Chapter 52
It was a scene that could only be described as having been swept through by a sandstorm. There was no other way to explain what lay before them.
Zahar and his team dismounted from their Bactrian camels and entered the goblin settlement.
They saw goblin corpses half-buried in the sand.
The state of the goblins was truly horrific.
It was as if a sandstorm had scraped away at their flesh—their skin and muscles were half torn off, and their innards had spilled out, staining the sand a dark crimson.
As if they had felt extreme fear and agony right up until the moment of death, the goblins’ faces were grotesquely twisted.
“What on earth happened here?”
Zahar reached out and touched one of the goblin corpses.
It still felt warm.
“They haven’t been dead for even an hour.”
“All this happened in just one hour? Then we should have seen the sandstorm too.”
Felix wore a look of disbelief.
The sandstorms that occasionally swept through the desert destroyed everything.
Only those who had experienced it knew the terror of a sandstorm advancing while filling the entire horizon.
No matter how powerful an Awakened might be, being caught in a massive sandstorm meant survival could not be guaranteed.
It showed just how insignificant humans were in the face of a colossal natural disaster.
The problem was that if a sandstorm of that magnitude had occurred, there was no way Zahar and his team wouldn’t have noticed.
Even if massive dunes had blocked their view, a sandstorm large enough to swallow an entire goblin settlement could not have gone unseen.
“What is this… really?”
“What the hell happened here?”
The team members looked around with confused expressions.
There wasn’t a single goblin alive.
There had been over a thousand goblins—yet not one had survived.
It was a situation completely beyond their understanding.
Mandy knelt on one knee and examined a goblin corpse.
What she was looking at was no ordinary goblin.
“It’s a hobgoblin.”
A hobgoblin was stronger than dozens of regular goblins combined.
Some even possessed special skills.
Awakened below E-rank would stand no chance against one.
Yet such a powerful creature had died in a miserable state.
Its flesh had all been torn away, and even the exposed bones were smooth, as if sanded down.
No matter how one looked at it, these were not injuries caused by a natural sandstorm.
Moreover, the terror still lingering in the hobgoblin’s wide-open eyes—
Mandy frowned unconsciously.
“If it’s a hobgoblin, it should have been able to avoid a sandstorm. It’s not like it stayed behind out of loyalty to its tribe… I don’t know. What in the world happened here?”
She scratched her head irritably.
At that moment—
“Team leader! We’ve got survivors here!”
Seido called out urgently.
Mandy and the others rushed toward him.
Pointing at the ground, Seido said,
“It looks like an underground prison.”
“A prison?”
Just as Zahar looked down—
“Help us!”
“Please, get us out!”
Faint voices came from below.
They were unmistakably human voices, not goblins.
Zahar shouted urgently,
“Start digging!”
“Yes!”
The team members immediately began digging into the sand without hesitation.
With the strength of the Awakened combined, they quickly cleared away over a meter of sand. Soon, the stone ceiling of a prison came into view.
Darren slammed his fist into it.
Boom!
With a loud crash, the ceiling shattered, revealing the faces of the people bound inside.
Zahar recognized them.
“Rotten, Jack!”
The man named Rotten was the leader of Team 2, and Jack was a team member.
Both were martial-type Awakened with considerable skill.
They looked up at Zahar with their limbs bound.
Their faces were so bruised and swollen that they were barely recognizable.
Team 7 hurriedly pulled them out and untied them.
Zahar asked Rotten,
“What happened?”
“We were ambushed. Those cowardly goblins set traps and waited for us.”
“What about the others?”
“They’re all dead. The bastards ate them.”
“…!”
“We almost got eaten too.”
Rotten trembled as if the mere thought was horrifying.
Jack, the other team member, also wore a face filled with fear.
The goblins had killed and eaten their comrades right in front of them.
The sight of people being torn apart alive and disappearing into goblins’ mouths left them with an indelible trauma.
Even for Awakened who lived close to death, witnessing a comrade being devoured was extremely rare.
Mandy asked,
“What about the sandstorm?”
“Huh?”
“What happened with the sandstorm?”
“I don’t know! It suddenly came and swept over the goblin settlement.”
“Suddenly?”
“We were about to be eaten, so we weren’t in our right minds. We didn’t have the luxury to look around. But when we came to our senses, a massive sandstorm had already engulfed the village.”
“You didn’t feel any signs beforehand?”
“None at all.”
At Rotten’s answer, Mandy frowned deeply.
She wasn’t interested in how he survived. What mattered to her was why the goblin settlement had ended up like this.
Then Rotten spoke cautiously,
“I don’t know if I was out of my mind for a moment, but… I think I heard a human voice back then.”
“What?”
“I think I heard a human voice faintly from within the sandstorm.”
“A human voice? Are you sure?”
“I can’t be certain. Like I said, I wasn’t in my right mind.”
Rotten looked unsure.
Zahar spoke,
“That’s enough questioning. He’s not a prisoner.”
“Alright.”
“We’re taking Rotten and Jack back to the shelter.”
At Zahar’s command, the team escorted Rotten and Jack out of the goblin settlement.
Mandy lagged behind at the rear, turning back to look at the goblin settlement buried in sand.
Although they had rescued Rotten and Jack, many unanswered questions still remained.
“Maybe it’s still too early for humans to advance this far…”
***
The shelter built by the Pathfinder Team was located in a sandstone region.
