The growls neared ever close, followed by extremely loud sniffing noises.
Jun was extremely worried, because these definitely didn't feel like those weak Goblins he faced first.
He peeked from a slight gap between the stack of boxes he was hiding in.
These ones… weren't extremely short or skinny like the ones he faced.
They were taller, nearly tall as humans, and had light green skin paired with muscular tones everywhere.
Jun saw the name of these monsters displayed on top of their heads, and at least came to knew what they were.
[Hobgoblin. Low Common Elite]
[Hobgoblin. Intermediate Common Elite.]
The group particularly had no single high ranked monster. All of them varied from Low to Intermediate Ranks.
Jun hid only because he thought fighting something unknown for the first time might be disadvantageous for him. And to be frank, he had never thought just Goblins could give him that much trouble.
So how much trouble would Hobgoblins, looking like an entire rank above Goblins, give him?
Such a thought assured Jun that he had made the right choice to hide.
***
A lot of time passed by. Many of the Hobgoblins that had come due to commotion had gone away. Only two or three remained.
Jun still wasn't sure he could take on one of them, let alone two.
He continued to hide, before which a white screen suddenly popped in front of him.
Such an appearance shocked Jun and he nearly gave away his location before he immediately controlled and stabilised himself.
He cursed inwardly on the way the system window appeared. But regardless, he looked at the window.
[The second crisis has been averted. The current location has been saved as a checkpoint.]
'…What? What crisis?'
But before Jun could even think anymore, a loud thunderous sound could be heard just near Jun as intense lightning blasted near him.
Such a sight left Jun in a daze, to which he snapped back, peeking in the gap between the stacks of boxes.
A tall, gaunt humanoid figure rose. Its neck stretched impossibly higher and higher until it twisted into… an orb of light!
Its skin was dark as gray, its two gaunt hands ended in razor sharp claws, and its two legs were like a beats erected on the ground.
But what shocked Jun more… was the tag on top of its head!
[Master of the Tunnels. Intermediate Rare Viscount.]
Jun's face ran pale on the sight of its rank.
And the fact thaf its name indicated one thing… it was the very controller and orchestrator of the ventilator tunnels!
'It must've come for me! It definitely felt something foreign entering and exiting its domain!'
The nearby two Hobgoblins shivered and groveled on the ground in front of the impossibly tall creature.
The creature, turned its orb head around, making a grumpy sound before it literally… just disappeared in a flash!
What Jun saw next shocked him more.
In the ground, what remained of it, was a massive crater at the centre of which remained… a single, intact fanged skull!
The shape of the skull was very similar to the heads of the Hobgoblins.
Jun shuddered as he looked at the sight.
The remaining Hobgoblins haggardly rose and started running away as fast as possible, disappearing from sight.
Jun realised that this was the second crisis. In order to survive from one he had actually escaped from another!
Jun gave a big sigh as he made sure that the monstrous creature had actually gone away, alongside with the presence of any Hobgoblins.
He sat, facing the white screen for a long time. Life, if it could be life, has been quite frantic in here from the moment Jun woke up, suddenly transported to somewhere else.
The feeling of dying itself made Jun surprised the most. Who would've thought of actually dying and coming back to life?
Today, in this moment, Jun reminisced about the times he had lived in Earth, where he thought of that life as guaranteed.
***
In an abyssal darkness, floated a piece of gray land with a single black light post illuminating against the darkness.
Suddenly, a black portal ripped at one side on the floating island, from which came out a tall, gaunt monstrous being with an orb of light as a head.
Even though the figure was impossibly very tall, against the light post it turned out to be like a child.
Suddenly, a noisy and demonic voice came out, the source being the head of the gaunt monster.
" I definitely felt an alien presence in my system! I tried to feel it out with the vessel it was in with black winds, but it unfortunately entered another vessel to which after it escaped from my senses! "
The gaunt monster grumbled as its claws tinkered around somewhere inside the humongous black light post.
Suddenly, another portal started to rip open on the floating island. The gaunr monster took note of the portal appearing and stopped its current activity, facing the portal.
The portal was violent, red flames spewed out as a tall, muscular and heavily armoured figure emerged from it.
This was the King of Goblins.
It carried the same, gigantic black wooden hammer, in its right hand. Suddenly, it lifted it and pointed with it towards the gaunt monster.
The King of Goblins was just slightly smaller than the gaunt monster, but its fear against it was no less than facing a mere human.
