玉蒲团之云雨山庄

"Alina!!!"

*BOOM!!!!!!!!!!*

"Ugh!"

As if an explosion occurred, a powerful shock wave sent me flying to a nearby tree. But more importantly, Alina? Is she safe?

I focused my eyes to see through the flying bags of dust and saw a lying body nearby the giant figure that just appeared.

*Whoosh!*

With a single wave of its hand, powerful winds sent the dust away from the surroundings.

"W-What is that...?"

It\'s not an orc, and it\'s not an ogre either.

Orcs have a light chartreuse yellow or olive skin color, while ogres didn\'t have the intelligence as high as the monster before me.

I\'ve read somewhere that when a goblin king appeared, some higher rank hobgoblin that is deemed worthy will be given the blessing to be the king\'s swords and shields.

So this monster before me is...

"A goblin champion..."

"UUUUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" The goblin champion let out a powerful cry.

"Ugh...." I covered my ears desperately because of the loudness of its cry.

W-What is it doing?

"UUUUUUUOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Its cry made the air feel like its vibrating.

And finally, its eyes met mine.

The yellow eyes on its disgusting ugly face stared at me as if they were sizing up my whole body. It sticks out its tongue and licks its own lips while its eyes showed a lecherous gaze.

"Tch! I need to save Alina and get out of here!"

Luckily I brought this!

I took a vial filled with purple liquid from my pocket and threw it toward the goblin champion\'s head.

The goblin champion easily destroyed the vial with the sword it was holding, but that\'s my aim.

The purple liquid got splashed on its face because of the destroyed vial, blinding it. Inside the vial is the Flaahgra\'s poison I extracted yesterday. It should be enough to paralyze even a goblin champion!

"Alina! Hold on!" I picked up Alina\'s body and run towards the city\'s direction with all my might.

We should report this to the guild. Since there is a goblin champion, then there must be a goblin king who appeared in the forest. We need to relay this information so that a subjugation team will be sent to slay the goblin-

"GUHA!?"

*Crash!*

It hurts... What just hit me...?

Alina? How about Alina? Is she fine?

My vision is all red, is it because of the blood?

Alina? Ali...

"Na...?"

"Kukukuku!" A deep disgusting laugh.

T-There\'s another one?

"Agh!"

It raised my body with one hand, and throw me to another tree.

Oh no... I\'m losing my strength... Alina? Where are you, Alina...?

I can\'t feel my legs, but my eyes could still see even if all looks red. Wait. What is that goblin champion holding?

Is that Alina?

No, please don\'t do anything to her. She and Belle had experienced enough hell because of me.

Because I brought them to that damned river, we experienced hell. Are we going to enter another one again now?

"Ple...se... Spa....re... Her..."

***********************************

"Are we nearby yet?" (Madam)

"Not yet. It\'s still about one hour from here if we run without getting any problem," (Belle)

"Is that so? The problem is that we keep on encountering these pests!" The madam swings her morningstar with powerful force, sending six goblins to heaven with one swing.

"It\'s getting dark. Since goblins possess night vision, it will be their advantage when it is darker. And it seems that there is no end to them. What do you think, gramps?" (Madam)

"I\'m afraid I have a bad feeling about this, Madam. The goblins started to exert their forces to here. It\'s impossible for Lady Alina and Lady Xena to not encounter any goblins. And their number might be a problem for just the two of them," Abraham voices his opinion with a firm face as he pulls out his knife from a hobgoblin\'s neck.

"True... This is a terrifying sight..." (Ravia)

"Raine, Ravia. Make sure to keep your eyes on Lady Belle. Protect her with all your might, and retreat together when things become too dangerous. Things might get messy starting from here," (Abraham)

(Well, looking at about 40 goblin corpses on the ground surrounding us, the survival rate of those two is not high. But since goblins never kill woman no matter how many goblins a woman kill, they must be still alive somewhere) (Lyan)

When goblins captured a woman, they confine them in their lair and use them as their playthings and for reproduction purposes. For goblins, females from other races such as humans are necessary resources for them to increase their number.

"We have no time to dilly-dallying our mind here, let\'s go!" (Madam)

Along the way, we keep on encountering groups of goblins, and after running for an hour, we finally arrived at the place where the corpse of the Flaahgra remained.

