Chapter 672 Goblins!?

Chapter 672: Heavy Goblin Reliance

A greeting from beside him caught Ake's attention. He turned toward the sound.

Two figures came into view—one stout, the other slender.

The slender one had a lithe, delicate build and exquisite features. Pointed ears poked through silvery-white hair that shone like moonlight, and their grayish-black skin, like stone shrouded in shadow, revealed their identity as a Half-Drow.

The noticeably more robust figure appeared to be a pureblood human. His lineage likely leaned toward the Northlands, giving him deep-set features and pale skin that seemed to radiate a chill. Under the faint glow of the nearby fungal moss, the clean, defined lines of his muscles stood out even more.

They looked as if they had just survived a brutal battle; both were in absolutely abysmal physical condition.

The light leather armor the Half-Drow had worn was ravaged by some immense force. It was completely warped, no longer capable of providing even the most basic defense, and had been tossed into a corner like trash.

Now wearing only a close-fitting undershirt, the Half-Drow's exposed skin was covered in shocking bruises and open wounds.

The human Warrior's light plate armor still hung precariously on his body. However, the thickest iron plate over his chest had collapsed inward as if struck by a heavy blow, stripping it of any real defensive function.

His injuries looked far more severe. His left arm hung limply by his side, and the slightest movement twisted his face in agony.

Beyond their injuries, the two shared one other thing in common:

An iron chain tightly bound the Half-Drow by the neck and the human Warrior by the left wrist.

Ake froze at the sight. Realizing something, his gaze instinctively dropped.

His own right ankle was also tightly wrapped in an iron chain.

The chain didn't look particularly sturdy. It was only about two-thirds the width of a finger and covered in rust patches, as if it hadn't been maintained in years.

It would certainly work to restrain an ordinary person, but against adventurers like them—who had already taken many steps down their professional class paths—it was far from enough.

Grabbing the chain around his ankle, Ake fought through the intense pain wracking his body. He gritted his teeth and exerted his Strength, trying to snap it.

Oddly enough, though he clearly felt his power erupting from within as his muscles swelled, the moment he channeled it into his fingers and ankle, it vanished without a trace, like a stone dropped into the ocean. His Class Grade Strength should have easily snapped the chain.

It was as if all his physical might had been absorbed by the seemingly ordinary iron chains. Unable to exert any force, Ake only grew weaker from the massive drain on his stamina.

"Give it up. It's useless," the Half-Drow who had greeted him earlier spoke up, a teasing lilt in their voice.

Pretending he hadn't heard a thing, Ake kept his teeth gritted and continued yanking on the chain. He stared intently at the spot where his Strength vanished, trying to spot a clue.

Thanks to his persistence, Ake noticed something.

Right where the iron chain pressed tightly against his skin, he could faintly make out barely discernible, dark-purple fungal threads.

Whenever he exerted force, these fungal threads swayed and tangled together like bizarre little tentacles, completely absorbing every ounce of Strength he tried to apply.

"What the hell is this?" Ake muttered.

A chill ran through his heart. He traced the chain all the way to its end, where it anchored into a bare rock wall that faintly glowed with the same dark-purple hue.

"Save your energy. If you pass out again, you might not wake up," the Half-Drow joked from the side.

The teasing tone made Ake frown. He asked sternly, "Who are you people? And what exactly happened here?"

Based on what he had observed, Ake figured he had most likely ended up in the extremely dangerous Underdark. The two people in front of him were just like him—imprisoned here by some unknown creature.

As for the rest, he needed to observe further.

Hearing his tone, the Half-Drow curled their lip and pointed at Ake's chest in annoyance. "Human, you're entirely too rude. If I hadn't helped bandage you up, you might not be awake to talk to me right now."

Following the Half-Drow's finger, Ake saw that the throbbing wound on his chest was indeed bound tightly with several blood-soaked rags.

The technique wasn't bad, but the bandages were just torn strips of clothing rather than professional medical wraps. It looked crude, and the effect was fairly average.

Still, it helped stabilize the injury to some extent, allowing the tense, guarded expression Ake wore from waking up in a strange environment to soften slightly.

Having just been joking around, not actually expecting to use this small favor as leverage, the Half-Drow broke into a smile across their dirt-smudged face. "We're adventurers from the surface too," they introduced themselves. "Just call me Ye Xi."

Ye Xi then tipped their chin toward the silent human, who sat with his head bowed. "That's Benny, a teammate from my party."

Since the other party had clearly expressed goodwill, and Ake was in an unfamiliar environment with absolutely no idea what had happened to him, he wasn't going to let his only source of information slip by. "I'm Ake," he introduced himself.

Before the Half-Drow could respond, Ake bombarded them with a rapid-fire string of questions.

"Did you see anyone else besides me? A blond boy, about fifteen or sixteen?"

"Why are we locked up here? Who did this?"

"What exactly happened? And what's the deal with these iron chains?"

"Hold on, hold on!" Putting on an exaggerated display, Ye Xi covered their ears theatrically. "You're asking way too much. I'm not in much better shape than you are. Are you going to take responsibility if you make me pass out?"

Seeing Ake shut his mouth with an awkward expression, the Half-Drow grinned triumphantly. "First of all, regarding this blond boy you mentioned. When you were tossed in here yesterday like a dead dog, I didn't see anyone else."

