Another day, another quest. Walking in to the guild, I noticed a lot of adventurers looking at the quest board. I walk up to them to see what they were looking at.
Apparently, there was a request for help in preventing the upcoming orc invasion. Seemed to me like it was a large scale event. I probably won't be able to go since my combat power wasn't that high.
Scanning at the other quests, I noticed a report stating that the goblins have successfully bred a hobgoblin. If my memory was correct, a hobgoblin was an evolutionary form of goblins. They were stronger, faster, and more intelligent than the average goblin.
Man...I wanted to make a hobgoblin mask. Evil fumu-fumus could be heard from my vicinity. Everyone looked at me and backed away slowly. Realizing that my habit was showing again, I embarrassingly took a copy of the repeatable 'Slay five hobgoblins' quest and hurried to the receptionist desk.
Once my application was approved, I hurried out of the guild and headed towards the forest. Thinking about the goblins I killed yesterday, I decided to head over to the scene to see if I could sniff out any clues.
Walking back to the campsite where I had slain those goblins yesterday, I donned on my Werewolf mask. Once I transformed into a werewolf, I started sniffing my surroundings for clues from other goblin encampments.
After a few minutes of hounding about, I was able to sniff out a little more than a hundred goblins clustered in a group some distance away. Silently and quickly, I rushed towards the goblin camp.
By the time I reached the goblin group, it was almost noon. The goblins were currently cooking some sort of stew for lunch. By their side, I spotted 10 hobgoblins lazing about.
Switching my Werewolf mask with my Ghost mask, I quietly and transparently floated towards the goblins. Luckily because of the ghost's innate abilities to phase out and avoid detection, I was able to approach the goblin's stew pot without being noticed.
I reached into my backpack and pulled out a vial of poison that I had recently traded for a goblin mask. When the goblin cook wasn't looking, I poured the entire vial into the pot. Hopefully, there was enough stew in the pot to dilute the poison so to mask the poison's sweet fragrance and lessen the effects to paralysis instead of death.
All I had to do now was to wait for the goblins to finish cooking. In the meantime, I observed what the hobgoblins were doing. Two of the hobgoblins were red while the rest were black.
I remember that different colored hobgoblins meant different innate abilities. For instance, black hobgoblins were the most common with no special abilities expect being just a stronger version of goblins. However, if I remembered correctly, red hobgoblins have a fire affinity and could do some form of fire magic/ability.
I couldn't help but daydream about what I could do with a red hobgoblin mask...a permanent-use mask could be considered a C-Rank magic item, while black masks could only be considered as D-Rank.
While I was daydreaming, the goblin cook finally finished the stew. Because the hobgoblins were stronger, they were the first to eat. Seeing the hobgoblins eat huge amounts of the stew, I worried that they might take in too much of the poison and die instead of the intended paralysis.
While the hobgoblins were eating, the poison took effect. Wow that was way too fast, the goblins haven't started yet! Struggling in pain, the hobgoblins went berserk.
Thinking that the goblins poisoned them because of their previous abusive treatment, they started slaughtering the goblins. Some goblins ran and some tried to fight back.
More than ninety goblins died before the hobgoblins collapsed with foam from their mouths. The remaining ten or so goblins walked up to the collapsed hobgoblins and poked at them to see if they were alive or not.
While the goblins were prodding about, I immediately sprang into action. Switching to my Orc mask, I attacked the goblins and killed them one by one. Looking at the hobgoblins, I knelt beside each one of them and checked their pulse...what? They're dead?!
Did...was the poison too strong? I cursed at myself for wasting such good material. Now, I could only make masks with limited uses. However, limited-use masks were a rank lower than permanent-use masks. In other words, what could have been a C-Rank magic item could only be a D-Rank and what could have been a D-Rank could only be an E-Rank item. What a bummer!
With a sigh, I switched back to my human form and took out my skinning knife. I expertly removed the faces of the red hobgoblins and three of the black hobgoblins. Then, I removed the ears of the other five hobgoblins to be used as proof of quest completion. Afterwards, I hurried back to the guild to report my success.
