In the dense forest northeast of Songmu Town, sunlight filtered through layers of leaves, casting mottled shadows on the ground covered in decaying foliage.

CRACK!

With the sharp snap of a dry twig, a squad of goblins, brandishing rust-spotted weapons, pushed aside the bushes blocking their path.

They chattered away, their hoarse, grating voices filled with unconcealable excitement.

If not for their hideous faces and the fresh bloodstains on their weapons, their cheerful demeanor might have made them look like a group of travelers on an outing.

The lead goblin was gesticulating wildly, as if explaining something, when suddenly, a cold glint of light flashed from the bushes behind it.

SWISH!

The goblin’s ugly smile froze on its face as a thin red line appeared on its grayish-green neck.

The next second, its head thudded to the ground, and blood gushed like a fountain, spattering the surrounding fallen leaves.

"GAK-GAK-GOO!"

Before the other goblins could react, several more silver flashes streaked through the air.

Their terrified screams died before they could escape, turning into bloody gurgles in their throats.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

As the bodies fell one after another, Roland flicked the blood from his Longsword and slowly furrowed his brow.

’Just now, they seemed to be saying... something about... moving?’

These were different from the silent, frenzied goblins he had encountered while hunting with Dalko in the forest.

This group of goblins had no strange red markings on their bodies, and their behavior seemed much more normal.

That’s why, while lying in ambush, Roland had used his Animal Companion Trait to listen carefully to their conversation.

Unfortunately, the goblins’ intelligence was truly limited.

Their conversation was not only jumbled but also frequently intermittent.

It took Roland great effort to barely catch the keyword "moving" from their fragmented speech.

This reminded him of the Red Squirrel in the forest named Qiao.

Since changing his class to Hunter and Awakening the Animal Companion Trait, that squirrel was the most intelligent non-human creature he had ever met.

Shaking his head lightly, Roland put aside this memory, which was irrelevant to his current mission. He then deftly dragged the small, green-skinned monsters into the nearby bushes.

After confirming they had nothing of value on them, he drew the Dagger from his belt, cut off their ears one by one, and placed them in a pouch on his hip.

’This is the fifth patrol already...’

Roland scanned his surroundings warily. Once he confirmed it was safe, he let out a soft sigh and pulled a slightly crumpled commission request from his coat.

Mottled sunlight shone through the gaps in the leaves, falling on the lines of scrawled handwriting on the parchment.

’Exterminate the goblin camp...’

Roland’s brow gradually furrowed.

’Such frequent patrols, such tight defenses... is this really just a camp?’

After checking the coordinates on the parchment again and confirming he was indeed at the location specified in the request, Roland refolded the parchment and put it away.

He then lowered his body and continued to move cautiously through the dense woods.

Although with his current strength, he could easily handle dozens of goblins at once,

a lion uses its full strength even to hunt a rabbit.

He wouldn’t let his guard down just because of the large gap in their strength.

As he ventured deeper, he encountered two more goblin patrols.

Thanks to the bonus from Adaptability Training, Roland’s Agility Attribute had risen to seven, almost on par with his Power Attribute.

This allowed him to move through the dense jungle like a phantom, each strike precise and fatal.

A glint of cold light flashed, and the goblins from both patrols were dead before they could even sound an alarm.

’Twenty-nine...’

Roland counted silently in his head.

With goblin patrols organized in groups of three to five, he had already annihilated seven squads along the way.

The progress for the quest to kill one hundred hostile creatures, required to change his class to Warrior, had quickly advanced from zero to twenty-nine.

Under the effect of his Theory and Practice Trait, his Lion Swordsmanship Experience Points had also increased by nearly seventy.

Compared to his usual progress when training with the Preparation for War Trait, this rate of improvement was astonishing.

As he continued forward, Roland suddenly caught the sound of a commotion up ahead.

He immediately crouched down and crept forward, lightening his steps.

The soles of his boots made no sound as they pressed against the soft, decaying leaves.

He finally stopped in front of a thick bush.

His slender fingers gently parted the branches, and he looked up.

Before him was a forest clearing that had been crudely developed.

Seventeen or eighteen hovels, slapped together with branches and mud, were crammed together crookedly.

At the edge lay a pile of corpses, gnawed beyond recognition. Judging by their tattered clothes, they must have been passing merchants, Mercenaries, or Adventurers who had come to hunt them.

Dozens of goblins scurried back and forth in the camp like ants moving house.

Some were roughly stuffing stolen utensils into baskets, the sound of shattering pottery rising and falling.

Others were fighting over a piece of moldy jerky, tearing at each other until their mouths were bloody.

Viewed from above, the entire camp exuded a morbid vitality, like maggots writhing in rotten wood.

In the very center of the camp, a goblin wearing a Bone Necklace was screeching orders.

It was similar in size to the others, but its murky yellow eyes glinted with cunning.

Whenever a goblin moved too slowly while carrying something, it would leap up and viciously whack the offender on the head with its Bone Staff.

’So they really are moving... but where are these goblins going? The Black Pine Forest?’

As Roland mused to himself, he narrowed his eyes and carefully counted their numbers.

’One, two, three... thirty-one goblins...’

He counted under his breath, his mind racing with calculations.

