Dead Goblins

Mark sat down to skin a goblin warrior. The traders only took the skin of the monster since it was good for leather crafts. As for muscles and bones, they didn't want it. So, Mark would only get rid of the skin and take it.

Skinning a monster was taught in the academy using the corpse of actual monsters. The first time he had to try it, he and the other students that were doing it too vomited ferociously. Now, he didn't even bat an eye when he sliced through the entire monster's body.

Once the goblin was fully skinned, he checked for 2 different things. The first, a mana stone, and second, a Monster Marble. Mana stones were rare in of themselves while the Monster marbles were even more so.

However, that was not to say that Monster Marbles were more valuable than mana stones. While incredibly rare, with hundreds of thousands of people hunting every day, there were a lot of Monster Marbles that were sold in the market.

Goblin Monster marbles were more so readily available than any of the other ones. This was also the reason why he never sold his 10 goblin marbles back at home as they were practically worthless.

He saw that the dead goblin had a mana stone and no Monster Marble, so he let the 5 know about it. They were looking at him the entire time, probably to check if he would steal any, so there wasn't even any point in letting them know.

Mark would never steal stuff from them anyway. He needed this job so much that he wouldn't risk his license for a mana stone or two.

They continued walking through the dark cave-like dungeon, fighting stronger and stronger monsters. They met goblin warriors, goblin wizards, and goblin archers. They were all stronger than normal goblins and more sought after.

After skinning these too, the group finally entered the boss room.

Inside was a single hobgoblin, standing around, doing nothing. The moment it saw the door open and 5 people and 5 monsters walk in, it got alert and held up its club, ready to fight.

The younger girl's hobgoblin itself was a threat for the boss of the dungeon, when you added the other 4, it had no chance of survival at all. Through brute strength alone, they were able to beat the hobgoblin.

With the tiger and hobgoblin's raw strength and the monkey's slashes coupled with the Kobold's spear, the hobgoblin died way too easily. Even Mark was quite surprised at how easy it was.

'Does the slime even get experience? The boss didn't even get to touch it,' he wondered.

Once the boss fight was over, Mark skinned the boss but didn't find anything inside.

"That's a shame, let's go once more," the eldest of the group said and walked out of the dungeon to redo the dungeon.

Outside of the dungeon, they separated their loots. Once again, another group completely forgot about the porter. Only when they saw him, in the end, did they remember to give him something at all.

Mark looked at a couple of goblin skins and 4 mana stones. 'That's much better than yesterday at least,' he thought.

The group went back to the dungeon once again. Over the course of the day, the group hunted the dungeon 3 more times for a total of 4 runs.

With this, he got about 14 mana stones, 2 goblin Marbles, and more than a dozen of goblin hides. They also got a goblin warrior Marble, but they kept that to themselves.

'Well, at least they aren't as stingy as the others,' he thought. It was around 3 pm now, and the group decided to go into the dungeon for one more hunt.

The entire way through, the group was very relaxed. They had enough experience with the dungeon and nothing phased them anymore. By the time they reached the dungeon boss, they had defeated over 50 goblins.

Finally, they reached the boss room once more and started to fight.

Mark stayed by the wall with his goblin, as usual, waiting for the group to finish fighting the boss. However, they were getting a little too lax with the fighting at this point.

Knowing that they had the raw power to win no matter what, they were starting to show openings in their attacks. And the boss was getting in more and more attacks. Suddenly, the boss started to smash down on the slime with a rather strong force.

As the club was coming down, the monkey cut the boss's hands a little, making him lose his grips. As soon as he left the grip, however, the club slipped out of the boss's hands and flew all the way to where Mark was.

Mark got scared. Immediately, he ducked down, hands over his head, getting out of the way of the incoming club.

BANG

He heard the club hit the wall and fall down on top of him. He also heard 'oh no's from the group of people. By the time he managed to remove the club from on top of him, they had already managed to kill the boss and were near him.

"Are you alright?" one of the girls asked as soon as she got to him.

Mark felt himself all over and realized nothing was wrong with him. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm not hurt at all," He said.

"We are so sorry man, it's all our fault," one of the men said.

Although Mark was a little angry, he still understood how this was just a mistake and not their intention, so he replied, "It's okay. This stuff happens all the time."

"Re- Really? This happens a lot?" the man asked.

"Yeah, goblin archer's arrow flies at me all the time. Although, this is the first time I was so close to getting hit.," he said.

"Wait, so that is common too?" the youngest girl said as she pointed to the wall behind him.

Mark turned his head backward, not sure what she was pointing at. But when he saw what was there, his eyes turned wide. "Oh no," he said as saw the large red spot on the wall.

The flying club had accidentally hit Mark's goblin, smashing its head and torso along the wall. Only the legs were remaining. Even though he was used to seeing bloody scenes all the time, this one still made his stomach churn.

"M-My goblin," he said in a daze. The goblin was his, ever since his fight started as a porter over a year ago. It had been with him forever, and now it was gone. He didn't really like the goblin all that much, and always wished he would find something better.

But even then, seeing his goblin die, he felt a little sad.

"That is that," he said as he pushed aside his emotions and said, "Can I ask one of you to help me carry the things?" he asked.

"Sure, let's use my hobgoblin," the youngest girl said and called over her hobgoblin. Everyone else just took back their Monster Marble which disappeared into their body.

Mark quickly carved the skin on the boss and found a pigeon-sized mana stone. After that, they got out of the dungeon.

When it came time to distribute the loot, they added a little extra for him.

"We are sorry about your goblin. Please accept these 3 goblin marbles instead," the eldest man said as he gave 3 goblin marble, 4 mana stones, and quite a few goblin hides.

Mark accepted and said his farewell, leaving the group of 5 and going home.