Chapter 5: A Goblin’s Kindness (2)

The rain started to fall. At first, the drops were light and

fleeting, but soon intensified and flooded the small streams

flowing down the mountains, as well as rapidly filling up all the

basins here.

'Looks like it'll last a while.'

Sae-Jin finally let out a sigh after gazing at the rain for a long

time. He was worried. What could he say to the resting woman

behind him? What excuses sound plausible enough to prevent

her from murdering him? For a highly ranked Knight like her

who was aiming to become a person of the Highest Tier, it'd

only take a single punch to erase any and all hints of the

existence of a single Low Tier ranked Goblin.

"...*moan*..."

But he couldn't continue worrying and agonising for any

longer. Even though it hadn't been an hour since the treatment,

Kim Yu-Rin let out soft moans as if she'd regain her

consciousness any time now.

The pitiful Goblin nearly jumped out of his skin from the

sudden moaning and hurriedly ran towards the side of the

woman.

"Are you al...."

A sudden thought popping out in his head stopped his words

from coming out.

'A Goblin isn't supposed to talk in a human tongue.'

Having thought about it for a bit, he knew it just couldn't be

helped. Really, a "regular Goblin" wasn't supposed to save a

human. The usually-starving Goblins wouldn't be picky when it

came to the matters of filling up their bellies, after all.

".....Hmm...?"

Tossing this way and that, fighting the various pains and

aches, Kim Yu-Rin finally opened her eyes. She could see a stone

ceiling through the heavy, sleepy eyelids. Silently observing the

unfamiliar ceiling for a short moment, she then suddenly sat up

like a lightning bolt.

"...Euk!!"

Unfortunately for her, her action caused the still-healing body

to scream out in pain. Her face crumpled in agony, she caressed

the abdomen that was torn to bits just over 30 minutes ago.

But it was rather odd.

It was definitely true that the claws of a Sabretooth Tiger

gouged a chunk out of her tummy. The horrible residual pain

felt very real too. Yet, her abdomen felt just fine to her touch as

if nothing was wrong.

"How are you feeling?"

Out of nowhere, she heard a voice of a man.

Yu-Rin let out a breath of relief and turned towards the source

of the voice.

In the critical moment, she used the extra teleport scroll

which she packed just in case, seeing that the others weren't

working for some reason, but even that ended up sending her to

a wrong place, so she thought she was going to die. But

fortunately, a passerby happened to....

"Ah, I'm...."

A Goblin stood there.

Not only that, it spoke a human language. In Korean, no less.

She was going to get up and offer a bow of gratitude to her

benefactor but right now, it felt like her head was flickering into

a total blankness. The Goblin in front of her continued to yap on

about something, but she couldn't hear any of it. No, her brain

actively denied it.

"....What... what the hell?"

Thinking that she must be still suffering from the aftereffects

of trauma, she deeply closed her eyes and reopened them. But it

was the same as before. She rubbed her eyes and stared again.

"Uh....."

No matter what, the situation remained the same.

"What the hell? Am I going crazy?"

Unable to hold it in, she dazedly spat out the words.

"Nope, I'm real."

Sae-Jin was also somewhat frustrated. That was because

Goblins had really poor abilities to string together a decent

sentence, unfortunately. Even the most unwanted, useless traits

were beginning to mirror the real thing, it seemed.

"Wah, it really spoke. Maybe I've died already?"

Yu-Rin covered her face with both her hands and lied back

down on the stone bed.

It took quite a long time before she could come to accept her

current situation.

*

Sae-Jin did his best in trying to convince Yu-Rin while facing

down her disbelieving gazes. One mistake, and he'd be a dead

meat in seconds, that's why.

Sae-Jin's story was simple but plausible. His story was that, he

was different and cleverer than other Goblins ever since his

birth, and after growing disillusioned from the deceitful ways of

Goblins, he ran away, then he met a Hunter and although

imperfect, learned to speak the language and the mannerisms of

humans. Of course, the Hunter met his end in an unfortunate

incident some time later.

It wasn't the most detailed and water-tight setting or a plot,

but thankfully, Kim Yu-Rin didn't suspect his words too much.

Her openness was partly because whether it was a Goblin or

not, he was still her saviour, and also because not much was

known about how various Monsters lived day-to-day. After all,

if there was a Monster capable of taking on a human shape, then

surely, there must be a Monster that could speak a human

language.

