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Vanessa took a deep breath, like someone preparing to dig up a buried problem.
— Alright… where do I even start? — she murmured, adjusting the improvised bow at her side.
— We arrived at this dungeon about twenty days ago. Like I said before, we're mercenaries and we're very used to dungeons. This one, in particular, wasn't new to us. We already knew the terrain, the monsters, the routines… we knew exactly what to do.
She brushed her disheveled red hair back, her gaze drifting for a moment to the flames of the improvised torches.
— The main monsters here are goblins, gnolls, sand worms, and a few other isolated species. The most profitable strategy has always been hunting sand worms. Goblins and gnolls tend to form massive communities, far too dangerous without a large party.
— And bosses… well, they never show up alone. They always drag an army with them.
She sighed, weary.
— That's why we went straight to the eastern dunes. Sand worms appear frequently there, and their hide is worth more than anything else you can find around here. We hunted for a few days and made good money.
Ricardo followed along with a slow nod, confirming her story.
— The problem — Vanessa continued — was that my bow was basically useless against them. Those bastards only emerge from the sand at the exact moment of their attack. For me, it was impossible to react in time… so Ricardo ended up doing everything alone. And I… well, I didn't want to watch him kill himself doing twice the work.
She frowned, clearly irritated with herself.
— So I suggested we change targets. We went after goblins. It wasn't as profitable, but at least I could help. Up until then, everything went smoothly. We hunted small groups for days, no major surprises.
— Until the fifth day, when we found… an anomaly.
Alice, who had been slowly eating a stuffed cookie, shrank in on herself.
— We spotted a group of goblins alongside something that looked like a boss monster: a giant goblin, carrying a massive, rusted axe. We got excited. A boss meant good money, and considering our skills… well, we thought we could handle it.
She let out a bitter laugh.
— At first, we actually could. I took out the ten smaller goblins while Ricardo held the boss back. The fight was predictable, primitive. Every swing was heavy, but far too slow. We were controlling the pace just fine.
But then…
Vanessa clenched her hands, the memory vivid.
— I got too confident. When Ricardo's guard broke, instead of retreating, I advanced. The boss struck me square in the stomach with the shaft of the axe. I was thrown far back.
— Ricardo, worried, stepped away from the fight to help me.
And then came the fatal mistake.
— The impact knocked one of my artifacts onto the ground, a golden crown adorned with jewels. Nothing too flashy, a support-type magic item. The boss was left alone. And in just a few moments… he was drawn to the shine. He put the crown on his head like someone picking up trash and wearing it as decoration.
Vanessa stared at the ground for several seconds.
— And then… something lit up in his eyes. When he spoke… when he truly spoke… we froze.
Alice swallowed hard.
— In a shrill voice… he said: "I must dominate."
The memory still echoed clearly in their minds.
— We were confused, but we couldn't stop in the middle of the fight. So we resumed our positions.
— But from that point on… everything fell apart.
Vanessa rubbed her face, exhausted.
— He didn't get stronger. He got smarter.
— Predictable attacks turned into precise strikes. He started maintaining a defensive stance, analyzing our movements… He cornered us between the rocks, stripping away my long-range advantage, and worse, he focused on me first. As if he understood our roles. As if he were… studying us.
— In the end, we were defeated.
— But when I thought we were going to die… he didn't kill us. He kidnapped us. Tied us up with old rags and dragged us to this cursed place.
Her voice echoed through the silent cave.
— Let me guess… that crown was an artifact, right?
Yuto spoke after listening to everything attentively. His face remained neutral, but there was a strange sharpness in his eyes, as if invisible gears were spinning in his mind.
Vanessa sighed, her shoulders almost slumping.
— Yes… it was a wedding gift. The Crown of Athena. — There was shame in her voice, the weight of having let something so precious end up on a goblin's head.
— And what does it do? — Alice asked, leaning forward slightly.
— It's kind of ambiguous, actually — Vanessa replied. — They say it evolves the user's mind and heart, like a fragment of the goddess of wisdom.
Yuto narrowed his eyes.
So, basically, it raised the user's intelligence up to a certain ceiling…
On someone like Vanessa, naturally intelligent, the effect might barely be noticeable.But on a primitive monster?
Devastating.
— That's a serious problem… — I murmured, more to myself than to the group.
Alice, still trying to grasp the full picture, furrowed her brows.
— But… even so, I still don't understand why he decided to kidnap people.
The question hung heavily in the air. Indeed, it was irrational: goblins didn't need human flesh to survive. Rituals? Slavery? None of it aligned with the chief's sudden intellect.
And then, an answer lit up in Yuto's mind like a bulb flicking on.
— Mana theft.
Vanessa's eyes widened.
— H-huh? How did you know?
She herself had been about to explain it, but Yuto had reached the conclusion first.
It was simple, really.
Monsters grew stronger by absorbing mana, usually siphoning it slowly from the environment.
Primitive monsters never understood this process, never optimized it.
But humans…
Humans possessed mana cores, true natural reservoirs of energy.
To monsters, a human was like a walking flask of pure power.
Except for Yuto, of course, whose Mana Leakage Syndrome made him completely useless in that regard.
With his newfound intellect, the goblin chief had understood this. And with that understanding, he had seen an opportunity: to strengthen himself and his "tribe," evolving goblins to a level they would never have reached on their own.
It was dangerous. Extremely dangerous.
If new generations were born with that intelligence… an entire race would evolve from a single mistake. And everyone would pay for it.
Silence weighed heavily.
Alice wrapped her arms around herself, fear returning.
— Alright… so what do we do now? — she asked, her voice barely steady.
Ricardo was the first to react, rational as ever.
— We could try to escape at dawn, stealthily. It might work.
— Nah. — Yuto dismissed it with a lazy wave. — We can't leave that chief alive.
Vanessa stared at him as if he had just lost his mind.
— What!? Are you crazy, kid? There are hundreds of them! Facing the chief is one thing… but facing his army is suicide.
It was true.
Defeating the chief, isolated, wouldn't be impossible. But inside a village packed with goblins, with no chance of a fair duel…
That was asking to become a statistic.
But Yuto looked calm.
Too calm.
And that only made everyone more nervous.
— Still… there's a loophole — he said, resting his chin on his palm. — If I'm right, the Crown of Athena didn't just make him smarter. It made him more… "human."
He looked at each face around him.
— And if that's true… we can exploit a crucial weakness.
The group swallowed hard.
A slow, almost mischievous smile formed at the corner of Yuto's lips.
— There's a way… but I'm going to need your help.