Dungeon Raid (4)
The rippling space behind the tree — a dungeon designated the Goblin Village.
With Saerom cheering us on, we filed inside one after another. The moment my body touched that wavering threshold, an indescribable, uncanny sensation washed over every inch of me, and in an instant my vision shifted.
Coincidence? The landscape that unfolded before my eyes was perfectly suited to the name of the guild that had arranged this run — Tree. Scattered trunks stood here and there, moss blooming in patches, unidentified grasses brushing our ankles. Moisture clung to the tip of my nose. The dungeon's interior had taken the form of a swamp.
"Eughhh~ It's so humid~."
Maya scrunched up her face, offering her review of the place.
"Indeed. Not exactly a pleasant spot."
Violet shrugged and swept a look around.
Chirp-chirp-chirp—
A black shape fluttered between the trees, and a bird's cry rang out. If someone had told me this was a jungle from a nature documentary rather than a dungeon, I would have believed them.
"Let's get moving."
According to the intel we'd been given, goblin scouts would appear after we'd advanced a certain distance from here. For now, that meant easing forward in the indicated direction. I drew the iron sword at my hip and pushed my Gigan outward, bracing for anything as we went.
After a stretch of walking across ground so soft our feet sank with every step, I caught something wavering up ahead.
I raised a hand, signaling the party to halt, then wrapped mana around my eyes to sharpen my vision and took a closer look. My sight gradually clarified, and a shape resolved itself.
Green skin riddled with sores. Veins standing out in angry reds. A fiend with rolling bright-yellow eyes and drool hanging from its mouth — a goblin. The small quiver lashed casually to its back and the stone knife in its grip confirmed it: a scout posted at the entrance of the Goblin Village, just as the briefing had said.
"Alice. There's just the one... you got this?"
I glanced back and gave her the signal. She nodded and poured mana into her Uzi.
Clack-clack—
The submachine gun's barrel split apart, light bursting from the seams. The split barrel drank in that erupting light and, in an instant, began to take on a new form — a sniper rifle, its elongated barrel gleaming smoothly.
Firearm Transformation. The skill Kim Suhan had used during our sparring match before the inter-class tournament. A trump card belonging to someone with so much potential that major guilds had come calling with contracts in hand — and Alice had mastered it in a matter of weeks. As expected of a heroine who served as one of this game's central pillars. Her growth rate was monstrous, her strength climbing at an exponential clip.
Click.
Alice drew the charging handle back in a long pull, cycling the bolt. She exhaled a slow breath, settled her eye against the scope, and calmly lined up the goblin. Then her finger squeezed the trigger.
Timing it perfectly, I caught the noise around the rifle with my wind spirit energy, and a silent round left Alice's sniper rifle. Green fluid burst from the goblin's head, and its body crumpled to the ground.
"Nice shot, Alice."
I ruffled her hair in praise, then crept toward the fallen corpse. Its bright-yellow eyes had rolled back, a hole punched through its skull, green fluid leaking in a steady trickle — and as I looked at it, something odd caught my attention.
"What's this?"
The goblin's nose had been sliced halfway off. This wasn't damage from Alice's bullet. The cut looked like it had been made by something sharp, and the wound was recent — a thin scab had only just begun to form over it.
"Take a look at this."
Violet seemed to have noticed something strange as well. She rummaged through the corpse with her telekinesis, found something, and lifted it into the air.
"Isn't this goblin blood?"
What she'd floated up was the stone knife the scout had been holding. The surface of that honed stone edge was caked with dried green fluid — not the fresh spray from the gunshot.
"What the hell? Were they fighting each other?"
I'd cleared goblin dungeons more times than I could count, but this was a first. Even so, it wasn't like they'd start mutilating themselves... Could this be one of those "weird things" Angel had mentioned would start happening as the difficulty ramped up?
"Then that's a good thing, riiight~?"
Maya turned to us, her eyes sparkling with anticipation.
"Maybe."
Well, even if we missed out on the experience the goblins would have given us, walking away with the rewards for free wouldn't be the worst thing.
"Let's keep moving in. Slowly."
I gave the noseless goblin one last lingering look, then led the party deeper inside. A scout had been in this area, so if we kept going this way, the village should appear before long.
"It's... awfully quiet."
Violet muttered, glancing around.
She was right. It was far too quiet. The birdsong we'd heard when we first entered, the rustling of something unidentified moving past — all of it had faded the deeper we pushed toward the heart of this goblin dungeon. As if nothing at all existed further in.
"Huh? There it is."
Alice, taking point, quietly raised a finger and pointed. Through the trees, a small watchtower woven from logs came into view. If that watchtower was here, we'd reached the entrance to the Goblin Village. Normally two scout goblins would be posted in there, eyes burning as they kept watch... wait.
"What the hell is this?"
I wrapped mana around my eyes and peered inside. Traces of goblins were smeared everywhere — but there were no goblins. Did that even make sense? The scouts who guarded the village entrance — gone from the single most important post?
"They really did beat the crap out of each other, didn't they, Jojun?"
Alice said, her voice uncertain.
