章 20: Chapter 20: Hunter

More than two whole weeks have passed, and not much change has occurred in the dungeon. The goblins have stayed inside the interior dungeon for two whole weeks. Although there were some days where one or two of the goblins were dispatched out, the child did not want too many of them out. After he found out that there might be wolves prowling about, he was making sure that the goblins wouldn't leave their scents or something. Wolves were well known in his past life as trackers, after all.

As for the one or two goblins he sent out once in a while, he was using them as suicide scouts to try and look for the wolves. If one goblin was to find these wolves, it would probably die, but he would get an image of what he was up against.

But in the past two weeks, the child did not see a glimpse of one wolf. He ultimately decided to stop sending out any goblins. This was not because he couldn't find them, but because one of the goblins he sent out had died. Since he sent them out, not in pairs this time, one of the goblins had bad luck and ran into a stampede of raging boars.

The boars were as tall as goblins. Since they were much bigger, one boar would probably take down a goblin. And since there was a whole herd of them...

The goblin thus died, and the child didn't even get the body this time.

The child, however, didn't care much; with such an abundant energy source, there was no reason to be stingy with his energy. If need be, he will just make a new goblin to replace it. Plus, he has already made repopulation plans. But for the time being, those weren't what was on his mind; he was preoccupied by his plans to make a smarter goblin.

Which was a feat the child found to be harder than he had expected. Making the goblin smarter required the child to develop the core parts pertaining to the brain. Which was hard because the child did not have a prior superior brain to reference. From his rebirth to now, the smartest creature other than himself were these goblins.

And unlike muscles, it won't just make them denser and bigger. It's like the difference between quality and quality increase. Increasing quantity is easy and straightforward. But increasing quality is a whole other matter.

But the child did manage to succeed at some point. In that dungeon core of his, the goblin core structure was formed. Just like before, it had two colors, red and purple. But unlike before, the red parts were very small. Most of the part was made of purple. indicating that most of the core is already done.

Like before, the last part of the core was put in place, and the whole structure turned blue. Signifying the core's completion.

"Complete," the child thought.

The structure then shrank to a small size. A larger structure then formed to cover the core structure. It was the new goblin structure.

As expected, the goblin was short. It was 0.5 meters tall, which was at least half the size of a regular goblin. Compared to a regular human, the goblin could only reach as high as the knees. The goblin had large and pointy ears. Which were at least twice as big as a normal goblin. The ears were so large that each one was at least half as big as its head. The ears weren't the only ones that were big, though. Its eyes were at least three times bigger than a normal goblin's eyes. Its nose, on the other hand, was smaller and more rounded. Within its mouth hid a row of sharp teeth.

And interestingly, the goblin had something none of its earlier counterparts had: a tail. Which was something the child dug up deep within the goblin's core inheritance. It seemed that although the dungeon goblin race had no genes, they did have an ancestor. And parts of this ancestor seem to have been left over.

The child did not know what the ancestor was, but it seemed that it was a lizard.

In the end, the combination of all these parts made a very interesting and familiar image. This was because when the child first saw the full image of the goblin, he could not help but think back to a certain movie in his past life.

Gremlins.

In this movie, the main antagonist, Gremlins, looked almost exactly like this new goblin he had just completed. So without a better name, he could come with himself; he named them after the movie creatures.

In the movie, though, gremlins are dumb and crazy creatures that love to mess around and destroy everything. They were not only comical but also terrifying.

But the child's gremlins weren't like that. After all, when he created them, he made them with the purpose of increasing the IQ level of the goblins. Instead of being dumb and crazy as in the movie, his gremlins are much smarter. They were, in fact, almost as smart as a regular human. But although their intelligence was one of their greatest features, it was not the only one.

Their ears weren't just large; we're extremely sensitive to sound as well. That means that they could hear sounds from a great distance away or the smallest sounds nearby. Their eyes were also not just big but light-sensitive too. The child wanted to give them night vision, but with no prior experience with a creature with night vision, he could only make sure that they could see well in very dim light. To protect them from excessive and harmful light, the child improved their pupils to the highest degree. meaning they could retract and contract really fast.

Their nose may be small, but their sensitivity may be comparable to a dog's. With these three sense receptors increased to such a degree, the child did not forget about the tongue. But it was not just its sensitivity that increased, but its resistance to poisonous objects as well.

With all these four senses perfectly increased, the child had completed his intention of becoming the perfect hunter.

That's right, what the child intended the gremlins to become was hunters. This was because, from what he could see up until now, the creatures in this world are a tad bit bigger than the ones from earth. Meaning that they dominate in strength the most.

The child had wondered how he should tackle these creatures, but when he looked back on his own human memories, he found accounts in history of weaker humans taking down the much bigger and stronger mammals of their time.

What they used weren't their muscles to put them in the food chain, but their greatest specialty, their brains. They used clever traps and perfect weapons to take down large prey like mammoths and fend off dangerous foes like tigers. When the time came, they domesticated wild animals and made them part of their forces.

These were all feats of one of the oldest professions in human history.

The hunter.

...