Noah had so far killed three small groups of goblins that appeared, including the three goblins he initially killed. His experience and ability had already risen by 14 points in addition to the 6 he received initially, raising the exp of his [Hell Flames] ability to 81, with only 19 more points left to evolve. Noah didn’t know what would happen when it evolved, but he was very much looking forward to it.

The goblin groups were appearing faster than Noah imagined since he didn’t even need 30 minutes to kill three groups in such a large forest.

While he was killing a fourth group, Noah had already realized that the goblins that used blowguns were smarter than the warriors, but in this group he found an archer among them who was even more intelligent than the goblins which used blowguns.

After two of the goblin archer’s three teammates died, it didn’t take him even a second to think about what to do and he had already abandoned to death the only other goblin still alive while trying to save his own life. Noah had entered the forest with a compass, and according to what the Blessed said on the internet, the advantage of this Fortress was that the goblin camp, where the Boss of the Fortress lived, was always to the north. But different from what Noah imagined, this particular small yet smart monster was not running to the goblin camp where he would get reinforcements; in fact, he was running to the southwest, which was almost the complete opposite direction of where the camp should have been.

‘What is this monster doing? Why is he running in a direction which is less logical if he were seeking help…?’ Noah thought after seeing the direction the archer went. Looking at the three corpses on the ground, Noah knew that if he wanted to burn these goblins to get exp for the skill he would have to stay here and burn them or kill the runaway goblin and come back to burn the corpses, but his curiosity was talking more loudly and Noah, after a long sigh, ran after the goblin archer to see where he was going, leaving all that free experience on the ground with great regret in his heart.

‘Don’t be so stingy, Noah. You’ll get a lot more experience by killing other monsters. Now, this goblin’s strange behavior won’t explain itself if you stay here. It’s a unique opportunity,’ he said mentally to try to convince himself that he was doing the right thing by leaving those dead goblins on the forest floor.

This monster’s behavior was very strange. He had stopped being cautious and not once had he turned around to see if Noah was chasing him. It was like the place he was going would for sure protect him from the human, so the only thing he had to worry about was to get there as quickly as possible.

From the information that Noah saw on the internet, this goblin’s behavior was completely out of the ordinary. In all videos and publications, the Blessed ones always said that goblins always flee to the camp in the north, so much so that one of the strategies they recommended was to chase goblins away by generating fear in them with flashy skills so that they despair and run back to the camp. They would then be surprised by another human group that would already be there waiting to kill them while they were unprepared and scared.

If any goblin occasionally fled in the direction opposite the camp, someone would probably have commented on the internet that this could happen, but in all publications, all the Blessed had always confirmed that 100% of the time the goblins would flee to the camp. Even if they tried to deviate a little from that direction in the beginning, the general direction they would run would always be the camp. So, seeing this archer doing the complete opposite made Noah suspect that something was wrong.

Noah continued to try to follow the goblin from a safe distance, so much so that the goblin didn’t realize he was being followed and Noah could still keep watching the monster from a distance. But even though the goblin never once turned around to see if Noah was still following him, that didn’t stop the monster from running desperately without even looking back behind himself.

The chase was strangely long. Noah imagined that the lungs of a goblin could not bear to run that long and so far with such small legs at full speed, but to Noah’s surprise, even though he was breathing hard, the goblin did not slow down its pace for even a second.

When Noah was already starting to lose patience, assuming that this monster had gone mad, something he never imagined he would see appeared in a clearing in front of him.

It was exactly toward this strange construction that the goblin was running: a statue made of wood standing there as if nothing could shake it. But strangely, this statue was not an unknown figure; Noah knew very well the image it represented, and this was exactly what surprised Noah even more, because that statue made of wood, apparently built in a natural way, was an extremely famous figure and adored by many humans. The goblin that Noah was chasing to here was apparently heading straight for this statue, as if he knew that this statue could protect him.

Noah looked at it from a safe distance with a lot of interest and, most importantly, being very careful not to alert the goblin who apparently hadn’t yet realized he was there.

Strangely, the goblin Noah already knew was more intelligent than usual had kneeled in front of the statue as if he were saying a prayer to her. Noah upon seeing this, his brain almost short-circuited, since in his head it was impossible for a monster to do something as unbelievable as praying to a statue, even more so for a monster from a Fortress as low as this one.

Noah knew that in high-ranking Fortresses, humanity had already encountered several intelligent species. Once he had even seen in a newspaper report that in an unknown Rank S Fortress, the Blessed ones instead of going into something like a dungeon, as was normal, came across a small village in a forest, with houses on top of trees and the “monsters” they had to kill were elves who lived there in some sort of society.

The Blessed Rank S who invaded that Fortress said it was difficult to believe that they had been inside a Fortress and not in another world, since according to them, while they watched from a distance, those elves interacted with each other and had a life as normal as one which a human would in that situation, so much so that some of them even felt bad about having to kill such beautiful men and women, some even with children accompanying them.

This Fortress which was previously unknown, after the invasion was completed, became known as the Elf Massacre Fortress. It never appeared again in any portal, on any planet, but after that day, humanity was left with even more doubts about what these portals were and where they took them, since none of what the invading Blessed said seemed false.

But this sort of thing had only happened in a Rank S Fortress. It was common knowledge that the lower the rank of a Fortress, the lower the intelligence of the monsters inside, but what Noah was seeing in front of him was nowhere near what a Rank E Fortress should contain.

The goblin who ran so desperately for his own life was now kneeling in front of a wooden statue that Noah recognized as the goddess of plants. She was one of the best known goddesses of mankind, as the Blessing she normally bestowed was related to life and healing, making many Blessed with healing Blessings worship her. But what Noah could not understand was why a monster was praying to a goddess who was supposed to favor humanity.

While Noah watched the goblin praying to the goddess, his system that rarely appeared, this time showed him a sudden notification, but unlike before, the black window there had nothing about his skills or exp, but showed a screen related to what was happening in front of him.

[ … ]

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