"Hoo…"
When the dust finally settled, the entire underground settlement reeked—so sharp it burned the nose.
Gauss took a few deep breaths and popped one of Alia's magic olives into his mouth.
"Locate Creature Spell: Goblin."
He swept the area. Once he confirmed there were no living goblins left underground, he put away his water sword.
The floor had become a river of blood.
Bodies lay sprawled in every direction—severed hands, fingers, eyeballs scattered everywhere. If someone stumbled in at that moment, they'd probably think they'd walked into some kind of hell.
Even the dwarves didn't look great.
Instinct alone made them nauseous at a scene this bloody. On the way to Gauss, they'd been doing their best not to step on… certain unmentionable bits.
Then they looked at the humans—especially Gauss, who'd killed the most goblins—and his face was completely calm, like nothing had happened. Like he hadn't just slaughtered over a thousand goblins, but had simply spent a quiet afternoon trimming plants in his garden.
Sure, his clothes were a little dirty from exertion, but he looked relaxed—almost satisfied, like someone proud of a day's work.
Bruno swallowed hard.
Is the adventurer I hired… some kind of bloodthirsty maniac?
At this point, Gauss looked more monstrous than the goblins.
Did we escape the wolves only to fall into the tiger's mouth?
Thankfully, once Gauss stowed his weapon and used Prestidigitation several times to clean himself up, that terrifying pressure faded, and he once again looked like the friendly, dependable "model adventurer."
"Is it over?" Bruno asked cautiously.
"Yes," Gauss nodded. "Dwarf friends—no goblin survived."
In the distance, he had his puppet support Torga out of a concealed side chamber.
"Torga!"
"Bruno!"
They rushed into each other's arms.
After the initial rush of relief, Torga finally noticed what the outside had become—a nightmare scene. In the short time she'd hidden in that chamber after hearing the explosions, the adventurer Bruno hired had apparently wiped out the entire goblin nest.
So strong…
Her eyes flicked off a pile of hacked-up remains. She recognized the goblin head—that was the goblin warlord that had beaten and captured her.
That once-terrifying enemy was now just chunks on the floor.
She looked at Gauss and knew immediately, from a single glance, that he was the core of this team.
So… the one she'd spoken to earlier was him?
"Hello. I'm Torga," she said, stepping up to Gauss with genuine gratitude. "Thank you for saving me."
"You're welcome," Gauss said evenly. "But we weren't doing charity. Bruno hired us."
"Of course. Still—thank you." She hesitated, then added, "And… Ms. Torga, next time, don't storm off alone in the wild."
No matter the reason, separating from your team in the wilderness was dangerous.
If you're a lone wolf, fine—lone wolves learn caution the hard way. But people used to teamwork often lack the habits needed to survive alone.
Torga gave an embarrassed smile. She knew she'd caused this with her temper.
In the end, she'd only been beaten once and starved for two days, but that was luck. Bruno realized quickly something had happened—but without tracking skills, he'd had to detour to Falrim to post a contract. Then he'd happened to run into Gauss, who could travel fast and was absurdly strong, and who'd wiped out an enormous goblin lair with just a few people…
Any one link breaking, and the outcome could've been catastrophic.
She'd learned her lesson: she had to rein herself in.
"Cough… Let's get out first," Gauss said, gesturing upward. "The smell down here is brutal."
…
By the campfire, after she'd wolfed down more food, Torga finally asked what she couldn't wrap her head around.
"How did you do it? How could you clear a goblin lair that fast with only a few people?"
Then, after thinking hard, she landed on the only explanation she could accept.
"Are you… a transcendent-tier powerhouse?"
Gauss shook his head.
"I'm Level 6. Same as you."
"Level 6?!"
Torga's eyes bulged. She thought he was joking.
"You're kidding me, Gauss."
"…So sometimes telling the truth is harder than lying," Gauss muttered.
When he didn't blink, her smile stiffened.
"You're serious?"
"My gods… Moradin above!"
Torga slapped her forehead. Her understanding of power and levels felt like it had been shattered.
If Gauss wasn't lying, then how could two Level 6 fighters be this far apart? Even "legendary bloodline" species didn't usually show this kind of gap at the same level.
Torga could only shake her head.
While they rested, Gauss's clay constructs were collecting loot below. But just like his initial scouting suggested, the place looked big and scary and yet had surprisingly little "oil" in it.
Good thing the real payment was Bruno's mithril. Otherwise, what was left—scrap weapons and crude supplies—would've been a terrible return, especially considering how valuable Gauss's team's time was.
The only truly valuable salvage was what the goblin warlord provided—especially its organs.
