The Five-Centimeter Shift
The variant goblin had been born with intelligence far surpassing that of an ordinary goblin.
Because of that, he was ostracized by his tribe, abandoned by his tribe, and became a wanderer. Human slave hunters captured him simply because he was unusual and sold him to an arena.
From that moment on, the variant goblin’s daily life became a repetition of fighting, killing, and surviving.
At some point, he no longer found fighting difficult. Enemies no longer frightened him. Surviving no longer felt hard.
The emcee would spit as he hyped up the so-called famous gladiators, yet in reality they were all idiots who couldn’t even block a single sword strike before dying.
But that wasn’t the case. The variant goblin suddenly wondered if he himself had simply grown too strong.
The arena, once a fierce battlefield he had desperately struggled through each day, had at some point become a breeding ground for boredom.
His soul had already been completely consumed by combat. The endless thirst for stronger opponents refused to fade….
In the end, he single-handedly annihilated every fighter in the arena and leisurely escaped.
All so he could fight opponents stronger than himself.
He wandered the continent without purpose, but he never encountered any warriors capable of quenching his thirst.
Even the continent’s renowned masters who came after hearing of his notoriety ultimately couldn’t withstand more than a few moves before kneeling before the goblin’s blade.
How many years had passed like that?
In a remote rural village, the variant goblin discovered a boy and made up his mind.
Instead of waiting for a strong opponent, he would raise one himself. He would personally nurture an existence strong enough to defeat him.
The boy’s talent was overwhelming. No, even calling it overwhelming was endlessly insufficient. It was nothing short of heavenly.
As he taught the boy, the variant goblin also realized his own shortcomings and grew far stronger.
He even began to fear that he was becoming so powerful the boy might never be able to defeat him.
But that was nothing more than a needless worry.
Clang!
The variant goblin’s eyes widened as he watched his sword fly from his grasp and embed itself in the ground, knocked away by the now-grown boy’s blade.
He had truly raised a monster with his own hands—one he could never defeat.
Why? It was his first taste of defeat in a very long time, yet there wasn’t the slightest trace of shame. Instead, a satisfaction sweeter than any victory welled up from deep within his chest.
Overcome by a pleasure no victory had ever given him, the variant goblin smiled at the boy he had raised and offered his neck.
“This is your victory, kid. As promised, I offer you my neck.”
He had forcibly kidnapped the young child from his parents in order to raise him into a powerhouse. The boy’s eyes, filled with resentment, were familiar. He had been fully prepared to offer his neck without regret if he lost.
But why?
Thud!
The boy, now a young man, drove his sword into the ground before the variant goblin, then dropped to one knee, bowed his head, and shed tears.
The young man gave no answer. He simply stood up and walked away without looking back.
The variant goblin could have pulled out the sword and attacked the defenseless young man from behind, but he didn’t. He simply stared blankly at the departing youth… at his first disciple….
In the years that followed, the young man became a renowned knight of the empire and soon earned the title of the Empire’s Strongest Sword.
The emperor of the empire, in respect for his powerful and magnificent swordsmanship, bestowed upon it the name Imperial Swordsmanship. On a platform before a gathered crowd, the young man—Mars, the Empire’s Strongest Sword—shouted these words:
“My master is a goblin! Without him, I could never have become the great knight I am today! Back then, my heart was too complicated to speak my true feelings, but if my master is watching me now, I want to tell him this: Thank you! You were my enemy, but you were also my benefactor!”
…….
Hidden among the crowd, the variant goblin listened to his grown disciple’s sincere words, then returned to his forest.
There, he united the goblins who had been persecuted by humans and other races, established the Goblin Kingdom, and named himself Goblius.
‘Are you watching, Mars? There was a talent here who surpassed even you.’
Heh heh heh….
“Lord Goblius… are you crying, by any chance?”
“You had a disciple?”
“I don’t know who he was, but he sounds incredibly amazing, right?”
Goblius evaluated his disciple, Ahn Humin, with the cold objectivity of a master rather than the bias of a servant. The result of his cool and precise judgment was exactly that.
It had only been a single week since Ahn Humin first began learning Imperial Swordsmanship.
It was far too short a time to even grasp the basics, let alone the theory. In fact, Ahn Humin still hadn’t fully understood the theory of Imperial Swordsmanship with his head.
Yet the reason Goblius considered him a genius was this:
Swish swish swish swish swish—!!
Clang clang clang clang clang—!!
The ten tentacle blades Slim swung rushed in from every direction.
They had no joints and no form. Since it wasn’t human, it naturally unleashed countless sword paths in irregular ways that no human could replicate.
Seeing and responding to each one individually was virtually impossible. But what made the impossible possible was precisely Imperial Swordsmanship.
Dawn.
The moment just before sunrise—the boundary between light and darkness.
The time when one day ends and another begins. The cycle of circulation.
All living things and nature appear deathly still, yet within that stillness, an explosive vitality preparing for the coming day wriggles and stirs.
The beginning of nature and the end of nature.
