Chapter 132: Triumphant Return

Vesha did not even notice Damian approaching at first.

The young Dark Goblin had dropped to her knees beside Varkas’s severed head, tears streaming freely down her face as she stared at the lifeless eyes of the man who had spent his final moments begging for her survival.

She reached toward him with trembling fingers, only for a silver-blue blur to suddenly cross her vision.

WHAP!

The flat side of Longtian struck Vesha directly across the face.

She was launched sideways, rolled twice across the grass and came to a painful stop several meters away, one hand clutching her abdomen as she coughed up a mouthful of bitter bile.

The force had been carefully controlled enough not to seriously injure her, but nobody watching could possibly mistake the strike for gentle.

"Damian..." Eunice began heavily, genuine anger and disappointment entering her normally warm expression as she stared toward him.

Damian glanced at her, acknowledged the reaction with one small nod and then looked back toward Vesha.

He understood perfectly how the scene appeared from the outside, but this was one matter where he was not particularly interested in appearances.

"To be frank, I was actually going to spare you," Damian stated calmly as Vesha struggled onto one elbow.

"You pose no real threat to me or mine, because your power will probably never catch up to us, much less eclipse us."

Vesha coughed again while staring at him through wet, furious eyes.

Damian merely shrugged before resting Longtian against his shoulder.

"Not to mention, your father did all that for you, so I couldn’t be completely heartless about it," Damian admitted, his voice remaining strangely casual before the warmth suddenly disappeared from his face.

"But then you got the genius idea to fight against my people while your father was turned into a senseless monster."

The atmosphere immediately changed.

Damian stepped closer until his shadow fell across Vesha’s small body, forcing the young Goblin to crane her neck upward if she wanted to continue meeting his gaze.

"Instead of helping them take him down and free your father from whatever suffering that Fey woman forced upon him, you chose to help the monster and actively tried to trip up my people."

He squatted directly in front of her, Longtian resting loosely across one knee. "Someone might feel pity for you, or argue that you’re weak enough that whatever you did couldn’t possibly matter that much."

Vesha’s lips trembled.

Damian’s eyes hardened. "But you did matter."

His gaze flickered toward Paulina, then Stella and Ronan. "If Ronan and Stella weren’t here, one of my women could’ve been severely wounded by your father because of the openings you created."

Damian’s expression became gloomy.

"That... is unforgivable."

Eunice opened her mouth again, then slowly closed it.

When Damian struck Vesha, anger had risen in her immediately because all she saw was a powerful man attacking a grieving girl who had just watched her father die.

Yet once Damian actually explained the issue, Eunice found herself frustratingly unable to argue against the core of what he said.

She was kind and benevolent, not naive.

The fight had gone their way in the end, but that did not make every decision Vesha made harmless in hindsight.

One illusion at the wrong moment, one properly timed spell interfering with Julia, or that earth-softening trick catching Paulina without Ronan there to intercept Varkas could have turned victory into permanent injury or death.

Julia’s expression similarly lost most of its initial discomfort while Paulina’s ears remained lowered in thought.

Even Janet, who generally possessed enough moral flexibility to tie herself into a knot, merely watched Vesha quietly rather than protesting.

Damian stood. "Ronan."

The veteran straightened. "My Lord."

"Bind her," Damian instructed.

"We’ll take her back to Rosewood with the other captured Goblins, and the appropriate people can decide what happens to her."

Vesha’s eyes widened slightly, perhaps having expected Damian to simply kill her after everything he’d just said.

Ronan wasted no time questioning the mercy, producing restraints and moving toward the young Goblin while Stella kept watch in case grief inspired one final act of stupidity.

"Stand up," Ronan ordered.

Vesha looked once toward her father’s corpse, then obeyed.

Eventually, with that matter resolved, everyone else’s attention shifted toward the remaining stranger standing several meters from Damian.

The Moon Elf had been silent throughout the entire confrontation.

Her hood remained lowered, leaving her silver hair flowing freely around that striking pale-purple face while her phoenix eyes watched everything with a mixture of irritation and superiority.

The faint redness across her cheeks from several minutes earlier had not entirely disappeared either, although none of the people present possessed enough context to understand why.

Julia stared at her, then at Damian, then back at the woman.

"And what about her?" Julia asked suspiciously.

Damian’s expression changed immediately.

"We’re also taking her back."

The Moon Elf’s eye twitched.

Julia raised both eyebrows. "To the Guild?"

