svetikya Chapter 96 Goblins and Goblins
Chapter 96 Goblins and Goblins
Chapter 98 Goblins and Goblins
The continuous noise finally woke Emily, who was on Ah Mao's back.
"Huh? What's that noise?"
The fairy rubbed her sleepy eyes, her long, sky-blue hair draped messily over her shoulders.
She had barely opened her eyes when she was captivated by the chaotic scene following the car accident:
A group of drunken villagers crowded around an overturned vehicle, picking up various items.
At the broken village fence, a half-elf druid was wielding a wooden staff, which, enveloped in green light, caused the broken wooden stakes to re-emerge from the ground and intertwine.
Beneath the cart frame, stuck in the mud, a disheveled goblin was crawling out. Water and dust from the gray rock canyon had smeared his face, making him look like a mud monkey.
Roland and Rom were slowly walking towards the goblin.
The chaotic scene instantly snapped Emily out of her daze.
A dazzling flash of light appeared, and she was right beside Luo Lan: "Wow! I knew following you, Luo Lan, would be fun!"
Luo Lan turned her head to look at Emily, who was floating beside her: "Are you sober now?"
Emily hovered in mid-air, immediately placing her hands on her hips, her head held high with a defiant look on her face. Although her voice was a little hoarse, she still stubbornly insisted, "What do you mean by sober? I'm not drunk!"
The little creature's gaze passed over Luo Lan's shoulder and landed on the wrecked rune-covered steam engine, its eyes gleaming with curiosity: "So, what exactly happened here—?"
Luo Lan raised her finger and pointed to the dusty-faced goblin merchant, who was half-hidden, indicating that the goblin should see for himself.
Not far away, Rom walked a few steps to the chassis of the deformed rune steam car.
The rear wheels of the rune steam engine were still spinning in mid-air, with steam hissing out from the broken pipes.
Rom grabbed the goblin leather vest by the collar and pulled it out like a vine pulling a vine, dragging the short goblin merchant out from under a pile of bent crates.
As soon as the goblin landed, he clutched his chest in pain and began to cough violently.
Each cough brought up a mouthful of bloody froth, which mixed with dust and dripped from the corner of his mouth. Clearly, the impact was quite severe, and he was probably suffering internal injuries.
Rom pulled a small ceramic bottle from his pouch. A deep red liquid sloshed inside; it was a potent life potion.
Rom handed the potion to the goblin, looking down at him with a mix of familiar teasing and annoyance in his voice, clearly indicating they were old acquaintances: "Griff, what's wrong with you today? Did you mistake our village fence for the finish line? Luckily, the soil at the village entrance is loose enough. Otherwise, with the way you were running like that, you'd have your head embedded in a rock!"
The goblin named "Griff" snatched the life potion bottle from Rom's hand with a huff.
Ignoring the bruise on his lip, he bit off the cork, tilted his head back, and gulped down the entire bottle of dark red liquid.
Using his filthy gloves to wipe away the medicine residue and blood from his mouth, he caught his breath before raising his head. His eyes bloodshot, he glared at Rom and roared in a hoarse, shrill voice, "I have a question for you too! Rom, how have you been doing your patrol duties as the 'village guardian'? Did you know there are goblins roaming around your village?! Those bastards were lying in wait on the road, trying to rob me! I had to throw two Silver-tier T-800 golems to escape!"
Upon hearing the word "goblin," Rom's expression instantly changed, his brows furrowing deeply, and his tone filled with deep doubt: "Huh? Goblins? I've never seen them before. I take Ollie around the village every week—"
Griff brushed the dust off his clothes, struggled to his feet, and cursed as he stood up: "How the hell am I supposed to know how you patrolled—that's just the truth!"
Griff was trembling with rage, pointing at his still-smoking cartwheel: "Those bastards stole my most valuable magical item crate! It even contained an unidentified ancient treasure-shaped rift core! Damn it!"
After finishing his rant, Griff ignored the stunned Rom and walked toward the scattered pile of goods.
For a goblin, the weight of gold coins is sometimes more important than life itself.
Although Griff's internal injuries had not yet healed, the burning desire for the damaged goods had completely overshadowed the pain.
Luo Lan, who had listened to the whole thing, unconsciously raised an eyebrow:
[The goblins robbed the goblins.]
This was a statement that sounded a bit awkward to Luo Lan.
Because in the various fantasy world frameworks of Earth, goblin and gnome are often different translations of the same fictional green-skinned monster.
But in Akquad, goblins and gnomes are two real races.
They do indeed look very similar, all being short and sturdy, with long, pointed noses and exaggeratedly large, protruding ears. Except for a few mutated individuals, their skin color is mostly a sickly dark green.
But once you've personally come into contact with these two species, no one would mistake them for each other.
Goblins are natural-born merchants, mechanics, and rune technicians—their clever little brains are filled with blueprints and abacuses, and they have even joined forces with dwarves and other demi-human races to establish a vast trade network that can radiate across the entire continent: the Hearthstone Federation.
Goblins, on the other hand, are completely uncivilized natural monsters. Aside from their absurdly fast reproduction rate within their groups—an advantage they possess—the rest are all savage, base, and cowardly behaviors typical of low-level, social monsters.
It's worth noting that the goblins of Akquad don't have the perverse tastes of some fictional works on Earth, such as kidnapping females from other races to use as breeding tools. They are reproductively isolated and treat men and women equally, although they do reproduce very quickly.
Once, a scholar from the [Secret Academy], bored out of his mind, specifically studied what determined the vast difference in intelligence and habits between goblins and gnomes, two species with extremely similar biological structures.
The final conclusion was that goblins have hair, while goblins do not.
It sounds a bit absurd, but that's the truth.
These two species share a 99% genetic similarity. The only difference is that goblins have hair, while goblins never have hair.
This research conclusion has further implications.
Scholars have also tried giving goblins hair transplants or shaving gnomes' heads to see if it would affect the intelligence of these two species.
Another conclusion was drawn: acquired hairstyle changes are useless; only natural hairstyles have an impact on intelligence.
The distinction between intelligence and species depends solely on the presence or absence of that tuft of hair in the embryo.
Just as the scholars were preparing to conduct the next phase of their research.
The Goblin Guild's leadership spent a fortune to severely suppress this academic research, which they considered insulting to goblins.
Compared to losing money, which is their second most hated trait, the goblin merchants hate nothing more than being compared to goblins.
Therefore, in this world, if you want to anger a goblin merchant as quickly as possible, no amount of grumbling about relatives will work.
Pointing your finger directly at a goblin's pointed nose and yelling, "You're as stupid as a goblin," will absolutely send any goblin into a rage on the spot.