玉蒲团之云雨山庄

"An alarm? Hahaha! Aren\'t you thinking too much about it, Alice? Since when did the Valkyries become so wary of goblins? There is no need for you to be that worried. Even if they suddenly attack us, it\'s just golds coming towards us, no?" said Jean with a shrug as he laughed at Alice\'s words.

"Tch! Rena was just asking a \'perhaps\' situation! Right Rena?" Alice shifted her gaze to Surena and saw that she was still looking at Lyan with a serious expression.

"Alice. Why did I become the party\'s leader?" (Rena)

"Hm? Because the calls you made are always right, and your guts are usually accurate?" (Alice)

"Why are you asking that suddenly, Rena?" The last member of The Valkyries, the crimson-haired Emilia asked Surena.

"My guts are telling me that we need to follow that guy\'s actions," Surena motioned them to look at Lyan with her head.

"Huh? The rookie?" (Emilia)

"Hey now, Rena. We don\'t even know whether that rumor about him defeating a goblin champion is accurate or not-" (Alice)

*CLANK!*

The loud sound of metals colliding startled everyone.

The Valkyries and the others saw how a greatsword suddenly flung towards Lyan with a great speed, and how he deflect it with his sword while having a small smile on his face.

*Thud!* *Thud!* *Thud!* *Thud!* *Thud!*

The sound as if something heavy hitting the ground sounded approaching them. Without a doubt, it\'s the footsteps of something heavy.

*Crash!*

!?!?!?!?!?

A huge ax suddenly smashed two trees, and a four meters tall goblin with muscular muscle all over its body rushed towards Lyan\'s direction.

(Goblin champion!!) (The Valkyries and Jean)

*BOOM!*

A large sound of an explosion sounded at the moment the large ax collided with Lyan\'s sword. Lyan covered himself in his mana and blocked the attack with his sword. His feet firmly take a defensive stance, letting himself didn\'t get pushed back even for a centimeter. But as the others are still shocked because of the sudden appearance of the goblin champion, they only stared at the scene.

*Clank!* *Clank!* *Clank!* *Clank!* *Clank!* *Clank!* *Clank!* *Clank!*

Lyan continues to block the bombarding attacks from the goblin champion with a slight smile still imprinted on his face. And at that moment-

*Slash!* *Slash!*

Suddenly a cloaked figure slashed the knee pits of the goblin champion, making it lose its footings. And for the finishing-

*Slash!*

Surena cleanly and swiftly behead the goblin champion with her sword, making the head to fell to the ground with a loud thud, and the goblin champion\'s blood spurted out of its neck.

Lyan skillfully retreated to avoid getting the blood on its body, but he didn\'t sheathe his sword yet.

(The real deal has yet to come) (Lyan)

*Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!* *Step!*

The sound of countless footsteps suddenly appeared approaching them. Everyone immediately ready themselves to battle, and finally, the army of goblins approaching them entered their view.

It\'s an army of red-skin goblins.

"R-Red goblins!?"

"Ready your weapons! Kill them all!!!" (Jean)

The number of goblins attacking them is more than before. Not to mention that all of them are red-skinned goblins.

"About 100, huh..." Lyan changes his stance.

*Whoosh!*

As if he\'s cutting the air, Lyan swings his sword and took a stance different from what he used to deflect the goblin champion\'s attacks.

*Slash!* *Slash!* *Slash!*

Lyan skillfully killed three red goblins that approached him in a split second. He managed to kill them easily, but it doesn\'t mean that the goblins are as weak as the usual goblins.

(Their skins are harder. Their skin is as hard as the goblin champion\'s skin) (Lyan)

Lyan observes his surroundings and saw that the other mercenaries also realized the same thing. It takes them more effort to kill the red goblins. Not only that their skin is harder, but they are also faster, and stronger as well.

There are also red hobgoblins amongst the crowd, which is much more bothersome than the red goblins. It\'s stronger and smarter at the same time, it takes quite a time for the mercenary that battled them to kill them.

(If we got too exhausted here, it will be bad) (Lyan)

Lyan swiftly move from one place to another, killing all of the goblins he passed. Not only him, the strong mercenaries such as the Valkyries, Jean Ferlident, and others that killed the red goblins faster than the others got more targeted by the red goblins. They know that they are a bigger threat to them, so they targetted them rather than the others.

(This course of action, this is...) (Lyan)

Lyan realizes what the goblins are planning.

(In normal circumstances, people usually picked on the weakest first to make sure the number of the opponent reduced. But rather than that, they are targetting on the strong ones. Their target is not reducing our number, but they are prioritizing exhausting the strongest ones first!) (Lyan)

Because of the persistence and endurance of the red goblins, this time, it took quite a while for them to completely kill all of the goblins. They didn\'t lose anyone, but some of them are injured, while the others are slightly exhausted.