"Not exactly," Damian replied shiftily.

Paulina’s ears rose, Janet’s eyes narrowed, and Eunice suddenly developed an uneasy feeling.

Damian smiled strangely. "I’m handling her personally."

Silence followed.

The four Valkyries stared at him while Damian stared back innocently.

None of them could explain precisely what was wrong with his smile, but every female instinct present began warning that something deeply suspicious had occurred while Damian and the Moon Elf disappeared together.

The Moon Elf’s cheeks became slightly redder.

Janet noticed, her eyes widening, then slowly narrowing again.

Interesting!

Damian saw the Halfling’s expression and immediately decided that leaving Greenmoss Flats before Janet began asking questions would improve everyone’s quality of life.

"Alright! We’re done here. Let’s head home!" he announced.

......

The return journey toward Rosewood Town was considerably slower than Damian’s arrival.

The rescued Human slaves had spent too long underground, chained, underfed and forced through exhausting conditions to maintain anything resembling an Adventurer’s pace.

The four novice Adventurers Varkas captured were similarly capable of walking only after healing, clothing and enough time to recover from the horrifying experience of waking up to discover that they’d apparently been rescued from Goblins by an absurdly powerful noble and his collection of equally absurd companions.

Nobody complained, though.

After everything that happened, simply walking home felt wonderful.

Damian eventually allowed Longtian to drift beside him while the large group followed the safer road northward, taking the opportunity to finally examine the notifications that had accumulated after Varkas’s death.

Only one encounter had been properly resolved on his side.

The Moon Elf was still very much alive, unfortunately for her peace of mind, while the Dark Goblin elites had been Kellan’s kills and the transformed Varkas battle had primarily belonged to Damian’s people.

Damian himself had merely delivered the final strike, but because they were operating as a recognized group and he had personally finished the hostile leader, the Valorian Overworld System still performed an evaluation.

[Combat Evaluation Complete.]

[Hostile Target Defeated: Varkas Blackroot.]

[Final Recorded Level: 8.]

[Target temporarily exceeded ordinary combat capability through external Fey augmentation.]

[Host contribution determined to be limited but valid.]

[Base Combat Experience Awarded: +2 EXP.]

[Battle God qualifying kill threshold applied.]

[Additional Kill Experience: +2 EXP.]

[Total Experience Awarded: +4 EXP.]

[Experience Points: 94/132 → 98/132.]

Damian nodded slowly.

"Four points, huh?"

Honestly, that was more than fair.

He had not fought Varkas himself in any meaningful sense.

Kellan had nearly killed the bastard before the transformation, while Ronan, Stella, the Valkyries and Eunice had performed practically all the work afterward.

Damian arrived when Varkas had about three breaths and half a functioning nervous system remaining, then stole the last hit like a shameless bastard farming kill credit.

The System giving him anything at all was generous!

More importantly, Battle God’s completed hundred-percent threshold had successfully doubled the qualifying kill-derived portion exactly as expected.

Nice!

The next notification came from the Skill Upgrade System.

[Valid Monster Soul acquired.]

[Target: Varkas Blackroot.]

[Recorded Level: 8.]

[Skill Points Acquired: +8.]

[Current Skill Points: 610 → 618.]

Damian smiled.

Nothing spectacular compared with harvesting dozens of warriors, but eight Skill Points for one clean execution remained eight Skill Points he did not have before.

Then came another familiar notification.

[Battle God — Qualifying Victory Recorded.]

[Uninterrupted Victories: 14 → 15.]

[Future Kill Experience Increase: 107.9% → 110.5%.]

A small increase.

Understandable.

Varkas had become dangerous through external augmentation, but Damian himself stood far above the Chieftain in actual combat ability.

Slaughtering an injured Level 8 opponent after everyone else softened him was hardly the sort of glorious achievement that should make a combat-growth Feat start throwing confetti.

Still...

Fifteen victories was not bad!

Finally, <Demonic Plundering Dao Body> activated.

[Eligible Slain Remnant detected.]

[Target: Varkas Blackroot.]

[Current Plundering Ratio: 19.5%.]

[Compatible Attribute selected.]

[Attribute Plundered: STR.]

[Attribute Gain: +3.5.]

[STR: 40.3 → 43.8.]

Damian’s eyebrows rose.

"Hoh?"

Now that was a decent parting gift.

Strength made perfect sense too.

