Michael snickered as he casually walked past the bowing Hobgoblin, while glancing around at the various huts. The largest building at the center of the village, obviously belonged to Jonathan, and that was where the little murderous Thief scampered off to.

He sighed dramatically, then told the old man “I’ve died eleven times in the past two days… I need a fucking break. Are all of these houses occupied? I don’t have ‘money,’ but I do have a shit-ton of food to trade. Aside from shelter, weapons and armor would be nice… I can supply the ingredients, but I assume that someone here has a few crafting skills; otherwise, where the hell did all the gear you're using come from? By the way, I saw your daughter pick up the mana-core out of her vomit earlier…”

Hearing that last sentence, Jonathan frantically sprinted towards his home, while furiously shouting “Sarah! You little brat, don’t think I didn’t see you take that mana-core!” Since there was so much commotion outside, many of the huts had glimmering blue-eyes peering out of the tiny, glass-less, windows; most of the doors were just animal pelts, so they didn’t even completely cover the entrances.

Michael snickered with a sinister smirk on his face, as he casually walked around the village, looking for a vacant home. There was only a single house that wasn’t being used, and it was the closest to the river; the reason why no one lived there, was because it was haunted.

While he appeared to be simply wandering around, his wisp form had been nonchalantly peeking inside the huts. He discovered that the reason no one mentioned anything about his lack of clothing, was because the majority of goblins didn’t seem to wear them.

In fact, he had already met the whole military force of Riverside; everyone else were either small children, elders, or unranked, level-zero, adults. Without even asking for permission, Michael entered his new home, and looked around for a few moments, before using forty gallons of water to clean both himself and the disgusting floor off: It was made out of dried straw, and a decent amount of mice had been living in there.

He wasted copious amounts of mana, so that he could use ‘Telekinesis’ to spray the water with a decent pressure. The overexertion gave him a horrible migraine, but he didn’t care. After twenty minutes, he was able to clear away all the excrement, fur, dirt, dust, and bones that had been covering the floor.

Michael laid down on the moist straw, and then switched into third-person perspective. A pitch-black wisp was slowly lurking through the huts and creeping on the various goblin families; he muttered “Hmmm, it’s almost like… Holy shit, it’s gotta be the Charisma stat, right? Geeze, if I’m a one, then most of these ugly bastards must be a negative-ten. Eww, no, nope, can’t masturbate to that… No! Oh God no! Now I know why they didn’t include a sense of smell on this fucking astral-projection feature… Like seriously, how the hell do these people live in a tiny hut, with a shit-bucket five feet away from their beds and kitchens?!”

It had been two days since he was brought to that world; in all of that time, he hadn’t ‘relieved’ himself, but even with the ability to peep on people as much as he wanted to… Well, in the end, he was forced to just use his imagination, and memories, while desperately trying to forget everything that he had witnessed during his exploration of Riverside Village.

Once he had satisfied himself, he opened his companion-screen, and summoned Inari. For the exhausted fox, it seemed as if no time had passed; she was also still completely filthy, so he had to spend a few minutes spraying her with water, in an attempt to wash away all the blood and dirt.

The naked man grimaced, while muttering “Even though my stamina-bar is practically full, it feels like I haven’t slept for two days... I wonder if there’s a way to turn off the wisp mode?” After he was satisfied that the vixen was clean enough, Michael laid down onto his side, and used her body as a wet pillow. Surprisingly, Inari didn’t seem to mind the slight bit of pressure, and managed to fall asleep before her strange Companion.

While his physical form was unconscious, the black ball of incorporeal darkness, was forced out of Michael’s forehead and sighed resignedly. Instead of dreaming, he could only slow-down his perception of time, as a wisp.

However, before he could fast-forward, he heard some annoying shouting coming from the center of the village. Swiftly floating through the wall of his hut, and a couple of other houses along the way, he finally reached Jonathan’s home.

Without any hesitation, he quickly entered inside and floated near the top of the relatively high ceiling. It was dark, but there were a few candles dimly lighting the room. The Lorekeeper and his daughter were sitting across from each-other, on animal furs, and in-between them was a tiny crimson-pearl: which was laying inside of a clay bowl.

Sarah, who had changed out of her leather armor and into a ripped and torn grey nightgown, was biting her lower lip as she stared at the rank-F mana-core. Jonathan sighed and asked her “Why are you so obsessed with evolving? Just keep training, and you’ll definitely become a Hobgoblin within a few years…”

Hearing that, the green-skinned girl scowled, while Michael muttered “Dafuck? Well, if I wasn’t immortal, I would definitely take the long but safe route… Glad I’m not an NPC~.”

She looked her father in the eyes and told him “You’re a coward. If you weren’t so weak-minded, Mama would still be alive, and we wouldn’t be forced to live in this shitty hut. I’m different from you; if I was in your place, I would have slaughtered every single one of those fucking Humans. Even if it took me months to slowly kill them off, I would have made sure that they all died by my own hands. Hmph, did you think that it was brave to be treated like garbage? Did you think I would thank you for sacrificing our dignity, so that they would spare our worthless lives?! I truly despise you… and now, you reprimand me for killing a Human?”

Jonathan grit his teeth, then growled “You… Sarah, there are some things that should never be said!” as he swiftly back-handed her left cheek with an open palm. A massive ‘-10’ appeared above the girl’s head, as her whole body lifted off the ground and smacked into the mud-brick wall; she was ‘stunned,’ ‘terrified,’ ‘disoriented,’ and she even spat out a few of her yellow molars.

Michael started laughing hysterically, as he yelled “Holy shit! Hahahaha~ wrecked!” Then the armor-wearing, bulky Hobgoblin, stood-up and walked over to the crying girl, grabbed her short, black-hair, with his left hand, and forced her to face him.

She glared at him, with a deep hatred and fear, as her father sighed, throwing her back onto the brown pelt that she had been sitting on before. After he sat down again, Jonathan calmly told her “You foolish child… What good are honor and respect, if everyone you love has to die for you to keep it? Well, it matters not, when you have a family of your own one day, you shall surely understand.”

The little Thief struggled to sit upright, as the old man continued “You’re still young, Sarah. When I was ten years old, I was impatient and reckless as well. Unlike you, I didn’t have any other choice but to win my first mana-core in a duel against a fellow Goblin. Then I continued to risk my life struggling as a rank-G adventurer, until I reached level-ten and was confident in my ability to fight against a rank-F Hobgoblin.”

Then he frowned and asked her “You say you hate Humans, but what do you think would have happened if you had actually defeated him in a duel? Assuming you don’t simply die, what do you think will happen when you swallow that mana-core? Hmph, hypocritical brat... was that your plan all along?”

Sara’s face was incredibly swollen, but she was still able to smirk slightly. After spitting a bunch of blood onto her father’s face, she snickered for a few seconds, before replying “Even if I did become a Hobgoblin, what would that change? We’re barely even considered demi-humans! If I’m lucky, I’ll become a Green-Elf… but even if I end up as an Orc, it’ll still be better than this!”

Michael sighed dramatically, as he muttered “What is this, the evolution tutorial event? Wait a second, is ten years old for a Goblin like, a teenager or an adult? Hmmm, I wonder what the age of consent is… if there even is one. Well, whatever, but I kinda want to see what would happen if she really ate that mana-core. Hehehe~ I’m surprised though, they didn’t even notice my little slight of hand.”