Ch 34 – Skull Cracking

"Spinslash!"

Gahan spun his sword as he activated his skill.

A white trail followed the blade as his sword spun 360 degrees, together with his body.

In a single move, Gahan decapitated 7 goblins.

'Where is he?'

He thought, searching around for his sole companion.

As the pair barged into a widening of the cave, huge flocks of goblins appeared from all sides. Before he knew it, they were separated. An infinite number of them kept coming regardless of how many he killed. He'd already lost count. It wasn't like he was getting tired or anything yet, but he knew the fatigue had already started accumulating.

"Hah!"

He barely avoided tripping on a corpse as he fought another wave of goblins. Taking a wild swing to deflect the goblins who took the opportunity to close down on him.

"GAh!"

A sharp pain arose from his left calf. A half dead goblin managed to stab him with a makeshift dagger with in its last breath.

"Surpass Limits!"

His sense of urgency rising, he activated his trump to mow down the goblins in front of him, before kneeling for a second to remove the dagger from his leg.

"Argh!"

He felt a tremendous pain as he pulled the dull stone blade, full of rough edges and protrusions out of his wound. Pulling it through his pierced armor was tough. The roughness of the metal edges and the difficulty of removing it were dulled by the skill he'd used. Making the strangeness of a stone dagger piercing through metal armor. His exceptional strength and stamina, together with his complete ineptitude for magic, made him unaware of the strength of the goblins he fought, far superior to the average goblin.

Surprisingly, no more goblins could be seen around. with the exception of a far corner of the room.

'That's where he is!' He thought as he heard the sound of Garth's blade slashing through flesh and bone alike.

He ran towards him, slashing through the remaining goblins.

"Are you okay?"

He asked.

"Kinda..." Garth answered, holding his right fist. "These fuckers aimed for the weak spots in my armor..."

"Yeah... Something similar happened to me."

"Did you ever see goblins like these?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do I mean? They were strong as heck!"

"Huh? I didn't notice it..."

"Oh, well... You are strong enough that it probably doesn't matter..."

"Anyhow... Do you have any potions?"

"Yeah."

"You should take one now... This was just the first room..."

"But we have limited..."

"Better short on those than dead."

"Ok then..."

The two slowly turned to the monsters.

"Should we harvest them?" (Garth)

"I mean... At least the proof of extermination and magic stones."

"Should we really get the stones though? It's a lot of work for little money."

"We are broke, remember? Get yourself the pocket money. Also, we can rest a bit since no more monsters seem to be coming."

"Ok."

The two proceeded to pile up all the corpses in a pile, each taking one at the time, cutting its left ear out, and removing the Magic Stone.

Magic stone was the way inept people called Manastones. When it came to Goblinkin, it was a very gruesome process.

The Manastone, besides being small, was harbored in the very middle of the brain, near the Hypothalamus.

Garth had a lot of trouble harvesting those... He was not exactly the best dismantler ever, and his sword was not large enough to easily pop the cap of a skull like Gahan's. Despite Gahan being able to do it the easier way, he found it quicker to crack the skull in half with his bastard sword and spit it in half with his bare hands. later cutting through the brain with a spare knife and taking the stone out.

After what one would consider an ungodly amount of time and blood, they finally finished the whole pile.

"How many are there?" Asked Gahan. He was pretty bad with numbers.

"We got 63 proofs of extermination and 57 stones..."

"Haah... I busted some again, didn't I?"

"Yeah... You really need to stop doing this..."

"Hehehe...."

"Anyhow... What do we do now?"

"We keep on going!" Gahan pointed to the next corridor with his sword and started marching in a very cliché way.

"Why do I even ask..." Garth slowly followed him... Wondering what they would get involved into next.

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The fuck are they doing?

<< They seem to be harvesting the goblins. >>

You call that shit harvesting? He's cracking fucking skulls like it's a birthday present!

<< Ah... You see... Monsters have a kind of magic core in them that allows them to use the Rank System. It just so happens that in Goblinoids the core is in the middle of their brain. >>

Oh... So, there's actually a reason for them doing it.

<< Yeah...?? What did you think? That they were cracking the skulls for fun? >>

I mean... Who knows... They got hurt so... Revenge?

<< You talk about me, but you are also a dumb fuck, aren't you? >>

Oh, go fuck yourself will ya?

<< I mean, if you want I could... >>

Er... You can, to be honest. For all I care you doing it only means more currency to get more of canon-fodder.

<< ... Why do you have to be like that? >>

Likewise... Anyways, how should we deal with the rest of the mercenaries?

<< I mean... They still don't know this is a dungeon... Shouldn't we capitalize on that and make some traps?"

I mean... We've already set quite a few haven't we?

<< Yeah... But like... Make the end part worse! Like, make giant axes swing from the walls and all that! >>

You spent a lot of time playing Dork Souls, didn't you?

<< Yeah... >>

God... I mean, it's not that bad of an idea but... It ought to cost a lot of EP...

<< When you look at it from that angle it does seem kinda expensive... >>

I mean... Make it simple right? Why don't we just make a fake floor and a huge hole underneath full of mobs.

<< You know Gaping Hole traps are incredibly expensive right? >>

Huh? Why?

<< Ah... Because you make it so that the person who's on it falls with almost 100% certainty. >>

Then what if we just make it a very shallow hole but beneath make a slanted floor that forces them onto the mob rooms and add something to make it slippery?

<< That's... Actually, pretty sound... Wanna re-activate price confirmation and see how that works? >>

Sure... Let's experiment a bit.