Thus, dawn.
That was the root and the entirety of Imperial Swordsmanship, which embodied nature itself.
In truth, the first form was not a technique with a physical shape but a martial principle that formed the foundation of Imperial Swordsmanship.
That was why it was even harder to understand.
It couldn’t be understood with the head, so expressing it with the body should have been even more impossible.
And yet….
Shrrrrk—!!
Tentacle blades surged in from all directions. At any other time, he would have been at a loss, excited and made mistakes, or given up in despair.
But not now.
It was clearly a situation where he should be excited or in despair… yet his mind was as calm as the setting night.
Meanwhile, all his senses and mana were exploding with energy like the rising sun.
A calm mind and heart commanded the boiling senses and mana.
It was as if a potentially noisy discord had met a skilled conductor and transformed into the finest harmony.
Goblius’s riddle-like teaching was now understood not with his head, but with his body.
The surrounding air touched his skin with painful sensitivity, and his body moved before his thoughts could catch up.
Flash!
The Clear Sky Sword drew a bold arc and scattered flashes of light.
The flashes instantly split into over a dozen streaks that spread out and severed every tentacle blade rushing in from all sides.
Fwoofwoofwoofwoofwoof—!!
The moment Slim realized not only had every one of its attacks been countered, but that Ahn Humin was now charging straight at it, the slime retreated.
As a bonus, it hurled a bundle of sharp, hard ice spears.
But!
Shadow Curtain
Shadow Curtain Lv.10 (Darkness)(Protection)(Magic)
The trait obtained when Shadow Curtain reached level 10 was {Mirror Reflection}. Its effect was….
{Mirror Reflection} — The [Shadow Curtain] can reflect absorbed long-range projectiles (including magic) with equal power.
Fwoofwoofwoofwoofwoof—!!
It reflected the long-range attacks it had absorbed and fired them straight back.
Whoosh!
Deciding it was too late to dodge, Slim transformed its body and created a barrier of flames.
Kwaaaaaang—!!
The bundle of ice spears collided with the thick wall of fire. A tremendous roar erupted as thick steam engulfed the surroundings.
And at the same time, what burst through the smoke was—
Flap flap flap…!
—none other than twelve Night Crows.
Slim instinctively realized that getting properly hit by those crows would be extremely dangerous.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The crows rained down like bombs toward Slim. Slim barely dodged them and fled.
After narrowly escaping the final crow, what waited at the end was….
“Imperial Swordsmanship, third form….”
A single Chaos Knight crouched so low his posture nearly touched the ground. The muscles of his bent right leg swelled as if they would burst, while his left leg stretched naturally, perfectly poised to charge.
Beep.
Only then did Slim realize.
The purpose of the [Night Crows] hadn’t simply been to attack him—they had been meant to lure him into this exact position….
But!
Shrrrrk!
The boss monster of the 20th floor. The Nightmare of the Sewers. The notoriety of the Chimera Slime Slim was not in vain.
Countless hunters had challenged Slim and died by its hand.
That was partly due to the countless powerful and varied abilities Slim possessed, but also because of its reflexes that far surpassed the common sense of any living creature.
The instant it recognized a trap, Slim’s tentacles—sharper than an awl—had already shot forward.
Slim was certain that if the human charged in with a rushing attack now, he would simply impale himself.
But then—?!
Slide.
Beep?
The nucleus that controlled Slim’s thoughts registered an error.
Given the structure of a human body, that preparatory stance should have made it impossible for him to move even a single millimeter to the side.
Yet the human had clearly slid five centimeters to the left.
What in the world had just happened?
Beep…!
It analyzed the cause of the error.
There was only one cause. The shadow it had perceived as the human’s shadow—no, the shadow that had flowed out from the human’s body, which it hadn’t even been able to perceive because of that light—was actually a Shadow Slime.
If that light hadn’t existed, or if the Shadow Slime had attacked it even once or blocked its attacks….
Slim would have definitely been wary of the Shadow Slime.
Beep.
Had he really held back that powerful asset, the Shadow Slime, saving it again and again just for this uncertain opportunity, for a mere five centimeters of movement?
Kwaaaaang—!!
Ahn Humin kicked off the ground. With an enormous explosion, he became a single streak of light, turning into an arrow that pierced through space itself.
The tentacles that had been certain they would pierce the human barely grazed past him….
Flash!
A single streak of Gust split Slim’s nucleus cleanly in two.
“Hoo… hoo…!”
Beep. Beep. Bee… p….
The light faded from Slim’s nucleus as it split apart and fell to the floor with a dull thud. The liquid that had enveloped its nucleus scattered across the ground like water.
Finally….
20th Floor Objective: Hunt the Nightmare of the Sewers, Slim. 1/1
📍 Reward: Collapse Delay — 20 hours
The Nightmare of the Sewers, Slim, has been defeated.
The First Clear reward will be distributed according to contribution.
Your contribution: 100%
20 Skill Cards will be awarded according to your contribution.
He had kicked out of the guild without knowing he was EX-class.