Chapter 39: Guild Quest
Chapter 39: Guild Quest
It seemed neither Sara nor Diana had any objections to my proposal to hunt the Goblin Transcendent.
Diana wasn't particularly interested in dungeon diving in the first place, so she was leaving everything up to me, and Sara didn't seem to oppose it either.
I felt a little bad, since she must be eager to get stronger as quickly as possible to face the Demon King.
But I wasn't doing this just out of stubbornness.
Confirming this was crucial for all our future explorations.
If this gimmick turned out to be real, there was no guarantee that we wouldn't encounter more paths with similar mechanics.
No, there would definitely be more.
In fact, it would be stranger to think this was the only place with such a gimmick.
The wolfdog penis we currently had might also be an item with a hidden mechanic like this.
Considering that even the knowledgeable Diana was unaware of it, I figured it was safe to assume no one else knew.
If that was the case, it meant we could gain a significant advantage over others in our future dungeon explorations.
In other words, while it might look like we were taking a detour, this could actually be a stepping stone to descending through the dungeon much faster.
And so, our party headed back to the goblin encampment, taking the same route as yesterday.
I wondered if we might run into Kanna and her party on the way, but we didn't.
She said their party had six members in total, so maybe they usually hunted on a lower floor?
In any case, when we arrived at the encampment, the guards from yesterday were, as expected, nowhere to be seen.
Alright, so what now?
Hunting them the same way we did yesterday was impossible.
But we did have one clear advantage over yesterday: escaping was much easier.
I was now fast enough to outrun the goblins even while carrying both Diana and Sara.
Okay. Poking and prodding them like yesterday could take forever for the boss to show up. Should we just go all out and cause a real scene today?
“Diana, can you cast that fire magic spell from yesterday multiple times in a row?”
“Hm? Its rate of fire is slower than Magic Arrow, but I can cast the spell itself as many times as I wish.”
“Great. Then today, let’s just create chaos from the front.”
“What? Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Sara asked.
“It’ll be fine. We can just run away the second it feels dangerous.”
So, unlike yesterday, this time we stood right at the entrance of the goblin encampment with Sara in tow.
It started the same way.
Goblins began to swarm toward us in a frenzy in response to Diana’s fire magic.
But unlike yesterday, we didn’t run.
Sara’s now-stronger attacks picked off the goblins before they could get close, while Diana prepared another fire spell.
I stood slightly ahead of Sara and Diana, dealing with any stragglers that got past Sara’s arrows.
With Saint’s Touch, there was no chance of Sara or Diana being in any real danger.
My eyes wide, I focused all my efforts on dodging the white fluids flying through the air as I fought.
Having to focus on both attacking and dodging seems to be leveling up my Martial Artist job faster.
Before, I had just been pummeling monsters with overwhelming force, so my Martial Artist level had been stagnating. It seemed you couldn't raise a job level just by killing monsters.
With flashy movements, as if performing a wild dance, I weaved through the exploding liquids around me, my hands and feet a blur.
While Sara and I dealt with the monsters, Diana finished her spell and launched another blast of fire into the encampment.
Hm. Not bad.
I could clearly see the goblins were more panicked than yesterday.
It would be great if this was enough to draw the boss’s aggro.
After fighting like this for a while, we finally started to see figures in the distance who were better armed than the others.
Though, “better armed” just meant their crude gear had a bit of iron mixed in.
Yesterday, only these guys came out, and the boss never showed.
Still, they were appearing much earlier than yesterday.
Even for a bunch of idiots, had they learned something after getting hit so hard yesterday?
Was it time to start running?
Just as I was about to call out to Sara and Diana to retreat, having perfectly mastered the motion of carving out Magic Stones, a hypothesis popped into my head.
Come to think of it, what if these guys are something like the boss’s personal guard?
The Wolfdog Transcendent had been surrounded by females, after all.
It seemed like a plausible theory.
The problem was, back with the wolfdogs, we couldn't handle the surrounding mobs on our own and only survived thanks to Diana's overwhelming power.
