The morning air in Goblin's Grove carried its usual damp scent. After the failed attempts at cultivating Veilroot and Moonshade Grass, Lee Jun had come to an important realization:These rare plants couldn't be cultivated. They could only be found growing naturally. Which meant that every root sprouting from the ground… was a treasure.
Standing before his neatly lined-up goblins, Jun addressed them with a firm tone. Godon stood beside him, holding the black spear he had seized from Gho'lran. Behind him, several goblins carried empty baskets, ready to collect anything valuable.
"Starting today, we hunt roots," Jun declared. "Find Veilroot. As many as we can."
Dividing the Teams
Jun split the goblins into three main groups:
Guard Team, led by Godon, tasked with protecting the farmland from monsters or roaming threats.
Farming Team, in charge of tending to the alchemical herbs that could be cultivated—such as basic stamina plants and common healing herbs.
Scouting Team, made up of agile and clever goblins like Grikk, his first evolved Goblin Thief. Their job was to explore uncharted dungeon zones to search for Veilroot.
Jun himself joined the scouting team, bringing along a notebook and animal hide scraps to sketch maps and take notes on the terrain.
Thin Fog in the Northwest
After nearly an hour of trekking through unfamiliar terrain, the scouting team arrived at an eerie section of the dungeon. The ground was soft, the air colder, and the usual shafts of dungeon light were blocked by a thin, unnatural fog.
Grikk crouched suddenly and pointed to a dark, purplish root sprouting from the soil.
"Veilroot," Jun whispered, eyes wide.
Three roots had grown close together. The surrounding soil was unusually dark, and no other plants grew nearby.
Jun instructed the goblins to dig carefully. But as one goblin dug a little too deep, a cluster of roots shot up from the ground—an instinctual trap!
The goblin was struck and scratched—not fatally, but enough to alarm the group.
"There's something under here," Jun muttered, scanning the area warily.
On the bark of a nearby tree, there were deep claw marks—three-fingered gouges that had pierced through the wood.
Marking the Zone
They returned to Goblin's Grove with the three harvested Veilroot, but Jun couldn't shake the unease that clung to him. At the site, he had drawn a large "X" on the ground with chalk and marked the location on a crude map drawn over animal hide.
"This place… reeks of death," he muttered. "But the Veilroot thrives there. We'll need to go back. With better preparation."
Night Thoughts
That night, as the goblins slept in their huts, Jun sat by the fire with Godon.
"If we can gather fifty more roots," Jun said, calculating aloud, "we could build a basic alchemy station. Maybe even buy some defenses for the farm."
Godon stared into the fire silently, as if understanding the weight on his master's shoulders.
In the distance, from the northwest, a raspy sound echoed through the darkness—a slow, deliberate breath.
It did not belong to a goblin.
"The deeper we venture into this dungeon, the clearer it becomes…Goblin's Grove cannot be conquered with bare hands alone."