"Is that even possible?"
I was so dumbfounded I found myself asking her back.
"The ecology inside a dungeon differs for every type of fiend. Goblins have at least some intelligence, so a power struggle could theoretically split the tribe, couldn't it?"
Violet thought it over, then tossed out an answer.
"Though that's a hypothesis that's never actually happened before."
Even she still looked just as confused. She frowned, staring at the watchtower with a low groan.
"We might clear this pretty easilyyy~."
Maya grinned like an idiot.
No. When an unpredictable situation like this cropped up, it usually went in a bad direction...
I dropped the stealthy creep we'd been maintaining and strode straight into the Goblin Village. The settlement revealed itself bit by bit: an empty watchtower, a gate of wooden spears standing wide open. And beyond the gate — tents of hide, various structures, and not a single goblin anywhere.
"Is this even possible?"
I muttered as I stepped through the gate into the deserted village. Leftover food still sat over the campfires. The goblins had definitely been here as recently as an hour or two ago. So why? They'd vanished in an instant? This wasn't a fight within the village, either. There wasn't a single sign of combat. They'd simply... disappeared.
"Look over here. Judging by the footprints on the ground over there, every goblin in this place moved in the same direction."
Violet, who'd been looking around, waved us over. We went. On ground damper than anywhere else, goblin footprints were stamped in dense clusters, every last print pointing in a single direction.
"Something's not right, Jojun."
Alice asked, her expression hardening as she sensed something was off.
"Eughhhh~."
Maya, who'd been so cheerful earlier, now stared at the footprints with a miserable look on her face.
"Stay sharp, everyone. We're following the tracks."
Something had definitely happened here. And whatever it was, it almost certainly wasn't going to be good for us. I tightened my grip on the sword, honed my senses to a razor's edge, and followed the footprints.
Squelch. Squelch.
The further we followed the tracks, the softer the ground became, and the moisture brushing my nose grew thicker still. Don't tell me all these footprints were heading toward water.
After a long walk, an enormous well appeared before us. It was as large as the goblin village we'd just left. The moment I saw it, a curse slipped out of me unbidden.
"Oh, fuck...."
"Eughhh~! What even is that...?!"
I hadn't even recognized it as a well at first. Why? Because that hole, which should have been full of water, was packed instead with goblins. They'd jammed their heads in and shoved their bodies down, packing the enormous well so tightly with themselves that they didn't so much as twitch.
"This is..."
Violet, equally rattled by the grotesque sight, could only stare blankly at the well, at a loss for what to do.
That was when it happened.
Suddenly, one of the goblins stuffed in the well gave a violent shudder, its legs trembling as it shook its body. Then the legs of the others began to move, one by one, their bodies shaking in time with that same tremor. Like leaves trembling in a gale, the goblins' legs swayed in an eerie, unified rhythm.
Spirit Slash.
Sensing that something was definitely about to happen, I slammed mana into a Spirit Slash and swept it across them.
KRA-KOOM—!
An explosion tore a chunk of the goblin mass free. Flesh burst apart, green fluid spraying through the air — but they kept trembling, legs shaking, until all at once they stopped.
"Everyone, dump your damage!"
Something was happening. Seeing that, I was even more certain. I clenched my teeth and carved out another Spirit Slash.
Swift Sword Rampage.
Not a single cut, but five Spirit Slashes of different elements, each carrying the principle of swiftness, carved through the air. Violet lashed out with her telekinetic whip, and Alice poured mana rounds from her submachine gun in a sustained burst. Maya, sniffling, dutifully layered buffs onto us.
Had our attacks landed? The goblin mass slowly melted away. Flesh sloughed off, green fluid sloshing, and the white bones hidden within began to show.
"Is it ooover~?"
Maya whimpered the forbidden words.
And as if those words had been the trigger, the melting goblin flesh rapidly clumped back together, beginning to take on a shape. The mass assembled itself so fast we had no time to react. The newly formed thing had taken the shape of a fiend I'd seen not long ago.
Scales packed tight across its body. Gills pulsing on its cheeks. It had a humanoid shape, but its exterior was that of a fish — a grotesque fish-man. Or rather, a fish-goblin, now.
The fish-goblin rose from the pond, its green scales glistening. Its bright-yellow eyes rolled as it looked at us, and then its protruding snout opened.
The words came out stammered and broken, but the language was unmistakable. Give it back.
"Give what back?"
My teammates looked bewildered, unable to grasp what it meant — but the moment I heard those words, I understood.
Oh, fuck.
The stone I'd secretly swallowed at the masquerade. The one with the suspicious hieroglyphs, the one I'd quietly slipped into my inventory because its performance was broken as hell — this thing wanted that stone back.
I never thought it'd come back to bite me like this... Should I have just left it alone? Regret clouded my vision, but there was nothing I could do about it now. Spitting out something I'd already swallowed would only make things worse.
"Everyone, combat ready!"
At this point, beating this thing down and taking the rewards was the better call.
It was absolutely not because I couldn't bear to part with a ninety-three-billion-won rock.
Absolutely not.