We couldn't count on that kind of luck this time.
In that case, wouldn't it be better to clear out as many of these guys as possible now, rather than running away?
That seemed better than facing the boss while these things were swarming all over the place.
I stopped my body, which had been turning to flee, and faced forward again.
They just seemed to have slightly better gear; otherwise, they looked like ordinary hobgoblins…
Are they stronger than regular hobgoblins?
There was only one way to find out.
Swoosh!
As I tensed up, preparing to face them, an arrow from Sara flew past me from behind and pierced a hobgoblin’s thigh.
…Right. Okay. Thanks for the heads-up.
So they weren't much different after all.
Maybe they were just lucky enough to have scavenged some adventurer’s gear.
I relaxed and charged at them.
Still, they were wearing armor, however shabby.
It was only natural that it took a little more time to deal with them than with regular hobgoblins.
Diana stopped attacking the encampment and joined in the fight against the hobgoblins, but the number of enemies just kept increasing.
Okay, is it really time to bail now?
With no time to carve out the Magic Stones, I stuffed the corpses of the hobgoblins I’d defeated into my inventory and shouted.
“Guys, let’s bounce!”
“Mm.”
At my words, Diana naturally spread her arms, waiting to be picked up.
Sara glanced at her with a complicated expression but, given the situation, said nothing and turned to start running.
“Hmph. It seems it won’t come out even after all this commotion. Are you truly certain a Transcendent exists here?” Diana asked nonchalantly, looking over my shoulder at the goblin horde chasing us.
“Well, I think so. If not, then there’s nothing we can do about it. Let’s just invest today in it, and if it doesn’t show up, we’ll give up.”
Honestly, I was almost certain it existed, but investing days on end for a creature that might never appear was a waste of time.
Sara must be eager to keep descending and growing stronger; I couldn't keep holding her back here.
That said, I planned to do my absolute best to wreak havoc today.
We moved between several locations, raising hell, but the boss never showed its face.
The goblins, having been provoked yesterday and today, finally seemed to have learned their lesson. At the last spot we hit, the better-equipped ones were already waiting for us from the start.
Sigh… Should I just give up?
It was also getting quite late.
I guess this is it. Let’s try one more time, and if it doesn’t show, we’ll head back.
Our party returned to the first place we had caused a disturbance.
The area looked quite chaotic, but perhaps they were letting their guard down, thinking we wouldn't return to a place we'd already hit. There weren't many goblins on patrol.
We could still see a few of the armored ones scattered about, but compared to the last place we visited, their numbers were a drop in the bucket.
“Should we just go inside?”
An idea struck me. Instead of fighting out in the open like this, it might actually be safer to break through and wage a guerrilla war among the huts.
I wasn't sure before, but now I felt confident we could break through their lines.
“Hmph. That does sound amusing. Since this is our last attempt anyway, it wouldn’t be so bad to go out with a bang.”
“I agree. Let’s do it,” Sara said.
Not just Diana, but even Sara agreed, having gained confidence from today’s battles.
In fact, Sara’s job level must have gone up, because her damage output was noticeably higher than it had been this morning.
And with the outrageous insurance of 75 bonus stat points if things went south, there wasn't much to fear.
Our party quickly formulated a plan.
It began with Diana chanting her explosion magic.
“Hey, guys! See you again! Hope you’ve been well!”
When Diana was partway through her chant, I piggybacked her and approached the entrance, taunting the goblins.
Sara added a few arrows to the mix, and the enraged goblins immediately charged toward me.
And right into the path of Diana’s fully chanted explosion magic.
Mm. Toasty.
The blast of hot air from the explosion, which detonated at close range, was intense enough for even me to feel it. For the record, Diana, the caster, had buried her face in my back while on my shoulders, completely hiding behind me and avoiding the heatwave entirely.
So that’s why you wanted a piggyback ride this time.
To be safe, she had left a minimum amount of mana in reserve, so she’d used less mana than before, slightly reducing the spell’s power. Still, it was more than enough to wipe out the clustered enemies.