Ake looked somewhat disappointed, but he didn't feel particularly angered by Ye Xi's apt description. This caused the Half-Drow, who had been secretly hoping for a reaction, to curl their lip in boredom.

"Next, why are we locked up here?" Ye Xi continued.

"Because we lost in battle, obviously," Ye Xi said, looking as though this were the most natural thing in the world. "We couldn't beat them, so we got caught. It's that simple."

"As for how you were captured and sent here—" The Half-Drow's crystalline eyes swept over Ake's battered body. "—you'll have to ask yourself."

It was indeed just as Ye Xi had said. Judging purely by their attire and auras, the Half-Drow and the human Warrior were clearly highly capable adventurers.

Yet right now, not only were they severely injured and their armor broken, they didn't have a single weapon between them. Clearly, the victors had claimed their gear as spoils of war.

As for himself, although he hadn't encountered any battles after his fall and had been unconscious the entire time, his backpack carrying his Healing Potions and supplies, along with his heavy shield, were missing.

"Which faction was it exactly?" Ake asked.

In his heart, he already had several theories.

Given the unique environment of the Underdark, it wasn't actually that hard to guess.

Drow, duergar, or even mind flayers. It could only be one of a few—

"Goblins," said the human Warrior, who had kept his head bowed and remained silent this whole time. He suddenly looked up as if guessing what Ake was thinking, his tone icy cold.

"Goblins!?" Ake asked for confirmation, looking astonished, as if he had just heard a name that had absolutely no business being the answer.

"That's right, exactly the green-skinned rats you're picturing." Ye Xi threw their hands up helplessly at Ake.

"How— That's impossible—"

Based on Ake's extensive experience, even though the two adventurers before him were heavily injured, their actual power levels were definitely not low. He estimated they were at least Level 3, just like him.

With that tier of strength, even if their physical condition was terrible, there was no way they could have ended up in such a state against green-skinned goblins—creatures whose individual strength couldn't even match a stray dog on the street.

Strangely enough, in the face of his continued questioning, both of them—including the lively Half-Drow, Ye Xi—shut their mouths in unison.

Ake even saw a hint of something in the depths of the Half-Drow's eyes—fear?

Fearing goblins?

He felt the notion was utterly absurd, yet the creeping weakness emanating from the iron chain tightly wrapped around his right ankle told him everything happening in front of him was no hallucination.

Refusing to give up on escaping, Ake looked around, urgently trying to find a way to break out.

The good news was that the two adventurers hadn't seen anyone else, which meant Young Master Zanfrey had most likely not run into these supposedly powerful "goblins."

The bad news was that, judging by the final scene before he lost consciousness, the two boys should have also fallen into the Underdark.

Even if you added the two of them together, their Class Level combat strength didn't even amount to Level 1.

Finding themselves in such a perilous underground world—one where even veteran adventurers needed to tread with extreme caution—if they ran into a slightly stronger monster...

'I have to get out of this place quickly and find the young master!' Ake made up his mind.

But right at that moment, the faint sound of footsteps suddenly echoed from outside the stone cave serving as their temporary prison.

Three green-skinned goblins lumbered in through the entrance. Each cradled a stone bowl filled with a bizarre soup that gave off a nauseating, sickly-green hue.

Their skin was still that same pus-green covered in scabs, but their bodies were distinctly different from normal goblins. They were noticeably more muscular, bulging several sizes larger than usual.

As if they hadn't fully adapted to their own bodies, the goblins would occasionally stiffen and twitch mid-step like they were suffering a seizure. They spilled soup from their stone bowls all over the floor, barely managing to stumble over to the prisoners.

Ake hadn't expected the Half-Drow's words about the goblins to actually be true. His gaze locked intently on the creatures approaching him.

Sensing the human adventurer's stare, one goblin raised its head to meet his eyes.

What met his gaze was a pair of bizarre eyes radiating an eerie dark-purple hue.

Within the whites of those eyes, thread-like fungal colonies resembling blood vessels squirmed around the pupils.

Approaching with Fanny and the two boys, Xia Nan swept his gaze over the gnome and the Dire Corby corpse beneath him. A strange look crossed his face.

"Are you really just going to abandon your two teammates?"

It had already been nearly half a day since they agreed to cooperate.

The four people and the wolf were now hurrying toward the Underdark exit the gnome had mentioned.

Truth be told, given how crucial his knowledge of the exit was—just like Zanfrey earlier—if Ronda had demanded they search for his missing teammates first, Xia Nan would have been forced to agree. No matter how reluctant he felt, he was completely unfamiliar with the nearby tunnels.

Yet the gnome hadn't said a single word about his missing comrades, who very well might still be alive. He acted as if he didn't care whether they lived or died, which Xia Nan found rather strange.

Ronda's reply perfectly encapsulated the mindset of the vast majority of adventurers in this world.

"I have to survive first before I can worry about anything else."

Not everyone had a trump card like Xia Nan, something akin to a second life.

Having spent so many years in the Underdark, Ronda knew exactly how dangerous it was to travel these deep caverns alone, without a team or Dire Corbies to clear the way.

The endless string of disasters he had recently faced had only pushed his insecurity to its absolute peak.

He longed to bathe in the sunlight and looked forward to the day when the ceiling above him was no longer just bare rock and dirt. He desperately wanted to sit in one piece by a tavern fireplace again, savoring a strong drink while swapping tall tales with some unfamiliar adventurer from who knows where.

As for those two missing teammates—

Ronda could only wish them luck.