Ackster dove into the midst of the goblins, his fists already swinging wildly. One of the goblins was a little bigger than the other, and its wooden club was a shade darker as well. But it wasn’t enough to make Ackster pay any more attention to it.

All goblins were equal pieces of meat for him to butcher in his eyes.

He got a clean sucker punch in on the first goblin and then dodged a wooden club from the second before uppercutting it with enough strength to lift it off the ground.

He had to take a blow to his back for that, though. But it wasn’t enough to stop him, and he continued toward his next target, which he tackled to the ground and elbowed in the head while his back took another two blows and knocked him off the third victim.

Ackster rolled on the ground to put some distance between himself and the two goblins, who were now fully alert. He could see the first goblin he had punched standing on unsteady feet, but it didn’t worry him.

His initial assault had gone surprisingly well, and now that he had reduced the numbers, it would only get easier.

Ackster kicked some dirt at the goblins. One of them flinched and lashed out with its club.

‘Where do they get these clubs?’

Ackster saw the gap the goblin revealed after its swing and darted forward. He jumped up and kicked the goblin in the head, transitioning into landing on the goblin’s head and chest.

The goblin that he had pushed over with his jump didn’t even have time to react before Ackster stomped like an angry child throwing a tantrum and smashed both its chest cage and head.

The sloshy feeling mixed with sharp bone fragments on his bare feet told Ackster just how sticky the goblin's brain, blood, and organs were.

But he had walked around in the forest without shoes for a while now. With his Strong Body skill helping his feet recover every time he cut them or wore down the skin, his feet were getting sturdy and durable enough that he practically didn’t need shoes anymore.

Ackster stepped off the goblin’s corpse, flicking his feet to shake off the blood as he looked at the goblin in front of him while using his hearing to keep track of the goblin behind him.

Although the goblins were stupid, Ackster and his assault seemed to have spurred them into being smart enough to launch a joint attack.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for them.

With the strength and agility he had now, he could just barely jump high enough to avoid the two goblins. When combined with his flexibility, which let him bend his legs up even further, Ackster easily dodged the two goblins’ attacks before landing on them and using his feet to knock their heads together with a loud crack.

Ackster finished off all the goblins. He wasn’t satisfied.

“Well… That was too easy.”

‘I shouldn’t have thinned them out like that.’

The fight with the goblins had been too easy. He had only taken a few hits, none of which were critical, before he killed them all. Ackster had also killed or incapacitated the goblins with one strike of his own.

He had grown too quickly, quicker than he had estimated, at least. He had almost died fighting a single goblin just a few days ago, and now, he had slaughtered an entire pack on his own. He had ambushed close to ten of them, but he had confronted five of them head-on.

He would have to look for stronger targets if he wanted to continue growing and challenging himself in terms of battle.

But first….

“You awake? Wait– Do slimes sleep?”

Ackster opened his bag, which he had put on the ground nearby before he fought, and spoke to the slime within, only half-expecting an answer.

It did look like the goblin shook a little, but it could have been because he himself had rustled the bag. And since the slime still couldn’t speak, there wasn’t much hope of a vocal response.

Ackster grabbed the slime and set it down next to one of the goblin corpses.

He watched on expectantly as the slime kind of shimmied closer to the blood leaking from the goblin and took a sip. The slime then continued forward and stretched forward part of its jelly-like body in a claw-like shape toward the goblin’s corpse.

The slime then closed the jaw-like claw shape around a piece of meat on the goblin’s arm and took a bite.

“I guess you were pretty hungry, huh?”

Ackster didn’t know what to think of a slime eating like it had a mouth. It even chewed the food before swallowing it. The whole illusion of the process was ruined by the fact that Ackster could see the goblin’s meat swim around inside the slime. But it was still something Ackster hadn’t expected, and he watched with raised eyebrows as the slime returned to the bag.

“Not much of a big-eater, I take it. No problem. That just leaves more for me.”

Ackster put the slime in the bag and the bag on his back as he rounded up the goblin corpses. It was time for another feast.

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With the experience of last time – the same stones as well – Ackster got a proper fire burning in no time, and he indulged in the chewy, bitter, and putrid goblin meat while feeding the slime with some of his own flesh and blood.

Since the slime was carnivorous, it would probably prefer human meat over goblin meat, which was famously known as inedible.

Ackster was right. The slime slurped up the blood and munched on his flesh with satisfied glooping and smacking sounds. It even spat out what remained of the goblin’s flesh since it preferred Ackster’s.

Ackster didn’t know what to think of that or the slime itself that he had randomly picked up while looking for a Doppelganger Slime to die in his place.

Low-ranking slimes – most slimes, in fact – were usually too dumb to be so expressive and have clear will and decision-making abilities. But it was obvious that the slime in front of him was no ordinary slime. It just hadn’t had time to shine yet.

After looking at the slime for a bit, Ackster looked at the sun as it set beyond a couple of hills.