I gestured for Sara to follow, and together we plunged through the smoke and into the nearest hut.
Even though it was the "nearest," we had to go in quite a ways since Diana had burned down several huts during the day. But the hobgoblins had been swept away by her explosion, and the remaining ones were no match for either me or Sara.
When we burst into the hut, we found a goblin with a strangely large head in the middle of a… very good time with a female goblin.
“Keereek?! Ki, keereek!”
“Ugh! My eyes!”
The sight of a naked male and female goblin rolling around, locked in an embrace, was nothing short of an assault on my eyes.
Overcome with a sense of duty to remove these two lovebirds from my sight as quickly as possible, I swung a furious fist at them as they stared back, too shocked to even pull apart.
Of course, I did so with my eyes slightly averted to avoid searing the disgusting image into my memory.
“Kureeegh!”
My rage-fueled full swing instantly killed the female, but the big-headed male surprisingly didn't die in one hit.
But that was all he had.
Sara fired an arrow from behind, and I followed up with a flurry of punches.
I even activated Saint’s Touch, just in case he tried to resist.
Since his junk was still buried inside the female, I didn't have to worry about any semen flying around this time.
Caught in our joint attack, the goblin flailed helplessly without putting up any real resistance before collapsing pathetically, still embedded in the female.
“Hoo… Bastard. Well, at least he died fucking, so he probably has no regrets.”
Unlike the other poor saps who died while jizzing their pants before they could even touch anything.
I swear I will never die like that.
“Mm. Well done. With this, our objective is complete. You truly are a lucky one.”
“She’s right. Let’s get out of here quickly.”
“Huh? Wait.”
What were they talking about?
My eyes had been so assaulted that I’d deliberately avoided looking too closely while I was beating it, but now I saw that it wasn't just its head that was big.
Despite being completely naked, it was wearing a strange skull necklace.
It was the kind of necklace that screamed, "I'm a shaman."
Wait, does that mean this thing was the Transcendent?
Shouldn't a Transcendent be sitting in the middle of the encampment, looking all imposing? What was it doing screwing around in here?
A dozen questions swirled in my mind, but as Sara said, getting out of here was the top priority.
I quickly stuffed the creature’s corpse into my inventory and hastily fled the scene.
No matter how numerous they were, they couldn't fill the gap that quickly. Fortunately, not too many goblins had gathered yet.
Without even thinking about collecting Magic Stones, I protected Sara and Diana and broke through their lines.
*
“So why was that thing in there, anyway?”
Having escaped to a safe location, our party took out the corpses from the inventory to harvest the Magic Stones.
“Hm? Wasn’t that what you were aiming for? After the ruckus you caused this morning, it must have come out as the chieftain to see what was going on.”
I see. So it stayed hidden when it was dangerous, and only when it thought things were a little safer did it slink out to "comfort" one of the females.
And we just happened to luckily ambush it at that exact moment.
For a goblin, that was a surprisingly clever response.
Of course, it was clever for a goblin, which is why it ended up like this.
Come to think of it, it didn't feel strong at all for a Transcendent Species. With its big head and shaman-like attire, it must have been an intelligence-type monster.
As I pulled the Magic Stone from its corpse, the skull necklace it had been wearing dropped, along with its penis, which had been erect until the moment of its death.
“In the end, your prediction was right, Guwon.”
“Yeah.”
I was already sure of it, so there wasn't much joy in being proven right.
The stubborn desire to prove myself from this morning had also cooled down with time.
Instead, my attention turned to the item that had dropped for the first time in a while. I checked its stats and found it was a necklace with an ambiguous +3 to Intelligence.
“Diana. You want it?”
“Are you being serious?”
It seemed that even a magic-obsessed person like Diana had no desire to wear something like this.
Then again, if she just went back to the home she ran away from, she probably had mountains of items that would put this to shame.
Though I had successfully obtained the goblin’s penis, I decided to postpone confirming whether it was really a key until tomorrow.
After all, it was hard to imagine anyone else figuring this out.