After the battle ended, the valley returned to tranquility.
The heavy stench of blood mixed with a urine-like odor permeated the air, and the morning sun cast slanted beams into the valley, creating tangible columns of light. The dust in the air, still unsettled by the fierce battle moments before, rose and fell, appearing peaceful and beautiful.
Woodworker George, however, did not feel so calm. His temples throbbed steadily, accompanied by his racing, excited heart.
Lowering his head to the ground, everywhere he looked was an assault of green and red.
The goblin corpses lay scattered in twisted, broken forms across the uneven ground of the valley. Some had shattered heads, brain matter splattered on gray-brown rocks like bizarre graffiti; others had been disemboweled, their incomplete intestines attracting the scent-tracking insects from above; many more lay bent at impossible angles, as if forcedly twisted dolls.
Thick, dark red blood had seeped into the earth, pooling in hollow areas as unsettling puddles.
Moving his steps, he suddenly guessed he had stepped on a finger, the sensation instantly causing goosebumps all over him, making him shiver and reflexively back away several steps.
With a sudden "squelch," he crushed a goblin eye.
"Ah!"
George let out a short scream, quickly lifting his foot while his body staggered uncontrollably.
The soft yet firm touch underfoot, followed by collapse and explosion, along with the soft, yet remarkably clear "pop" sound, replayed in his mind magnifying these dreadful sensory experiences.
He looked down, seeing the edge of his worn shoe stained with a sticky mixture of yellow and white, a squashed eyeball still identifiable in shape clinging there.
In an instant, a strong feeling of nausea surged from his stomach to his throat.
He spun around quickly, clutching the rough rock beside him, retching violently.
Yet despite the turmoil in his stomach, he couldn’t vomit anything, with only sour bile continuously rising.
He gasped heavily, trying to calm himself through breathing, yet the pervasive scent of blood only made his dizziness worse.
His body trembled all over, not merely from physical nausea but from a primal, biological fear and aversion to death and destruction.
Gauss, hearing the commotion, turned to glance at the woodworker.
He had expected this scene long ago, but since the other party insisted on coming to see, surely it couldn’t be blamed on him?
These gruesome scenes, unless someone is accustomed to them like him, an adventurer, an ordinary person with strong resilience would find it hard to remain unmoved.
Without a change in expression, he stepped on the ground, beginning to harvest the spoils of this trip.
He was responsible for picking some relatively small but valuable iron items.
The left ear of a goblin, for example, served as a commission voucher, with clay creatures helping him. Such mechanical and simple tasks were what clay creatures did well.
Walking over to the Goblin Shaman’s side.
Gauss pondered for a moment, pulling out a delicate dagger and a shroud.
Kneeling down, he removed the spear that had pinned it to the rock face, and then precisely dissected its upper body with the dagger, his gloved hands fumbling in its abdomen for a moment before finding a luminous tumor, cutting it off with the dagger, and wrapping it in the shroud to keep it safe.
This was the source of magic power possessed by demons capable of spellcasting.
Compared to human Mages, their use of magic power was even more crude, often spontaneously condensing such raw magic cores within themselves, though rough, they were also good materials for certain studies and specific spells.
The wooden staff held by the Goblin Shaman was also a wood suitable for conducting magic power.
As for...
Gauss’ hands quickly gathered the spoils.
When finished, he stood up, his gaze sweeping over the land made even more desolate by the clay creatures collecting left ears, confirming no goblins survived hiding in nooks, before turning his gaze to the woodworker who had mostly calmed down, his shoulders slightly trembling.
"Forget all this, go home tonight and get a good sleep." His voice seemed to carry a kind of magic.
Gradually calming the woodworker George, who was somewhat in awe and fear because of the bloody land.
"Okay."
The two returned to the lumberyard, with other workers curiously surrounding the "lucky" George, eager to hear what had happened.
"So quick to come back? Did you find those goblins?"
George smiled awkwardly, glancing at Gauss, noticing his calm demeanor and not like he would reveal George’s earlier embarrassing state.
George relaxed, smiling as he shrugged lightly, pretending to be carefree: "Solved, solved, Mr. Gauss is truly impressive, those green-skinned little devils were nothing, cleared away in no time."
He deliberately left out the bloody details and his miserable reaction, only choosing some vague, seemingly magnificent outcomes to share.
Other workers exclaimed in awe, gazing at Gauss with respect, but Gauss simply nodded in response, without further words.
Faced with the overseer’s invitation to stay for a meal, he waved his hand to decline.
"I won’t be eating, I have some more commissions to run." Taking the chocobo’s reins from the worker supervising them. "I’ve marked the location of the goblin’s nest on the map. There are still some potentially useful supplies and spoils there, you can send people to gather and clean up the scene, best to burn the bodies with fire."