Chapter 138

138 Heal your wounds properly, please! part Ryu woke up after two more days feeling like crap, it wasn’t like his usual refreshing sleep. Instead, it felt as if he had just blinked and two more days had passed.

His stomach grumbled and Mia was nowhere to be seen, but fortunately his wound had healed completely.

The sight in front of him when he opened the door left him in a daze.

It was a complex system of elevators and stairs that connected several buildings made with wood and monster parts. They were small, but looked sturdy enough to whitstand the weather and maybe fend of some predators. The room he left behind wasn’t a room but an entire medium sized building located at ground level, it had no windows and it’s roof was made with solid wood instead of tiles.

Ryu’s first impression was that whoever called this a village must have been blind, it was clearly a thriving metropolis.

There were several hundred goblins in sight and no one seemed to pay any mind to him, they didn’t greet him but didn’t attack him either which made him feel relieved.

He walked through the broad street with the same face a tourist from the country would have on his face after visiting the capital from the kingdom for the first time.

Everyone seemed to be working on something, to his right there was a fletchery, to his left a grocery shop, a little bit ahead something that looked like a warehouse.

There was a small wolf tied to a post outside of a building, did goblins tame pets too?

.....

It looked like they had built a wonderful city with an amazing society and the only thing they lacked was technology. Still, they were smart enough to be able to build elevators using only wood, ropes and rocks.

He started feeling tired again and slowed his pace, mostly because he had forgotten to deactivate all the skills he had activated to fight and the ones he acquired after defeating the criminals. Thinking back on the fight his heart became heavy, he felt really bad for Shortie. Since he was younger than Ryu, he wanted to help him as much as he could because he didn’t want to see him getting killed by a beast in front of him, and he ended up killing him himself.

Only then did Ryu realize he was strolling through town like nothing when he was completely surrounded by what other adventurers considered beasts.

He would be wary even if this was a human town and he couldn’t afford to lower his guard here either and he quickly activated sense presence.

He felt completely overwhelmed by the amount of creatures around him, but it only lasted for a brief second until he adjusted it’s range.

Something caught his attention in the warehouse, there were two presences he felt were somewhat familiar to him, but he didn’t know who they were.

There were goblins guarding the entrance, but when Ryu came close they didn’t attempt to stop him when he tried to get inside.

There was a blond woman who seemed to be on her twenties with extended arms tied to wooden poles on the sides of the building. Her face was lowered and he couldn’t recognize her, the only thing he noticed was the fact she was completely naked. Her exposed breasts were moving softly along with her weak breathing and she showed signs of being tortured.

Ryu got close to her and lifted her face careful not to wake her up, only to find out a barely counscious Athela.

“Athela? what are you doing here?”

“It’s lady Athela”

A woman scoffed in a weak voice right next to Ryu.

It was the maid that always accompanied lady Athela and pretended to be her.

She too was naked, but instead of being tied to poles like Lady Athela, she was pinned to the ground with a U shaped wooden contraption on her neck. It seemed to be buried deep enough to prevent her from moving, but only choked her partially.

Though both were in bad shape, they didn’t seem to be in any immediate risk.

“Can you tell me what happened to you?”

“What does it seem like? we got captured! can you see lady Athela? what’s her condition?”

“She’s unresponsive, but she’s fine”

Ryu’s word seemed to have calmed her down for a few seconds, but then she got impatient.

“Did you set her free already?”

“Uh, no, why would I do that?”

“Wait, so you didn’t come to rescue us?”

“I didn’t even know you were here”

Ryu shrugged, but the maid wasn’t able to see anything because of her position. Ryu would have gotten closer to her, but it would only make it more difficult for him to leave her in there and he wasn’t sure he would be able to do anything to help them.

“Are you a prisoner too? good, you deserve it”

She said without even waiting for a reply.

“I’m not a prisoner, I think I’m a guest”

“You what!?”

The maid said in a loud voice, leaving her out of breath for a while. Ryu couldn’t even begin to guess what were they doing in the goblin village, but the maid wasn’t being helpful at all so he decided to ignore them and just go look for Mia and his pets.

As soon as he set foot on the outside, his green host was already waiting for him.

“You awake... good. You want food?”

The small goblin gestured with his hands as if he was drinking from a bowl, Ryu’s appetite soon vanished as he reminded the cold soup they gave him.

“No thank you”

“You no like?”

“I’d prefer to hunt something myself if that’s not too much trouble”

“Hunt, good, warrior hunt good, good warrior. That female no good warrior, but she teach me words”

“Why is she imprisoned?”

“She killed younglings, bad warrior. Goblin no kill human younglings”

Ryu was fascinated by the goblin’s sense of honor. Of course killing the young was a terrible thing to do, but to think they actually cared about it was something unheard of. He had heard from Lorenzo that even human kids would sometimes kill goblins. Perhaps it didn’t have much to do with their strength and more with goblins being unable to fight back without staining their reputation as good warriors. But still, the treatment both women received was less than humane, they had bruises and scratches all over their body and the position Athela was tied suggested she had been toyed with. There was that kind of rumours about goblins after all.

“Is that why you tortured her?”

“No torture, she escape I catch. She escape, I tie. She escape I tie harder”

Making sense of the green creature’s words was difficult, but he didn’t seem to be lying, Athela must have gotten hurt attempting to escape. It made sense, she must have heard the rumours too so she must be truly desperate to escape from the clutches of her captors.

And yet, against all odds, the gobling in front of him had been a decent host for him, he provided lodging, food and they treated him nicely.

“My name is Ryu, what is your name?”

He asked not only because of curiosity, he also needed a way of addressing him properly if he wanted to ask him to set them free.

“No names”

Ryu pondered for a few seconds if he should give him a nickname or something, but it felt like a rude thing to do and decided against it.

The sound of horns quickly drew everyone’s attention and all the adult goblins abandoned their tasks and armed themselves.

“You want hunt, come”

The goblin said with a smirk.

“But I don’t have my sword!”

“Good sword, there”

The goblin pointed towards a building on the top of a tall tree, but how could Ryu get it? The answer came in the form of a small wooden platform tied on all corners with a simple rope.

The goblin leader accompanied him and pulled a lever and the platform went up amidst creaking sounds.

“Is it really ok for you to come with me to fetch my sword?”

“Ah, yes, goblins scout only, no me, no attack”

The elevator stopped at an impressive height, if Ryu was as weak as he used to be he would be scared, but now he was sure he could land on his feet if he fell from the platform.

Another elevator came close and the small creature hopped in, although hesitantly, Ryu followed suit. The same thing happened a few times until they finally reached close enough to the building, they jumped onto a static platform that looked like a wooden dock, and went up a spiral staircase that led them directly to the building.

Once inside Ryu noticed it wasn’t a mere building, it was a shrine built for special weapons. There were swords, spears, shields and all sorts of gear.

“Why don’t you use this weapons?”

“Cursed, bad”

“But you said my sword was good”

“No know the words, but sword good”

The gobling, evidently flustered at his own lack of vocabulary, pointed at Ryu’s sword. It was inside its scabbard on top of a pedestal, it was clear they placed it there with great respect.

When Ryu grabbed his sword a nostalgic feeling invaded him, it was the same feeling he would be getting if he was reuniting with a long lost friend. He could feel his energy being drained, but it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, it felt ticklish and joyful, so he let the sword drain his energy as it pleased. He then used his identify skill on it and what he found out left him even more confused than before.

>Blade of cowardice +1 500/500