Eiro climbed down the side of the cliff while he turned into his shadow-mode and tried his best to stay hidden from any one of these goblins. It wasn't actually that hard to do, to be fair. Goblins weren't all that smart, and their perception wasn't the greatest either. And so, Eiro very easily found himself inside one of the small Goblin-Houses.
It did really reek like Goblin in here, even if the smell was actually far, far more tolerable than what he was used to from regular Goblins. And to his surprise, there seemed to be an attempt at actual 'furnishing' in here. A straw-bed, something like a rock table, and even a personal small firepit. None of it was of amazing quality, but it was better than what Eiro expected at first.
It seemed to him like the other places were pretty similar to this. But then, Eiro noticed something else that he had been somehow ignoring the whole time.
Most of the Goblins were wearing necklaces. And those necklaces seemed to be raw Magic Stones that simply had some thread pulled through them. Immediately once Eiro noticed this, he chose to investigate where they actually got those from.
And then he found the spot that he was looking for, where the smell of magic practically poured out of. "Nelli, down there, what do you see?" Eiro asked and pointed at one of the holes in the other cliff, and Nelli just squinted her eyes, "There's a lot of mana there... And even elemental mana of different sorts... It's pretty dense, but most of it is just being absorbed by that rock slab we found before." She explained, and Eiro couldn't help himself but smirk.
"Is that so? Elemental mana that is pulled through layers of layers of this rock..." Eiro muttered quietly and then quickly chose to make his way further through this Goblin Village. He kept hiding wherever he could so that he wouldn't gather immediate attention, all the whilst continuing to investigate whether or not his thoughts were right.
He made his way over toward the other cliff and climbed into one of the holes that he had noticed the scent of magic coming from. Once Eiro climbed in a bit deeper, he soon found what he was looking for. With earth magic, he scraped away at the surface of the rock to reveal a yellow crystal underneath.
"Wait, don't tell me-"
"It's a Magic Stone mine. Change of plans. Instead of just killing all these guys, I might have a better idea." Eiro announced, and quickly climbed back out of the hole before looking around. It seemed like a coincidentally pretty good time to get started with this.
The Demon kept climbing across the cliff-wall and made his way over toward the place where the nine hobgoblins were currently sitting. A lot of other goblins seemed to be gathered there as well, fighting each other while the hobgoblins were watching and enjoying themselves.
Eiro figured he could just watch for a while to see what these guys could do. It seemed like there was something like a duel going on at the moment, made up of two pretty frail goblins fighting each other, seemingly until death.
He couldn't help himself, so Eiro just took off his mask to press his nose shut from the disgusting stench of their blood. Eiro really didn't know why goblin-blood smelled so horrible, but if he was going to go through with this idea, he had to have them all evolve soon to get rid of that stench in their blood. Because while Hobgoblin blood also smelled pretty bad, it was still pretty bearable. It wasn't as bad as... this.
Soon, one of the goblins finally died, and one of the hobgoblins stood up and stepped over toward the corpse of the goblin that lost. It pushed its fingers into the goblin's chest and pulled out its heart with its bear hands, before holding it up above its head to let the green, murky blood drip down its arm.
It yelled something out, in the language of Goblins, but it didn't seem to important for now. Maybe Eiro would try to learn it soon, though, because he doubted that any of these Goblins would be capable of learning the Common language anytime soon.
With an annoyed sigh, Eiro watched as the Hobgoblin handed the heart to the winning goblin, which immediately devoured it without a second thought. While it was eating, the goblin corpse was thrown into the crowd of other goblins that started to take it apart before it even landed.
While the winning goblin finished eating, another stepped up into the small 'arena', and the fight began from new.
"Hmm. All the goblins that are fighting seem pretty weak compared to the others." Eiro muttered quietly, and in the end simply shrugged before climbing down onto the ground. And with a casual step, Eiro simply made his way through the group of Goblins and just lightly smiled at them as he pushed his way through.
"Sorry, could I get to the front for a moment? Yes, thank you." Eiro said, while the Goblins were staring at the sudden intruder, that then proceeded to just jump into the arena.
The two goblins standing in there interrupted their fight and growled at Eiro, while the eight 'weaker' Hobgoblins stood up, seemingly ready to kill the Demon.
"Haha, I doubt you want to do that." The Demon pointed out, before quickly pushing his Life Force into his legs, hip and lower back and then hit his foot into the ground. He used the force to expell extra mana and crack the rock that they were standing on open to loosen it up.
