*knock* *knock*

“Come in.” A young and jovial voice sounded out from behind the brown door.

Opening the door, Alice shifted over and pointed in saying “His excellency only wishes to meet the both of you.”

Even though they felt kinda strange ever since the receptionist Emma hurriedly ran to call Alice, Sato and Fudo still walked in to the room since they only had two options; either they walk in and complete the mission or escape and watch the town get destroyed, get hated by humanity and loss 5 levels.

Once they were in, they first noticed that the room was quite large and plush even more so than the hall from earlier. The entire room was coated in gold with some of the furniture being made from high quality 2 star materials.

After getting a good look at the room, Sato and Fudo finally saw who they came looking for.

The Town Head was actually 1.6 metres tall ‘boy’. He had blond hair, blue eyes and a pale white skin. He was wearing a blue oversized coat with golden hems. Despite being the Town Head, the ‘boy’ was acting all jovial and had an innocent but composed look in his eyes.

“Welcome, young adventurers.” the ‘boy’ greeted.

“Pfft.” Fudo had tried to hold in his laughter but ended up releasing it in a muffled tone.

‘He calls us young, but this dude is even younger than Hayami.’

“Is there a problem?” The ‘boy’ asked. At the same time, Sato faced Fudo and gave him a look that seemed to say ‘don’t blow this up’.

Fudo organized himself before answering “No. No problem at all.”

The ‘boy’ scrutinized Fudo for a while before replying “Uh. Okay but who is Hayami? Is she someone important to you?”

When he had said the earlier part, Fudo had inwardly released a sigh of relief, but as he got to the part he mentioned Hayami, the atmosphere became awkward and strange. Sato, on the other hand, stared at the ‘boy’ with narrowed eyes as if he was facing a beast, not daring to further underestimate the person in front of him.

After a little while, Fudo hesitated before asking “…you read minds?”

The ‘boy’ shook his head whimsically with a smile and then said “Not reading minds as you perceive it but you can say it’s quite similar. However, I can’t use this ability for long; I only use it as a shock effect for scaring people.”

‘Tch. I’m really going to lose it with this brat.’ Fudo inwardly gritted his teeth.

“So why did you come to see me? Oh wait, before that, let me introduce myself. I’m Arman Lagus, the Town Head of Riverdale primary town.”

‘[Inspect]’ While the town head introduced himself, Sato tried to use the inspect skill on him

[[ System notification : Error. Skill has been blocked by the target. ]]

“It’s quite rude to be spying on a host don’t you think so? I”ll forgive you this time, but the next, well let’s just hope there isn’t a next time.” Arman glanced at Sato. “So can you please report to me your reason for showing up here?”

Sato eyed the ‘boy’ for a little longer before recalling his purpose for coming.

“We discovered a goblin hideout, Gnorka, underneath a mansion close to Kira mountains. We believe it houses an army there; this we are sure of since we witnessed them. We also discovered traces of ambient dark mana alongside a creature of darkness, who we battled and defeated.”

Putting his right hand into his beginner’s bag, Sato pulled out two items and placed them on a table closeby.

“We discovered these items after defeating it.” Of the two items he placed on the table, one was the [Dedicated choker] he got from the [Cursed servant]’s corpse and the other was the dark orb he had gotten from the Rare-steel chest. Initially, he planned on getting it appraised at Grynx merchandise, but because he felt that he couldn’t trust them so easily, he decided to try it with the Town Head. Who knows, the item may be more of a curse than a blessing.

Moving closer to the table, Arman picked up the choker first and stared at it for a while “Nothing much special; just an accessory that grants a blessing to the wearer. However for you guys who had pretty much killed the rightful owner, it’s more like a curse. This would put you in the view of the god or powerful individual who blessed it.”

Hearing that, Sato was stunned while Fudo felt a cold breeze behind him. To have had a god or even an extremely powerful individual watch them from afar with hostility wasn’t so nice. Fudo even felt that it was quite a miracle for him to have survived thus far.

“As for this dark orb. Hmm. It looks like a source of darkness; a high grade one at that. If you give this to a master blacksmith or something, they could make for you a really awesome dark type weapon or armor. It might even be a High tier Rare-steel rank or even low tier Dark-silver rank. Looks like your luck was quite good.” Arman said while inspecting the dark orb.

As a source of darkness, the orb was closely related to dark mana and one of high purity at that. As a result of this, it could be used as an energy source and can be classified as forging material. However, whatever that has been produced from it, would be closely related to dark mana possessing such an attribute together with spells associated with it.

“You mentioned encountering a goblin army and creature of dark mana from which you got this correct?”

“Yes.”

“Was it the only one of it’s kind present?” Arman asked seriously.

“We aren’t sure but as we left, it seemed that a creature of some sorts had awoken beneath the mansion.” Sato honestly replied.

“…I see. Thank you for reporting this to me. You can go now. I assure you that you would be rewarded for this valuable info.”

As Arman concluded, Sato and Fudo received a System notification.

[[ The Goblins’ Invasion (Series)

Quest rating : S

Intro : The goblins have always been waging war against humans, slowly trying to acquire more territory from them. As a result of the greed from both sides for more land and resources, the flames of war has been ever-burning, reeking havoc to both sides with no final victor decided.

1st Chapter :

You have discovered the goblin hideout, Gnorka. Report to the City Lord, Patrol General, Town Chief or anyone of suitable/equivalent rank about this. Once accepted, further missions pertaining to this quest can’t be rejected.

Reward : 3 bars of Star Gold, 1 Silver Core and 20 Silver coins.

Time Remaining : 43 minutes left.

Failure Penalty : Destruction of the nearest Town

Loss of 5 levels with reduction of experience gained by 50% for 2 months

Relationship level with human forces at [Unforgivable]

Mission status : Accepted; Completed.

Rewarding Player… ]]

*ding* *ding*

[[ System notification :

Rewarding 3 bars of Star Gold, 1 Silver Core and 20 silver coins ]]

Despite seeing the notifications, Sato and Fudo reined in their thoughts, scared that Arman might read them without their knowledge.

“If there’s nothing else, you can take your leave then.” Arman gestured towards the door.

“Then excuse us, your excellency.” Sato bowed towards him with Fudo doing the same; only a tad bit slower.

Even after they both left the office, Sato and Fudo seemed to have tacitly decided to not speak nor think of any important factors until they had exited the building and hailed a carriage.

As they left, Alice Zhiastris, the secretary to the ‘young’ Town Head, walked into the office and placed a tray filled with teacups and chocolate cookies with a couple other strange pastries, on the table.

Gazing through the window in his office, Arman asked “So what was your impression of them, Alice-chan?”

Alice pondered for awhile before she answered “They had a weird scent to them; as if they were neither citizens of the kingdom nor of neighbouring places. However, I can’t be so sure as I still smell a little bit of the Kingdom on them, probably from their adventuring or so. I have recently be getting a whiff of that strange smell from some of the people. It began today.”

“I see. If I’m correct, then they must be the ‘Chosen Ones’ spoken about. I sensed a bit of little couz’s aura on that black haired one. It seems he should have already met him. I initially thought that this silly little town would be boring all through but it seems that soothsayer didn’t lie to me.

“Prepare the troops for battle and send a letter to the city; just follow the usual protocols. It seems like I can finally have a bit of fun now..Things are about to get a little interesting.”