As his instincts came alive and the sharpness returned, Vlad focused his senses on the man before him, and he could not help but feel surprised.
'It looks like either he is more cautious than I thought, or he is not the target I came looking for,' Vlad thought, his mind going through all the possibilities.
Vlad had come here to confirm if Swail was the goblin overlord from his past life and also possibly see his accursed magic staff. However, seeing that the man before him was no stronger than an average mortal Rank individual, he was forced to question his knowledge.
'There are potions to suppress one's strength, but will a criminal, take the risk of sealing his strength just to look legitimate?' Vlad pondered his next move, his mind racing with questions.
"Young Man?" The man said, his head raised to meet Vlad's calm, smiling face, who was just standing there in silence.
'There is only one way to find out if he is the goblin overlord or just a disabled alchemist,' Vlad thought as he met Swail's gaze, and without even the slightest change in his expression, his hand moved, the white dagger appearing in his right hand.
"Do you- --," Swail was about to speak again, but words refused, to come out, as a flash of silver went past his throat.
"WHAT? HEYY.....HEYY...." he screamed in horror, his voice abruptly choking off into a wet gurgle as blood spilled from his slit throat.
Vlad went for the throat since the dagger would fail to pierce the skull and the heart could be protected by a hidden armor, but after slitting the throat open, he went straight for the heart.
The panicked shriek was cut short after a few swift stabs, and moments later, the only sound that remained was the sickening tear of flesh, but Vlad did not stop, his intent only to kill.
If he was wrong and Swail was just a human then he would ask for forgiveness, but for now, he was a disaster-level creature and it seems the heavens were on Vlad's side.
{You have killed a level 122 Demi-Human (Swail 'Rare Elite')}
{71K Reputation points for killing Swail the Goblin Alchemist with a wanted level of Gray Skull}
{15K Galactic Points}
{Exp Gained: 212K+}
{You have reached the level cap (Lvl 10) for your current Rank (Rank 0). Excess EXP will be lost.}
{A Cutlass (Rare) of pristine condition was acquired as loot}
{Swail's Alchemist Pouch (Rare)} (Contains various potions, alchemical ingredients, unknown concoctions, and two recipes.)
{Ring of the Foul Scholar (Rare)}
{Old Research Notes (Unique)(Incomplete)}
{4673x Gold Coins}
Vlad smiled in relief as the long list of notifications rang in his head, but not seeing the magic staff as part of the loot, a small frown crept onto his face.
He stood up and, without hesitation, closed the system window, his eyes already darting across the house, scanning for any sign of his missing prize.
'The staff must be somewhere around here,' Vlad thought as he quickly went toward the alchemy room in the back, which reeked of a pungent smell.
Swail, now dead began to show his true self, the effects of the potions he used to keep his identity hidden fading away, changing his humanoid feature at a slow pace.
His skin turned a pale shade of green, his nose swelled, and his ear elongated with pointed ends, while his wide-open eyes turned a dirty yellow with dark slits.
'It is not here,' Vlad murmured with a frown as his eyes darted around the large room that reeked of overwhelming stench.
Vlad began to open the wooden barrels, finding nothing but hundreds of goblin eyes, herbs, and alchemical chemicals.
He knew that Swail might have hidden the staff someplace safe, away from his home, but that was always the risk since he could not just interrogate the green skin.
He quickly returned to the living room area, placed Swail's body in his inventory, and then locked the door, knowing some player could visit at any time.
He began to shift the furniture and look for some hidden space, but even after combing through the entire house twice, he failed to find the staff.
Vlad checked everything using his honed senses, not finding any trace of the disturbed mana, a phenomenon most items above rare grade created.
He checked the floor, the chimney, the ceiling itself, and even the furniture by taping, making sure to not miss any hollow space that Swail could have used to hide the staff but still, he found nothing.
'I was hoping everything could go fine, but I guess things mostly never go as planned,' Vlad thought as he settled onto the high back chair.
Vlad knew this outcome was very much possible, and he would need to get very lucky for things to work out as he wanted, but he had to take the chance.
But still, he felt annoyed since now he had no way of killing the troll king and he also did not require the staff, meaning the rise of the Demonkin event would still take place.
He would need to waste quite some time gathering materials to kill a special boss monster in a very specific way to acquire the title he needed for the second step of his plan.
'I need that poison spirit. She is the key to my future plans,' Vlad thought, his mind already racing through the next steps.
'Wait a minute,' Vlad's mind snapped into focus as a realization struck him. 'The loot,' His thoughts raced as he swiftly opened his inventory, only for the pure shock to freeze him in place, his expression shifting in doubt.
'How can the research notes of a second-grade alchemist be of unique grade and old? Incomplete?' Vlad murmured, a creeping realization settling in.
His grip tightened as his mind pieced together the implications that those were not Swail's alchemy work and possibly not even related to alchemy.
'This trip might not be a complete waste,' Vlad mused, feeling a little better as he took out the research notes.
The research notes were a thick tome of tattered, yellowed pages, at least a hundred, bound together by a rotting string, with no cover to protect its fragile contents.
The pages were leather parchment, and from their decaying condition, it was clear that they were old, at least a few decades old.
'Demon language?' Vlad thought as the system auto translator came to life, swiftly translating the page into English.
"Arznith Dreth' Zikoz"
"The Demon King who will unite the Demonkin Continent."
'Never heard of you,' Vlad thought, barely sparing the name another glance as he moved on.
Vlad began to read and quickly found that the research study was on what Arznith referred to as the primordial language.
The few reference words that were mentioned, the language appeared to be runes, ancient runes with each word appearing far more complicated than Vlad had ever seen.
His interest instantly peaked, but his shock only grew the moment he read the name Oroxon Breg'dron Durkin because that man was the first Demon King responsible for uniting the Demonkin and becoming the Ruler of the Demonkin continent in the era of war.
Vlad did not know much about the first demon king after the era of chaos, but he knew that man was feared and respected, so his interest was bound to be piqued when that monster was called a servant.
'86th Moon Year 21620'
'My servant Oroxon Breg'dron Durkin has decoded two words in record time without any training or research material.'
'12th Moon Year 21621'
'Oroxon has shown great potential, and thanks to his help, I have made more progress in a mere nine months than I did in six years,'
Vlad kept reading, understanding little about the mentioned details about the primordial language, as it was too complicated, each character having dozens if not hundreds of ways to say it, requiring different levels of law understanding for it to be even effective.
One's mana infinity, strength, law understanding, and even race played a role in what results one could achieve from a primordial word.
The more he read the more Vlad understood that he was learning about one of the world's greatest powers since a single word was capable of turning mountains to dust and doing so without a complicated spell structure.
He tried learning one of the words he found in the earliest pages with most details written about, but besides sounding like a drunk with a broken jaw he achieved nothing.
The two pages had a gap of nine years, disappointing but what else could one expect from incomplete records that were on the brink of turning to dust.
Vlad kept reading, one page at a time, his pace extremely slow making sure he missed no details, and when he reached page forty-two, he found something really interesting.
'266th Moon Year 21632'
'Oroxon is creating a set of artifacts that will allow one to control any creature of any race.'
'He says they are gifts for me, but I don't trust that boy,'
'He has been acting strange for some time, unlike his normal self. He gets enraged when he is not praised properly for his work, he enjoys his authority over my generals, and he is sleeping with paramours, and each of them mysteriously vanishes,'
"What?" Vlad blurted as he read the details of the artifacts.