Goblings

A Gobling, put simply, was a goblin. Small frame, a wiry torso, green skin. They were bipedal humanoid monsters, and because they lived in groups, they were a real pain to deal with.

Farming World players liked to say Rats were annoying because they ruined your crops from somewhere you couldn't see. Goblings were the opposite. They hardly touched the farming at all, but the moment you let your guard down they came in swinging, and that was what drove people insane. Live through Goblings once, and everyone agreed the Rat days had been a mercy. Rats almost never beat you to death — not unless you went down a sewer and a Big Rat came out — but Goblings aimed to kill you right out in the open.

That particular headache didn't take long to start.

Fssht—. Something whistled out from between the weeds, and a sharp sting flared across my back.

"Ah."

I turned my head. Something was sticking up through the weeds — a blowpipe, the Goblings' main weapon, the thing they fired their needles from.

The Gobling that had landed the shot vanished back into the weeds. That wasn't the end of it.

Fssht! From the side opposite where I'd turned, another needle came flying.

Fifteen percent of my life, gone in a single hit. If my Endurance hadn't been S-rank, I might already have been dead.

"Master! It's Goblings!"

I wasn't the only one getting shot at. Needles were flying at Kim Sujeong too — she'd been in the vegetable patch with Ruru, chatting about this and that while she took advice on the farming — and at Ruru herself.

"Kyaaah! What the hell is this? It hurts like crazy!"

"Get inside."

With her Endurance as low as it was, Kim Sujeong could actually die. She scrambled into the hut with Ruru.

The moment I drew my sword, the needles stopped coming.

"Ten points."

Sub-quests mattered more than they looked. They were the keys that unlocked all sorts of systems. Map marked every place you'd already been, so you didn't have to cross this enormous map on memory alone, and Slave let you tame a monster and work it as a slave.

It was a slightly different idea from the NPCs I'd had running in droves back in my Farming World 1. Those NPCs had to be paid. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Slaves only needed to be fed and given a place to sleep, and you could run them anytime, anywhere — a little more convenient, all told. There were restrictions of every kind, of course, and the risk ran higher than with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠NPCs you paid for.

"Using those creepy little bastards as slaves feels kinda wrong."

Even so, once the function was open I'd find a use for it somewhere. And reward or not, I had no intention of leaving pests that invaded my farm alone.

"Guess it's about time I stayed sharp."

SSS+ Rank combat ability didn't make me invincible. In martial arts novels, attacks flying in from out of sight got swatted aside without a thought, but I clearly wasn't there yet — I'd eaten two needles out of my blind spots. I probably could have dodged them if I'd tried. There was a very faint sound when a needle came in, and, though I only noticed it after the fact, a strange sensation where it struck. Maybe some sense I wasn't even aware of had caught it ahead of time. Focus, catch that feeling, and I figured I could slip it with S-rank reflexes. The math checked out. It still wouldn't be easy. To pull it off I'd have to watch my surroundings every second of the day, and that would wear me out. Stare at everything around me for twenty-four hours, forever thinking something was out there, and I'd invent a mental illness I didn't even have.

"Then I just won't leave any blind spots."

Instead of chasing the Goblings that had already vanished into the weeds, I started clearing the ones around the front-yard vegetable patch. The only reason they'd been able to shoot me from angles I couldn't see was that, outside the patch, I still hadn't dealt with the tall growth, and hiding in it was easy. Give them nowhere to hide, and even a ghillie suit wouldn't save them on ground this wide open. They'd stick out. I wouldn't be taking hits.

"Oppa. They gone?"

"Looks like they left for now. Stay inside anyway, just in case."

"These are the Goblings I know, right? They show their faces, I'll wipe out every last one of them."

"...Don't get cocky."

Kim Sujeong was a C- rank Fire Mage. Even if these Goblings had a higher base grade, she could probably handle them if she stood and fought. The problem was that hunting meant magic, and fire-attribute spells would go flying — and weeds burned so well the whole field could go up. It was a vast stretch of them. Part of me figured that so long as the flames never reached the hut, I might as well torch it fast and be done. But I was cutting slowly on purpose, saving the basic resources and farming them as I went, so I had to be careful. I couldn't burn a stockpile of resources just because Goblings were a nuisance.

"You gonna be okay?"

Kim Sujeong asked, worried.

The life that had dropped to seventy percent climbed back fast, five percent a minute. That was S-rank Endurance. Mana recovered at a flat twenty percent a minute, but Endurance recovery scaled with your Endurance rank. Take a serious wound or a critical hit and you might not recover past a certain point, or the healing might slow — all sorts of factors got involved. Damage this light, though, S-rank Endurance handled without any trouble.

"This is Farming World."

If anything, the endorphins were kicking in. Farming World had always been this kind of game. It was true that before I received this map, I'd lost my sense of purpose. There was nothing left to do. No monster would even think of invading my mansion, and none spawned close enough to try. I'd cleared everything for dozens of kilometers around, built a city of my own, done the landscaping, laid out the villages, made the parks. Invasion events still popped up now and then, but they couldn't break through the NPCs on the massive walls ringing it all dozens of kilometers out, and the events were over before I ever went to look. So nothing like a goal ever had a chance to appear. All I did was keep a little vegetable patch the way you'd pass a quiet retirement, tending it and prettying it up.

Which was why, even when the Secret Farming Map came to me, I didn't have any particular goal. I'd gained an SSS+ Rank ability and could grow stronger in reality too, so I'd set leveling up and getting stronger as my objective — but it was hard to call that a clear goal for growth. Getting attacked by the Goblings, though, it felt like that old goal was coming back.

Funny, when you thought about it. Become the best in the real world. Clear a dungeon nobody else has ever conquered. Not goals like those. A goal ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was forming in this rift dimension that was no different from a game. So I really was more serious about Farming World, wasn't I.

"I'll kill every last one of them and make sure they never bother me again."

I'd make it so no one dared so much as look at my farm. To that end, I cut weeds with everything I had.

Fortunately, I'd picked up a knack for the cutting too. Less a knack than a skill.

I didn't have to travel the full hundred and fifty meters. That was only the maximum. If I wanted, I could move ten, or just five. Dump mana into Leap Cut, and dozens of meters of weeds fell in a single sweep. It wasn't the game feeling of one click and the cutting done itself. I was the one cutting while I moved fast, so it saved time more than it saved effort — but the feeling of the ground around me opening up that quickly was pretty satisfying.

Then something strange brushed across the sword.

"Kekekek!"

The sound arrived a beat late, and blood soaked into the weeds as they fell.

"Huh. What."

I'd only meant to cut weeds, and I'd accidentally cut down a Gobling hiding in them. I hadn't even managed it cleanly. Its lower half was half severed, and the sight of it losing its balance and thrashing on the ground was a little grotesque.

"Sorry about that."

There wasn't much apology in it. By way of atonement, I cut the neck of the Gobling shrieking up a storm.

A Gobling walked around like a person, but in the end it was a monster. The rags it wore, the weapon it carried — butcher one, and items dropped. Most Farming World players didn't care for Gobling meat, though. The build was close enough to a human's that eating it felt like cannibalism. I felt the same. There was plenty to eat without going out of my way for Gobling. So instead of butchering it, I only picked up what had dropped and went back to what I was doing.

After that once, cutting weeds got a little more fun.

"Hide real tight now. Don't let a hair show."

Was it my imagination, or did the weeds somewhere flinch?

"You in here?"

Every so often, when I snapped off the line I'd been cutting and swung the other way, a strange sound would come from somewhere.

"Kieeeeeek!"