Gauss kept the heart.
Sitting by the fire, his memory replayed fragments of what he'd seen underground.
That lair felt different from the goblin nests he'd seen before.
At first, he couldn't name why—just that it felt… off.
Now, with a moment to think, the source of that "wrongness" snapped into place.
"That's it."
Gauss used Mage Hand to bring over the large heart balanced on a clay spider's back.
Thump. Thump.
Even though the goblin warlord was long dead, the heart was still beating violently.
That wasn't the weird part—organs can retain activity for a while. In this world, stronger bodies meant that effect was even more obvious.
What was weird was the owner.
That warlord was both strong and weak.
Strong compared to its shabby underlings and the crude early-stage settlement—it was like finding a phoenix in a chicken coop.
Its subordinates had numbers but no quality: only about twenty "elite" goblins, and even those weren't impressive. The whole thing felt like a hastily cobbled-together gang.
And if that was true, the leader's existence became even stranger.
A commander-tier creature doesn't just pop out of the dirt.
Even Gauss—basically an anomaly—had taken two years to climb from ordinary to master-tier. A goblin without backing shouldn't be able to do it by "effort and talent" alone.
Gauss didn't believe this was a southern monster-nation branch leader either. If it had that kind of support, it would've arrived with a core force, with knowledge like smelting, forging, spellbooks, or other inherited systems—like the thousand-goblin nest he'd once blown up, where they mined, forged, trained cavalry, enslaved other races…
This nest didn't.
And in battle, the warlord had been high offense, low defense—barely commander-grade in burst speed and damage, but far too fragile. Gauss had meant to "shave it down" with Thousand-Thread Severing Domain and accidentally turned it into dozens of pieces.
Its intelligence was cunning, too.
The more Gauss lined up the clues—weak underlings, flimsy organization, a lopsided warlord, sharp brains—the more it felt like the goblin had been "switched on" suddenly.
Like an esports player who has perfect macro and positioning but clumsy hands—its whole existence was full of contradictions.
It can't be… actually "cheating," can it?
Gauss shook his head, then suddenly thought of something and opened his Adventurer's Handbook.
Ignoring the kill spam, his total kills had climbed to 18,511.
Not important.
A new line was.
[Chieftain Slain ×1]
[Commander Points Gained ×10]
[Detected: Target Possessed a Special Divine Favor. Divinity Factor Absorbed: 0.13%]
"…Huh?"
So there was something different.
Divine favor? What did that even mean?
So the goblin really was "buffed"—just not by an Adventurer's Manual like his, but by a god's blessing.
Which god?
A goblin god?
Gauss couldn't recall ever hearing a name for one.
And what, exactly, was this "divinity factor"? It was the first time he'd seen that term in the Handbook.
Yet he could feel it: his body held a tiny new something—a faint, indescribable power.
The amount was tiny—0.13%, about one-thousandth.
What happened at 100%? Instant apotheosis?
He tried focusing on the divinity factor, but no further explanation appeared.
Still, a deep instinct told him this "divinity factor" mattered—a lot more than levels or stats.
It was necessary.
He needed to hunt and seize more of it.
His heartbeat picked up.
Gauss forced himself to breathe and calm down.
Across the fire, the dwarves watched him stare at the goblin heart with an increasingly hungry look, licking his lips now and then… and they absolutely did not know what to do with that.
Is he going to eat it?
Who eats goblin heart?!
They'd never heard of anyone eating goblin meat. It was revolting at the best of times—and the stronger the goblin, the worse it tasted, and the more toxic it tended to be.
So… was Gauss secretly some kind of goblin-eater?
Right as they were spiraling, Gauss suddenly put the heart away in his pouch and looked up.
"Is something wrong?"
"N-no… nothing," Bruno stammered, waving his hands.
Goblin-eating, then. Fine. As long as he wasn't eating them. Everyone has their… private habits.
Gauss didn't think much of it. He braced his hands on his knees and stood.
"Then keep resting. I'm going back down to check again."
"Please," Bruno said quickly, watching him leave. The dwarves exchanged looks, convinced Gauss was heading down to "deal with" the heart where they couldn't see.
Gauss, meanwhile, returned to the lair.
A pile of goblin corpses had already been stacked in the open.
He searched again—especially the warlord's quarters—turning the place over.
Nothing.
No relic. No altar. No idol. No device that could "contact a god."
So had the goblin's divine favor just been… coincidence?
With only one confirmed "divinely favored" target so far, if Gauss wanted more divinity factor, the most likely path was… goblins.
Part intuition, part simple path dependence.
Either way, he'd just found a new reason to keep hunting green-skins.