The mercenary who covered Rowan in blood was named Gerihan. He played a mean prank, but it certainly taught him about goblin butchering.
"The most important thing is the heart. You gotta take this out first, because these goblin bastards, for some reason, their blood cools and hardens really fast. Extract the heart like this."
Snap!
The sound of bones breaking was interesting to hear.
"Cut the artery directly connected to the heart. Goblin hearts are especially tough, so the arteries and veins near the heart have cartilage in the blood vessels. Something like that."
Rowan actively participated in the butchering. He even tried grabbing the severed artery with his hand. His whole body was already covered in blood anyway, and he knew experience was more important than anything. It was a world where even small bits of information were known only by those who knew.
"If you cut the scabbard here at the protruding bottom part like this, all the blood comes out cleanly."
Swoosh! Drip drip...
After draining the blood from the heart with just one dagger, mercenary Gerihan touched the goblin's wrist.
"Next are the hand bones. Wizards like goblin hand bones. Don't know why, don't want to know. Don't even talk much to wizards."
Slice.
"Here, the dagger slips right into the inner right side of the wrist. Hold the hand reversed and twist hard once!"
Crack.
"When the wrist breaks, you get just the hand bone like this."
He kicked the hand bone away from the battle site. He didn't seem to think well of wizards.
"Next is the skull. Goblin skulls are used in various places, but mostly they give warnings to goblins and scare them. Pretty old villages pile goblin skulls like mountains in the nearby forest."
Meaning they sold well. It also meant they weren't that expensive.
"The heart's done if you wrap it in leather or cloth now."
When no more blood dripped, Gerihan took out a cloth from his chest, wrapped it, and threw it into an empty leather backpack. All the mercenaries each had appropriately folded leather backpacks or carried them rolled up and took them out.
Naturally, Rowan didn't have one.
Cutting the neck was laborious. Not so much that the neck bone was very hard, but because the neck bone was two layers, it just took a long time.
"Cutting the neck's the hardest work. It's not usually tough."
It looked really hard because it was thicker than human neck bones. He had to cut and scrape the neck bone with a dagger over thirty, fifty times, and break it using leverage.
"If you use it as leverage without scraping marks into the neck bone with a dagger, it'll slip."
He also shared his know-how, because the kid had reversed his precarious situation with those dagger throws.
"How's the price usually decided?"
"That's up to the merchants. We leave it to the captain. We've been picking goblin subjugation jobs for quite a while, so he has connections with merchants."
Meaning mercenary captain Jose handled it. Seeing they had no doubts about it, he was a real man's man. If it were him, he'd have gotten a receipt.
Rowan also asked about uses.
"Goblin hearts are preserved food. They don't rot, so whether it's one year or three years, there's no real change even if they age. It's mysterious, so in the past, they said eating them increased strength, but it's a superstition. They're pretty pricey."
"Hey! Kid! What'll you do about the goblin you killed?"
One mercenary shouted. He was carefully applying ointment to his wounds. You could clearly see him taking care of his body. He was also the mercenary Rowan had saved.
"Sorry for cursing earlier."
"But I don't have a leather backpack to take it with."
"I brought extra, so put it in there. You have a dagger, right?"
Rowan lifted the throwing dagger. A cross-guard to firmly secure the hand. It didn't have the fixed part that stuck out at right angles between the handle and blade. Mercenary Selsim, whose life had been saved, gave him his dagger.
Since he couldn't think straight after being tackled by a goblin at the start, he had only caught one goblin.
"Ugh!"
Rowan, who carefully inserted the dagger into the dip below the throat and cut the skin, had to flinch when the blood smell rushed in more than expected.
"Hehe."
"When did this place become a training ground? Who is it! The idiot saved by the kid?"
"Me, you bastard."
The mercenaries snickered while cursing at each other, showing off their camaraderie while chattering. Of course, their work still had a long way to go, but they had enough leisure to watch the kid's butchering scene. Even mercenary captain Jose, who hadn't established such discipline in the first place, leaned against the wall and watched.
"Boring."
