Chapter 11
Chapter 11
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 11
Chapter Title: 4. The Goblin is Too Big (1)
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"G... Goblins are supposed to be this big?"
At Yechan's trembling voice, Yeongwoo shook his head.
"...How should I know? This is my first time seeing a goblin too."
It was a pretty dumb conversation, but there wasn't a hint of a smile on either of their faces.
Regardless of whether goblins were figments of human imagination or not, the fact remained that a 2-meter-tall goblin had appeared right in front of them.
On top of its towering height, its massive forearms bulged with exaggerated muscles and tendons, and the armor encasing its head, chest, and lower abdomen left almost no gaps for a blade to slip through.
'This is trouble.'
Yeongwoo was seized by an ominous premonition that his assumptions might have been dead wrong.
Hunting monsters was the only way to acquire karma, so he'd decided to stay here on the judgment that they wouldn't be all that strong.
But the reality staring them down...
-Kerruk!
Soon, the goblin pack spotted Yeongwoo and Yechan, emitting a menacing growl.
"F-Fight... fight them?"
Yechan's question came out almost like a scream, stripped of any fighting spirit.
In contrast, Yeongwoo gripped his shield tighter, bracing to advance.
"You got any better ideas?"
No sooner had Yeongwoo spoken than the goblins charged, pulverizing the ground with their iron boots.
-Kieeeek!
-Kirruk!
The overwhelming pressure from twelve heavily armored goblins standing 2 meters tall was immense.
Every time they moved, their massive shadows churned up the shadows of Yeongwoo and Yechan.
As if they were already being hacked to pieces.
"Ah, ah...!"
"......?"
Yechan's voice sounded off, so Yeongwoo glanced over to see the spear shaft in his hands quivering uncontrollably.
His legs weren't planted firmly either—he was barely holding himself upright.
Seeing this, Yeongwoo felt the blood rush to his head in reverse.
"What the fuck, get it together? You wanna die here for real?"
Even if they both fought at full strength, it was touch-and-go whether they'd win. Yet Yechan just hesitated even after Yeongwoo's shout.
Finally, something snapped in Yeongwoo's mind.
"Kang Yechan! You trying to kill yourself again?!"
At that.
"Ye...?"
Startled, Yechan looked at Yeongwoo, his eyes soon clouding with complicated emotions.
He'd understood what Yeongwoo had just said.
|Disappeared: February 1, 2039, 8:36 PM, killed a customer while working at a bar and then committed suicide.
The fate recorded in the Book of Fate—the previous one, no, the original one.
"Ah."
Just as some kind of resolve began to form in Yechan's eyes, the goblins lunged at them.
-Kiiik!
Yeongwoo had no time to check on Yechan and raised his shield.
A massive axe blade was flying straight at his head.
Moreover, the Gumi Sword Technique, which had guided his defensive stance during each attack, wasn't activating now.
'No way it's only effective in PvP?'
As Yeongwoo's vision darkened with grim futures and he gritted his teeth.
Kaaang!
A clear ring echoed as the goblin's attack glanced off the outer edge of the shield.
'Huh...?'
And Yeongwoo realized.
'Not as strong as I thought?'
His elbow throbbed from the impact transmitted through the shield, but it wasn't a lack of strength.
His joints just weren't sturdy enough.
Right now, his strength and stamina were boosted fivefold, but his durability was still at base level.
Which meant.
'I won't lose in a contest of strength...!'
Recalling how the axe blade had bounced off so lightly moments ago, Yeongwoo swung his shield forward.
Whish, paang!
The clash of metal rang out.
The goblin was so tall that the shield struck the upper part of its breastplate instead of its head.
-Kruk!
But surprisingly, it wasn't a clean miss.
-Kyaak!
The goblin's face visible inside its helmet was twisted in utter agony.
It was only then that Yeongwoo noticed the breastplate had dented.
'This bastard's in too much pain to even move.'
Sensing a chance for reversal, Yeongwoo's momentum surged.
But his opponents were a pack of twelve goblins.
Whoosh!
Immediately, an absurdly huge blade came whistling from his right flank.
"......!"
Goosebumps erupted across Yeongwoo's body as he thrust out Early Bird into a defensive stance.
The way he tilted the blade at an angle, mimicking the Gumi Sword Technique hologram, was purely instinctive.
He had unconsciously recreated the most successful defense from his recent experience.
Tskreeek!
The goblin's blade slid down the silvery slant of Early Bird.
In truth, this was possible only because Yeongwoo's own strength had risen to match the foe's power, but he didn't realize it.
All that mattered to him now was...
'The... timing!'
He'd sensed the opening for a counterattack.
Whip!
It wasn't perfect, but Yeongwoo executed a fairly quick riposte, just like when the Gumi Sword Technique had been active.
Early Bird, pressed down and swung low by the enemy's blade, sprang up like lightning in an instant.
Pfft!
With a shallow slicing sound, the tip of Early Bird somehow shot through the gap in the goblin's helmet.
-Kuwaak!
The massive goblin let out a bizarre scream as it toppled backward.
Of course, another one came charging in, spewing hot breath, but Yeongwoo was no longer intimidated.
He felt like he could do it again this time too.
* * *
Goblins.
Like dragons, creatures of imagination, but set as far inferior in prowess—the tragic poster children for monsters.