The sudden appearance of the red goblins slightly caught them off-guarded. But even so, the mercenaries didn\'t forget to continue to harvest the goblin ears since those are their source of income.

"All of these goblins are variants, aren\'t they? I wonder how much the guild will pay for these ones," One of the mercenaries uttered as he cheerfully take the goblins\' ears.

Unlike before, Lyan didn\'t have his sword unsheathed. This time, he properly put his sword back into his sheathe. Closing his eyes, he rests his back on a tree as he folds his arms, waiting for the other mercenaries to finish harvesting the goblins\' ears.

Suddenly, a voice appeared from beside him.

"You\'re not going to take those goblins\' ears? They gonna take them all, you know? They wouldn\'t leave some for you, they\'re mercenaries, after all,"

Lyan squinted and saw that it was the cloaked guy that talked to him before as well.

"I\'ll still have plenty of chances in two days, wouldn\'t I? The allies surrounding me if I harvest the goblins\' ears right now are too few, I don\'t want to get caught off-guarded, after all. And aren\'t you a mercenary as well?" Uttered Lyan as he closed his eyes back.

Of course, the reason why Lyan is not taking any of the goblins\' ears is not because he\'s not interested in taking them and exchanging them for money, but because his shadow hobgoblin is busy harvesting the goblins\' ears from the corpses on the place where they still went with the horses.

When they are still advancing with their horses, they didn\'t harvest the goblins\' ears from the corpses because it will take too much time for them to do so. It will only eliminate one of the advantages of traveling with horses, which is the speed.

Knowing so, Lyan secretly summoned his shadow hobgoblin and ordered it to harvest the goblins\' ears. With the shadow hobgoblin equipped with a backpack, it would have no difficulty on harvesting a lot of goblins\' ears.

"Maybe? Or maybe not," The cloaked man said mysteriously.

"Is that so? Thanks for the support, by the way. The assist helped well," (Lyan)

"It\'s nothing. I\'m doing it because of worry, but it seems that nothing would bad would happen to you even if I didn\'t help you back then, I guess?" (Cloaked man)

Lyan scoffed.

"Of course not. I\'m nothing but a gold-ranked mercenary, you know?" Lyan shrugged.

"Heh! You are a special gold-ranked mercenary then. No ordinary gold-ranked mercenary is capable of taking the goblin champion\'s attacks head on like that, after all. You\'re quite nuts, aren\'t you?" (Cloaked man)

"I am, I guess. Not gonna deny that," Lyan scoffed at himself.

"The name is William, by the way. Call me whatever you want," (William)

"Mine is Evocatore, don\'t call me if you don\'t have to. You smelled like trouble, after all," Uttered Lyan as he walked away to a certain red goblin corpse near him.

"Heh! How cold," William chuckled as he smiled because of Lyan\'s unexpected response.

Staring at the red goblin\'s corpse, Lyan observes the body.

"Is it possible that all of them are variants? According to the book of the encyclopedia I\'ve read in the Scholar\'s inn, variants are supposed to be rare, even if they are born in the same environment... Perhaps the goblins found a way to give born lots of variants at the same time?" Lyan uttered under his breath.

(It\'s not possible, boy) (Hestia)

Hestia\'s voice appeared inside his mind.

"Is that so?" (Lyan)

(Yes. A variant appeared because of the anomaly that happened to it when it was still in its mother\'s womb, or when a monster went through an extreme situation filled that completes the requirements for it to evolve to a variant. But even if another monster repeats the same process, it didn\'t mean that that monster will evolve into a variant as well. So it\'s not possible for all of these goblins to be variants) (Hestia)

"I see..." (Lyan)

(I\'m not sure myself. But these are more like forbidden enchantments, rather than variants. I\'m not that knowledgable about goblins as well, but it\'s possible that this is something that a goblin shaman did) (Hestia)

Hearing Hestia\'s words, Lyan remembered the goblins that attacked Alina and her best friends before. They are as strong as these goblins, but this time, the red goblins are far stronger than the ones before.

"Hm... How interesting..." (Lyan)

____________________________________________________________________________

Name: Lyan Arkanium Evocatore

Occupation: Gold-ranked Mercenary

Money: 49,722,600 Elnes

Weapon: None

Equipment: Black leather cloak, One-handed Sword

Grimoire\'s Companions: 8 High Spirits, Shadow Hobgoblin, Papilio Slime, Galewing Butterfly, Rock Golem