In the goblin kingdom, there was currently a long giant tunnel being built. Stake looked around and saw his kind tearing through a wall with shovels and pickaxes. He saw them flatten the earth below and above.

The sound of them working was music to his ears. He looked at the tunnel and thought of the war that would soon descend upon the human kingdoms. It gave him an ecstasy to think of the coming battle. A low rank 1 goblin came beside him and spoke.

“Beautiful isn't it?”

“Yes it is,” said Stake.

“Stake you think we can create a goblin empire once our king becomes an emperor?”

“I don't see why not Glote. With our vast army, we will besiege and devour the human kingdoms one by one.”

Glote nods at his answer.

“How close are you to reaching high rank 1 Stake?”

Stake smiled and spoke. “I think I only need one more month before I reach high rank 1. By the way, when is this tunnel going to be done, I'm so excited I can't wait.”

Glote laughed. “By our progress, I’d say two more months and we can start waging war soon.”

“Excellent then, I'll make sure to reach high rank 1 before the coming war. You should increase your strength too Glote.”

Glote shook his head. “I would but currently I believe it's better to pour mana core into our army instead.”

Stake simply nods and was about to speak until the tunnel shook and from out of the wall came a ten-meter tall giant stone golem. It stomped on some goblin and Stake quickly barked out an order.

“Retreat, I'll handle it.”

The goblins around the stones golem quickly retreated and Stake jumped down softly from the high tower he was on and grabbed a hammer made fully of steel. He went towards the stone golem with intent to kill but his thoughts were different.

It seemed the king of the goblins was planning on scheming against him soon. Many goblins admire Stake because he helped their kind through many hard times. When they were starving he fed them and didn't eat, when they were attacked by monsters he defended them, when Jill came into the kingdom bringing forth destruction he went up and stood his ground against her even though other mages and the king ran, when they asked him why he did all these things, he simply said that they were strongly united together and weak divided individually so they should help take care of one another.

For many goblins Stake represented the ideal of what every goblin should strive to be. Stake had helped so many goblins that they were loyal to him to the bones. Even other goblin mages saw him as someone great. Someone who didn't sacrifice his kind for benefits and instead sacrifice himself for his kind.

When the king saw everyone looking up to Stake he quickly made him his right-hand man. Secretly the king tried to suppress Stake's growth by not giving him mana cores. He even schemed to kill Stake by sending him to check on Jill every week. Stake obeyed his every command and always went to check on Jill managing to come home every time with sometimes new wounds.

Stake was slowly surviving and growing stronger. The goblin king felt a great threat to his crown and wanted to suppress or kill Stake. Even though the king knew Glote wasn't loyal to him he always sent him to probe information from Stake about how strong he was.

For the goblin king, everyone was always talking about Stake. When he ordered the goblin army to attack a peak rank 1 creatures it was Stake who spoke up for the army saying that there will be many casualties and it's not worth it. Slowly every single goblin was moving towards Stake and it wouldn't be long before Stake grew strong enough to kill him and become the new goblin king.

The goblin king felt he was losing control but as long he became a goblin emperor he would have the might and prestige to fully suppress and crush Stake. No matter how loyal other goblins were to Stake, they would have to obey in the face of might.

Stake walked towards the stone golem with the steel hammer in his hand and he jumped. After jumping he accelerated down and bashed the golem head causing it to crumble down and die. The goblin around Stake cheered and Stake smiled.

“Soon brother and sisters we will live in a world where goblin will no longer be hunted as prey, no goblins will ever starve again, and no more humans pushing us around. We will stand together as one and achieve our supremacy together. Brother and sisters let's fight for a better future. Are you with me!!!!”

Every goblin cheered yes and chanted Stake name while getting back to working at the tunnel faster than before. Glote smiled at the sight and admired Stake even more. He then lost his smile and thought about how he should lie to the goblin king about Stake strength.

In Green Flower, Kone was currently splitting the reward with his mage friend which would last them for five months if they lived lavishly by commoner's standard. His mage friend didn't smile at the rewards. All he saw when he looked at the gold was the death of his comrades and friends. Truly being an adventurer could suck like hell.

The mage was named Decol and he was Kone’s long-time friend and comrades. Decol had brown long hair with a feminine face. The two had been adventuring together since the day they first became adventurers. Decol looked at Kone who kept his promise of always staying by his side in every dangerous situation.

Today's situation was the most dangerous situation they had encounter and survived. Decol remembers that after they were saved by the so-called goddess of the forest they came back to the town with the white sharp. They didn't enter the town immediately though and instead hid far away.

Kone went into town and got a wagon and then came back. After placing the body of the white sharp in it and hiding it they went into town. The reason they did what they did was that they had lost many party members and other adventurers wouldn't mind taking their hard-earned prize.

After they came back to the Adventurer Organization they delivered the white sharp and got their reward. When the receptionist asked where their other party members were they told him they all died when a goblin attacked. The receptionist didn't laugh at them and said goblins were way too weak to take on seven people at once.

There’s also the fact that they were hunting in the goddess forest where goblins rarely appeared. Seeing that he misunderstood the two fully explained to him what happened. The receptionist became fascinated with what they heard and brought them to one of the higher-ups. They told the higher up about the goblin and the higher up gave them more money than they got from the white sharp task.

They thanked him for the reward but he told them it wasn't a reward and was instead hush money. He told them that business was doing well for the Adventurer Organization in this town and they didn't want to lose profit just cause people to quit adventuring into the goddess territory because of some dangerous goblin.

After his thought, Decol spoke to Kone.

“We have the money, what do you plan on doing now?”

“I plan to leave this place and start a potion business somewhere close to the capital. What about you? what do you plan on doing?”

“I plan on going to the capital just like you and will apply for the mage tower. I believe I can improve my magic there.”

Kone thoughtfully looked up at the ceiling and spoke.

“We should have asked that forest goddess to teach you magic instead of wasting your money like that.”

Decol shooked his head. “I asked around town and they say when people asks her to teach them magic she doesn't.”

The two spoke for more and then quickly decided to go to the capital of Tawn. Staying in this town any longer with this much gold was dangerous and they decided to leave quickly. After they left the town a 30 year old man in baggy clothes with a cowboy hat appeared and spoke in a low voice.

“Reporting, they did not reveal anything and has left the town. What are your orders?”

A voice rang out in the seashell cone in his hand.

“Let them go, I'm sure they know what's best for them.”

“Alright, do you have any other task?”

“Yes actually, I would like for you to go into the goblin territory and find out what they're doing.”

“I can do that but what's the pay?”

“The pay is a thousand gold coins.”

“Alright then, I'll get to it.”

The man was named Nail and he was an assassin. One would think since he's making so much money he wouldn't have to be going around doing much. Unfortunately, he had a crush on a blond pretty priest who was taking care of an orphanage and he just couldn't seem to stop thinking of her.

Nail would always earn money and donate most of it to the orphanage. For Nail, this was his way of courting the priest even though he knew it will never happen since the priest couldn't marry. One might call him a simp but as long as the priest fell in love with him then it was worth it. For Nail, he was 20% sure no scratch that, 10% sure that as long as he kept throwing in money the priest would fall in love with him.

Walking on into the town and getting a horse to go into goblin territory he thought about the priest's Liana and just couldn't wait to see her again. Speeding up his horse he went to complete his task quickly.