3 (III) The Goblinslayer? HA!

As I ventured into the crevice, it was pretty wide inside the deeper I travel, GI GI GI was the constant sound that I heard. It was how they talked, the goblins, that is...

the cave was dark, full of moss on the walls, the sound of dripping mixed with the vulgar laughter that echoed,

As my focus was on the noise they were making, I ended up stepping on something thanks to how difficult it was to see, a sharp pain suddenly attacked my foot. I quickly covered my mouth to block out of scream, it was a spiked trap that mutilated my foot as it was now split at the center that reached towards my toes vertically.

my reaction made me drop a couple of my arrows from jerking back, so I quickly grabbed them before scurrying away.

I quickly tried hiding sticking close to the wall using three of my limbs that weren't ruined as a goblin scout was able to hear the slight noise I made and decided to investigate.

I took out my crude bow and nocked the two arrows that I held. I understood that I wasn't sure it was going to hit, but better safe than sorry, as I pulled on the string aiming towards the nearing goblin.

my blood attracted the goblin as it reached the area. There was no sign of the prey it had hoped to eat as only a small pool of blood covered the trap, nothing more.

so it looked around searching for the next possible meal, it had hoped to find a blood trail, but there wasn't any thus, it snorted before resuming its patrol. The injury their traps can give can make the victim bleed out eventually, so maybe it'll be able to find the victim after its patrol.

I took a few deep breaths before releasing a sigh to ease my tense body before relaxing my pull on the string. My foot was halfway healed now, there were only 18 arrows in my quiver, so I can practice a little using them.

there was one thing I noticed while scouting and watching some of these goblins. They were better equipped compared to the three I killed earlier!

on the bright side, the patrols are lax and shitty as there were so many ways to sneak past them. I just needed my foot to heal up and figure out where are the traps placed and possibly use it to my advantage.

When I healed up enough, while my eyes remained on my enemies every few steps then scanning the areas I will step at next, as I may heal fast, but the pain isn't something one can ignore so easily, I really don't like pain at all.

Using the darkness, I blended with it, and the occasional shadows from campfires used to took the skewered human bodies rotating over the fire and scouted their base.

the base inside of the cave had numerous pillars and wooden walls. If they had more guards, there wouldn't be a single blindspot in the defense, so either they lacked the numbers to make better use of it or the goblins were too busy doing something else and were that stupid.

I found my next target. It was a goblin that was dozing off during its watch at one of the entrances, so I sneaked up from behind as quietly as possible before using one hand to cover its mouth and the other to stab my dagger into its vulnerable neck. the goblin struggled a bit but it stopped after some time I lugged the monster onto my shoulder to a spot that was dark, and no one else was at, before claiming my spoils what I got were some dried fruits, more armor which was a leather chest piece and another weapon.

it was a shortsword it was pretty sharp a in really good condition too. I equipped what I could and put my club and dagger into my satchel, which had sort of 'ate' it!

Well, this satchel is something, I should check it out more thoroughly later!

I quickly searched for the next target, and I found another at some sort of pit.

So I tried something with my crude bow while taking aim at a goblin that was beating something since it stayed in place so I fired three arrows. One went over its head which made it pause for a bit to check what just happened. My second planted itself into my target's back, then my final one as it seemed like it was about to scream that was meant for the head struck the throat.

This forced it to make silent gurgles rather than the scream to alert the other goblins, and I nearly got myself in trouble there when my first shot missed. I almost panicked there for a moment.

When I reached my destination of loot, the goblin I killed the sight was enraging there were numerous bodies of women there young, old, fresh, rotting but there were two things that each body had in common, first off they were brutalized I wouldn't have recognized them as women if it were for the second one, the shriveled bellies, a large number of umbilical cords, as their genitals were overused, the area I was at was a trash dump/food storage.

the goblin I killed was beating up a woman with long ears, blonde hair, petite frame. It was an elf.

it was already too late to save her as her face was deformed beyond repair. The rest of her body looked as if someone enjoyed stabbing the hell out of her.

just like the tens of bodies around me!

what I felt at the moment was anger... so much that I wouldn't be satisfied just by killing these as hunger that burned me from the inside grew.

Gigigigi was the sound I heard behind me, so I quickly hid while fueling my fury, forgetting about the dead goblin that I just left there. I held an arrow in one hand with my shortsword in the other, and my tail was ready to strike as well.

but the Goblin held a bottle swaying as it walked to the pile of bodies before taking another swig for the bottle, then released a loud burp as it enjoyed the buzz.

it was drunk!

it removed its loincloth and pulled out one of the mutilated bodies. This one was of a young girl whose mouth was left hanging open as cloudy fluids covered it. The drunken goblin was using the body like a sex doll...!

I readied my blade, pulling my presence, and steadied my breathing lest I give my position away. It didn't take long as the goblin that was humping away at the mouth of the corpse before spasming in pleasure.

