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Goblin Chapter 42: Moving Forward
🕑 Added 2025-07-19 17:55:56 +0000 UTCGauss was already preparing to test out the stun effect from his newly earned title, [Slime Hunter].
A special ability like this, tailored specifically against slimes, was practically made for this moment. If he wasn’t going to use it now, when would he?
Drawing his rapier, he stared down the slime in front of him.
As soon as he willed it, the title’s stun effect came to him like instinct. Within moments, he knew exactly how to activate it.
He narrowed his eyes, focusing his mind.
A pulse of invisible energy radiated outward from his body.
“Bzzzzt—”
The stun field surged out in a 3-meter radius, instantly hitting three slimes.
They jolted violently on impact—then froze like someone had just hit pause on reality.
“Sching!”
At the same time, Gauss lunged forward with his rapier.
Time slowed down again as he focused—his vision narrowing, the world slowing to a crawl.
Sunlight gleamed off the rapier’s blade, coated in anti-corrosion oil, as it sliced clean through the slime’s outer membrane.
Flash!
No resistance. Not like stabbing a goblin. The slime’s gelatinous body offered almost no pushback.
“Shlrrp!”
Aside from a few undigested scraps of debris inside the slime, the blade passed straight through—piercing its core dead-on.
“Sploosh!”
Another one down.
The slime collapsed into a pool of foul-smelling goo.
[Slime Slain ÷1]
[Total Monster Kills: 29]
Gauss flicked his blade, flinging off a glob of slime gel that clung to it. Despite the protective coating, it was best not to let acidic residue sit on the metal for long.
He glanced at the puddle at his feet and nodded inwardly—
That stun ability? Pretty damn effective.
Sure, one second of freeze time didn’t sound like much. But in the hands of a skilled fighter? It was more than enough to end a fight quickly.
More importantly, the more slimes he killed, the more the title would evolve. Who knew—maybe eventually that stun would stretch to several seconds. Or outright knock enemies unconscious. Maybe even kill them outright.
He looked around—Doyle was already charging into another slime. If he didn’t act fast, there wouldn’t be any left for him.
The battle was ending fast.
Laevin and Doyle held the frontline, taking all the aggro. Gauss stayed just behind them, cleaning up the sides. The ranged unit picked off stragglers from the flanks.
It took only minutes.
In real fights, there’s rarely back-and-forth. When one side has a clear advantage, battles end fast—and decisively.
By the time half the slimes were down, the rest began fleeing in all directions.
Didn’t matter.
They couldn’t outrun swords and arrows.
Even the ones who tried were hunted down in short order. Within minutes, all 25 slimes had been wiped out.
It had been a full elimination mission, after all—and in this line of work, a dead slime was a paid slime.
They weren’t going to let a single one escape if they could help it.
Once the last one fell, Daphne got to work.
Even though the frontline had been protected with shields and layers of gloves and armor, some acidic spray had gotten through.
Laevin and Doyle had taken the worst of it.
“Tssss—ahhghgh!”
Doyle winced in pain as Daphne applied her healing magic.
“Hang in there, Doyle,” she said, waving her staff gently.
A soft green glow pulsed from the tip and settled over the burn.
It wasn’t enough to fully heal it, but her Stabilize spell stopped the pain and halted further tissue damage.
Then came the ointment, smeared quickly over the irritated skin.
“Should be gone in half a day,” she said.
“Thanks, Daphne. You're the best.”
“Um—no need to get all sentimental. Laevin, your turn.”
After patching them up, she turned to Gauss.
“Gauss, you good? You were in the thick of it too.”
“I’m fine. No damage taken.” He waved it off. “Between the shield, spellwork, and a bit of luck—I managed. I think I killed nine in total, including the ones I spell-sniped.”
“...Nine?”
Doyle and Laevin both looked over, visibly surprised.
Especially Doyle—he looked downright deflated. He’d only managed five.
Was Gauss becoming the squad’s main DPS?
Was this just the difference between warriors and spellcasters?
While the others rested and chatted, Oliver and Meiva were hard at work, gathering up the scattered slime gel cores. Most of the slimes had burst into globs of goo, but here and there were usable fragments.
In the end, they collected a decent pile.
Slime gel was a valuable alchemical component—about the size of an egg when intact, bouncy, and rich in acidic enzymes.
Even the broken bits could be bundled up and sold as a full unit if they reached the right weight.
“We got 25 slimes total,” Meiva reported, “At 60 copper each, plus the gel fragments at 30 copper a pop—that’s 22 silver, 50 copper.”
Not a bad haul.
Sure, it wasn’t life-changing money, and they didn’t find any valuable gear—slimes don’t carry loot, after all—but for a low-risk, nearby mission? Solid work.
Everyone leaned back under the trees, catching their breath, counting coin, and smiling.
Accept quest. Fight monsters. Sharpen skills. Get paid. Rest. Re-arm. Repeat.
That was the loop.
That was the grind.
For adventurers at the bottom, there was no shortcut—only effort, luck, and patience. One day, they might step onto the path of true professionals.
Or maybe not.
No one could say for sure.
Gauss leaned against a tree, cleaning his sword, flipping open his Adventurer's Manual.
[Total Monster Kills: 32]
[Magic Missile Lv2 (8/20)]
Progress.
He’d taken down nine slimes this fight. Five with Magic Missile, four with his rapier—using a combination of his bullet-time focus and that new stun effect from the [Slime Hunter] title.
If he kept up this pace, two more missions like this and he’d hit 50 kills—enough to trigger the next manual milestone.
And Magic Missile was already nearing its halfway mark to level 3.
More importantly, his method was working.
By letting Laevin and Doyle take the frontline, he could focus on clean, efficient takedowns from the outside. Minimal risk, maximum results.
This time he hadn’t even relied on easy kills.
Four out of ten enemies—cleanly taken out—was proof enough of his contribution.
But Gauss wasn’t satisfied.
What today’s fight had shown him was a gap in his kit.
He had no AoE.
His Magic Missile looked flashy—but it was a single-target spell. Sure, he’d nailed three at once earlier, but that had been a trick shot. He couldn’t rely on lining them up like that every time.
Maybe he needed to learn a true area spell. Or upgrade his Missile to be more versatile.
What if the spell could curve mid-flight?
Could that let him snipe multiple enemies with a single cast?
Could he even use that to bypass shields—strike from behind?
He had started to experiment a little already, influencing the path of the spell slightly. But full curve control was still a long way off.
Maybe it wasn’t even possible.
Still... it was worth exploring.
Aside from that, he still needed to log five different monster types in the Adventurer's Manual.
Once that was done, he’d get to roll for a random low-level passive ability—anything that could boost his strength was worth chasing.
He sighed, smirking to himself.
His to-do list was growing by the day.
But honestly? That felt good.
It meant he was moving forward.
Plenty of adventurers dreamed of having problems like his.