Then, those rocks were quickly taken control of by Eiro and were then floating above and beside him. The Goblins seemed to hesitate for a moment through this, but the two Goblins that were supposed to fight right here still chose to attack Eiro nonetheless. And the next moment, with absolutely obliterated skulls, the Goblins fell to the ground after they were attacked through Eiro's earth magic.
[Lethal Damage done to Mountain Goblin]
[Lethal Damage done to Mountain Goblin]
"Oh, Mountain Goblin!" Eiro exclaimed, "So it really was just a variety to a regular Goblin, huh?" The Demon pointed out as he continued pressing his nose shut.
But while Eiro was reading the notifications, he was quickly attacked by one of the Hobgoblins. Of course, it was still far, far weaker than Eiro was. Even if Eiro had himself be hit by the Hobgoblin, he probably would have taken very little to no damage. But instead, Eiro simply covered his hand in rock and chose to give the Hobgoblin a quick punch to the jaw, which was then laying a couple of steps further away on the ground, while the Hobgoblin started screaming.
"Sorry, you're a bit noisy, so shut up please. I want to get this over with quickly." Eiro suggested, before covering the Hobgoblin's head in rock and making it crush it to a pulp with numerous cracks sounding out as its skull was obliterated.
[Lethal Damage done to Mountain Hobgoblin]
[You leveled up!]
[You have 55 unused stat points available]
With a satisfied smile at randomly leveling up despite not expecting himself to, Eiro stepped over the Hobgoblin's body and casually walked over toward where the others were. At this point, the regular Goblins were too hesitant to attack Eiro. After all, he just easily killed one of the beings they thought were the strongest in this world, so there was no way that they would be able to find the courage to attack him.
The other Hobgoblins still needed to find that out for themselves, however. "Sure, I think I can spare half of you to set an example." Eiro pointed out, and then immediately proceeded to split the rock up into smaller pieces that were floating next to Eiro's hand.
And the next moment, the Demon threw rock after rock toward the heads of these Hobgoblins. One of them was hit right at the side of its head and fell to the ground unconscious, but not dead, another one was blinded, and another one lost most of its teeth.
Without hesitation, Eiro then stepped up to those Goblins and smashed their heads with the rest of the rocks that were still floating next to him.
[Lethal Damage done to Mountain Hobgoblin]
[Lethal Damage done to Mountain Hobgoblin]
[Lethal Damage done to Mountain Hobgoblin]
Eiro looked around, and soon saw that even the other Hobgoblins were stopping to attack him, "Oh, you all really are smarter than regular goblins, huh?" He exclaimed, "At the very least, you realize that you'll die if you dare attack me!" Eiro pointed out. And that's what he assumed, although the very next moment, he found that there was still one that was dumb enough to try just that.
And that was the top-dog of these guys. The 'Lord' of this village. He stood up from the rock slab and stepped into the arena. He was actually a bit taller than the other Hobgoblins, so that he was just a bit shorter than Eiro himself.
"Hello there! Nice to meet you, I'm taking over your spot from now on!" Eiro exclaimed with a bright smile, and the Hobgoblin simply stared at him with a deep glare, "Redskin... no scare... Gobo. Gobo... strong. Redskin... weak."
With a surprised expression, Eiro raised his brows and started to look this thing up and down a bit more closely, "Hmm, you know how to speak Common, huh?" He asked, and instantly spotted the thing that showed Eiro what exactly was going on. At the back of the Hobgoblin's neck, the Hobgoblin had the remnants of a tattoo that had been cut through unevenly by claws. Eiro recognized the pattern, it was the kind that some tamers used to bring monsters under control.
"I see, I see." Eiro muttered, and then just started to smirk as he realized what this meant, "Seems like that's why you're the leader. You know what a terrifying, controlling leader is like. Seems like through you, this place progressed pretty nicely as well."
The Hobgoblin took the rusty sword that it had in its ripped-apart sheath and chose to try and swing it at Eiro, but the Demon had another idea. Without hesitation, Eiro simply punched him in the center of the chest while pushing a slight pulse of mana into the Hobgoblin's body. Immediately, the Hobgoblin's body stopped moving and tensed up, while he dropped the blade to the ground.
"At least Enka was good for this kind of stuff. Seems to be really painful, huh?" Eiro asked the Hobgoblin, even if he knew that he wouldn't be able to answer anymore.
The Hobgoblin fell to the ground in writhing pain without taking any actual damage, and Eiro chose to just press its foot right onto the back of 'Gobo's head to press it to the ground. "Sorry, little fella. This place is mine now."