Suddenly, the gigantic figure spoke, an extremely monstrous voice coming out of it.
[ Watcher! Tell me whether you found the puny intruder, or face the judgement of our god! ]
The gaunt monster scoffed, clearly annoyed by the arrogance of the King of Goblins. Theh weren't even the same level of species and yet it dared to speak like that.
"…The intruder had momentarily entered my domain, too. I tried to search it out but it escaped soon after.
"I went to the last location and deduced where he went, but it seems your incompetent followers were stupid enough to let it go in plain sight!"
The gaunt monster furiously said these words, not even holding an ounce of restraint. The King of Goblins was taken aback, because he had never seen the Master of the Tunnels, their Watcher, so angry.
The King of Goblins definitely realised he might've crossed a line there.
After all, the King of Goblins and the Watcher had worked together for an insurmountable amount of time.
[…I take back my words. Watcher, I implore you to please find out about this strange intruder and notify me anytime you even find a clue of it.
[ I will do my own part of the work and search the colony thoroughly with my most elite troops. ]
The tone of the King was surprisingly sincere. You wouldn't expect such a fearsome monster to have such a gentle voice.
The gaunt monster grumbled, but it agreed nonetheless by somehow flickering the light from its orb, and the hunt for the intruder began.
The intruder, obviously, was Jun.
***
Jun looked over the white window, his eyes flickering for a bit.
[ A small amount of progress has been given to the stat Force. Use the term Glossary to access more information. ]
"…How strange. It should've told me to use Glossary from the start if it was like that. It's almost as if… its growing with me."
Jun shuddered a bit on the thought. Who would've guessed that 'something' could be monitoring him real-time and improving upon the system? Nevertheless, Jun dismissed such thoughts without solid evidence.
As he cleared his mind, Jun slowly crawled out of his safe space made out of the musty smelling boxes.
'…Luckily there were these boxes. But how were they so coincidentally placed here?'
Jun pondered for a long time, standing still, his mind reeling but his eyes still felt clouded.
Jun suddenly gave a big sigh. He never would've thought that his life could turn around so suddenly. Everything was disorienting. If it wasn't for his quick adaptability, Jun definitely would've died more than a dozen times.
'I'm in my fourth cycle. If I hadn't hidden myself amongst these boxes, I would've died even more haplessly against that vicious monster.'
Jun looked around, searching for anymore signs of danger. He decided it was safe enough for now, and quickly snuck himself again amongst the musty smelling boxes.
Jun started to ponder at that moment. What was exactly inside these boxes that gave off such a smell?
One tilted box was half-open, and when Jun gpt close to it… suddenly the smell was laced with a tinge of rot.
Jun was perplexed and reacted instinctively as the smell hit his nose. Regardless, he reached his hands down to feel whatever was here… and then he touched something soft.
He tried to feel it out. The shape of this thing was spherical, but it was not perfect as it had a bump on one side. It was slimy… and slippery. Iron now could be smelled as well coming out of the box.
And when Jun tried to pull out to clearly see what it was…
Jun's face twisted in horror as he dropped the object instantly on the ground, the object making wet noises as it jumped away from Jun, who was now leaning away from the box.
It was a torn eye!
It wasnt even rotting… like a freshly picked fruit!
Jun was completely shocked as he in horror glanced over the box he picked the eye from, realising now what all these musty smelling boxes truly contained inside.
Jun hurriedly crawled out of the safe space made from the boxes, his breath ragged due to the terrible moment.
Just at that moment.
"Grak!"
Something hit Jun's right foot, whereas in the next moment he was sent flying, tumbling down and crashing on some stacked boxes amongst a relatively empty ground in this storage room.
Spilling out whatever mess of a gore it contained, a bloody mess oozed out as flesh mixed with bones and organs spread out. Jun regained his composure, only to realise in horror when he looked at where he landed.
His mind felt nauseous to the extreme, where he rose and landed on his knees nearby, lurching repeatedly as he puked out more of whatever remained inside his gut.
"Kikikikikiki!"
A horrible laugh erupted nearby as Jun finished vomiting. He looked over and what he saw next made him break out a cold laugh.
[Hobgoblin. Pinnacle Common Elite.]
What he truly saw was a three meter tall lean figure, holding a much more gigantic cleave blade as compared to the Goblin Jun previously faced, wearing nothing but a comically large lioncloth.