Goblins,
Notoriously like cockroaches, they are almost found on every plane that associates with the element of "Western style fantasy."
These small creatures are inherently greedy and vile. If not for their race's average intelligence being at the bottom among intelligent beings, they might also be described as "cunning" and "skilled at deception."
Their species is heavily inclined towards the "evil" camp, and their low intelligence leads to low productivity, making their survival often linked with "plunder" and "theft."
Additionally, the lack of females in their species means they must rely on capturing females of other intelligent beings for reproduction.
Making them, in some ways, have a worse reputation in the Multiverse than Abyss Demons and Hell Demons.
A goblin's individual combat strength is extremely weak; an ordinary farmwoman with a pitchfork can easily take care of an unequipped white-plate goblin.
But as Hunter Magi described earlier.
These little things are like the stray dogs commonly seen in towns.
One alone is nothing, but when they gather in groups of double digits, or even triple digits,
the courage and destructive power of the goblins increase exponentially.
Raiding caravans, attacking villages...
Especially when their numbers grow to a certain level, an elite individual with leadership abilities naturally emerges.
In the long run, if left unchecked, they might even grow into a kingdom-level disaster.
Currently, the goblin tribe being tracked by the Stinky Fish and Shrimp Group might not yet have developed to the scale of plundering towns.
But clearly, it has already gained the capability to actively attack humans.
The humorous dwarf who used to like making untimely cold jokes, now a gradually cooling corpse on the ground, serves as proof of this point.
"Roar!!!"
An inhuman roar suddenly erupted in the forest.
Half orc Gag, like a startled jungle beast, sprang up, tightly gripping his bloodstained Dual Handed Axe.
The sudden ambush and the death of a squadmate seemed to remind this half-blood hybrid of some ancestral glory.
His vaguely elongated canine teeth and the visibly swollen and reddened muscles all over him indicated that this half orc was entering a combat state.
Hunter Magi was the fastest in the entire Stinky Fish and Shrimp Group.
Almost at the instant the dark wooden stick emerged from behind Elki's head, he reacted.
While loudly warning, with the longbow on his back, he nimbly climbed the towering leather oak behind him using both hands and feet.
His thin figure disappeared into the dense canopy in an instant.
Though reluctant to admit it, Xia Nan was undoubtedly the slowest responder in the squad.
In the thirty-some years before crossing over, he had practically gone from classroom to office and hadn't even slaughtered a chicken;
In this life, he was just an honest farmer who worked the land.
One moment thinking about extracting more information about this world from Elki, the next moment, he saw Elki being bludgeoned in the head with a club, brain matter spilling out.
Xia Nan felt his mind go blank. Although instinctively lifting the One Handed Sword on his knee, his body stood still, as if caught in some rigid state.
Until...
"Whoosh!"
The strands of hair swayed, and a fierce draft swept across his cheek, leaving a stinging sensation.
A wooden arrow shot through the shadows between the trees, flying out from the treetop above.
"Ah!"
A sharp cry of pain sounded from behind.
Xia Nan shuddered and instantly snapped back to reality.
The world, previously muted, suddenly came alive again.
No time to thank Magi above for lending a hand, he quickly turned around.
His gaze swept past, and his pupils contracted slightly!
There were two short figures bent low.
Their dark green skin full of blisters, their crimson eyes filled with cunning and malevolence; their bodies clad only in a dirty brown rag around the waist, limbs thin yet faintly showing bulging muscles beneath.
Unnoticed, two goblins had quietly crept up behind him!
If not for Magi's warning, he might have ended up like the dwarf Elki.
A wave of fear surged in Xia Nan's heart; he unconsciously tightened his grip on the sword hilt wrapped with coarse rope.
"Waza!"
Now that the stealth was blown, one of the goblins even had its foot pinned to the ground by the wooden arrow from above.
This inherently cowardly creature seemed to lose the courage to continue its assault at that moment.
It merely raised the wooden stick high towards the young human before it, in an intimidating manner.
The wooden stick, entirely black, appeared with a dangerous orange-red hue under the campfire's light.
Xia Nan, looking at the rusted nails embedded in the surface of the club, suddenly recalled the grim scene of Elki's head cracking open earlier.
It was like some sort of stress response, under the thick sense of fear in his heart, he suddenly took a step forward with his right foot while coiling his right arm to build power.
"Thud!"
The foot almost immediately sank into the soft earth.
Like the root systems of trees growing downwards to absorb nutrients from the land.
An inexplicable force erupted from the sole, gathering power from throughout the body along the bones and muscles,
finally unleashing it through the sword blade.
[Vortex Slash]
Slash—
Amid the tearing air's shrill sound, the swirling mist rolled violently.
A sharp silver arc with a beautiful curve vanished momentarily in front of Xia Nan.
At that moment, time and space seemed to fall into a stasis.
The meticulously maintained blade, combined with skills practiced hundreds of thousands of times, rendered the goblin's skin, muscle, and bones fragile as sandpaper, easily crushed.
"Skill Level +1"
A semi-transparent text flashed before his eyes.
Xia Nan felt a brief resistance in his hand, then had already swung the One Handed Sword in a slanted upward slash from left to right, as he had done countless days and nights before.
Blood splattered.
Falling onto the muddy ground were the goblins' severed hands, half skulls, foul-smelling innards, and their filthy, scalding blood.
These two insidious creatures, aiming to ambush, were sliced in half with a single stroke, like the countless stalks on the field's edge before.
The forest seemed to fall into some kind of dead silence at this moment.
High above in the treetop, Magi instinctively released the longbow already drawn taut.
Eyes moving to glance at the two fragmented bodies on the grass, he turned to look at Xia Nan, who was slowly exhaling while sheathing the sword.
His Adam's apple bobbing twice, an uncontrollable astonishment appeared on his face.
"Is this really a rookie!?"