BXBX NOVEL Chapter 20 - 20: The Goblin King
Chapter 20: The Goblin King
"…"
The office was completely silent.
Everyone had their eyes locked onto the screen which showed a scene of absolute carnage and chaos.
Corpses lay scattered on the ground leaving rivers of blood behind. The fire raged endlessly and wasn't likely to stop anytime soon. Black smoke covered the sky casting a dark shadow across the land.
The workers observing the exam had stopped their work as they felt fear creeping deep inside their souls. Even Alec felt slightly appalled as he watched the screen with furrowed brows.
A while ago, they switched the screen to display Lake's movement and actions. When they first started observing the boy's behavior they watched as he went around assassinating the goblins, a slightly sickening sight that made some of the examiners slightly uncomfortable, but they didn't mind it too much. After all, although rare, there were hunters that specialized in assassination.
After they finally figured out how he was able to kill the goblins, Alec didn't feel the need to continue watching even if it was an impressive feat to kill so many goblins, there wasn't anything special about the way he did it.
However, as they were about to switch the screen to another candidate, they watched as Lake approached the relatively open field of armed goblins. Wondering what he planned to do Alec decided to keep the screen focused on Lake.
That was when the horror began. At first they watched him run and break down a tower with his bare hands. Seeing that impressive feat of strength, Alec's interest was piqued.
After breaking down the tower he used it to crush a group of goblins. At that point, everyone in the office was impressed with Lake's methods.
As they continued to watch, they saw that the tower that had fallen managed to catch a flame from the fire pit. Lake took a glance at the fire as a light flashed in his eyes.
While everyone was discussing what Lake was going to do next, they watched as he ran straight to another tower. Thanks to the fallen tower distracting most of the goblins, Lake didn't have much problems running to the next tower.
After having demolished the first tower, Lake seemed to be slightly more proficient in his movements as he managed to fell the second tower slightly faster than the first.
After toppling the tower, Lake picked up a piece of wood that had fallen off from the tower before lighting it in a nearby fire pit.
Everyone was extremely curious at this point as to what Lake planned to do next. Thankfully it didn't take long for Lake to move as everyone watched with shocked expressions as Lake started to light all the tents in the area on fire!
"This… is this legal?" One of the workers asked as he watched with wide eyes.
"At the beginning of the test, the rules were clearly stated to everyone. It didn't mention anything about lighting the place on fire as we hadn't thought someone would do something like that, but for whether this is morally correct or not… I can't say." Another worker replied.
Everyone else was silent as they also couldn't say if his actions were good or bad. On one side there were goblins, a natural enemy of humans. On the other hand however, there was someone burning down a settlement of intelligent creatures to the floor, almost like a raider or bandit, something that wouldn't normally be done by a morally correct person.
Alec remained silent as he continued to watch the screen with furrowed brows.
As the stream continued, Lake toppled more and more towers as he went, lighting them all ablaze along with any tents or huts he passed. When he had finally ignited most of the surroundings and smoke covered the area, they saw him soak a strip of cloth before wrapping it around his face.
As they watched everyone finally understood Lake's plan but they were all terrified of what came next. It felt as if they were all watching a scene from a horror movie play out before them. They looked on as Lake picked off the goblins, dragging them into the smoke one by one where their screams were muffled by the sounds of the fire that surrounded everything.
They watched as blood was spilled and corpses fell all while the Lake's demonic figure streaked through the smoke like a demented ghoul.
When Lake had decapitated one of the goblins and rolled its head into the open, everyone was filled with fear alongside the goblins. Next, they watched the goblin captain be impaled by a spear before mass panic flooded into the hearts of the goblins.
Lake stood to a side with a bundle of spears, chucking them at any goblin he saw making an attempt to run away. After a while had passed, Lake had managed to kill most of the goblins. The few remaining had all turned tail and ran, completely abandoning the fortress in favor or saving their own lives, leaving their home as it slowly crumbled to the ground.
Lake then spent the next few minutes, walking up to and scanning any corpses that hadn't been consumed by the flames.
"…"
Everyone was silenced by what they had just watched.
After a while, Alec slowly snapped out of his daze.
"Everyone get back to work! Immediately send me the profile of whoever that man is on the screen!" Alec shouted out.
Everyone also slowly snapped out of their daze as they got back to work. However, all of them still had the images of Lake's massacre stuck in their heads and couldn't completely focus on their work.
After a few moments, Alec got his hand on Lake's profile as he quickly began to scroll through it, not wanting to miss a single detail.
[Candidate 0101]
[Name = Lake Egoven]
[Overall Fitness = 1.40]
[Mana Rating = 0. No mana detected]
[Notable Traits = Orphan (Parents died in a rift outbreak). Lives by himself with the support money sent by his elder sister. Zero mana detected during the evaluation (Expected an error to have occurred with the mana detection machine).]
"Hmm? Is this really it?" Alec questioned the authenticity of the information he was currently reading through. Alec felt that the information is even more exaggerated compared to when he went through candidate 0050. After all, how can these students that had little to no chance to interact with mana and the required training techniques possibly get so strong.
However what Alec found to be the most strange thing on this profile was the zero mana rating.
"Error in the mana detection machine? Just how old is their association facility for the mana detection machine to be having errors?" Alec sighed as he thought to himself.
Raising his head, Alec returned his gaze to the screen where Lake had just finished scanning the last goblin corpse he could find.
…
Lake glanced at the notification that had appeared as he scanned the final goblin.
[Confirmed Kill on a Goblin (Low Tier). +5 Points.]
[Total Points = 795]
Unfortunately, Lake didn't manage to scan all the corpses of the goblins, but he considered that a small price to pay for what he had gained in exchange.
[Current number of creatures killed = 203.]
[RP Points = 199.754]
[Time Remaining = 1 hour 13 minutes.]
Looking at the number of kills that had managed to cross the two hundred mark, Lake felt extremely satisfied with the outcome.
After sorting himself out, Lake turned around ready to leave the goblin fortress that had started to fall apart, however, as soon as Lake turned his back to the collapsing wreck of a village he was startled by a loud roar that came from deep within the fortress.
Lake was slightly stunned by this roar but then he had remembered he hadn't actually killed everyone in the fortress as there was still one person he had left out, The Goblin King.
After hearing the roar, Lake paused for a moment as he began to think. There was only a little bit over an hour left. If he were to go out and hunt for the remaining time, it would take far too long for him to gather points as he would spend most of his time searching for monsters. If he was lucky, he could possibly gather at most 30 points.
If he were to stay and somehow managed to kill The Goblin King, that would be 50 points with one kill.
Looking at the environment, Lake felt that he also had the advantage as the smoke and fire had yet to dissipate. He could use the two to assist him to kill The Goblin King under the element of surprise. The more Lake thought of it this way, the more he felt that it was possible.
After thinking for a bit longer he decided to at least first take a look at the goblin king's sector.
Turning to the direction of where the roar came from, Lake walked back into the smoke before disappearing with it.