15. A Strange Day

‘Did the curse make female goblins extinct? Who is Explorer Rendriol, and what are the 12 Heroes of Ashvilam?’

Ko Byeong-gap frowned after he read the items on display in the Ancient Shop. The comments on it were all cryptic, and the strangest of them was the Seed of Enlightenment.

‘A species whose wisdom was lost by the wrath of God? Is it talking about the Goblins?’

Ko Byeong-gap was basically an atheist. However, he agreed that some transcendent might be behind the Deep Impact, such as a divine absurdity.

Therefore, even though the word ‘God’ frequently appeared in the Ancient Shop, he didn’t write it off as just a ridiculous superstition.

In the first place, wasn’t he physically experiencing the surrealities of being the Goblin Lord of Ashvilam?

‘Are you saying they weren’t stupid in the first place?’

Ko Byeong-gap was in agony and scratched his short beard. By that time, the Goblins returned from bathing, and water dripped from their bodies.

“Kiriyan! Kiriyan, come here!”

“Ah, yes! Lord!”

Ko Byeong-gap immediately called Kiriyan, who was the most communicative member of Ashvilam, and said, “Hey, come here and read this.”

Ko Byeong-gap sat Kiriyan down on the sofa. He then pointed to the small hologram next to the main window of the Ancient Shop.

Kiriyan looked troubled and said, “Well… Lord.”

“Oh, yeah. Do you know anything?”

“Ah, it’s not that… I don’t know how to read text.”

“What?” Ko Byeong-gap frowned.

“Why can’t you, a goblin, read what I, a human, can read?”

“I’m sorry…”

“No, don’t apologize. I just don’t understand. Why can’t you read the text?”

“I think it’s because I never learned.”

“It’s amazing, seriously.”

He was more embarrassed than angry, but what could he do? He couldn’t force him to do it. Instead of teaching the Goblin to read the text, he decided to take an easier path.

“Hey, have you ever sinned against God?”

“Ah?! What do you mean?!”

“Hey, I’m not questioning you, so there’s no need to make such an unfair expression. I’m just asking.”

It wasn’t until Ko Byeong-gap told him that, Kiriyan calmed down his startled heart. He went into the explanation in a relaxed tone.

“I read something a little weird, not anything else. If you look here, you hear the phrase ‘a species that has lost its wisdom through the wrath of God’? I wondered if that was the goblins. Do you know anything?”

“Uh…”

“Don’t you know? Isn’t it about you? Think about it carefully.”

“God…God…” Kiriyan went on to mutter the word ‘God.’

His pupils gradually dilated. His body then began to tremble.

“Ma-Mad… Madmu…”

“MAMAMOO?”

“Mama, Mama, Mama! Whoops! Hey! hey hey hey hey! Kee ee ee eh!”

“Hey, hey, fuck! What’s wrong with you all of a sudden?”

“Kye hee hee hee hee! Aaaaa!”

“Aish, calm down! Calm down!”

Kiriyan clasped his head and screamed as his mouth suddenly flung open. It was more like the howl of an animal than a scream.

The nearby goblins gathered after hearing the sound.

“Lord sir, what?”

“Kee-e-eek! Kee ee ee eh eh!”

Tsh!

Sparks erupted out of Kiriyan’s body. In the end, he let go of his string of reason and ran away.

The Goblins freaked out and retreated. Ko Byeong-gap, who was just nearby, also stepped back a few steps in surprise.

‘I smell something burning.’

The smell of burning came up. Soot was spreading on the sofa leather due to the sparks Kiriyan emitted.

If left alone, all the efforts put in that day could be in ashes.

“Hey, dude! Wake up! Hey!”

“Kee-e-e-e-eek!!”

“You’re okay!” Ko Byeong-gap tried to appease Kiriyan, but it was meaningless.

‘Damn it!’

Having made up his mind, he grabbed Kiriyan’s body. His electric current passed through his body, and his muscles and spine tingled at the contact.

“Give me a break!”

However, he didn’t give up. He lifted Kiriyan and left the tent.

“Get out of the way! Get out of the way!”

“Oh, I see!”

“Get out of the way!”

The Goblins hurried back when Ko Byeong-gap shouted.

“Breathe! Breathe!”

After taking a few deep breaths, he put Kiriyan down on the dirt ground. Dust clouds rose with his violent noises.