"...So that's what happened.... Regardless, thanks for saving

me."

With a more relaxed manner, Yu-Rin gently rubbed his head

while smiling weakly.

Even though it was gentle gesture, Sae-Jin's body went rigid.

Finding this funny, Yu-Rin lightly giggled out.

"Haha... You're a strange fellow...Euk."

Her body condition still didn't allow her to leisurely laugh

out, and she had to grab her abdomen while her face crumpled

from the stabbing pain. Sae-Jin quickly gave her another batch

of the pre-made potion that suppressed pain and healed the

wounds.

"Should I drink this?"

Seeing Sae-Jin nod his head, Yu-Rin smiled and took a big

gulp of the potion.

"...Wah?"

Yu-Rin let out a gasp of pleasant surprise almost right away.

Like a miracle, all of her pain simply disappeared as if it was all

but a lie.

"You got some sick skills, don't you?"

She smiled brightly and resumed rubbing the head of the

Goblin in front of her. It looked like the little guy enjoyed her

gesture, she figured.

"Thanks. Really, really, thank you. I made it because of you."

To Knights who constantly clashed against Monsters, Goblins

were nothing more than a lump of bad memories they'd rather

soon forget. Poisons and curses were two of the most difficult

elements to deal with for the human Knights that lacked the

resistance to them. And of course, the ugly outer appearances of

Goblins only added more to that negative impression.

But right now, for Kim Yu-Rin, the fact that a lifeform known

as a Goblin was standing in front of her didn't matter one bit.

This Goblin that possessed intelligence was unexpectedly kind

and she found it rather cute as well.

"...Ah?"

As she absentmindedly rubbed the Goblin's head, the bracelet

tightly wrapped around her arm suddenly started vibrating.

It seemed like the Order was calling her, at a quick glance. It

was likely that they were trying to contact her after she failed to

return long past the end of her assignment.

"That's right, my assignment..."

Her assignment.... was unfortunately, a failure. On top of

that, she could have suffered the fate of an indescribably gory

death, too.

But thanks to her heaven-defying luck, she met this Goblin

and was able to overcome her fate. And now, this encounter had

given her a chance instead.

'An investigation will find the evidence left behind by those

who tempered with the teleport scrolls, and the two Knights

that shoved me into a sure death situation before escaping by

themselves, Yu Jong-Yun and Kim Sa-Rang... No, it's safe to

assume the entirety of the 2nd team are involved here.'

In just over 2 years, Kim Yu-Rin's father, Kim Hyun-Suk

would have to step down from the position of the Knights Order

Master, after his term of office comes to an end.

And the favourite to fill the position was not the current Vice

Master of the Order, Oh Jong-Hyuk, but was, in fact, Kim Yu-

Rin. The current situation was at point where two opposing

sides, one supporting Yu-Rin and the other the dissatisfied Vice

Master, were engaged in shadowy struggles for power, and what

had happened to her today could be best described as a result

arising from the said struggles.

Was it necessary to stoop so low like animals just because they

felt like the time was running out, with her rank advancement

ceremony being next month, she angrily mused. Yu-Rin ended

up gritting her teeth.

Those six bastards that abandoned her right in front of the

cave of a 40-year old Sabretooth Tiger, a creature so tough that

a highly ranked Knight would find it difficult to fight against it

alone; and the mysterious identities of the ones responsible for

making 7 teleport scrolls, her Mana enhanced armour, and even

her weapons malfunction at the critical moment.

"Thanks. Because of you, looks like now I can pull out all the

weeds in one go." (Lit. said, hit them all in one go.)

She had no choice but to cool her boiling anger for another

day in the future.

Kim Yu-Rin gently smiled and continued to rub the head of

the Goblin, before slowly speaking up towards the bracelet.

"Upper Tier Knight, Kim Yu-Rin, will return...."

Yu-Rin then stopped and took a quick glance at the Goblin,

before breaking out in another soft smile and changed the

contents of her message.

"No, I shall return in about 3 hours time. It's raining too hard.

And because of heavy rainfall, a landslide blocked the exit of the

cave I'm in."

*

Sae-Jin and Yu-Rin talked a lot during those 3 hours.

Rather than a conversation, though, it was clear which role

belonged to who.

