Vance stood and watched in amazement as the little goblin grabbed its first kill of the day. He expected it to struggle against the Gadgeteer and thought that it would need his help for a second time. But reality shattered these pessimistic predictions. Timathor raised its dagger and stabbed the Gadgeteer in the neck. Blood gushed out as if from a geyser, and the Gadgeteer fell to her knees before she lay lifeless on the ground.

Battle Result You gained a boosted 1500 EXP.

Having smelled the fresh blood, Timathor couldn’t resist a quick snack, and it began to feed on the corpse. When Vance approached, it looked up and then hung its head low with guilt. It thinks I wanted the first bite. Vance chuckled and said, “Don’t worry about it, little buddy. I’ll pass on this one.” He laughed and patted its head. The only real problem is the mess you made. He looked at the pool of blood on the ground. I’ll need to do some cleaning before someone passes by.

Vance asked Timathor to move aside for a second. Then he dragged the dead Gadgeteer to the bushes and undressed her. He knew that Timathor had no problem eating her clothes, but he needed them for a reason. As the substitute for cleaning towels, they began to absorb some of the blood splattered on the ground. When they were soaked to the limit, he threw them away among the bushes. Then he covered the remaining traces of blood with dirt and mud. By the time he finished cleaning, Timathor had gobbled up half of the Gadgeteer’s corpse and become full to the brim.

“Ow-jahmaar-baikahj!” the little goblin exclaimed.

Vance looked at it through his monstroscope and realized that it leveled up to level 8. It’s got more potential than I expected. He smiled. But there’s much for it to learn before it can fight on its own.

“Come with me for a second, Timathor.”

“Ow-grechen-Vance?”

“Come on.”

The two walked into the bushes together and found the Paladin’s untouched corpse. Vance ordered Timathor to sit next to the cold body. Then he took the steel dagger and pointed it at the girthy neck, just as a teacher would point at a blackboard chalked with lessons. “You get critical hits by attacking the neck, and I’m sure your instincts are telling you to aim for this spot,” Vance said, imitating a stabbing motion. “But you’re too short. And when you jump, you become an easy target for the enemy.”

“Enami?” Timathor said.

“Yes, the enemy,” Vance said, pointing at the Paladin and then the half-eaten Gadgeteer. “Your enemies are taller than you, so you need to fight with that in mind.” Vance pointed at the Paladin’s knees. “You first aim for the back of the knees, where there is usually no armor.” He imitated a slashing motion. “Then you aim for the thighs and the groin.” He pointed at them and imitated a stab. “In the last fight, you went for the Gadgeteer’s neck too early. If she had been a bit more experienced, she could’ve killed you.”

“Enami!”

“That’s all you learned from what I said, right?” Vance smiled. “Enemy.”

“Enami! Enami!”

Vance raised the Paladin’s corpse and put it against a tree. He placed each of the Paladin’s arms on a branch so that the body remained upright. Then he gave the steel dagger back to Timathor and said, “Show me what you’ve learned, Timathor. Attack!” The goblin looked confused and didn’t move. Well, I expected as much. He grabbed its hand and walked it over to the corpse. Once there, he said, “Attack!” Then he moved its hand and cut the Paladin’s knee with the steel dagger. “Attack!” he repeated and thrust its hand forward until the dagger pierced the Paladin’s thigh.

“Ataag! Ataag!” Timathor said. “Ow-ataag-hujma!”

Vance let go of its hand and repeated, “Attack!”

This time, Timathor reproduced Vance’s earlier moves. It cut the knee and then stabbed the thigh. The outcome was very satisfying. Vance repeated the new magical word, and Timathor did the same thing again.

This was only the start of their combat training. In the next four hours, Vance drilled several moves into the clever little goblin. He associated different words with different actions and conditioned Timathor to execute them on his command. Attack, charge, disarm, escape, evade, kill, parry, and retreat were all inserted into the local goblin dictionary, each with its uniquely adorable mispronunciation. Timathor was so receptive because it was still a child, and it absorbed every lesson in a matter of minutes. Its style remained unpolished, but Vance knew that it would improve with practical experience.