This was the perfect moment given to me.

So I charged as silently as possible. Soon enough, my blade dug deep into the back of the goblin before my tail wrapped around its neck, then stabbed my arrow into the crown of its head!

This time, I was a little too noisy from the messy area, as the other goblins were releasing frantic GiGi sounds...

I returned to hiding since they heard me. However, not noticed my real location.

So I left their trash dump and searched for another good place to hide at, and there was a broken-down house in this godforsaken goblin den but what got my attention the most was the multiple pained cries begging to stop. As the sound of 'plopping' could be heard...

I grit my teeth while I moved to the house.

Hoping it wasn't what I thought it was, but the reality was always a cruel thing.

When I climbed the house and looked through one of the gaps in the ceiling, the sight was just pitiful.

The victims were limbless women who were mercilessly being gang-raped by these damned goblins. The women had their eyes gouged out with numerous cuts and scars on their bodies, swollen bellies, and they weren't really mentally there anymore.

All they said was 'No more' whenever their mouth wasn't being used...

as if that's all that they remember to say...

I wanted to jump down and end this, but I restrained myself. I knew that I wasn't all-powerful or some kind of hero, but who knows, let us check my current status. I may have something that can help me here.

Name; ????(Mark Dalius)temporary

Race: ????

Title: Cursed by !@:$"%

SKILLS...

Regeneration Level 1[+]

Sharp claws level 1[+]

Natural Armor level 1[+]

Sneak level 0

Assassinate level 0

Increased strength level 0

Well, I'll be damned. I got more skills all greyed out though but still, what's with the skills with the bracket and plus sign..?

I focused on the regeneration one, and a sudden surge of warmth spread throughout my body that nearly made me moan out and give away my position.

Luckily for me, I managed to stop myself, and my skill increased one level that made me feel... stronger for some reason?

so to prove my thoughts, I left the area and tried stabbing one of my arrows into my arm, which it failed to do until I applied more pressure.

So I quickly opened my status again and did the same to the other two skills, just that this time it didn't feel good. As a matter of fact, it hurt a lot!

my sharp claws looked my sinister than before, but it still wasn't as good as the shortsword in sharpness. As for the natural armor, my tail grew a little longer and seemed sturdier than ever, and when I was done, the other skills that were greyed out had gained color.

so I'm guessing it now was affecting me?

But I won't be taking any heavy risks compared to the current one I was taking for even sneaking into this place but that didn't mean that I wasn't going to be killing any more goblins, no no no, I'll be killing them silently until i empty this cave out completely as they would separate, sleep, relieve themselves eventually.

So like a patient hunter, I Killed and assassinated and hunted them, by the time there was only half of them left they realized that they were missing some of their members, but that didn't help them i continued to wait and gained a level for all of my skills and started using my tail and claws more as it turned out the sharp claw skill affected the tail too.

upon reaching level three, it was comparable to the shortsword both in sharpness and durability, the natural armor at level two was currently unable to handle the iron shortsword, but other than that, any of the other crude weapons were useless against it but until it reaches level 3, I ain't going to charge in blindly.

the sneak skill made it easier to stalk them and assassinate them. As for the increased strength, it doubled my current power makes me wonder what will happen if it becomes level 2. Will it be double again or just make me three times stronger?

One of the goblins decided to use a certain method that made me nearly snap. The limbless pregnant women were tied to large wooden shields before a goblin that held a staff and wore a robe with a face mask spoke in words that I understood.

"ς๏๓є ๏ภ ๏ยՇ ค๔שєภՇยгєг~ ฬє кภ๏ฬ ץ๏ย คгє Շђєгє~ เŦ ץ๏ย ๔๏ภ'Շ ς๏๓є ๏ยՇ ร๏๏ภ~ ฬє ๓เﻮђՇ ђคשє Շ๏ кเɭɭ ๏ภє ๏Ŧ Շђєรє ɭ๏שєɭץ ɭค๔เєร Շ๏ รђ๏ฬ ןยรՇ ђ๏ฬ 'รเภςєгє' ๏ยг гєợยєรՇ เร~"

I stayed silent as it was dangerous to head out, so sorry, ladies, but if you are killed, at least you'll be free, and they'll join you shortly since I intend on killing them all...!

The robed goblin waited a bit before looking towards one of the goblins and nodded. It smiled widely before pulling out a jagged blade then stabbed it into the swollen belly of the woman causing the numerous goblin children inside of her to come spilling out as they all began wailing.

as for the woman they weren't done with her yet as they knew how to prolong her suffering a common method that worked on all of the stupid adventurers that didn't know better if the person killing the other members was a female they'd use her to replenish their numbers as women care for one another in this world especially for those of the same line of work.

If it was a male, then more food for their kin and just have to make the remaining 'incubators' work harder...

That's just how their side of the world works.