"Gramps. There are dug holes here, it means that they already finished harvesting the Flaahgra\'s seed," (Ravia)

"There\'s no trace of blood or trace of recent battles either. It looks like they didn\'t get attacked here," (Raine)

"I see. Then the next place to check is the place where they are going to harvest the dark attribute mana core. Since there are not many dark attribute magic beasts, they most likely went hunting for the blight bats," (Abraham)

"Then let\'s go!" (Madam)

With the presence of Abraham and the Madam, the search progresses quickly and the battle with the goblins they encountered along the way ended very quickly.

"Wait!" Belle suddenly stopped her run.

"What is it, Belle?" (Madam)

"There. It\'s a hobgoblin corpse!" (Belle)

Following Belle, they approached the hobgoblin\'s corpse.

"There\'s no doubt. This clean-cut came from Lady Alina\'s swordsmanship. They must have passed-" (Abraham)

"Wait, gramps. Look at this," (Madam)

"Hm?" (Abraham)

The Madam pointed at an area nearby with a wry smile. Following the direction of her finger, everyone shifted their gaze.

!?!?!?!?!?

"Do you think a goblin could do something like this?" (Madam)

There are big holes on the ground, several fallen trees, and the trace of blood on some of the trees and the ground.

"The blood is red, it\'s not goblin\'s blood," Ravia mentioned with a grim face.

"Gramps. Do you think this is..." (Madam)

"Yes, Madam. Unfortunately, it\'s very highly that the Ladies battled with something here, and lost," (Abraham)

"I-It\'s a lie, right...?" Belle\'s feet lost their strength as she heard Abraham\'s words.

(Alina and Xena is...?) (Belle)

"What should we do, Madam? It\'s getting darker by any minute, and the Ladies must have already gotten brought to the goblins\' lair. And there seem to be no blood trails we could follow either. Are we going to continue the search, or should we stop here and continue tomorrow?" (Abraham)

"Tch! SHIT!!!" The Madam strikes a tree with her morningstar, making it fall with her tremendous strength.

"You. What do you think?" The Madam shifted her attention towards Lyan.

Following suit, the others also stare at Lyan. They are not hoping for a miraculous skill to come out from Lyan, they just need a push for them to make a decision.

Should they continue? Or should they stop?

If they continue, they might get into a higher risk of danger, but if they stop, the safety of the two girls captured by the goblins will get even more dubious.

(Judging from the sun\'s position, it should still be only six right now. Well, I\'m not really bothered to fight at night since I still possess the succubus\'s night vision skill. But could I protect them when something unexpected happened?) (Lyan)

Lyan stares at their faces, and it\'s clear. The five of them could only think about saving the two girls right now. No matter what kind of danger might they encounter, they want to save them. That\'s how precious the two girls are to them.

*Sigh!*

Lyan let out a small sigh.

(I guess it can\'t be helped. I\'m weak to those kinds of eyes, after all. And I\'m going to get the rewards I wanted from them anyway) (Lyan)

Step! Step! Step!

Lyan approached the ground that possess the most blood on it. There is some hair above it.

(This orange-brown hair, this must be the hair of the scout girl. Her opponent must have lifted her up by holding her hair, huh... To think that there are no blood trails, they\'re quite neat) (Lyan)

"What are you-" (Ravia)

"Don\'t disturb him, Ravia. Let him focus," (Abraham)

Lyan picks up one of the hair and envelops his mana with it.

"Dear spirits of mist that covers the trail of truth. Show me the path to the origin of what I\'m holding. [Illusion Trail]" (Lyan)

Suddenly purple smoke appeared from his hands, and slowly, the smoke enveloped the hair on his hand. At the next moment, the smoke suddenly spread quickly and built a trail in mid-air.

"This is...?" (Madam)

"This is a magic used to search for something or someone. We need to find them as soon as possible, aren\'t we? Let\'s go," (Lyan)

____________________________________________________________________________

Name: Lyan

Occupation: Mercenary

Money: 22,800 Elnes

Weapon: Hobgoblin\'s Sword, Normal sword

Equipment: Black leather cloak

Grimoire\'s Companions: 8 High Spirits, Shadow Hobgoblin