“What if I am still adamant about not doing this particular mission?” Jin asked hoping to spite the System a bit. Although mixed in it was maybe a wish of trying to get even a bit more of the usually stingy System. Nevertheless, it did not change the fact, that such a mission was outside the usual scale.
“In that case System will… not force the User. Ultimately, it does not matter. There are other routes in acquiring our workers for the Dungeon City Fortress. It just so happened that this would have been the one route that had the highest probability of getting the Dungeon City Fortress up and working for User and the System within the three months. System also took into consideration User’s character, who might want to help out his monster’s situation.” The System was being so kind for the very first time that Jin was rather taken aback.
“Wait, System are you sure you not affected by some virus? Any fever? Do you maybe need some medicine?” Jin asked as he suddenly got hit by a metal safe falling from the sky. When Jin opened it, there was nothing inside, yet his head still hurt from it.
“For dramatic effect in reply of your sarcasm.” System noted which made Jin and Gold laughed heartily when they realised the System was most likely only portraying its version of embarrassment. Even Zeru had to pull out a genuine grin once in a while.
“Alright, alright. I will probably end up doing it. Besides, we already got the Shield Barrier working with the defunct core, right? I agree we should start working on the Dungeon City Fortress as soon as possible too. Barren Land is not productive land.” Jin complied with the System.
“Moloch and the System have installed it without a hitch. Your spoil of war this time was even better than expected. The shield protecting the Dungeon City Fortress can now nullify any World Class magic for up to five times before its effectiveness is reduced.” The System stated.
As it turned out the ‘defunct core’ which they took from Wolte was not exactly ‘defunct’. It acknowledged Lord Wolte as the master for the dungeon and hence it was still partially working. This made the core an even more valuable item for the System to utilise since it had the usual magical property of a dungeon core.
“I am delighted to hear that, Master. Even so, fighting the Rat Demons will be everything but easy. Their underground kingdom is widespread and no one knows if there are other outposts of the rats out there. We need to get rid of them once and for all, else they will reappear and wreak havoc once more.” Gold deduced.
“Stop right there. Since we are taking this mission, I think it is time to convene for a town council meeting.” Jin smiled as he said that. This was because in the Sanctum of Worlds, he had created a specific Home Instance that allowed all the monsters to gather and he made sure that the place could also accommodate future monsters. It was an extensively large field similar to a live music concert place. Jin already considered throwing a party once in a while for the monsters and this particular Live Music concert area also worked as a gathering place for the dungeon monsters to reside and listen and maybe throw in ideas if needed.
The System summoned all of the monsters into the live music concert place and provided seating arrangements for each and every types of monster. Except for Mr Derpy. (Joking, he did have a seat and a ridiculously large one to boot. Some of the Deep Ones also had the honour to even sit on him.)
“We are gathered here because of a mission that the System had issued,” Jin explained the story of the Rat Demons and how they were going to be rat exterminators for the next few days or perhaps weeks.
“There are some things I’d like to know though. Is the Virus Plague still in effect? Because if it is, it would be an endless cycle of kill and rebirth against the Rat Demons.” Mr Derpy asked. Though his face made it hard to say, the monsters were not sure if he asked it out of concern or was looking forward to an opportunity of enjoying a continuous literal bloodbath.
“No need to worry about that. I and a friend of mine, the Scholar of the West have ensured that the plague has stopped spreading. However, I do not know the current situation whether the Rat Demons managed to find a way to reproduce that particular strain of Virus Plague.” Gold answered.
“In that case what Jin said holds true. As long as we do not know how extensive the Rat Demon Kingdom is, it will be a futile way of settling things.” Shu voiced his opinion.
“You won’t have to worry about that. The foxes and I will work overtime to get the pieces of intelligence mapped out. Also, I have a few tricks under my sleeve which I can utilise to track down any possible remnants.” Kraft replied to Shu’s concerns. The anticipation to his future fun made him grin so wide, that he could be mistaken for a Cheshire Cat.
“The penguins and I do not mind assisting in the food supplies and encampments. Leave the logistics to us. However, I do wish to fight in the frontlines if possible. I shall show you, that I don’t need to get rescued by you all the time, Jin!” Lynn smiled as she announced it out loud with determination which the penguins cheered her on. Everyone agreed that Lynn should go out to get some battle experience, which made Jin reluctantly agree to it.
“Fine! Fine! I will bring her out! You penguins better take care of her too in the field! Or else I will make fried penguins wings out of all of you!” Jin said and the penguins were horrified by Jin’s drastic reply. Lynn even closed one of the penguin’s ears when he said that. The monsters, on the other hand, drooled a little thinking about fried penguin wings as they wondered if it tasted the same as chicken wings.
