hotmtlnovel Chapter 9
Chapter 9
“I could spare your life for now.”
The voice sounded like a girl’s, and its owner indeed appeared to be a beautiful young woman.
But her tone was utterly calm, devoid of any emotion.
Parker, hearing this, felt a desperate surge of hope for survival. He raised his head, speaking in a raspy voice, “What do you need me to do? Just... let me live...”
But no response came, only silence.
In the quiet alley, the only sounds were Parker’s racing heartbeat and his ragged breathing.
As sweat started to bead on his forehead, the girl finally gave her answer.
“A week from today, bring one of your companions to me.”
“Bring them to a location I will specify. No one else is to be there.”
She pointed a finger at Parker, and a blood-red light surged into his body. He felt an overwhelming discomfort, as if his body were being torn apart and rearranged.
With that, she lowered her hand and disappeared into thin air, leaving only a final message in Parker’s ear.
“In a week, you will die unless you complete the task.”
Left alone in the deserted street, Parker collapsed onto the ground, gasping for air.
...
Having satisfied her “appetite,” Aino cheerfully returned to Carter’s home.
The moment she stepped inside, she found Carter and Molly deep in conversation, their expressions somewhat grim.
“Oh, Aino, you’re back,” Carter greeted her with a smile, while Molly eagerly stood up and warmly took Aino’s hand.
Leaning in with a grin, Molly whispered, “So, did you teach those guys a lesson?”
Carter glanced around at the sprawled goblin bodies, feeling the weight of his bag pressing heavily against his back, and couldn’t help but feel a sense of amazement.
All he had to do was scout for information, lead Aino to possible goblin lairs, and then collect their heads.
It was that easy.
Honestly, in every way, Aino resembled a monster more than the creatures they were hunting, with her overwhelming strength.
Whether it was a hulking, ferocious giant goblin or a sinister, eerie goblin shaman, each one was taken down in an instant. Just as Aino had described, this was a “hunt,” not an adventure or a battle.
This lair, the largest they’d tackled in days, was packed with goblins, including minotaurs, goblin shamans, and other variants.
It was also a human hell. Along the way, Carter had seen countless human skeletons and dismembered bodies.
Now they’d reached the innermost part of the cave—the “storage room.”
In the smaller storage areas, they’d encountered captured women, most missing limbs and covered in filth. They stared blankly when they saw people, devoid of reaction.
The luckiest was a female adventurer who’d been captured less than a week ago. Her experience and the short duration of her captivity left her with enough resilience to cling to sanity.
Yet, even she sobbed uncontrollably, clinging to Carter’s leg and wailing about why help had come so late. Behind her lay several limbless survivors, lying in the mud, letting out animalistic cries as they echoed her despair.
If the smaller hideouts were like this, what horrors lay in the storage room of this massive goblin lair?
Carter, who had been an adventurer since his teenage years, a lone wanderer for over a decade, had faced countless terrifying sights.
Yet now, he found himself hesitating to look forward, dreading what they might find.
These days, they’d been making money at an unprecedented pace, with his family’s wealth increasing to the point where he wouldn’t need to work for a long time.
But each day, Carter’s heart grew heavier, finding the goblin hunt more grueling than any past mission, even the dangerous ones he’d undertaken alone.
It was a visceral horror, etched into his very bones, triggered by witnessing his own kind subjected to such torment.
Carter forced himself to focus, knowing the only thing he could do now was to follow Aino, slay more goblins, and save as many humans as possible.
Lost in thought, he found himself following Aino into a darkened chamber.