The Outlaw of the Level 0 Biome
The Goblings were busy.
"Don't see those rat bastards. Hehehe."
"Checked the sewers too. Don't think they're there."
"Gone somewhere else?"
"Maybe dead. Don't even smell 'em."
The Gobling village east of the Big Rats' territory was fairly large. Large—but the ground the Goblings actually held was not wide at all, and it could not be helped. To the east lay a domain they could not cross; stir the temper of the predator living there, and that would be the end of them. To the north and south, other predators claimed the land just the same. In the end, the only territory that looked even remotely manageable was the Big Rats' domain to the west, and if taking that had ever truly been possible, they would have pushed into it long ago.
The Big Rats themselves were not difficult for Goblings to handle. They were big and fast, tricky to face, but they were stupid—lure them properly, set a trap, hunt with a little cunning, and they could be managed.
The problem was Big Rat Mom.
On any day a Gobling hunted a Big Rat, Big Rat Mom came out with the pack to hunt Goblings in return. In truth the Big Rats weren't clever. Rather than attack, they preferred rooting up nearby crops or going after food first, and that was the only reason an uneasy peace held. Meet them head-on, and the Goblings could not win. So for all their numbers, they had lived out their days in a narrow strip of land, forever glancing over their shoulders.
Then, one day, the Big Rats vanished overnight.
For the Goblings, it could only be very good news.
Could it be a lure?
The Big Rats could not possibly possess that kind of intelligence, but caution never hurt, so they scouted with care. The result was plain enough. Nowhere—not in the sewers, not anywhere in Big Rat territory—could they find a single Big Rat, let alone Big Rat Mom.
The Goblings reached their conclusion.
"The Big Rats are gone."
Which meant, naturally, that the Big Rats' territory stood empty. The mood turned festive. But they could not let themselves be glad too soon. The laws of nature are cold. Predators do not vanish from a territory where they have been living well without a reason. Something might have erased the Big Rats.
What didn't fit was a hut standing in Big Rat territory.
"Trace here. Kerreuk."
"Human... I think."
"Human did the Big Rats?"
"It's a field. Kerek."
Someone had been living there. Someone had farmed. No one was there to see. They came back more than once, and still nothing presented itself, so for the time being the Goblings took the Big Rats' territory. If something changed, they could answer it when it did.
They were spending happy days on the widened land when, at last, they found the humans who had shown themselves.
"As expected. Kerruk. Humans."
"Kill them. Kill them."
"Don't look very strong."
What had them tense was the possibility of numbers. If there turned out to be more humans than Goblings, they would be troublesome to deal with. But only two humans were visible. A small fairy was with them, and she didn't look particularly strong either. Set beside the Big Rats—so huge that a spit attack only seemed to tickle, and they'd scratch and keep walking—these were far too easy.
Pshuk!
A glob of spit shot through the air and lodged square in a human's back.
"Kerellel. Hit."
"Human. Hurts."
One of the humans grimaced in pain. The other hurried into the hut.
This was hunting.
Remembering the years they had been squeezed on every side by predators, the Goblings swallowed their tears, and as if to spend that old resentment they slipped into the weeds in high spirits.
The Goblings are smart. Prey being few, and their blood being up, is no reason to charge in blind. Hunt with what they are good at. They were certain that slowly wearing a thing down to death was something they did better than anyone.
"Kehkeh. Human. Angry."
The angry human, as if it galled him that he couldn't catch them, started cutting down the weeds. To the Goblings it looked like nothing more than taking his temper out on the wrong target. They slipped clear of every stalk he cut, and though the human didn't seem to know it, ten Goblings had drawn a ring around him at a fair distance, ready to strike whenever they pleased.
How to hunt him?
Weak prey, for the first time in a long while—the Goblings were thrilled. Slowly, then. Draw tight around a human shaking with fear.
The strangeness began after that.
"Kiik? Human. Fast."
"What. When did he get over there... kehkeh..."
Sword in hand, he cut the weeds at a speed the Goblings could not follow. Where the human swept past, the stalks went down all at once, as if a wind had blown through.
It did not end there.
"Kerreuk!"
One point of the cordon they had been drawing around the human gave way.
"Gah! The human found us!"
"We've been spotted!"
