Chapter 6
A Few Ideas
Now that the danger was over, I looked around the main hall of the cave.
Truthfully it was a mess.
Bones of small animals like birds, squirrels, rats, etc were lying around. Bits and pieces of some carcass were also there. Thankfully there was no woman that they had kidnapped as I couldn't see any corpse or human bones. There were also no hidden chambers. I was very thorough in checking. Truthfully I didn't want to kill goblin children today no matter how they turn out to be.
I would have done it though. Thankfully there were none.
In the end, I piled their corpses outside the cave and divested them of their weapons. There were 3 clubs and an ax that was usable. I already used the other sword during the massacre. I took them and placed them on my belt. I already made sure that my belt could carry extra weapons when I ordered it to be made just for this type of situation. With that, I turned back to the cave.
With a long breath, I swished my wand and begin sealing the cave. It took nearly a minute to do that and about 40% of my magical reserve. That was equivalent to 10 spells.
With 1 and a half spell, I used in the starting to mask the senses and a half spell used to start a campfire in the morning to cook breakfast before reaching the Water town; the number came to be 12.
I had 13 more spells to go.
Well, I had 8-10 spells more to go in truth.
The thing is – I always make sure to try to use more than 3/4th of my magical reserve every day. So that it increases a little bit the next day. It was a perfectly tested method by yours truly to increase the magical reserve. More than 95% risk getting magical exhaustion and less than 30% don't do anything, much. The best outcome was to use 70-90% of the magical reserve. And that meant using 18 to 23 spells.
I have increased my magical reserves by about 66% since I started using this method 5 and a half years ago. I could have increased my magical reserves more but the royal mages refused to teach me anything practical until I was well versed in the theory. I chuckled bitterly at the memory of how I usually vented to my mother about old men set in their ways.
'She never complained' I thought happily as the memories of our time together came to the front of my mind.
In the meantime, I also tied all the goblins to a rope and carried them back to the village. The battle only took 5 minutes in total so there was still light for a little less than 2 hours. The walk back to the village was quite soothing. Adrenaline already wore off and with it came some fatigue. By the time I reached there, my masking spell came undone.
I left the goblins on the edge of the forest. I drank some water from the river to cool off and filled the wineskin pouch with it. I collected the goblins as I went directly to the village chief who was talking to a man.
Seeing me walking in their direction, the man pointed me out to the chief just when I reached there.
"It is done," I said to him making my presence known.
"Oh! Thank you very much for killing those Goblins" He said turning to me. Relief and happiness were clear in his voice.
"There were 6 in total. Corps and livestock were already eaten when I reached there. I only salvaged these 4 crude weapons" I told him showing the weapons.
I asked him if he wanted any which he nodded so I had to part with them. I wasn't stingy. I was already well off. He signed the quest paper so that I could show it to the guild for getting my payment.
"There was something I was meaning to ask," I said to him to which he just nodded
"Can the goblin meat be used to feed the pigs in your village?" I asked him wanting to know an answer.
I thought about this while I was in the capital but I couldn't exactly ask anyone without getting laughed at. Usually, the monster's corpse is just left there or burnt off in some rare cases. In my opinion, it was a waste of perfectly good meat which can be used to feed carnivore animals.
He was taken aback by my question.
"Err we haven't tried it before but we can do that now," He said after mulling about it.
I agreed and gave him a silver coin for his troubles.
"Make sure to do that and tell me about the outcome. Make sure to check each and every part of the goblin. I will come back whenever I get free" I took a pause before continuing "And In case if the pig dies, I will even compensate you properly. Be sure to tell me which parts are poisonous. Also, burn their corpse if their whole body is poisonous. Also, if Pigs started to get aggressive or start showing any other abnormal behavior, kill them, and burn them. Like, I said before, I will compensate you for your losses" I suggested to him before turning away and walking away.
Suddenly I remembered something.
I turned back "The cave where the goblins were living. It is just 10 minutes away in the middle of the forest. It could be used by other goblins in the future so I sealed it up. Still, it is a good place for the goblins to live. So make sure to check it every few days to make sure the monsters don't start living there again. Goblins are quite adept in digging" I said.
"How will we find the place?" He asked
"You will find some clues about skirmish taking place there. I am sure you can easily find the place" I said before walking away.
While I was exiting the village, I got an idea and came back. After asking around, I healed the boys who got injured during the last night's raid. I knew enough healing spells to patch cuts and bruises which was enough for them. Seeing them getting healed, some other people also came. All in all, I healed 12 people.
This decreased my reserves to 40% seeing as it took 12% of my reserves to heal all of them.
I didn't do it out of my good heart. This helped me in getting positive popularity in the village. And in time a good reputation is profitable for this line of work. The second reason was that it would make sure that the chief does as he promised. I already made sure that he would fulfill the deal by paying him upfront but it never hurts to be thorough.
Unfortunately for me, nobody was going back to the city so I had to travel on foot.
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