, stopped.
Their internal organs are the same.
Spiders and moths were different species, but their insides were similar.
Not in appearance, but in structure.
Almost as if the same organism had simply been given different outer shells.
Slash!
There’s a lot to learn from that rooster yokai warrior.
The veteran’s experience stood out clearly.
In the moth’s powder-choked domain, Gyetoo fought with a broad, sweeping wind, hard and fearless.
Then—
“Below!!!”
Gyetoo shouted over his shoulder.
Dohyun snapped his head around.
The ground.
For a split second, he saw it.
Dodge.
Images flooded his mind.
The hunter goblins all sprang left and right at once.
Bang—!
Earth erupted.
Beneath it, a centipede shot upward.
Clack! Clack—!
Its scissor-like jaws snapped at empty air.
Had they been a heartbeat slower, they would have been sliced apart.
Dohyun’s expression cooled.
White smoke rose from his body in an instant.
Crack—!
His claws flashed upward like lightning and cut down the centipede as it lunged.
The centipede came apart in pieces and scattered to the ground.
The hunter goblins once again looked at their master with awe, certain he was truly magnificent.
But Dohyun’s attention had shifted elsewhere.
The centipede’s body, neatly split in two by his claws, lay open before him.
It’s the same.
Everything looked different on the outside.
But the structure of the internal organs, their placement, and the flow of the organs were all the same.
Spider, moth, centipede.
Only their shapes differed; they were identical underneath.
Dohyun swept his gaze across the battlefield, then turned it to the surrounding area.
This Chongyo species is one thing.
The conclusion had been reached.
And yet.
Dohyun’s eyes stopped.
The forms were different.
But the structure and pattern were the same.
Where are they coming from?
He didn’t know.
There was simply no information.
The only thing he knew was this:
They appeared in fixed locations.
They were exterminated.
And then they appeared again.
Dohyun’s eyes narrowed.
...This can’t be.
For a moment, he thought the idea was absurd even as it formed.
There’s no respawn.
This world wasn’t a game.
He reached a realistic conclusion.
They’re the product of someone’s manufacture.
Just as he was arriving at that conclusion, Keeeek!
“Geoung!”
The army that had finished the battle returned.
All of them were covered in moth venom powder.
The hunter goblins handed over wet hides and helped with the cleanup.
We’ll need to prepare for chemical warfare against poison, too.
This time, they’d been lucky.
The venom powder wasn’t dangerous just from being on the surface.
After several tests, they’d learned that the moth’s toxic powder was harmless by contact alone.
It was dangerous only if it got into the lungs.
They carefully wiped themselves down.
Each of them finished washing, struggling not to breathe it in, and only then did they gather again.
With food laid out before them, Gyetoo—his white feathers glistening a little from the water—spoke.
“Kko-kko... next is centipede.”
Understood. Anything to prepare?
He lifted his head briefly and looked at Dohyun.
“...Enough.”
I see.
They had already cleared two-thirds of the twenty points.
We’ll push a little further and think the rest through later.
After that, the expeditions repeated.
They cut down centipedes that hid underground or beneath fallen leaves, swept away spiders that concealed themselves in the trees, and burned the moths that spread poisonous mist.
The order never changed.
And neither did the result.
Why?
At the same place,
in the same numbers,
they showed the same reactions.
They vanished, then appeared again.
As the days went by, the questions only deepened.
They fought, observed, and recorded.
The data piled up.
From time to time, Dohyun even threw questions at Gyetoo.
“Kko-kko... they’ve decreased.”
What has?
It was a claim that was hard to believe,
so he felt doubtful,
but looking at the veteran warrior, he chose to accept it for the moment.
Every week for four days, the army went on expedition.
Once, twice, three times.
The expeditions repeated quickly.
As time passed, the army’s movements became more refined as well.
The hunter’s manual had grown even more complete, to the point where it now detected centipedes as well.
The warriors’ movements became cleaner too.
The leader goblin’s strength had also increased compared to before.
It was obvious that his skill was rising rapidly, like bean sprouts shooting up after rain.
Geoung was still Geoung.
I need to learn more from the cultivators.
If goblins were closer to humans, then Geoung was closer to a Demon Beast, but even that wasn’t perfect.
With each battle, the army became more organized.
But Dohyun’s doubts never disappeared.
Time passed again.
A month.
They had gone on expeditions for nearly twenty days.
The hunts became faster,
and the army grew stronger.
And yet the number of enemies Dohyun had recorded never went down.
It repeated.
But in the end, the result never changed.
The forest remained the same.
The Chongyo species were still being restored at twenty fixed points every week.
It was enough to make him wonder if he’d somehow fallen into a game world.
Dohyun stared at the expedition data he had compiled and came to a conclusion: this could not go on.
...There’s a main base.
This was not some simple phenomenon.
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