And speaking of experience …

After the training intermission, the two returned to their gruesome hunt. Vance, however, became less involved with each kill, and Timathor gained a spot in the forefront of the deadly skirmishes. Receiving guiding commands from Vance, it killed five Warriors, three Assassins, two Pyromancers, and one Trickster—most of whom were first weakened by Vance’s sneak attacks. Every other kill, Vance would give Timathor a few instructions, and it would refine its crude style. Occasionally, it would need a quick rescue and a healing potion, but these instances became rarer and rarer, especially after it reached level 10.

By dusk, Timathor had climbed to level 15, while Vance had collected enough experience to level up at the shrine. Twenty corpses were scattered among the trees and the bushes, only a few meters away from the road. But there was no need for Vance to clean up this mess. Nature had its own cleaners—the Royal Moths. They were already gathering, lured by the smell of death. A lot of bones would remain after they were done feeding, but there was also no need to hide these remains: anyone who examined the crime scene would notice Timathor’s footprints and deduce that the fatalities were caused by repeated goblin attacks (a conclusion that was in a sense true).

Deciding that it was about time to head back home, Vance overstuffed a dead adventurer’s backpack with valuable items—his well-deserved loot from the killings—and he didn’t forget to retrieve the expensive sword and shield of the fallen Paladin. (The platinum armor he left behind, because it was too heavy.) There was around 650 gold’s worth on his back, and this amount was just enough for him to form and sustain a few beneficiary connections with the city guards in Cromsville.

I’ll give each an advance of 50 gold and then trickle 5 more every week. That way, they will cooperate more readily with Raine. Or is 50 too much for an advance? He scratched his head. If I pay only 30 gold and raise the weekly amount by a few silver coins, assuming I need to bribe five guards … He was about to lose himself in the math, but at that moment, he heard an ear-splitting noise that forced him to abandon the calculations.

“Baikahj! Baikahj!” Timathor was screaming, as it watched the Royal Moths feed on the corpses. “Huuth-kluchen-baikahj! Enami! Enami!”

“We have food at home,” Vance said. “Let them eat.”

“Ow-ataag-huuth! Enami! Enami!”

Its only incentive to fight is food. Vance grabbed the goblin’s hand and pulled it away from the corpses, preventing it from starting a fight with the moths. The book was right—once their stomachs are full, Gray-haired Foragers just want to hoard the food and live on it for days. (The fact had been mentioned in chapter two.) But I won’t let this happen here. Timathor needs to forget about food. It should fight to get stronger, not to fulfill its basic needs. The little goblin screamed at the loss of so much food, but Vance tightened his grip on its hand and dragged it away. The weak live by instinct, the strong by self-discipline.

After the corpses and the moths disappeared, Timathor stopped screaming and struggling. It sunk into the passivity of depression and walked almost like a drowsy sloth. Vance planned to work the night shift at the tavern and then visit the shrine of Thurvik, but the childish behavior—the slow pace and persistent broodiness—meant that he wouldn’t even make it home. Eventually, he had to stop. He bent to his knees and looked Timathor in the eye.

“Listen, little buddy,” he said, “you’re a fast learner, and you’ve got a lot of potential. So don’t let me give up on you here. Let’s go home, all right?”

“Hoom?”

“Yes, home,” Vance said. “I decided you’ll stay.”

Timathor didn’t understand these momentous words, and it continued to brood over the lost feast as if it had been more valuable. In the end, seeing no realistic alternative, Vance abandoned his backpack, marking its approximate location on his map so that he could return for it later. Then he lifted the little goblin and sat it on his shoulders. Ironically, the move made the goblin cheer up a little. It smiled and laughed in amusement, just like a human child. “Oh, now you’re full of the joys of spring, huh?” Vance swayed right and left, and Timathor laughed even more. He headed home with the little rascal on his shoulders, wondering what fate had in store for the two of them.

