Goblin Butcher

“Lu%@...#...”

(Goblin Language: When can we go back to sleep? I still want to go make babies with that woman we caught earlier...) A goblin at the cave entrance sighed lazily.

“Gulu... ka...”

(Goblin Language: Why do you guys always like human or elf women? I think the girls of our own kind are pretty good too.) Another goblin seemed even dumber, its mind clearly prioritizing the wrong things.

However, perhaps because its brain was smaller, it consumed less physical energy, making it look much more energetic.

When it heard a topic it was interested in, it perked up even more.

“Wuru, nuo...”

(Goblin Language: Female goblins are too thin and tiny—skinny and stupid. A thick, meaty mate like those is my ultimate pursuit.)

This goblin with the slightly larger head clearly had higher standards, though only slightly.

Differences among goblins could be vast, but generally speaking, none of them were particularly intelligent. The Church of Truth had once studied creatures like goblins.

A Truth Sorcerer had discovered that the cause was likely a trend of self-deterioration in the goblin bloodline. Only by producing the next generation with more perfect mates of other races could this degradation be delayed.

Furthermore, Truth Sorcerers found that goblin genes had an exceptionally high compatibility with elves, followed by humans, then gnomes and dwarves, and lastly gremlins and goblins themselves.

Thus, goblins possessed an innate, instinctual desire for beautiful elves and humans, and the same applied to female goblins.

However, due to their evolutionary disadvantages, female goblins were extremely rare in number. This led most adventurers to believe that goblins had no females and could only reproduce by abducting women.

“Gunuolaoluoluo...#.”

(Goblin Language: I just think having a relationship with food is disgusting.)

The small-headed goblin was the product of a mating between a goblin and a troll. It possessed great strength, but low intelligence.

“Gana na#... Wu!” The big-headed goblin was somewhat speechless, feeling that its colleague had just insulted the chief.

Just as it was about to retort, a flying stone slammed into its head, knocking it down before it could even finish its sentence.

Even in death, a faint smile remained on the corners of its mouth.

“Lu...” Shocked, the big-bodied, small-headed goblin whirled around, instinctively opening its mouth to shout an alarm.

However, another stone lodged right into its open mouth. Though it didn't kill the creature, it jammed its throat so tightly it couldn't utter a sound.

What came flying next was truly fatal—following right behind the stone was a scorching Fireball.

Unable to dodge, the oversized goblin took the Fireball head-on. It could only die in grief alongside its gatekeeper friend.

Before dying, its thoughts turned to the female goblin waiting in the nest for its return: ‘I'm dead... who's going to want you now, Nuobala...’

Naturally, its worries were completely redundant, as Ogre would soon send that female goblin to keep it company.

“Ogre, that trick of yours is incredible,” Lange praised quietly and genuinely from the side.

He was truly astounded by Ogre's move.

Both stones thrown just now had come from Ogre. If it were up to him, he certainly couldn't have pulled it off.

“Go block the other cave exits. Stick to the plan,” Ogre ignored Lange's praise and instructed the next steps of the operation.

In truth, throwing a stone with such lethal effect was quite simple—all it took was ninety-nine percent hard practice combined with a one percent hyper-speed dynamic vision. Nothing to brag about.

The urgent task now was to quickly arrange for the squad's two knights to patrol and block the other entrances. Ogre had carefully observed the terrain earlier; there were only three exits in total.

Thus, the plan was simple: he would charge in through the main entrance, while Folke—the strongest—would act as backup at the entrance (since interior cave environments were unfriendly to mages). The secondary exits would be guarded by Lange and Serandic (whose knightly stamina suited them for hunting down scattered targets one by one). This setup guaranteed maximum extermination.

“Got it,” Lange replied, though he resolved in his heart to practice this trick once he got back—killing 'people' with thrown stones from nearly a hundred meters away was way too cool.

If Ogre knew what he was thinking, he would probably just laugh off Lange's youthful mindset.

Besides preventing the goblins from shouting an alarm, his initial ranged strike was mainly because the armor on Lange and Serandic made too much noise. Sending plate-armored warriors on a stealth attack would easily allow the goblins to escape.

Goblins evolved quick escape skills, and every surviving goblin possessed a wealth of experience in running away. If startled directly, wiping them all out might prove impossible.

So this really wasn't Ogre showing off his skills.

“Understood!” Serandic clenched his fists, unable to contain his bloodlust any longer. His hatred for goblins had completely overcome his aversion to the stench of blood.

“This smell...”

As they neared the lair, Folke's expression visibly worsened.

While the environment of a frontier city was already worse than inland cities, it had still been within Folke's limits of tolerance, as he never visited the slums.

However, there was no escaping the stench of a goblin lair. Folke had always considered himself pragmatic, but smelling that mix of blood and excrement made him feel uncontrollably nauseous.

Looking into the pitch-black cave, Folke instinctively felt a sense of repulsion.

“Take this.” Ogre pulled a green fruit from his pouch—the exact same fruit he had tossed to the two of them during their morning meeting. “Hold it to your nose and smell it. It'll help a lot. If you really can't take it, crush it. The juice will wash away the discomfort.”

Ogre hadn't picked the fruit merely to eat. He had anticipated this scene long ago and prepared some in advance.

“It's normal to feel uncomfortable at first,” Ogre comforted him while looking at Lange and Serandic not far away. By now, they had already positioned themselves around the other exits.

“I'm fine... Uh, thanks. So next...” Folke stared at the gruesome remains of the dead goblins, his mind momentarily dazed. Only when Ogre handed him the fruit did he snap back to reality.

‘Was I relying on him just now?’ He suddenly realized that he might be far less strong than he had imagined.

“Next, leave it to me. Folke, please guard the entrance.” Though Ogre's hatred for goblins wasn't as deep as Serandic's, goblins were still the main culprits behind the destruction of his childhood village. Consequently, his disgust for them wasn't much less.

To prevent blood from splashing onto his face and ruining his disguise, he pulled out the striped mask that represented his identity as the Gourmet.

Leaving behind a final instruction, Ogre put on the mask and walked into the pitch-black lair without looking back.

‘My eyes were made for this...’ Ogre pulled the cord on his right hand and hooked it onto the ring at the end of his small hammer's handle. He was fully prepared.

A short while later, cries of panic echoed from inside the lair. These were not the excited roars of a raid, but shouts of deep terror.

“La wulu lu da! Nua...”

(Goblin Language: Run! Quick, notify the master! The Butcher is here! Quick...)

Before the goblin could finish speaking, a hammer came flying through the air, smashing its head to bits.

“Didn't expect to run straight into a shift change,” Ogre tugged the cord, retracting the thrown hammer.

The built-in tension of the arm-sleeve reel kept the cord taut, preventing it from swinging loosely.

“Guess there's no helping it. I'll just have to carve my way in.”

Fortunately, Ogre had brought companions this time, so he wasn't particularly worried about goblins fleeing. He had already prepared a foolproof plan for them.

As long as they failed to sound an alarm immediately, not a single one of these creatures was getting out!

Ogre's mask was famous not only in the arena, but also among goblins. That was because back when his killing efficiency wasn't as high, a few stragglers had managed to escape and spread the word.

Though the title was slightly different.

Among goblins, Ogre wasn't known as the “Gourmet.”

Instead, they called him—

The “Goblin Butcher”!

Ogre had only ever held one attitude toward these monsters:

Wipe them out completely.

When it came to dealing with goblins, he was a true professional.