Almost as if waiting for it, a flock of birds took off toward the night sky as soon as the day’s light faded, and only the faint dusk shone upon the world. He didn’t know what the orange and dark-blue birds were, but they were beautiful as they flapped toward the invisible sky.

His eyes followed a feather, slowly falling and dangling through the air back to the ground, proof that even birds are bound by the laws of gravity.

“...Shit!”

Ackster swore and stood up in a panic.

“Fuck! I can’t believe I forgot about that!”

“Fucking hell. I knew I should have written down everything, even if just to get a look at it. I never would have missed it. I was even planning on recruiting her to help me for the final fight. Why did I forget she appears on Millmeria about now?”

Ackster sat down again and rubbed his temples as his outburst cooled down. No matter how much he cursed, it wouldn’t change anything. He had temporarily forgotten a tiny detail that could prove essential for his plans. But the keyword was ‘temporarily.’

Now that he had remembered it, he could just alter his plans a little. In fact, it was a good thing he had remembered it this early since it would make his plans, at least when it came to getting a reliable ally in the fight against The Hero, a little easier to execute.

A simple detour would fix it. It wasn’t even that far. He just had to walk east, maybe continue a little south, and maybe backtrack up north a little. But he should still make it in time.

And now that he remembered and realized what a golden opportunity he had in front of him, Ackster couldn’t sit still.

There weren’t a lot of characters who could fight on equal standing with The Hero at the end of the original story. And while some of them would be impossible to recruit or get to help, there were a couple that were absolutely necessary if Ackster wanted to save his life, along with everyone else’s.

Even a couple of those were still stupidly far out of his reach at the moment.

But, right now, and in the near future, there were a couple of potential candidates for his anti-Hero crew that he could try and get his hands on. And the first one would be….

‘Fallen Angel Karandiel.’

She was the one whose backstory Ackster knew the least about. He did know a little about her personality. But, most importantly, he knew how strong she was or could be. She wasn’t that strong when she first appeared, but she smashed The Hero when they met each other the first time, which, now that he had almost died to The Hero, was satisfying to think about.

He was a little worried that his interference would affect how quickly Karandiel regained her strength since he wasn’t completely sure how she worked. But if it worked like he thought her powers did, and if the backstory the original story had hinted about was anything to go about, Ackster could also help her grow stronger faster.

With a past, well, a possible future now that Ackster had transmigrated into the beginning of the original story before it had happened, of defeating The Hero, Ackster definitely had to make Karandiel work for him.

So, he set off toward Lill, where the Fallen Angel Karandiel would appear first.

‘Well, she’s an Angel at the moment, though.’

However, there were two main aspects of Ackster’s plan that were slightly problematic.

The original story never specified where or when Karandiel first fell to Millmeria. It was just a brief flashback that told the readers she first appeared in Lill.

‘Who the fuck made Lill so fucking big?’

And the other problem was the fact that Lill was one of the biggest countries on the Tenger continent.

There was another country up north, Nimur, which was the undisputed largest country on Tenger since it alone covered half the continent, but Lill, despite its name, was in a solid second place.

And, although Ackster had to find Karandiel before it was too late since she didn’t have the most pleasant stay on Millmeria at first, he didn’t have time to search a country that big on his own.

It would be great if he had access to an information network that could patch the gaps in his transmigrator’s knowledge for situations like these and for when his actions eventually started having repercussions and changed the timeline.

Once the butterfly effect actually started taking effect, Ackster’s transmigrator’s privilege would gradually begin to lose its efficiency. He would still know about things that wouldn’t change that easily, like the Sea God’s Temple.

But people and living beings weren’t as static. They were a little less predictable and easily influenced by their surroundings. And Ackster would have to keep track of The Hero’s movements so he didn’t accidentally run into someone who would definitely see Ackster as a kill-on-sight target.

Unfortunately, getting his hands on an information network that could track The Hero without The Hero tracking it back to him would have to wait if he didn’t want to jeopardize his life. He had an idea of how to go about it. It was also connected to one of the candidates for his anti-Hero crew, who should be pretty easy to recruit.

But the plan, or rather, bait, that he would use to get that candidate was way out of his league at the moment. It would probably take a year before he could even start thinking about approaching that candidate and their information network.

And there wasn’t anything else that was suitable for this. Any information he could get second-hand would be too slow.

If Ackster weren’t the first to find Karandiel, he would have to go through a bunch of trouble that would delay his plans for the Sea God Manual. That couldn’t happen.

With how strong he was without mana, Ackster had to get his hands on a manual that good to see how strong he would really become once he started growing properly and reaching beyond the level of the lower-ranked adventurers.

Although Ackster had a boost in confidence after dusting the group of goblins, he was still painfully aware that The Hero could have done the entire pack in with a single swing of his sword. He wouldn’t even have to use any active skills.

With mana, Ackster would slowly but surely begin to step into the upper echelons of the world, even if he would still be far too weak.

But before he could do that, he had to secure Karandiel. So, he gritted his teeth and resolved to focus his training on Agility and Keen Senses for a little since they would be his greatest help in finding Karandiel as quickly as possible.