Varkas had built practically his entire combat existence around raw physical power, a heavy poleaxe and the ability to turn every direct clash into somebody else’s problem.

Damian had watched the fellow overpower Kellan repeatedly and even understood why Garrick’s own Strength-heavy spear style had suffered such terrible compatibility against him.

Three-and-a-half permanent Strength from one Goblin?

Damian graciously accepted the deceased Chieftain’s contribution to the Baines Foundation for Unfair Character Builds.

He closed the screens afterward and continued walking.

No other progression appeared.

The Moon Elf encounter had ended without a kill, and whatever agreement Damian had forced upon her apparently did not qualify as combat progression.

Probably for the best.

......

Rosewood Town eventually appeared ahead, and the reaction among the rescued slaves was immediate.

One man stopped walking entirely while a woman covered her mouth with both hands.

Then someone shouted.

"We’re home!"

The exhausted group erupted with life, some cheering while others cried.

Several simply began laughing uncontrollably as the walls of Rosewood Town grew larger before them, the sight apparently convincing minds that had survived months or years under Blackroot Clan captivity that freedom was finally real!

Damian slowed slightly with a smile.

Yeah, just seeing this outcome was worth all the choices he made to get here.

Word spread quickly once they reached the gates.

Guild personnel rushed forward to receive the recovered captives, followed by healers, clerks and several civilians who recognized missing relatives among the group.

Within minutes, what should have been a routine entry became a chaotic mixture of crying reunions, shouted names and people hugging one another so tightly that Eunice eventually had to remind several families that their recently rescued relatives still needed to breathe.

The four novice Adventurers were immediately taken toward Guild healers for examination.

They protested weakly that they were fine, but nobody listened.

Good.

Teenagers who recently awakened Classes and had gone through such trauma would not understand its effects on them later compared to adults.

Damian could already tell he was going to have enormous fun raising Kellan.

Vesha received a much colder reception.

Guild guards took custody of her under Ronan’s supervision, recording her identity and connection to Varkas before moving her toward secure holding rather than mixing her with the civilian Dark Goblin captives recovered earlier.

The Moon Elf, however...

Nobody touched her because nobody was stupid enough.

She walked beside Damian with her silver-white sword still at her waist, expression increasingly offended by every curious stare cast in her direction.

By the time they reached the Adventurer’s Guild, Damian suspected half of Rosewood Town had already invented a story explaining why another impossibly beautiful woman had returned from Moonveil Forest beside him.

Knowing small towns, at least three of those stories probably included marriage after slaying a dragon!

Damian coughed.

Best not to think about it!

Roland met them inside one of the Guild’s larger briefing rooms.

The Lion Beastman listened while Damian, Eunice and Ronan jointly summarized what happened after the main force withdrew.

The seven escape caravans had been intercepted, surviving noncombatants secured for investigation, Blackroot Den’s collapse trap discovered, Human slaves rescued and Varkas’s secret route followed all the way into Greenmoss Flats.

Then came Varkas’s death.

Roland released a long breath.

"So Blackroot Clan’s organized military structure is effectively gone."

"Completely. There may still be random stragglers or Goblins who escaped independently before all this, but the organized force that attacked the villages is finished," Damian confirmed.

Roland nodded.

That alone removed one major problem from southern Moonveil Forest.

The Guild could handle scattered remnants and investigate the captured civilians individually, then determine who had participated in attacks and decide what should happen to Vesha under Rastian law.

Then Roland’s eyes drifted sideways, toward the Moon Elf.

She stood near the wall with both arms folded, radiating the sort of aristocratic displeasure that made an ordinary person instinctively wonder whether they had offended her ancestors merely by existing in the same room.

Roland stared for several seconds.

Then looked at Damian.

"And her?"

Damian smiled.

"I’ll handle her."

Roland’s ears twitched, a strange feeling emerging in his heart.

He looked toward the Moon Elf again.

Then toward Paulina, Julia and Janet standing around Damian.

Then toward Eunice, who was very deliberately pretending not to notice where his attention had gone.

Finally, Roland returned his gaze toward the young Otherworlder smiling as though nothing whatsoever was unusual.

"...I see."

He did not see, not even slightly!

And for some reason, Roland suddenly experienced the uncomfortable suspicion that allowing Damian Baines to personally ’handle’ an extraordinarily beautiful Fey woman was going to create an entirely different category of problem.

This young man...

Why did it feel like he was going down the wrong path?