The goblins were still searching for the killer proactively. Even after a day passed, they still didn’t give up on it. However, instead of feeling despair, it gave me an opportunity to become stronger. Even though there were no level and experience points, my stats still rose from performing repeated actions. This filled me with elation and confidence.

Crawling to the mouth of the hole, I found my target. It was a goblin as expected, but different from others I had seen. It looked taller than the juvenile goblins loitered around here. Aside from that, it also looked more buffed and a few tribal tattoos decorated on its shoulder blades and chest. From the looks alone I could conclude that this one’s strength. Probably twice as strong as the ones I had seen until now. However, I wasn’t afraid. I had an absolute advantage on these green things and that was being my magic skill.

Aiming at the goblin that was sniffing to the edges of the wall where my hole was, I cast my illusion skill.

-2MP

The target will be trapped in an illusion for 1 minute 45 seconds.

This was a different message than what I was expecting. Instead of two minutes, it was one minute and forty-five seconds, but after thinking for a while I understood. The stronger an enemy’s stats were, the less effect my skill would have on them. Unless my stats, especially INT stat overwhelm them, I won’t have the absolute advantage. This guy’s INT probably more than 1, therefore my skill’s duration decreased on it.

I came out of the hole and started to beat goblin with the white stick. As soon as my stick touched its head, a message popped up.

-1 HP

HP: 44/45

The HP bar appeared above the goblin’s head in my field of vision. This didn’t come to me as a surprise as much as the reduced damage did. With the stick, my damage output should be 2, yet, I was only able to deal 1 damage. Why was that so? The answer might lie in the thick skin of this goblin. Compared to other thin ones, this goblin had a higher DEF.

If you guys didn’t realize it yet, I will tell you something. It was the specialty of my “Cast Illusion”. Once you were affected by it, no matter what you do or someone else does, you won’t be able to escape from it. When I first used it, I didn’t notice this unique feature as that time I was fighting with my life on the line, only after thinking about it inside my hole did I realized that it had such a heaven-defying feature.

Thinking about it from a different perspective, I thought of a reason. While in illusion, the brain completely trapped in an imaginary world created by the skill itself. Inside that world everything that happens, the brain would think it's real and thus forgetting about the real body outside. Therefore, even though I beat the goblin to death, it didn’t show any reaction. When the skill duration ends, the brain already forgets everything that happened inside the illusionary world and resumes its activity in the real world as if nothing happened.

Of course, this was only my own speculation with no proof backing up the claim. Whatever the reason may be, it gave me a perfect opportunity to hunt and kill my enemies.

The goblin was taller than I was, so first I pushed it to the floor. With a loud thump, its head bumped against the walls, making a cracking noise. Since the wall was squeaky clean, I guess it was the goblin’s head made the sound. Sure enough, its HP instantly decreased by a factor of ten. But I wasn’t concerned about that. Coincidently it fell down closer to my hole, so I could escape in case of something unexpected happening. Raising my white stick, I aimed at the pupil-less eyes of the green monster and stabbed it down with all my strength.

You have killed a juvenile goblin.

+5 EP

Due to not having a frenzy mentality like last time, the monster fell to me quite easily. No epic combat, no struggling situation occurred. I had a complete advantage this time due to my humanisque thought process and the illusion skill. Even though this goblin was stronger and sturdier, it still fell before my cunning strategy. With the enemy dead, the only thing left for me to do was to eat my fill. But there was a slight hitch in my plan.

Unlike last time, I was fully conscious of my actions. The notion of eating something that vaguely resembles a “human” brought a different kind of rejection from within my heart. Right now, I was having a mental war with two kinds of thought processes. One was my human nature and the other was my newly awakened monster nature. The human in me was vehemently protesting about eating the goblin; however, the “Imp” me was more than eager to take a bite out of the delicacy before me.

But this fight only short-lived. I was feeling hungry and that’s the reason why I hunted this goblin in the first place. I didn’t want to die of hunger just because the human in me didn’t want to eat the meat. Eventually, a few rumbles from my stomach resolved the issue as I took a bite out of the goblin’s buffed up arms… somehow I knew that part would be the tastiest one.

To be honest, aside from the bitter taste of blood, the flesh itself tasted like grilled pork to me. Maybe it was because of my changed taste buds, I didn’t feel the need to vomit like what I have expected. That being said, I finished with my food and retreated to my hole before closing the mouth with the rock. Now it’s time for a short nap.

…

After waking up, like a daily routine, I checked my stats on the system. But all the stats were the same aside from the “Cast Illusion” which again increased by 0.02. I had to cross out “eat to grow strong” from the list of a monster’s abilities. Anyway, although I can’t increase my stats from just eating, due to being a weak monster in the first place, my growth rate was extremely high. From just working hard a little, I was able to increase some of my stats.

Take INT and STR for example.

After making sure of my stats, the next thing I did was going outside to hole to check on the status quo inside the dungeon. The first thing I noticed was the disappearance of the dead body of the goblin I killed. Not only it; nearly all the goblins from the vicinity retreated leaving behind a scarce few to loiter around and of course smelly feces. These goblins were way too unhygienic than I had imagined. They literally shit wherever they feel like it.

Due to this calm before the storm like situation, I didn’t feel any comfort from the lessened goblin activity. I have decided to be careful of my activities from henceforth. Especially when engaging with other goblins.

At that time, however, I wasn’t aware of the real reason behind the vindictive goblin’s retreat. There was something even more dangerous and vicious started to roam on the same corridors as us, the goblins and me. This new monster was much more vicious and powerful than I ever could beat in my frail impish body.

I continued my routine of stalking the goblins and applying my skill on them. And after every third usage, I would quite return to my hole and rest until my MP recovers. On a side note, my MP regain rate was one MP/min. therefore, by waiting quietly for seven minutes was enough to fill my MP bar to the brim and repeat everything again. The downside to this was I got hungry a lot quicker.

Inside the dungeon, covered in perpetual darkness all the time, there was no concept of day and night. The only way to calculate the number of days was to keep track of my sleeping routines. By now, assuming I sleep 3 times in twenty-four hours, I have already spent 9 days as an Imp. In these nine days, I have already made myself the national enemy of the goblin tribe. But, my strength also increased steadily in these nine days.

I have amassed 20 EP in total, at the same time my STR was now 1.5, not much of an improvement there. The same couldn’t be said for my INT and WIS though. Due to my repeated usage of “Cast Illusions”, not only the skill had reached level 2, but also increasing INT and WIS to five and three respectively.

Right now, my MP was 13. Making my casting frequency of skill increasing to 6 times.

However, the biggest gain I had in these few days was my increased knowledge over “Cast Illusions”.

At the same time, I also encountered my biggest tragedy yet…

An orc was seen loitering around the empty corridors of the dungeon that was my and the goblin’s home.