The metallic stench of blood and filth grew thicker as the forest vegetation closed in. I crawled under the cover of giant tree roots jutting out of the ground, watching from behind a curtain of vines. Up ahead gaped a dark and disgusting stone crevice.

It wasn't a fortress, but a hiding hole. The foul stench of ammonia wafting from it indicated that this was a lair for creatures with zero concept of basic sanitation.

From my hiding spot in the bushes, I watched in silence. The nine Goblins kicked and roughly shoved the three exhausted human captives. They forced them through the mouth of the crevice into the darkness.

Outside the crevice, two other Goblins remained at their posts. They didn't go inside. The first guard held a rusted sword. He wore an iron helmet that was at least three sizes too big, forcing him to repeatedly push it up with his sword hilt because it kept slipping down to cover his eyes. The second guard held a crude wooden bow. What made me hold back a snort was a piece of dirty cloth tied over one of his eyes. He seemed to be trying hard to imitate the style of some adventurer he had seen, which only made him look both stupid and ridiculous.

I shifted my gaze away from those two clown guards toward the dark tunnel where the captives had been taken.

Three humans. The two women walking with a limp looked like ordinary adventurers judging by the remnants of their torn leather armor. However, the plump figure dragged at the very back was clearly not one of them. He had no armor or protection. Amidst the tears and mud stains, his brightly colored thick linen tunic and wide leather belt screamed the identity of a merchant.

Two leather armored guards and one fat walking wallet. Clearly, this was just a small scale merchant party. If they were dragged alive to this lair, it meant this group was hit by a brutal ambush a few hundred meters back along the route. The path they took must have left a trail of corpses. It was a buffet of essence far too precious to be left rotting away.

'Fall back,' I ordered the three Vassals through our mental link.

However, before I could turn to leave, the bladder in this tiny body suddenly demanded its rights by force. Holding back a curse, I was forced to press against the nearest tree trunk and lift one of my hind legs. A former Hunter who used to fight on the front lines of a Gate was now urinating like a stray dog marking its territory. My dignity was thoroughly shredded.

After finishing the business of watering this new world, I quickly turned my body around. I crawled quite a distance, tracing back the trail of blood and broken twigs left by the Goblin group earlier, until the forest canopy opened up slightly to highlight a devastated area.

A killing field.

But this wasn't patternless chaos. My eyes read the situation in an instant. Two Goblins fell close together with clean slashes to the neck. The others died scattered, their wounds rough and rushed. Their formation must have broken in the middle. The adventurers had the upper hand for a moment... then they were surrounded from all directions.

Arrows were still scattered around the corpses. They weren't retrieved. Either the Goblin group retreated in a hurry to secure their captives, or their numbers were too small to care about picking up leftover weapons.

Silence. There were no insect sounds. No birds dared to chirp. It was as if this forest hadn't finished digesting what had just happened here.

The smell of human blood pierced my nose sharply. It felt incredibly familiar.

In the middle of the uprooted grass lay two male corpses wearing armor and cloaks pierced by arrows. They must have been the rest of the adventurer group escorting the fat merchant. Around them were four Goblin corpses, plus two other dead Goblins nearby. A total of six lowly monster bodies were scattered about.

I stared intently at the two adventurer corpses. My combat logic kept urging me. Raising humans as puppets would be far more effective for the upcoming raid. Their physical structure was sturdy, far surpassing these lowly monsters.

Turning fellow humans into meat puppets was indeed sickening. But I needed raw power right now. If I wanted to survive and free those captives, I needed strong warriors. I decided to put those moral issues on hold for a moment and turned to the six Goblin corpses. I needed their essence to increase my capacity. These lowly monsters were pure fuel.

'Absorb.'

A brutal, hot sensation rushed in consecutively.

[Goblin Essence x6 Assimilated]
[Level 4 Reached]
[Level 5 Reached]
[Maximum Mana Increased: 70 to 90]
[Stat Increased (Random): Agility +1, Strength +1]
[Total Free Stat Points: 4]
[Level 5 Milestone: Vassal Slot Increased (3 to 5)]

This two level jump triggered an explosion of energy in my chest, causing my tiny muscles to dense up slightly.

The echo of that consecutive absorption flowed through our mental link. I already knew that every essence assimilation provided a slight recovery effect to the Vassals. However, because I swallowed six essences at once this time, those small stacks of recovery accumulated into a significant physical boost.

I could see the torn wound on the Cave Rat's back closing up quite a bit, making it crawl alertly once more. Meanwhile, the old Goblin suddenly fell silent. His frail posture that usually trembled was now hardened and much more stable. Through the mental link, I could feel the residual energy from the stacked essence now buried deep within his crippled corpse.

I smirked in satisfaction. I now had two empty Vassal slots.

My eyes returned to the leather armored adventurer corpses. I swallowed my saliva, killing off the rest of my conscience. I pressed my paw against the man's chest. I was ready to bear this sin.

'Arise.'

A transparent blue panel appeared and blinked in my retina.

[Error: Species invalid for this skill function.]

I froze staring at the text. That clinical system rejection slapped me hard. A sickening frustration immediately crawled up into my head.

'Damn it,' I cursed loudly in my mind.

My tactical calculations missed the mark. I had just sucked dry the essence of six Goblin corpses to pump my level up so I could resurrect these humans. I threw away my conscience and gambled my resources. Now, the system rejected humans, and the Goblin corpses around me were completely empty. It was a truly embarrassing tactical error for a veteran.

I was just about to mourn my own stupidity when my bat like ears twitched sharply.

Snap. Rustle... Rustle...

The sound of dry leaves being stepped on by multiple feet could be heard approaching from the direction of the cave route.

I didn't waste any time. Together with the three Vassals, I jumped behind the dense giant fern bushes and pressed my belly flat against the muddy ground.

Over a dozen green skinned dwarfish figures emerged from the trees. They walked with haphazard steps, carrying wooden clubs and serrated daggers. They were preparing to forcefully drag and strip any scrap armor, the overturned merchant cart, and whatever else was left on the battlefield. My forehead wrinkled in confusion. Wait, weren't they also part of that Goblin patrol group from earlier?

I watched them carefully from behind the fern leaves. One of them had a scar on his arm that was exactly the same as the Goblin I saw escorting the merchant earlier.

My eyes narrowed. Ah, I see. These bastards didn't just stay inside their lair. After throwing their captives into the cave, this group walked right back to the combat area to loot the corpses and leftover weapons.

Over a dozen Goblins had just walked out of their cave. If this mob was wandering outside to loot, that meant their hideout hole in there currently had very few Goblins left!

This wasn't just an opening. This was an open invitation.

As long as this group was busy having a looting party on the battlefield, that narrow cave tunnel was nothing more than a quiet hallway guarded by a handful of monsters. My chance to infiltrate and free those captives would never be better than this.

I turned my gaze through the trees back toward the route to the cave. With these dozens of looters gathered on the battlefield, the path back there was guaranteed to be safe. At the end of that route, their lair was now purely guarded by those two clowns I saw earlier.

My eyes narrowed. Two guards. And thanks to the level up just now, I had exactly two empty spaces sitting idle in my system. It was a coincidence far too sweet to pass up.

They weren't just obstacles. They were recruitment candidates.

Now it was time for execution.