Practically synonymous with 'trash mobs,' they'd appeared in every medium imaginable, boasting fame on par with dragons.
Most creators borrowed from 'Dungeons & Dragons' lore when depicting them, leading to a highly consistent popular image.
That's how Yeongwoo and Yechan had immediately identified the monsters bursting from the orbs.
Typically small in stature, with green or brown skin, pointed ears and noses—vicious little creatures.
Of course, the goblins sprawled before Yeongwoo now were anything but small.
"Haa, haa!"
Lungs burning like they might burst, Yeongwoo half-collapsed to the ground, stabbing Early Bird into the dirt.
He wasn't sure exactly how many minutes the fight had lasted, but one thing was certain.
'If I hadn't invested karma in stamina, I'd be dead. Even alone, I'd have run out of gas and died.'
At least nine. Probably around ten that he'd handled personally.
In other words, this was the maximum duration of combat achievable with 97 stamina.
"...Hoo."
His breathing wouldn't settle.
Yeongwoo turned his heaving gaze to Yechan, who sat far off to the side.
He must have kept backing away during the fight until he'd ended up there.
'That guy's got some serious luck.'
Truth be told, up until the moment the goblins swarmed, Yeongwoo hadn't expected Yechan to survive.
He'd just hoped the guy could pin down at least one to help in the fight.
Even yelling 'You trying to kill yourself again?!' had been a desperate move to ensure his own survival.
'Guess I should apologize.'
Digging into the guy's 'past fate' in that dire moment had been possible only because Yeongwoo was the adult—the craftier one, relatively speaking.
At least, that's how he saw it, and it made him feel sorry.
Scrape.
As Yeongwoo peeled his 34-year-old body off the ground, Yechan, who had been staring blankly at the dirt, looked up.
Kang Yechan, 19-year-old male.
Unlike Yeongwoo, he was unarmed, having dropped both spear and shield.
Even as Yeongwoo approached right up to his face after standing, he made no move to grab a weapon. So Yeongwoo sheathed Early Bird and spoke.
"S... Sorry about earlier. That was harsh."
Yechan shook his head.
"No, it's fine. If you hadn't said that, I really would've died without doing a damn thing. And more than that..."
Yechan trailed off, looking down at his own hands.
Reliving it.
The moment when he'd toppled those ridiculously strong-looking goblins with his bare hands.
"...I could kill them too, those bastards. Never even imagined it."
"Of course. Told you we'd make it."
Yeongwoo said this while flashing an awkward grin behind Yechan's back.
Strictly speaking, this was just a lucky bet paying off.
But they'd survived again, and as always, a reward for the challenge would follow.
'Right. Still got karma to...'
Wondering if he needed to loot the goblins' pouches, Yeongwoo turned around.
Shimmer.
The scattered goblin corpses melted into the air.
"......?"
"Huh?"
Yechan jumped up in surprise too, and soon, tiny lights flashed once each at the twelve spots where the goblins had vanished.
Pop, pop, pop!
Then came a very familiar sound.
Clink.
"......!"
The sound that sent Yeongwoo dashing forward on reflex.
Clatter!
It was none other than the pouring of karma in coin form.
"These crazy fuckers."
Yeongwoo scooped up the coins raining down everywhere, cursing this unknown world.
But then.
'Hold on.'
Something felt off.
'How much per goblin? Isn't that too few coins?'
Once he'd swept the ground clean and piled them up, the total karma left by the twelve goblins was a mere 240,000.
Exactly 20,000 karma per goblin.
Sure, considering 1,000 karma equaled 1 stat point, it wasn't a small amount.
'But 1,000 karma is also one person's lifespan. So 240,000 is roughly...'
Enough for 240 people to survive a day.
"......"
Yeongwoo didn't know Gumi City's exact population.
But at least hundreds of thousands?
'Even after trading tightned, half should have survived... The karma circulating is way too low compared to the survivors.'
No, this wasn't just low—it was catastrophically insufficient.
The number of light pillars he'd seen with his own eyes back then was around a hundred at most.
Simple math: 24,000 people's worth of karma.
Even if similar clusters of pillars dotted the horizon beyond sight, it was absurdly short for saving a population in the hundreds of thousands.
In other words.
'No matter how much people hunt monsters, the vast majority will die from unpaid taxes.'
Yeongwoo realized monster hunting wasn't designed to distribute karma to the public from the start.
Even if the entire population of Gumi City threw themselves at it, everyone except a tiny elite would fail to gather karma and die.
'What the hell is this? Just a guaranteed apocalypse?'
Overwhelming dismay washed over him.
Sure, a few superhumans capable of monster hunting could reinvest karma and survive indefinitely, but what good was that if everyone else perished in the meantime?
"...Ha."
As Yeongwoo sat stunned, not even picking up the coins, Yechan approached cautiously.
"What's wrong?"
Yechan couldn't even guess that Yeongwoo had reverse-engineered the total karma released into Gumi City.
Yeongwoo looked at him with desolate eyes.
"Looks like we're..."
But Yeongwoo couldn't finish.
His vision, quiet for a while, suddenly lit up with quest text.
Piiiing!
[Epic] "One or the Other"
<Mission> Track down the mutated being and eliminate it or send it back.
<Reward> Mutated being's equipment, massive amount of karma.
<Special> This quest activates only for residents with monster kill records.