’Judging by this scale, if the number of Demons in the Dogman Lair is comparable to this goblin camp, then after completing these two commissions, I should have enough kills to change my class to Warrior...’

At this thought, Roland licked his lips in excitement and his right hand reached for the Short Bow at his waist.

This bow was crafted under Hawke’s guidance before he set out, and it perfectly suited his handling preferences.

The deep-brown Zhe Wood Bow’s body had been meticulously polished. It bore no extra decorations, save for a few wraps of leather cord around the grip.

Though its appearance was plain and unadorned, it felt far more natural to use than the Short Bows he had previously borrowed from John and Dalko.

The only thing Roland regretted was that, perhaps due to a lack of practice time, he had never managed to Awaken any woodworking-related Skills.

Roland calmly nocked an Arrow, drawing the Bowstring back steadily until it formed a full moon in his hands.

TWANG!

With the dull thrum of the released Bowstring, the Arrow shot through the air like a bolt of lightning.

With the aid of a Full Level Basic Archery, killing a stationary target was as easy as flipping his hand.

In the next instant, the goblin chief with the Bone Necklace around its neck let out a bloodcurdling shriek and staggered backward.

The sharp Arrow had pierced its eye socket with precision, embedding itself deep in its skull. Blood gushed out immediately.

The goblin chief, who just moments ago had been screeching orders, gave a few twitches and then fell silent forever.

Before the remaining goblins could recover from their shock, a continuous series of whooshing sounds filled the air.

One sharp Arrow after another flew toward them, almost without pause.

Amidst a chorus of screams, the goblins’ expressions shifted rapidly from confusion to terror, and finally to a complete breakdown as they began to scatter and flee.

Seeing that the little Green Skin monsters could no longer mount any effective resistance, Roland stopped hiding.

He swiftly drew the Iron Sword from his waist, his agile figure leaping from the bushes. He charged into the routed goblins like a fierce tiger, his Iron Sword tracing cold arcs of light in the sun.

Within just a few minutes, all thirty-one goblins lay dead in pools of their own blood.

Roland flicked the blood from his sword, scanned the bodies littering the ground to ensure there were no survivors, and then slowly sheathed his weapon.

’Easier than I expected.’

Roland crouched down and casually sifted through the loot scattered on the ground.

There were crude wooden clubs with sharp stone fragments tied to them, a few rusty Short Knives, and several Long Spears sharpened from animal bones.

These shoddily made weapons weren’t even worth a single copper plate, which made him frown.

’I guess you can’t expect anything from these poor-ass Demons...’

He muttered under his breath and was about to stand up and leave when, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a dilapidated wooden chest next to the goblin chief’s corpse.

The chest was half-buried in the dirt, its surface covered in scratches, looking as though it had been dragged about roughly.

Roland pried open the lid with the tip of his sword, and a few Copper Coins immediately rolled out with a jingle.

His eyes lit up. He bent down to look and found a messy pile of a few Silver Coins, a small handful of copper plates, and...

’These guys...’

He couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

The box was stuffed with all sorts of shiny but worthless junk.

A few brightly polished shells, some colored glass beads, and even half of a broken mirror.

These "treasures" were carefully wrapped in rags and mixed in with the coins.

At the very bottom were even a few packets of iron nails rusted to the point of corrosion.

’Classic goblin taste.’

Roland shook his head and pocketed the Silver Coins and copper plates.

’Three Silver Coins and seventy-two copper plates. Add the reward for the goblin ears, and it’s a handsome sum.’

’No wonder all those Mercenaries and Adventurers flock here, even knowing the danger.’ 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

After confirming there was no more hidden money, Roland expertly cut off the left ear of each goblin and put them into a special leather pouch.

He then retrieved the Arrows he had fired, wiped them clean, and placed them back in the quiver on his back.

After carefully checking the battlefield to make sure nothing was missed, he immediately headed back quickly along the route he came.

After tossing the bulging loot bag onto his horse’s back, Roland deftly mounted, pulled out a yellowed parchment map from his coat, and studied it carefully in the twilight of the setting sun.

Once he confirmed the precise location of the Dogman Lair, he gently spurred his horse and galloped toward his destination.

「Two days passed in a flash.」

In stark contrast to the goblin territory, Roland didn’t encounter a single Kobold patrol while traveling through this part of the forest.

The unexpected ease of his journey allowed him to quickly reach the location marked for the mission.

When he cautiously parted the dense bushes before him and gazed at the dark cave, he couldn’t help but freeze.

The clearing in front of the cave was a mess, littered with various daily utensils and items left behind.

Inside the cave, there was no one, only jumbled footprints. A wisp of smoke still drifted from a campfire in the center, proving that creatures had been living here not long ago.

Roland bent down and held his hand over the fire to test it.

His Heart of the Furnace Trait made his Perception of Flame temperature extremely acute.

’Still some warmth. It seems they left not long ago.’

This discovery prompted him to immediately exit the cave and start investigating the surrounding area.

After a careful search, he finally found a series of messy Kobold tracks in the mud to the southeast, leading deeper into the forest.

Roland slowly stood up, his brow furrowing involuntarily.

’If I remember correctly, this direction...’

It seemed to perfectly match the area of unusual Demon activity mentioned in the Adventurer’s Guild’s latest commission.