“Agh!”

Kiriyan let out a short scream, and his eyes turned upside down. His convulsive limbs calmed down, and the frantic sparks disappeared. Since he had power control, he didn’t die. He just fainted for a moment.

‘What the hell is this reaction?’

He clasped his hands around his trembling body. He then cried out in an angry voice.

“Go get me a potion!”

“Yep!”

Gobung jumped and returned with a potion.

After feeding Kiriyan the potion, he drank a little himself. There seemed to be no major abnormalities in his body.

The commotion of the night ended like that.

* * *

“I’m sorry…”

Kiriyan soon came to his senses. His body was a little tired, but there was nothing wrong with it.

He bowed his head with a face that felt as if he was about to die of shame. Ko Byeong-gap breathed a sigh, soothing his trembling heart.

“Alright, man, raise your head.”

“…”

He wanted to ask, “Why did you suddenly have a seizure?” However, he couldn’t easily bring it up since he was worried that he might have another seizure.

“Phew.”

He looked down at the sooted sofa and swallowed his bitterness.

‘Nothing was saved.’

While Kiriyan was stunned, he asked the other goblins the same question.

They were Normal Goblins. They also had no idea, and the Hob Goblins responded that they didn’t know either.

None of the Goblins had a seizure like Kiriyan. It felt like, ‘I don’t know anything, so there’s no reason to have a seizure.’

He was a little uneasy, but decided to put his curiosity aside for the meantime.

Even if there was a story behind the Goblins, it wasn’t something he had to find out right away. It was something he would have to figure out slowly.

“Go rest.”

“Yes…” Kiriyan receded with drooped shoulders.

Ko Byeong-gap leaned against the sofa and stayed still. His thoughts floated like clouds in his head. At times like that, he had to burn a cigarette.

“Lord, where are you going?”

“I’m going to smoke a cigarette. Why? Do you want me to give you one?”

The Goblin shook his head. Ko Byeong-gap smiled and walked out of the tent.

It was evening, and the wind was cool. It wasn’t cold, though. It was just right. Summer was in full swing in Korea, but spring was still strong there.

He took a stroll with a cigarette in his mouth, looked up at the sky, and saw the Milky Way. It was seldom seen in the city center.

As he walked aimlessly, he heard the sound of water. He arrived at the stream, pulled out a flashlight from his belt, and turned it on since he could stumble in the dark.

The water was very clean. When he flashed the light on it, he could see the floor clearly.

A single Killifish, about the size of a finger, swam rapidly.

“There really aren’t any big fish.”

There were no big fishes in that clean water.

Ko Byeong-gap looked at a few stones to see if there were any crayfish and then gave up. It wasn’t like he was going to make soup. Where should he use a crayfish?

He approached the fog that time as he stretched down.

“Hey, how could you do this?”

Two areas were divided, like water and oil. There was a thick fog over the transparent barrier, and he couldn’t see beyond it at all. The movie “Mist” starring a giant monster came to his mind. In that movie, the monster drove the fog.

“Isn’t there a monster beyond this?”

He punched the invisible barrier with his fist and uttered nonsense. No matter how hard he hit, there was no noise at all. Only a wave of ripples spread through it.

“Oh, maybe…?”

Ko Byeong-gap suddenly remembered something and opened the Ancient Shop. He went into the ‘Other’ category and checked one product.

[Explorer’s Flag]

-Price: 500,000 Crystals

-Description: The flag used by Rendriol, a great explorer and continental conqueror. Areas can be expanded when used in an unexplored land.

“If I use this, can I go beyond this?”

Wasn’t it too expensive? Ko Byeong-gap had such a sense of suffering.

“Well, it’s okay for now, but when the number of Goblins grows to five or six hundred, we will have to increase the land a bit. It’s expensive, though. With 500,000 crystals, I could get a thousand growth potions.”

One bottle of the potion made him incredibly strong, but how much stronger would a thousand bottles make him? Perhaps he could be the 69th SS-class awakener.

Well, it remained to be seen whether the Goblins’ waist could hold out until they could collect 500,000 crystals.

He turned off the store window with a grin. After that, he bit a cigarette in his mouth. That was the moment that he felt a strange feeling. It was as if someone was looking at him.

‘What?’

He looked around while he brandished the light. However, there were no elk, let alone Goblins, in the dark stream.