***

On the next day, Vance woke up with sore muscles and a pulsating headache. These symptoms had nothing to do with the previous day’s battles, however. No Paladin, Gadgeteer, or even Trickster could’ve harmed Vance in such a way. The soreness was in fact caused by the subsequent actions of the two troublesome children whom he kept close: Nathan and Timathor.

Last night, Nathan had invited his friends to order ridiculous amounts of food but never showed up for work. Vance was forced to cook thirty meals back to back—as if he had joined a spartan cooking marathon. The tavern keeper and waitresses, who made significant profits through bills and tips, thought that it was a nice practical joke. And they laughed a lot when Nathan showed up at the end to order the thirty-first meal. But Vance didn’t appreciate the extra work, which wasted his time and energy, and he hated nothing more than the useless perfectionism with which he prepared every dish.

“I hope you had lots of fun today,” Nathan said, leaning through the kitchen window at midnight. “I know you love cooking.” He then turned to face Bianca, who was placing a stack of dirty dishes on the window, and added with a blush, “I wanted to m-make things exciting around here. Everyone th-thinks the night was a-awesome. They s-said I plan the best p-parties, he he.” Bianca didn’t give him any attention, so he turned back to Vance and said, “Why don’t we do this more often?”

“Why don’t you drop dead?” Vance smiled.

After this hectic shift, Vance leveled up at the shrine and returned home to face more trouble. While he was at work, Timathor somehow managed to steal the map to the Tombs of Solario. The map was stained with human blood, and it might have been its smell that motivated the theft. By the time Vance retrieved it, the marks on it had already been smudged, and he couldn’t determine where he had left the loot-laden backpack. In the end, he was able to retrace his steps and find his lost treasure, but he returned home only one hour before dawn and flopped down as if he would never get up again.

A cooking marathon and then a forest marathon … He wiped his sleepy eyes and stretched in bed, grateful that he had survived the last night but annoyed that he had slept with his shoes on. The things you endure for your little goblins. He sighed—referring to both Nathan and Timathor. I don’t feel that great, but I won’t spend the day lazing around. I need one more level, and Timathor needs to reach level 20. He left his bed, changed the dirty bed sheets, had breakfast, and prepared himself for an excursion. I think we’re ready to head into the tombs.

With a bag full of potions and essentials, holding hands with Timathor, Vance left the ruins of the Moon Temple and headed to the excavation camp. The trip through the forest didn’t take long, but he made a detour to avoid the spot where he had murdered adventurers on the previous day. I don’t think their remains have been discovered yet, but I gotta be extra careful. The detour led him across Rambler Stream, past the entrance to Mossfall Cavern, and through a copse of thorny trees called Sadist’s Delight.

Throughout the most part of the trip, Timathor was quiet and obedient; but when the excavation camp was near at hand, its attitude worsened, and it became tense and irritable. It can probably smell the crowds of people at the camp. Vance realized how much stress a human settlement caused a goblin. I would’ve preferred it to wait closer to the camp, but I don’t want it to get a fear debuff for the rest of the day … That would be problematic. Accordingly, he decided to part ways with Timathor. “Stay here,” he said, lifting it up and sitting it on a tree. “I’ll be back.” He tied its arm to a branch and gave it a piece of beef to busy itself with. Then he left the forest and walked along the road.

The excavation camp soon appeared from behind a grassy hill. Its outer ring consisted of twenty sleeping tents, each spacious enough to accomodate fifteen people. The middle ring comprised the temporary stalls, where Church healers and traveling merchants set up their services. And the innermost ring had the headquarters of the archaeologists, which also housed a small museum and an information desk. A flimsy wooden barricade surrounded the entire camp, and a few guards were snoozing near the only entrance. I guess monster attacks are rare in this area. The forest with all of its moths acts as a buffer.

