Chapter 103: Losing Control |
A surge of sour bitterness mixed with raging fury instantly flooded her heart.
This damned monster actually dared to try and harm the Senior who had always protected her!
Unforgivable!
Watching the change in the girl’s expression, Lance thought to himself that the effect of this kind of practical combat lesson had likely been achieved.
He exerted a bit of force and directly tore the stone shard out of the monster’s hand.
The Goblin let out a terrified shriek and turned to scramble away toward the bushes.
Cecilia paid no attention to the fleeing monster at all.
She hurried forward, her voice trembling with an obvious sob as she questioned him.
“Senior! Is your hand okay?!”
Aside from a bit of dust left by the stone shard, there wasn’t even a faint scratch on his palm.
Against a powerful body with a Natural Base Armor Level increased by two, this kind of crude stone weapon didn’t even qualify to break his defense.
Only after carefully confirming that Lance was truly unharmed did Cecilia’s tightly wound nerves relax slightly.
But immediately after, she suddenly turned her head and stared fixedly at the escaping Goblin.
A flash of extremely dangerous cold light flickered in the girl’s lowered eyes.
She raised her right hand again, mana wildly gathering in her palm.
The zero-ring spell 【Thorn Whip】 instantly took shape!
A barbed whip condensed from pure magic shot through the air, coiling precisely around the Goblin’s thin ankle like a venomous snake.
Cecilia forcefully pulled her arm backward.
The Goblin’s small body was yanked directly into the air, then slammed heavily against a thick oak tree nearby.
A dull impact sound mixed with the crisp crack of bones echoed through the forest.
But it didn’t end there.
The girl’s expression was blank as her arm swung up and down like wielding a warhammer.
The monster that had just slid down from the tree was dragged up again and smashed fiercely onto the hard rocky ground.
Then came a storm-like barrage of repeated impacts.
Tree! Ground! Tree again! Ground again!
Green blood mixed with shattered organs splattered everywhere.
Standing to the side, Lance couldn’t help but twitch at the corner of his eye.
Looking at the pile of flesh on the ground that no longer resembled its original shape, he couldn’t bear it any longer and spoke up to remind her.
“Cecilia, that…”
“It’s already completely dead.”
Hearing Lance’s gentle voice, Cecilia’s body trembled slightly.
The ferocity in her eyes instantly dissipated, as if waking from a dream, and she quickly withdrew her magic.
The vine whip vanished, and the Goblin dropped to the ground with a wet thud, its corpse in a horrifying state.
The girl awkwardly placed her hands behind her back.
Her face flushed bright red as she lowered her head, her voice as soft as a mosquito’s buzz.
“Senior, I’m sorry… it was because I hesitated too much when casting earlier that you almost got hurt.”
Seeing her on the verge of tears, Lance couldn’t help but laugh.
“No need to apologize. And your counterattack just now was very decisive—it was just a bit too forceful.”
He gestured with his chin toward the unrecognizable mess on the ground.
Cecilia followed his gaze, and her face instantly turned as red as a ripe apple.
“N-no… that’s not it! I—I’m not usually this violent!”
She was so anxious that tears were about to fall.
She was afraid that her Senior would think she was some kind of violence-obsessed lunatic with strange tendencies.
But even she couldn’t explain why she had suddenly fallen into that kind of frenzied state earlier.
The moment she saw a monster trying to harm her Senior, her mind completely lost control, as if a ferocious beast was rampaging inside her.
“It’s fine, I was just joking.”
Lance put away his smile, his tone turning serious again.
“But for Goblin extermination missions, you need to collect their left ears as proof of kills.”
“Come on, this is much bloodier than smashing crab shells—you’ll need to get used to it.”
“I’ll definitely do it properly this time!”
Cecilia took a deep breath and made a firm promise to Lance.
She drew the delicate Skinning Knife from her waist and, enduring the overwhelming stench, walked over to the corpses.
The girl tightly furrowed her brows, her face still somewhat pale, but there was no hesitation in her movements as she carefully cut off each bloodied pointed ear.
Lance efficiently finished handling the corpses on his side and stood up, wiping his dagger with a cloth strip.
He quietly watched the slender figure in the distance who was doing her best to overcome her physical discomfort, and an involuntary gentle smile curved at the corner of his lips.
Although this half-elf girl came from the Violet Academy and carried that kind of innocence unique to an ivory tower,
in Lance’s eyes, her current performance was more like a lily of the valley growing on the edge of a cliff.
She appeared pure and delicate on the outside, as if a gust of wind could break her, yet in reality possessed an unimaginable tenacity. As long as she was given a bit of sunlight and water, she could quickly take root and grow even in the harshest environments.
After clearing the first camp, the two continued advancing deeper into the forest.
Today’s commission required clearing a total of four scattered outposts.
Therefore, to save time, after efficiently killing all the Goblins in each camp, Lance directly gave up on thoroughly searching the interiors of their nests.
Firstly, those dark and damp caves smelled absolutely terrible—there was no need to suffer through that.
Secondly, these low-level monsters on the outskirts simply didn’t yield any valuable loot.
As long as he confirmed that no stragglers remained, he would immediately take Cecilia to the next target.
However, when they smoothly wiped out the second small outpost, Lance’s keen combat instincts sensed that something was off.
The scale of this outpost was far smaller than expected—there were only about ten old and weak Goblins barely clinging to life inside.
And the most abnormal thing was that in both of these camps, Lance hadn’t found any signs of stored food.
Goblins were a type of low-level monster with extremely strong hoarding instincts. They would drag back every piece of rotten meat they found—even every bone—and stash it in their camps.
Having no food reserves completely went against this species’ survival instincts.
When they swept through the third outpost with unstoppable momentum, the same strange situation appeared once again.
There were still pitifully few guards here, and the storage area was completely empty.
Pulling his Shortsword out from the chest of the last Goblin, Lance flicked the blood off the blade.
Now, he could finally confirm his speculation.
The remaining fourth outpost—the largest nest located at the center of this area—
had absolutely gathered all the wandering Goblin forces and food resources from the surroundings into itself.
To make these naturally greedy and selfish low-level monsters obediently hand over food and act in unison, there was only one reasonable explanation in nature.
There must be a high-level monster there with absolute dominance.
In other words, the one specifically marked in this Adventurers’ Guild extermination commission—
that possibly existing Variant Elite Goblin.