Chapter 69 - Visitors

"What? Humans? Are you sure about that?"

Cyril was startled as soon as he heard the Goblin Chief's words.

Although it wasn't impossible to find humans in an Arcane World, they would normally appear in mid-class or high-class Arcane World!

He had never heard of a low-class Arcane World with humans!

'What's wrong? Did I make a mistake checking the Purple Crystal's Aura?' Cyril thought deeply. However, with his years of experience, he's already extremely familiar with them so he shouldn't be making such a newbie mistake.

The goblin chief, on the other hand, explained what happened at that time.

"Yes, Master Cyril. We wanted to kill them as soon as they have appeared and shown signs of their plans to block our exit... That's how we normally act if they have gotten closer to our lair. However, there are more than fifty of them so it was dangerous for us…"

Apparently, those fifty humans had also brought torches aside from carrying blades and spears.

Gaarm explained with a bitter expression. It seems that he really wanted to kill those humans.

He then paused for a moment to observe Cyril's reaction. As he didn't hear his master say any words, he continued.

"Urgh… With the current population of our tribe, I was afraid that we will be annihilated… Luckily, they aren't aware of our current situation. If they know that there aren't even 30 warriors living here, we would've been attacked already."

Looking back, when Cyril arrived here, he only left 10 goblin warriors, not including the Goblin Chief.

Of course, Cyril didn't touch the female, children, and old red goblins hiding inside their shelters at that time… It was so they could repopulate the tribe.

As for the other warriors, they were lucky enough to be sent outside to gather some wild beasts as their food.

"Hmm… Do you know where's their settlement?" Cyril asked as he was considering whether to visit them or not.

He's unsure whether these humans would be useful for him, however, he had to make sure that they would not interrupt these goblins from mining ores for him.

These goblins are basically his money printers. They will be useful for him in the long run.

He also learned from the Chief that the ore vein here is quite huge. This means that they should be able to supply him with ores for several years.

"Master Cyril, I've been there a few times. I know where they are. Do you want us to prepare now?"

"You're right. However, we won't be going there to fight. Just point me in the right direction and I'll see to it."

"I understand, Master… But before that, would you like to see our smithy and see how we're making the enchantment on our weapons? There are also other weapons displayed there and you might fancy them… I recall that you were previously looking for other and better Goblin Weapons, our blacksmith may be able to help you with regards to that…"

The Goblin Chief invited. It was indeed true that Cyril was looking for a piece of decent goblin equipment when he first came here.

However, he was met with just low-quality Goblin Daggers and Pickaxe. Perhaps, the finest weapon he saw here was the bone gauntlet that Gaarm owned.

Even then, this bone weapon was just decent because the bone itself is incredible. It barely has anything to do with the skills of the craftsman who made it. Even if the craftsman had skillfully made it into a weapon, the skills required to do that shouldn't be that high considering that the bone was still complete and was just basically strapped to Gaarm's large arm.

"Hmm… I was indeed trying to look for a good weapon. Do you have anything?" Cyril asked but he wasn't really hoping that much.

"Ugh… Our finest blacksmith was previously together with the Hunting Group and he wasn't here most of the time in the past few weeks. Now that he's here, you might be interested in his collection." Gaarm said with a hint of a smile.

"Alright… Let me see his place first before we deal with the humans.

"Gahaha! Let's go, Master!"

Gaarm said as he lead Cyril to one of the houses inside this large cavern.

As soon as they entered the goblin smith's abode, Cyril immediately noticed a muscular red goblin tinkering on something.

His room wasn't just made of stone but mostly made of wood. There are even shelves, wooden tables, and various furniture. On the side separated by a stone wall, was the goblin smith's working area where anvils, hammers, furnaces, and other tools are located.

Right now, he wasn't making an item but dismantling some kind of treasure in his hands.

Cyril didn't mind him being busy as he shifted his gaze on the shelves.

There are several weapons there like swords, shields, gauntlet, daggers, and hammers, but all of them are low quality. Nothing that could attract him at all.

Perhaps, if he was an F-Rank, he might treat that shelf as a treasure, however, it wasn't the case right now.

"Hey! Pruhord! Master Cyril is here! Greet him!"

Gaarm called out seeing that Pruhord, their goblinsmith, didn't notice their arrival.

"Aahh! Chief! Master Cyril!" The red goblin was surprised by their arrival as he even dropped the items he was trying to figure out.

Clank! Clank! Clank!

The item doesn't seem like a normal stone… It appears to be made of copper and has an intricate design on it…

Cyril furrowed his brows as he picked up the item that rolled on his feet.

It is a palm-size object and it has some hint of Aura coming from it.

He tried to find any object similar to this in his memories… However, though it seems familiar, he couldn't recall any item at all.

'Should I ask Xagan?'

The demon definitely knows this item, however, he didn't want to get used to such a thing. He can't just ask anything he doesn't know or wasn't sure of. If he gets used to it, he might realize that his life would already end on the next day.

'If this item can be taken out, I guess I can use the influence of the association to determine this.' Cyril thought.

But before that, he decided to ask Pruhord first.

"Where did you get this?"

"Master, I just looted this item inside the Stone Viper's lair when we were hunting for food. It is next to the viper's eggs." Pruhord replied promptly.

He also seemed a bit saddened seeing how Cyril is now holding this item for him. He hadn't finished studying it after all!

"Is that all? What have you found out about this thing so far?"

"This… I'm sorry, Master. I tried studying it but couldn't find anything other than this thing is extremely hard and has some hint of energy coming from it."

Pruhord answered with a dejected face. He's considered to be the finest crafter here but he couldn't even properly identify an item.