Since it was difficult to form a proper sentence as a Goblin,

Sae-Jin naturally ended up in the role of a listener and Yu-Rin as

the talker.

"Haaaah, how could it be possible that I never got to enjoy a

romantic relationship once in all 27 years of my life.... Ah, but

it's not a problem unique to me, nope."

'...Why is she so lively like this? She sounded so cold and

unapproachable in TV interviews.'

Sae-Jin found it wondrous just how easy-going and talkative

Yu-Rin was, which was totally out of his expectations. When he

saw her on TV, she seemed more calculating and cold rather

than someone easy to talk to.

"Honestly, I really adore gifts like plain and cute dolls, you

know? But the boys only see the Knight side of me and end up

giving me only the useless presents like knives and swords and

magic armaments, so how can I go out on a date with

knuckleheads like them?! And also, when I kick them to the

curve because of their mistakes, they spread around rumours of

me having high standards and try to make me look weird..."

But Sae-Jin was satisfied right now. Who would be able to

listen to the private grumblings pouring out from the Korea's

most famous female Knight like this?

He listened to her complaints for the next 3 hours all the while

suitably responding at the right moments and pretending to not

understand when difficult words came by.

Actually, he was busy observing her face. Even after spending

3 hours staring at it, he simply couldn't get enough of her

beauty that easily transcended past every praise laid down

before her.

Finally, like a sign, the rain stopped falling and the sunlight

brightened the sky just as the end of the promised 3 hours came.

"When I have the time, I'll come and visit again. It may be a

little late.... but I promise to definitely repay you properly

then."

In the face of the imminent end to their short meeting, Yu-Rin

hesitated somewhat, turning to look at him several times.

It seemed like she wasn't happy with the level of gratitude

shown to her saviour and felt apologetic about it.

But Sae-Jin didn't feel that way. Instead, he was so thankful,

he might even go mad from the excitement.

Yu-Rin gave him a fang of the Sabretooth Tiger as a

compensation. Befitting a Knight of her calibre, she didn't just

single-sidedly lose to the Monster but actually managed to

successfully break one of its fangs.

If it weren't for the recently acquired knowledge of the

Goblins, he'd have treated this fang as nothing more than some

expensive japtem, but now, it was a different story altogether.

The fang itself was a Mana Stone and at the same time, an

ingredient in concocting medicine. If he carefully added other

ingredients to it, then he could make 10 bottles or more worth of

potions with various effects and properties.

A hurried, cursory recollection of the potential uses revealed

that he could make a potion to drastically increase his

constitution and thus show a tremendous prowess during a

hunt, or concoct something like the one he made Kim Yu-Rin

drink just now and sell it to the public – the possibilities were

truly endless.

As an added bonus, he didn't have worry too much about

gathering attention if he started making and selling potions.

Normally, it was possible to sell, once cleared of having side

effects and approved for consumption, the privately-brewed

potions even while maintaining a relative anonymity.

'In other words, I can make a profit of a minimum of $440K.'

As long as there was a healing effect, even the lowly

emergency medicine that wasn't treated as a proper potion was

worth $175 per bottle. He also remembered seeing in a news

segment that, in a test performed on medicines concocted by a

human, a dark Elf and a Goblin using the same ingredients, the

stuff made by the Goblin turned out to be the best of them all.

'And I happen to be a Goblin. A great Goblin, no less.'

With this, he could earn enough money to buy equipment and

also buy himself a nice house in Gangwon Province.

"Thank you!! Take care of yourself!!"

Sae-Jin bid Kim Yu-Rin farewell with a pair of very happy

eyes. Right on cue, a clear sunlight descended down between

them. It was especially a nice weather to say goodbyes.

"...Ri, right!! You take care of yourself as well!! Don't go to

dangerous areas!!"

Yu-Rin's voice was trembling slightly, wet with heavy

emotions. She felt a tad sad seeing the bright expression of the

Goblin – after all, she had opened up her heart to it for the past 3

hours and in the process she grew closer to this creature.

But she couldn't delay matters any longer.

Yu-Rin hardened her face and turned around, commanding

her heavy feet to move.

"Yeah!! You too!!"

Hearing that somewhat ordinary voice, she was pretty sure

the short time she shared with the intelligent and kind creature

would remain etched in her memories for the rest of her life.