Rise Of The Hoarder

While I was absorbing Demons into my [Subspace] earlier, my <Automatic Summon> was on. Adding <Coordination> to the mix, I was able to severely weaken the Hobgoblin Champions whom I couldn’t touch.

<Venomous Spikes> and my Daggers played a huge part, even though they couldn’t finish them off.

Thanks to those efforts from before, the amped dual <Fireball> I launched and the Demon Core Bombs were able to finish off the Hobgoblin Champions. Their HP had gotten to that state!

“Whew… one menace out of the way. Next, we have… you guys, uh?” A grin formed on my face as I said those words.

The Hobgoblin Boss, as well as the Chiefs, growled in fury as I met their gazes. Now left without any more troops, I now had the advantage.

The Gate behind them only spat Hobgoblins after a long interval, making sure I had enough time to face them without getting interrupted.

The Boss remained seated, while I drew closer. My senses were sharpened and intended to move out of harm’s way the moment I picked up any dangerous signals. With a distance of about thirty meters away from the overwhelming giant Hobs, I realized I had already gotten close enough for me to see the Boss’ Status Window.

I didn’t hesitate to take a peek.

[System Alert]

<Danger!> <Danger!>

[System Information]

– Name: Hobgoblin King_.

– Level: 100

– Race: Demon (Lesser) – Grade: 2

– Age: 567 Days

[Stats]

– HP: 70,000

– MP: 15,000

– Strenght: 45,000

– Agility: 12,000

– Vitality: 39,000

– Intelligence: 11,500

[End Of Information]

As expected, it was leagues above anything I had ever encountered.

“King, eh? A befitting title!”

Its intelligence was also in the realm I expected, and the rest of its stats were too monstrous to be called balanced. I wondered how the moderators of this entire thing expected humans to defeat such a beast at the tutorial stage.

‘Well, they’re supposed to pass through the other Hobs so they’ll level up considerably. Plus, if they attack en masse, it’s not impossible.

However, this time it was only me that would be doing all the attacking.

Of course, I had no problem with it since I would equally reap all the benefits as well.

“Guriuk Garuiosk Guruk.” The Hobgoblin King finally opened its mouth and uttered its unintelligible language.

I nearly rolled my eyes the moment it did this. It wasn’t like anything it said could be of meaning to me.

“… Human… you… are quite strong…”

My eyes bulged the moment I heard the gruff voice of the Hobgoblin King utter a language I wasn’t expecting it to.

English! Was it just my imagination or did the monster just speak English?

“Hehehehe…” It laughed, probably sensing my shock before I could hide it.

So, it wasn’t just my imagination.

“Human… Surprised?”

I wasn’t exactly surprised that a .knster could speak English. In the future, more intelligent Demons would appear and it wouldn’t be rare for them to converse with humans. However, I didn’t expect it to be so soon.

That was the cause of my amazement.

“How can you speak my language?” I spat back, finally deciding to have a conversation with the monster.

The Chiefs growled the moment I sent my question. Their bloodshot eyes radiated bloodlust and I could tell they wanted to tear me to pieces from where I stood.

My <Camouflage> and <Sneak> Skill were now deactivated, so everyone could see me… not just the King.

“Ate… Humans. Learnt Humans Language.” He spoke in simplistic terms.

It would have been hard to understand what it meant without context. However, I wasn’t too surprised when the Hobgoblin King said that.

‘If I recall correctly, the Hobgoblins killed a good deal of Gifteds during that second attempt Daniel led…’

According to his report, it was easy to conclude that the Hobgoblins took the bodies of our fallen comrades back into the compound.

For Demons, humans were the ideal meal to eat. Most Demons would have eaten the dead Gifteds on the spot—even If t was only just a bite, especially since the others were running away.

But, not these ones. They took the Gifteds to their territory. My best guess came to pass. They offered it to their leader, the Hobgoblin King, and by eating the humans brought to it, this guy became capable of speech.

‘Not all Demons can do that, though. It probably has a Skill for it… interesting…’ I mused.

“You strong. I kill you, I become stronger.” A pleased grin formed on the old Hobgoblin’s face.

“Says who?” I said with a smile.

This made the Demon I addressed give a puzzled look, tilting its head a little sideways.

“Human… Stupid?”

I understood what it was trying to say. This Demon already knew that Demons could Level Up too, by killing humans. It wanted to use this system to its advantage and achieve even greater heights once it died.

An ambitious goal.

However, the reason I asked if it was sure about what it said wasn’t that I was questioning the logic behind killing a Gifted to Level Up.

“Who says you can kill me?”

The moment I made this audacious statement, all the Hobgoblin Chief’s roared in fury and glared at me hatefully.

“GARUIIIIIKKKKKK GURIIIKKK!!!”

I used this moment of excitement to try out something I was looking forward to for so long… and it worked.

>WHUUUUUSH!<

In the blink of an eye, I stripped all the roaring Demons of all their gear.

That’s right!

The armor they wore, the robe, the weapons, the necklaces, charms, all the attires and buff items that gave them unimaginable strength and power… I took all of them to [Subspace].

“GURUIIIIKKKK?!” The Chiefs seemingly muttered simultaneously.

“My, my… I really didn’t think this was going to work.” My partly surprised, partly amused voice rang out.

The naked Hobgoblins, now looking more like the monsters they were, looked at me with shock and a hint of fear. Their slimy green bodies throbbed a little in humiliation.

“Now, then, I’ll ask you again… Who says you can kill me?!”