"I understand… Hold it for me in the meantime. I'll take it after checking the humans outside."

Cyril said as he handed the item to Pruhord.

"Thank you, Master. Don't worry. I will keep it safe." Pruhord replied as he was thankful that he could still study it even for a little bit more time.

"So, are there any items here that may be useful to me?"

As soon as Pruhord heard this, he immediately thought of something.

"Master! I think I have one, I got this weapon from a dead human outside. He seems to have been killed by a venomous snake as his body turned purple…" Pruhord then immediately opened one of his shelves to take out a book.

'Wait… I said weapon, right? Why did he take out a book? Does he think that this thing is meant to be smashed on the head of his opponent?' Cyril thought it was ridiculous.

However, he suddenly realized that he was in an Arcane World!

Books should never appear unless there are highly civilized beings living here! Aside from that, the only other reason that a book can appear is when another Arcane Explorer decided to actually leave it here!

'This pattern… Sure enough… I found something interesting…'

Cyril immediately checked the book with his aura and realized that it was indeed not normal, it must be correct to call it a grimoire!

'What's going on?'

It was already weird that humans can be seen in a low-rank Arcane World. However, for a grimoire that only in High-Class Arcane World would normally appear, it means that this Arcane World had mostly like been explored by a powerful Arcane Explorer before or something similar.

Since there was no way to mistake his perception about the rank of an Arcane World, it only means that the other possible reason was the truth!

There must be another entrance to this world where the humans had used to occupy this world.

"Master… I can't open this item. So I'm guessing that only humans are capable of opening it. Though I can't sense any power coming from it, I know that this is something really special since the corpse was hugging this tightly until his death."

"I understand… Let me have it."

Pruhord then handed the Grimoire to Cyril. It has no use to him so he wasn't sad giving it to their protector.

As soon as Cyril touched the grimoire, he immediately felt its power unlike what the goblin said where no powers are leaking from it.

Cyril no longer hesitated and opened the Grimoire to see its content…

However, instead of a human, elven, or perhaps pixie's language, it is a demon language!

"A demon's spellbook? What in the world?" Cyril was surprised as soon as he recognized the language. He immediately wanted to ask Xagan about this book. However, he decided to first calm down and put it down.

Any items related to demons aren't something good.

"Haa~ Just keep it for now. I will investigate this Grimoire in the outside world."

"Yes, Master…"

Cyril then left with Gaarm no longer interested in how the Goblin does their enchantments.

Anyway, he would try to see if there is any information he could get about a demon's grimoire in his real world. If he didn't get any, that's the only time he'll ask Xagan for an explanation and spend his life for it.

In the meantime, Cyril and Garrm together with the goblin warriors headed to the blocked entrance.

Gaarm then ordered the warriors to remove the stones blocking them.

They didn't try removing these stones a while ago since they are afraid that the humans would change their minds and enter their lair instead.

However, now that Cyril is here, they shouldn't be worrying about these humans even if there are hundreds of them.

The goblins moved quickly as they brought several tools to open a path.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a problem.

Gaarm decided to see the situation and realized that there is some kind of force that is stopping them from removing the stones easily!

"Master Cyril… This is the first time we've experienced something like this. This must be related to how they found their courage to approach our lair."

"Hmm… What's going on?" Cyril decided to check it himself.

The dungeon wasn't that dark because of the luminous crystals stuck everywhere.

He tried pushing the dirt and stones blocking them but he suddenly felt a repulsive force. It wasn't that strong but with the strength of the warrior goblins, it would indeed be difficult for them to remove this.

He then exerted a bit more force as he concentrated his aura on his hands.

Crack!

The repulsive force seems to have reached its limits. However, Cyril didn't miss the source of the energy.

"Runes?"

He can't be mistaken. It's a low-grade rune but it greatly differs from the elves. The rune this time was somehow similar to the one used on his Runed Boomerang.

"No way… Can they really use runes here?"

Cyril was shocked again by this discovery. Although Awakened like him wasn't capable of learning mid-grade or high-grade runes, he still has extensive knowledge about low-grade runes since he thought that it was his future before.

These runes were also quite familiar, it is unlike the complex elven runes that he found in the other Arcane World.

Anyway, now that the low-grade rune was destroyed by his aura, he ordered Garrm to continue making a path for him.

After about an hour of excavation, a path enough for three people to pass through was finally opened.

Gaarm, Cyril, and the five goblin warriors came out as they were welcomed by a bright light. It seems that this Arcane World barely has any nighttime at all. Based on the chief's words, there are times that there was daylight for several days before the night would come.

"Master Cyril, just continue walking in this path and you'll see a huge tower made by the humans. Once you see the tower, you just have to follow it and you'll arrive there. As for the creatures living here, aside from the Iron Bears and Stone Vipers, the others can be considered as easy prey."

Gaarm explained.

They are currently on a mountain and below them is a lush forest. The path that the Goblin Chief pointed was on top of the hill not too far from them so he couldn't see the tower that he mentioned just now.

"Alright, we'll walk up to that hill and you guys will wait for me…" Cyril answered after surveying the area.

He doesn't have any Artifact that allows him to scan the area, so he could only use his senses to detect any dangers in his surroundings.

Just like what Gaarm said, he couldn't feel any creatures that has a powerful aura around them.

Time quickly passed as Cyril is now looking at the human settlement… It is a small village with dark purple-skinned humans…

He didn't mind it at first since he knows that humans living here can't be so simple as well.

He wanted to approach them but he suddenly realized that these people have red and black eyes similar to the devils!

"This…"

They aren't humans!