Vance entered the camp and walked toward its innermost ring. He stopped at the merchants’ stalls, where he purchased a few pieces of light armor and a short spear—an assegai made by the Masra tribe. Then he followed a few signs and found the information desk that the archaeologists had set up. A large banner said that the service was free, and rookie adventurers congregated for guidance and advice. Their classes and gear varied considerably, but they all shared an aura of determination and seemed to have a strong sense of purpose. In other words, they were the kind of people who would either die first in battle or survive to have a long and successful career. And Vance felt that it was wrong for him to stand with them in the same line.

When it was his turn, a mustached archaeologist greeted him, received his inquiries, and began to explain, rather mechanically, “The Tombs of Solario are an ancient labyrinth of great complexity. As is the case with the caves in the area, you should expect frequent encounters with slimes and rare encounters with bat-like monsters. Please refrain from wandering too deep underground, especially if you are below level 10. There are five entrances. One to four attract the most adventurers. Five leads to the last active tomb guardian.”

“A tomb guardian?” Vance said.

“Yes, Kogelstein is its name.”

“Is it strong?”

“No, but it’s indestructible … in a sense.”

“What do you mean?”

“Even if you defeat it today, it will just respawn tomorrow,” the archaeologist clarified. “The solar elves’ engineering is behind that. We could’ve dismantled the old mechanism, but the guild asked us to keep it active. You see, Kogelstein serves as something like a final boss for new adventurers. When you defeat it, you know you’re ready to leave the tombs and accept jobs.”

“I see. And what would it take to defeat Kogelstein?”

“Level 15 is recommended, but many train till 18.”

“Does it get a lot of challengers?”

“Ten adventurers tried their luck today, but they all failed. I expect at least 20 more people to try before sunset. Kogelstein doesn’t chase you once you’re out of its chamber, so it’s perfectly safe.”

“I just need to run out of there when things get ugly.”

“Exactly,” the archeologist said. “We report an average of only 2 deaths every year. There is no safer boss fight in existence.”

No safer boss fight, huh? Vance smiled, “Thank you.”

“My pleasure. If you want to support us, please visit our museum, where you will find the fruit of 20 years of excavation work.”

“Another time, maybe.”

Leaving the information desk, Vance began to hatch up a fun plan.

***

The fifth entrance into the Tombs of Solario was a square hole in the ground surrounded by slabs of cobblestone and ceremonial metal pyramids. The stone covered the ground with a uniform layer, while the pyramids rose like prickly thorns. A stairway led underground. Whoever descended it first found a long, narrow corridor, whose walls were covered in writings that the solar elves left behind—their history and achievements, proof of their rise before demise. Then the corridor ended, and a burial chamber appeared with high walls and Mana-carrying glass pipes and an assortment of sarcophagi.

Into this funerary chamber, on a sunny day in spring, a young adventurer advanced with poise and self-confidence. He was equipped with a one-handed sword and battle-ax. A glowing iron belt—an item sold by the Church—kept his immediate surroundings lit at all times, and more than seven healing potions were stuffed into his leather bag. Like many rookies, he didn’t wear as much armor as a Warrior should, but he at least protected his elbows and kneecaps with steel couters and poleyns.

“Kogelstein! I challenge you to a fair fight!”

The adventurer walked between two rows of sarcophagi, each placed on a raised beveled base, and headed to the center of the chamber, where Kogelstein was said to dwell. He tightened his grip on his weapons and prepared for the confrontation with the guardian—the event that could kick-start his shining career as an adventurer. But when he finally reached the spot where Koglestein should have been waiting, he found a disappointing surprise.

“What happened here?” the adventurer said, unaware that his thoughts had leaked as words. “Is this … the tomb guardian?”