“… Is it because of my mood?”

He turned the light, thinking so. The light lit up the area of fog. Even the high-powered flashlight’s strong beam of light didn’t penetrate the fog.

However, a dark silhouette attached tightly to the transparent barrier was visible.

Head, shoulders, arms.

The dark silhouette made binoculars with its hands and looked through the barrier.

“Wow, fuck!”

Ko Byeong-gap stepped back in surprise. It seemed that he wasn’t the only one who was surprised. The silhouette on the other side of the transparent barrier seemed to be surprised as well, and a second later, the silhouette ran through the fog and disappeared.

“Hey! Hey! Wait a minute!”

Ko Byeong-gap quickly ran to the transparent film and called out the silhouette.

“Who’s in there? You’re there, aren’t you? Hey, answer me!”

He shouted a few times, banging on the invisible barrier, but the missing silhouette didn’t reappear.

When he cried out about a dozen times, he heard an answer from the wrong place.

“L-Lord…?”

The Goblins came after hearing Ko Byeong-gap’s voice.

Ko Byeong-gap, unaware that he had dropped his precious cigarette, drooped his arms.

“… What are you doing there?”

* * *

“So, you don’t know what’s beyond?”

“Yes.”

Ko Byeong-gap gathered the Goblins and asked. Did they know anything about beyond the mist?

The Goblins replied that they didn’t know at all. In fact, it wasn’t the only time Goblin said they didn’t know. They didn’t know anything. Even their own origins.

They said they didn’t have any female Goblin. How were they born?

When were they born?

Where did they come from?

Where and what did they do before they ended up there? They didn’t know anything at all.

He no longer felt down because he did what he could to know.

‘It didn’t look like a Goblin.’

He couldn’t say for sure because he only lit up the dark silhouette, but it didn’t look like a Goblin.

“If you find anything near the fog from now on, report it to me immediately. Anything is fine.”

“Yes! Okay!”

“Yes, I’m going to go now. Take a rest.”

After saying that, Ko Byeong-gap left Ashvilam. His quiet room greeted him.

‘What was it?’

That day was very strange. In recent weeks, unimaginable things had happened one after another, but there had never been a day as strange as today.

He washed himself and laid down on the bed.

“Oh, yeah. I was going to buy something, but I forgot.”

It occurred to him only when he put his head on the pillow. So he summoned the Ancient Shop.

The Ancient Shop opened even though he wasn’t in Ashvilam.

He had already decided what to buy. Growth Potion. For the time being, he was going to buy only that.

[Growth Potion]

-Price: 500 Crystals

-Description: A potion that permanently increases all physical abilities.

Ko Byeong-gap first bought only one bottle. He then shoved it into his mouth without hesitation. After he drank the potion, he suffered a bit of a horrendous aftereffect, but he had to endure that much pain to gain great strength.

Pounding!

His heart started beating. Soon, his whole body trembled, and so did his muscles…

“Hmm?”

… It didn’t come.

His heart soon calmed down. It was a distinctly different response from the last time. He felt somewhat lukewarm.

“What, is it working?”

Ko Byeong-gap closed his eyes and focused on his body. He could feel the new power in his body.

It certainly seemed to have an effect. However, the increase wasn’t the same as before.

In other words, his stats increased by ten last time, but that time, they only increased by three or four.

“… Is it like muscle growth?”

To grow muscle, he needed to lift weights, and only by lifting heavier weights could the muscles grew according to the principle of gradual overload.

He felt similar to that. At first, a single potion gave the effect of ten, but it required more intake or to take a stronger drug as time went on.

“Nothing is going as planned.”

Ko Byeong-gap felt sad. He licked his lips and looked around for other products.

Several products in the ‘Techniques’ category stimulated his curiosity.

Textbooks like swordsmanship and physical training. It seemed that it would help him to become stronger anyway.

“Shall we buy this one?’

He read the product information when he found something that caught his eye.

It was the Ancient Alchemy Textbook – Low-grade.

[Ancient Alchemy Textbook – Low-grade]

-Price: 350 Crystals

-Description: A textbook dealing with ‘Alchemy – Low-grade’ among ancient techniques. Through alchemy, objects can be crafted and strengthened, and special properties can be infused.

‘I can craft or enhance things?’

A brilliant idea flashed through Ko Byeong-gap’s mind.