Rowan perfectly butchered it. Because while doing all sorts of odd jobs in Black Mountain Village to save money and pay Rakson for lessons, his dexterity had improved considerably, and he'd also had experience butchering other animals.
They started getting loot while searching the far end of the abandoned mine's first underground level, which the goblins had both lived in and used as a workshop. Most were goods in kind.
Starting with grain growing wild and all kinds of dried meat, crude ritual tools, animal bones, crude weapons and armor, even arrows. Especially arrows were the loot mercenaries liked most.
Like in all sorts of movies, using hundreds of thousands of shots was just pie in the sky for arrows. If you thought about arrow tips and top and bottom fletching that changed direction depending on which animal's feathers were used, arrows couldn't be used as disposables.
"Look at this! Rock salt!"
"What? These goblin bastards were living large."
Among them, naturally, rock salt was what fetched a reasonable price. But they probably wouldn't sell it and would use it themselves. It only fetched some price anyway, in a world where the cultivation of spices and fragrant plants was done well.
Spice and seasoning prices were incomparably cheap compared to medieval times, but more expensive than modern times. Still, it was worth being happy about.
The mercenaries' leather backpacks filled up, and they even had to use a separate rope to make back loads. Naturally, Rowan had to carry the backpack, because he wasn't part of this mercenary group and was literally a freeloader.
If he complained, he'd just get kicked out. Rowan, wanting to seize the opportunity, shut his mouth and carried the load.
Though they'd had a short battle, whether it took a lot of time to clean up, the sun was setting. Rowan, remembering they'd entered at early lunch, was shocked.
'My sense of time seems gone.'
Realizing he'd been in the mine for over six hours, he suddenly got tired. When they returned to where they'd put the supplies they'd originally brought, the other groups had all already arrived.
One mercenary from the patrol group greeted them and said, "It's certain there are goblins at every mine entrance. Each group saw blood once. The goblins apparently don't really come outside, live in the mines, and only come out to gather food."
"We can camp tonight and hit them for a few days."
Jose said that, then sat at the big campfire to fill his hungry belly and reached for the boiling soup. Same for the others.
They took appropriately burned things that became charcoal from the big campfire and used them to make small hearths here and there. Many mercenaries brought heated stones, buried them in the ground, and lay there. Rowan also put three appropriate stones beside the campfire. Impatient mercenaries even threw them right into the campfire.
To spend the night in the forest, they drank liquor only enough to raise their body temperature, and Jose fell asleep without much talk. The patrol group that hadn't fought would stand night watch.
Rowan also immediately went to bed. No one said anything. There wasn't a single mercenary here who thought Rowan, covered all over in goblin blood, hadn't done his share.
"The kid's pretty good, huh?"
"He apparently caught one goblin for sure by himself."
Some mercenaries whispered. They were chatterboxes who couldn't sleep at night or relieve stress without chatting.
Rowan fell asleep hearing such sounds. Nothing special happened. Literally, as the mercenary said, goblins stockpiled food and only occasionally came outside, staying in the mines, and for some reason lived scattered.
While eating breakfast, Gerihan, who'd been explaining in detail to Rowan since yesterday, answered that.
"It's simple. Everyone wants to be the boss, so they took their families and went to other mines. With the mining yield constantly decreasing, there were mine entrances everywhere, matching the traces of frantic digging. To the goblins, it must've looked like already-built comfortable homes."
"That happens pretty often. Goblins always want to become independent and lead their own tribe."
In short, if conditions were met, they dreamed of a new tribe by escaping with one female goblin.
"Since no humans go to the mines, they must've judged it safe. If not for the fearless goblin that went to the human village, we wouldn't have found the goblins' presence for a long time."
"We were lucky."
They also casually exchanged eerily chilling words.
"Going the same way this time too."
Literally goblin hunting. The many entrances of the abandoned mine made the goblins scatter. That also had the effect of increasing goblin numbers through wider territory, but showed them getting picked off instantly.
