Chapter 11: New Adventurer Bern (9). Preparing a Gift
When Bern and Blanca submitted their completion report to the guild, the initial reaction was as follows.
“Goblins kidnapped and intimidated humans to extract their skills? Their numbers exceeded 200, and every single one of them was armed with armor and weapons? On top of that, their leader had intelligence comparable to a human and was planning to absorb human civilization? And you’re telling me that two adventurers wiped them out completely? Blanca, did you secretly change careers to a playwright?”
It was understandable from the guild’s perspective. Adventurers often exaggerated their exploits, but this was beyond anything reasonable.
However, Blanca adamantly insisted that if they doubted her, they should go and verify it themselves. She even went as far as to declare that if she was lying, she would willingly work as a receptionist for the rest of her life. The guild officer, swayed by her conviction, decided to send out investigators—just in case.
“...Shit. I’ve never seen this many goblin corpses piled up in one place. If we’d been a few days late, they’d be rotting, and it would be a nightmare.”
“There are huge burn marks deeper inside. Looks like at least a hundred were wiped out in a single strike.”
“There are also signs that people were held captive and forced to live here.”
At first, the investigators were half in disbelief, half dumbfounded. But the deeper their investigation went, the more serious their expressions became.
It was already rare to see nearly a hundred goblins maintaining a single, unified force without splintering into smaller groups. But the fact that this group was not only equipped with weapons and armor, but that some of them had custom-made gear, made it impossible to dismiss.
The veteran investigators quickly realized—this could have easily escalated into a kingdom-wide disaster.
The investigation report, which was unusually severe for a Rank 2 quest, reached the Eastern Branch Head, who immediately cursed upon reading it.
“So they let things fester until it got this bad, then tricked us by disguising it as a simple goblin extermination request?”