In front of him, there was a large pile of rubble—a miniature hill of shattered rocks—and at its top rested an orange-brown eight-faceted gemstone. It was Kogelstein’s core. The guardian had once stood five meters tall, with a body made of six spherical rocks and with two cannon-like arms that fired bullets of gravel; but now it was indistinguishable from the surrounding debris. It had already been defeated for the day, but no one had notified the camp of this fact.

“For Amirani’s sake, I had my hopes up!” The adventurer stamped on the gemstone. “Ugh! Tomorrow it is.”

“It won’t respawn tomorrow, my friend,” a sinister voice said.

The adventurer turned around and found Vance sitting on a sarcophagus.

“Huh? Who are you? And why wouldn’t it respawn?”

“You see those glass pipes?” Vance pointed at the chamber’s wall, where the pipes were shimmering with a blurry cerulean. “There used to be two jade orbs that collected Mana from the air and pumped it through these pipes.” Vance then pointed at a machine that hung from the ceiling like a chandelier, and he continued, “Every day, that thing above us would fire a beam to reawaken Kogelstein. But with the orbs gone, it won’t work anymore.”

“And what happened to the orbs? You broke them?”

“They broke when Kogelstein went berserk.”

“Seriously? It went berserk?”

“Yeah,” Vance smiled, “and you were its eighth victim.”

Equip Spectre. Vance jumped off the sarcophagus. With three nimble steps, he had circled around the adventurer and slashed across his defenseless back.

“Easy! Easy! What kind of bad joke is this?!” the adventurer shouted. “That took away a third of my HP!” He turned around and waved his sword, but Vance had already melted into the dark. “Are you crazy or something? I’ll report you to the guild!” He raised his sword and ax, assuming a defensive stance. “Do you know who you’re messing with? I’m Kaz—the prodigy who defeated ten slimes on his first day. The Ten-slime Hero!”

Vance appeared behind Kaz and kicked him hard on the butt. The adventurer tried to maintain his balance, but after a funny totter, he fell forward, slid on the stone ground, and came to a cushioned stop.

“That’s where you belong, Mister Prodigy,” Vance said, walking out of the shadows. Kaz opened his eyes and realized that he had fallen among human corpses. An ear-piercing scream resounded through the chamber, and then Vance continued, “Right there, next to the guy who defeated nine slimes and the girl who defeated eight. You’re all very, very gifted, aren’t you?”

“Your joke’s gone too far,” Kaz said, shaking the dead bodies. “You even hired these actors to pretend they’re dead. Ha … Ha ha ha! You thought I wouldn’t notice because it’s dark? Ha ha ha! So … Mark Weiss wants to scare me shitless, huh? Did he hire you to get his potions back? You can have them! Take them all, but leave me alone. I have better things to do than waste time on this charade.”

Vance laughed and said, “I’ll leave you alone if you prove yourself.”

“Prove myself?” Kaz stood up slowly.

“That’s what you’re here for, right?”

“I …”

“See that goblin over there?” Vance pointed with his spectral dagger.

Timathor stepped out of the darkness, passing over the rubble that had been Kogelstein. It wore a one-horned steel helmet and several pieces of light armor. Vance had personally picked them and modified them to better suit its unique needs—paying careful attention not to burden its small body with too much weight or restrict its movements with too many impediments. As for weapons, the little goblin held a steel dagger in one hand and a short spear in the other. It snarled and growled at Kaz, and the hanging shadow of the steel helmet made its expression much more intimidating than usual.

“You’re free to go if you kill that goblin,” Vance said.

“That little goblin?”

“Yes. It’s the new Kogelstein.”

The words seemed to restore Kaz’s confidence. “Everyone’s jealous of me,” he said. “And you … you’ve been hired to humiliate me, right? You want to make it so that a pygmy goblin defeats me. You even gave it armor and weapons.” He laughed and turned to confront Timathor. “But you’re forgetting that I’m the Ten-slime Hero. I’ve already cleared entire goblin nests on my own, so you can kiss your pathetic little monster goodbye.”