The Goblings' way of hunting is thoroughly planned. However favorable the ground, they do not step out rashly and fight an enemy face to face. In that sense, this field of weeds was an extremely kind battlefield for them.
That no longer meant anything.
The human had read exactly where they were hiding, strolled up as if he hadn't noticed a thing, and cut.
"This is bad!"
"We have to run!"
"Kiek! Don't fuss! Might be coincidence. Kiek!"
Scared out of their wits, the Goblings still did not flee. The human was only one. They might have been caught off guard by chance.
"Hide real well, hide real well—or your hair will show~"
The Goblings could not make out what the human was saying as he wandered, but the tone of it, and the voice, put terror in them.
"Human... scary."
In this rift dimension, the Goblings ranked close to the lowest of predators. They had no great strength, but they had the instinct to live in a harsh dimension, and that instinct was ringing. A sense of wrongness. He looked small and frail, a human and nothing more, and yet somehow he gave off a dread worse than the predators living nearby.
"Kieeeek!"
The terror came true one by one. Every time a Gobling's scream rang out, it became real.
"Hide real tight, hide real tight~ Catch you, and you're dead~ You're still there, right? Please—still be there."
At first it was a pain. Then I spent the whole day cutting weeds and playing hide-and-seek with the Goblings, and somewhere in there I started to like them. Fondness crept in. I kept wanting to see their faces.
Honestly, the plan when I logged in that morning had been tidy. Finish sorting my things, teach Kim Sujeong how to farm, find the village, and pick up a quest to have on hand. Nothing grand yet, but I had my own objectives in the rift dimension, and reaching them meant spending time like a miser. One thing shoved aside for this reason. Another left undone for that.
In Farming World, there is no worse habit than putting off a goal you've already planned. So the Gobling variable—the thing forcing my schedule back—was a bad situation. Even if a quest to wipe out the Gobling village paid handsomely, the village restoration quest I meant to run had to stay the main line.
That said, I couldn't stuff Kim Sujeong and Ruru in the hut and go wandering by myself while the Goblings were pressing actual attacks. I needed at least a minimum radius to work in. One day on the surrounding weeds, then. Clear those, and Kim Sujeong could at least hit back, so long as a Gobling was somewhere she could see.
So I started. And the moment I happened to kill one, cutting weeds stopped being a cleanup job for widening the view around the house. It became practice—finding Goblings where they hid.
Was such a thing even possible? At the start, an attack flying out of a blind spot was something I could only just feel. Keep at it for hours, though, and that sense, if sense was the word, grew distinct. I was becoming familiar with exactly what it felt like when the space around me registered. Too far, and it failed me. Goblings inside a radius of about ten meters, I could feel. It wasn't as though I'd switched on some ultraviolet camera and started reading heat off a body holding perfectly still, breath locked in its throat. The sense answered the sound of them when they moved. And that was absurdly fun.
"So this is combat."
Combat doesn't have to mean hitting and getting hit. You search the opponent out. You read them. You take the weak point. It felt as though the SSS+ Rank passive, Master of Melee Weapons, was letting me know that the fighting I used to do—knowing nothing, leaning entirely on Farming World's system—had never been real combat at all.
Which meant I had to look for them like a man half-starved for it.
"They didn't all leave, did they? I still need the practice."
A pity. Kill about ten, and not one of them was left in sight. I even made a point of not closing in with Leap Slash, searching for Goblings and nothing else, and I still couldn't find one. Whatever had been here, I'd already finished.
"Be nice if they came back."
The EXP was quietly solid, too. My level climbed to 8.
"Master!"
When I got back to the hut, the front yard had opened up considerably.
"This should about do it, right?"
I gave Kim Sujeong and Ruru their orders.
"Heading to the village tomorrow. Farm, hang around outside, and if any Goblings happen to show, pretend you're taking a beating. Eat a few spit shots if you can, and give them a little hope. I beat the hell out of them today—not sure they'll come back."
"Goblings are extremely dangerous, Master. Please be careful."
"That's the idea. The more dangerous they are, the better they taste."
"...?"
"Oppa, I made food."
I stepped into the hut. Kim Sujeong had instant rice ready, a pot of kimchi stew with ham still warm beside it, and a fried egg to set on top.
"Well? Not half bad, right?"
"Why are you trying this hard?"
"I'm telling you, I think I really found my talent. This is for real."
She even washed the dishes, as if to show she meant it.