“In terms of communications, my Magpies can handle it easily so leave that to me. They are capable of sending messages from the depths of hell to the highest pillars of heavens.” Que Er, the Magpie Queen, raised her hand out and offered her expertise for the whole group.
“Well that is all good and dandy, but you seem to have overlooked a problem. They are a KINGDOM. So, in short, we need manpower first to get dedicated manpower for our dungeon city fortress? Sounds rather contradicting.” Moloch commented lazily as he raised his puppet’s hand.
“I think it’s more like we need to get competent manpower to circumvent the situation.” Sandy, the Sand Witch, rebutted against Moloch. There were further ramblings under the stage that Jin was on and people were discussing what was the best way to defeat the monsters until one of the goblins raised his hand.
“Ahem! If everybody would listen to me if I could speak.” Ripcaller, the Dagger Goblin requested and Jin demanded everyone to be silent for a moment. The crowd immediately kept quiet and listened intently to Ripcaller.
“If you need manpower, we have the perfect place for you in mind. We three can request for more goblins to come in our service. If we are lucky, we might gather a whole army too. All we need is a force that is somewhat expendable like the Zombies, no offence to Ghoul Half Lord Derek. — and a sizeable force to perform proper specialised tasks like the goblin army. As long as we are able to obtain the army, the division of labour would be easier while dedicating a strike force against the main bosses of the Rat Demon Kingdom, we should be able to dismantle them systematically!” Ripcaller explained.
“And why should they listen to you? Don’t tell me that you were secretly some sort of goblin royalty all along, that we did not know about. Does your birthright allow you to loyally command a goblin army?” Yellow sniggered as if Jin had managed to catch some high class nobility goblins in the Goblin World.
“Ahahahah. We could only wish for that to be true. No we are not that prestigious. However, all three of us ARE sons of various fairly renowned Goblin Generals in the Goblin Kingdom we hail from. When Master Jin captured us, we were forced to go out for our very first live battle practice as a group. It was because we were very sheltered from living the good lives. We had been rather truant and decided to stray from the main battlefield. That was when we encountered Master Jin.” Piercestriker confessed. It was the first time the goblin trio shared their story with anyone.
“Oh…erm…” Jin was slightly speechless from the amount of embarrassment he had when he heard the goblins situation. However, the goblins stopped him from saying anything further.
“No, it was a good thing that Master Jin captured us. We were rather disobedient, and we did not tell Master Jin anything because the System was the one that controlled us crazily. Everyone here knows that the System had not been the friendliest of a host at first, but seeing how Master Jin grew up within these past weeks and even managed to let the System evolve into a kinder entity, we are glad to be a part of this ragtag group. Not to mention the amount of training we get here is so much more than what we would have ever gotten in our old world.” Slashreaver added out loud and some even nodded their head. Most of the monsters’ lives had improved tremendously ever since living under Jin’s care despite the loyalty oath that they were required to pledge to.
“Who knows, our current strength might even match the heroes of the past.” Piercestriker boasted a bit at such a possibility.
“Won’t it be weird if you guys suddenly appear again? I mean with you being gone, won’t they think you died? Or worse, marked you as deserters?” Jin questioned as he guessed that this would mean yet another detour he had to make. Sometimes it seemed as if the whole world was keen on preventing him from being a simple Dungeon Supplier, who could just enjoy making dungeons for his customers…
“System will increase the rewards accordingly. Should User decide to get help from the goblins the following rewards can be arranged: Evolution of the Goblin Trio and Mr Oink. Other Rewards pending, based on results and humanoids captured.” The System added.
“We shall deal with the situation when we arrived. First, we need to know what happened to our kingdom in the meantime, since there were bordering tensions between our goblin kingdom with some other kingdoms. At best, nothing. At worst, an ongoing war against the others.” Ripcaller stated logically.
“Oh gosh, I fear that by returning I will just make things worse.” Jin shook his head as this was what happened when he came back to the Farming World to get those monster parts. Instead of a simple fetch quest, he had somehow unlocked the hidden SSS-Class “Topple the Worlds” Quest…
“How about this, you return with the Goblin Trio and monitor the situation first? We can formulate other plans in the meantime in case the goblin army reinforcement does not work out.” Grey suggested and a number of the monsters agreed.
“Alright, tomorrow okay? We will scout the area, find your daddies and determine if it is worthwhile to get that goblin army.” Jin compromised and the Goblin Trio nodded their heads as they excitedly returned back to their home instance and so did the rest of the monsters.
“I guess they missed their parents, too,” Jin pondered as he could not help but think of Ming… and somehow his thoughts changed to Yun too even though she was out there tending the shop.