It had been constructed in an area where sand had hardened over time into rock.
Made from special materials developed in Neo Seoul, the shelter measured fifty meters wide, fifty meters long, and five meters high.
It was assembled from partition walls transported by truck, and there were no individual rooms inside.
It was, quite literally, a temporary base—there was no need to make it complex.
On one side of the shelter, over a dozen large trucks were parked.
Technicians were inspecting vehicles damaged by sand, while Awakened moved busily on the other side.
At that moment, Team 7 entered the shelter.
Zahar shouted,
“Team 2 has been hit. Take care of them immediately!”
“What?”
“Damn it!”
The Awakened rushed over.
Two healers stepped in and began treating Rotten and Jack.
The leader of Team 1 asked Zahar,
“What happened? Why Team 2?”
“They were ambushed by a goblin horde.”
“They lost to goblins?”
“It was a massive tribe—over a thousand. Even if it had been Team 1 instead of Team 2, the result wouldn’t have been any different.”
“Over a thousand goblins? Are you serious?”
“I saw it with my own eyes.”
At Zahar’s answer, the Team 1 leader’s expression turned grave.
“This is insane… a thousand goblins gathered in one place.”
Near Neo Seoul, such large goblin groups didn’t exist.
Even though they were low-level monsters, a thousand of them together posed a serious threat, so they were usually exterminated early.
Even the Team 1 leader, an experienced Awakened, had never seen a goblin force of that size.
“A goblin army that large… this is madness!”
By nature, goblins were among the lowest-ranked monsters.
They were dangerous in groups, but it was difficult for them to grow beyond a certain size.
Before they could expand, they would become prey for other monsters.
They were at the very bottom of the monster ecosystem, constantly fleeing from larger predators.
Because of that, despite their high reproduction rate, forming a massive army was rare.
Yet here, there had been a settlement of over a thousand.
It meant the environment was ideal for goblin breeding.
Sensing the Team 1 leader’s concern, Zahar said,
“Fortunately, a sandstorm wiped out the entire settlement.”
“What?”
“It sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. I confirmed it myself.”
“If that’s true… then that’s a relief.”
Just as the Team 1 leader finally let out a sigh of relief—
Boom!
The shelter suddenly shook violently.
“What was that?”
“What’s going on?”
Everyone inside looked around in alarm.
Boom!
The shelter shook again, even more violently.
The Team 1 leader quickly issued an order.
“Check what’s happening.”
“Yes!”
Members of Team 1 rushed outside.
Moments later, they returned pale-faced.
“T-there’s a problem. Cyclopes are attacking outside.”
“What? Cyclopes?”
“Yes! They’re attacking the shelter!”
Everyone inside the shelter turned pale.
Cyclopes were among the most dangerous monsters, alongside ogres.
Though officially ranked only B-grade, they were considered more dangerous than A-grade monsters.
Over seven meters tall, with overwhelming strength.
They possessed immense magic resistance, enough to deflect most spells.
Most importantly, they walked upright and could think.
That intelligence made them even more dangerous than ogres, whose instincts outweighed reason.
BOOM!
Another massive impact shook the shelter.
The structure buckled under the force, its seams splitting apart—and through the gap, a single giant eye became visible.
It was unmistakably a cyclops.
“Damn it!”
The shelter embodied the pinnacle of Neo Seoul’s technology.
Ordinary monster attacks couldn’t even scratch it.
Yet now it was crumpling and tearing like paper.
That meant the cyclops’ attack power exceeded the shelter’s defenses.
If they allowed this to continue, the shelter would collapse.
They had to subdue the cyclops before that happened.
Just as the Team 1 leader was about to give the attack order—
Crash!
Another explosion rang out, and the shelter shook again.
The opposite wall tore open, revealing two more cyclopes.
“There’s more than one?”
“Damn it!”
Despair spread across the faces of those inside.
Even one cyclops was difficult to handle.
But three?
The Team 1 leader and Zahar exchanged glances.
The Team 1 leader gave the order.
“Abandon the shelter. Break out by team and return to Neo Seoul.”
As soon as the order was given, the Pathfinder teams rushed outside.
Boom!
A massive club came crashing down onto the head of a fleeing Awakened.
The cyclops had struck.
The Awakened died instantly without even a scream.
“Grrr…”
The cyclops chewed on the crushed body as if it were meat.
One human wasn’t enough to satisfy it—it began attacking others.
“Aaagh!”
“Urk!”
Screams echoed around the shelter.
The cyclopes had surrounded the shelter in a triangular formation, feasting on the Awakened.
Most of them couldn’t break through the encirclement and were slaughtered helplessly.
A massive cyclops stepped in front of Team 7 as they tried to escape.
It was noticeably larger than the others.
It was clearly the leader of the group.
They needed to distract it.
Zahar said to Anika,
“We need a sacrifice.”
“Okay.”
As expected of long-time teammates, Anika immediately understood his meaning.
Lightning crackled from her hand and struck Mandy in the back.
It was her spell—Lightning Bolt.
Mandy collapsed without even a scream.
Her entire body was paralyzed—she couldn’t move at all.
Anika spat at the back of Mandy’s head and muttered,
“I never liked you from the start.”
That was the last thing Mandy remembered.
Soon, darkness overtook her.
And just like that, Mandy lost consciousness.