Rowan could gain experience killing goblins several times there. It wasn't as hard as expected. Thinking that made him feel oddly uncomfortable instead, so he just let it flow. He thought of them as monsters harming humans anyway.
At the same time, Rowan realized he was different from others.
'Because I reincarnated?'
When he first killed a goblin, Rowan had felt calmness and peace while simultaneously throwing daggers perfectly in the right place with endless confidence, and that phenomenon occurred afterward too.
'It activates when I kill monsters.'
Experiencing that bizarre phenomenon, Rowan realized more than anyone that he could succeed. At least he had confidence he wouldn't die while working as a mercenary. Meaning he had one powerful hidden weapon.
'Why do I have this power?'
He also worried about that while looking at the night sky, but it was quickly forgotten. It was a question without answers, and sleeping in the forest was too hard and difficult to have such carefree thoughts. Also, while goblins were easy to catch with Jose's archery, clashing with them always made him break out in cold sweat.
Their ferocity was abnormal. Goblins struggling until death while steeped in madness gave Rowan violent memories vivid enough to appear clearly when he closed his eyes.
'Archery!'
Rowan realized mercenary captain Jose's archery was truly amazing. Especially that archery that hit goblins' limbs precisely didn't matter whether goblins wore metal armor or not, because low-weight goblins fell over or tumbled backward from just getting hit in the arm due to the impact from the arrows.
'Result of effort, I guess.'
Meaning he could fire prediction shots matching the speed of goblins running while flailing their arms. Jose's archery represented the pinnacle a goblin subjugation veteran could reach. Rowan could notice because he had a good eye and all sorts of modern miscellaneous knowledge.
'Jealous.'
For Rowan, who couldn't shoot bows well and could only throw within ten steps, he was also envious.
"Last one."
The mercenaries filled the mine. They succeeded in beating all the goblins to death. It took three days. Though scattered widely, they could be called swept up since they posed no threat. It was also an exceptional case.
The mercenaries headed to the village carrying loads. Same for Rowan. The phenomenon he'd named himself, the momentary combat judgment that came when killing goblins!
Through Kill the Battle, he caught goblins similarly to other mercenaries. Of course, he wouldn't receive the same price as mercenaries, because even if he caught them, he didn't have a proper place to sell them.
"Wheeeew!!"
Whistling or cheering, the village people welcomed the mercenaries. Seeing what they'd loaded up, they could tell the goblins had been utterly smashed.
Rowan smiled but was caught up in other thoughts.
'Three of thirty-three mercenaries died.'
Their corpses were just buried right there. Absurd, they met death in an instant.
'Combat.'
Goblins could also kill humans. Through this incident, Rowan could realize more certainly that humans were sometimes endlessly weak beings. An important lesson.
Under the welcoming, naturally, a big feast broke out. They'd subjugated the goblins that appeared in the mountain village that hadn't seen a single monster for over ten years. The villagers also didn't miss this opportunity and wanted to jump into the feast.
It was a good excuse to drink, so everyone agreed while each opened their stored liquor and communally caught and roasted meat.
"Wahaha!"
The mercenaries also enjoyed that atmosphere. Some mercenaries were already mingling with village women and trying hard to seize opportunities.
Rowan was with his family, sipping liquor. Not only eldest brother Sernhac but also father Haldanak were dying of curiosity about the goblin subjugation. Also, those who knew Rowan thought it was more comfortable to hear the story from Rowan than from mercenaries whose eyes were on women.
"So I just cut the neck!"
Rowan, a bit tipsy, generously told his experiences while taking a bite of greasy chicken. He talked a lot about catching goblins, and at the end, talked about the mercenaries' deaths.
At that emptiness, everyone shook their heads. Some even felt bored by the mercenaries' deaths, because it wasn't their business. But Sernhac and Haldanak were worried first.
Still, they couldn't tell Rowan, who was quite loved by Rakson, not to live by the sword. He had talent, and they could see him working harder than anyone. Also, because he lived frugally, he could save money, but running one ranch couldn't embrace Rowan either.
That night, Rowan had a dream. It was a dream where terrible darkness descended.