Fang Zhen stood there, the scent of burnt wood filling his nostrils.
After staring at the pile of carriage wreckage for a moment, Fang Zhen warily scanned his surroundings, lowering his body and tightening his grip on the retractable baton in his hand.
After observing for a while, Fang Zhen didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.
He relaxed slightly, the anxiety in his heart easing considerably.
Fang Zhen let out a long breath and, baton in hand, walked over to the wreckage.
He took a closer look.
It was a very small and light, pale yellow wooden carriage. The wheels were quite high, and the carriage itself didn't look very spacious—it could hold two or three people at most.
Fang Zhen didn't know much about carriages, but his powers of observation were sharp. A closer look revealed what should be the harness point at the front; it seemed to require only a single horse.
Now, the carriage was overturned on its side, one half charred black from fire. The horse that had been pulling it was gone.
On the ground, there was also dark red blood.
Fang Zhen studied it for a moment, his brow furrowing slightly.
He saw many small footprints on the ground.
There were quite a few footprints, looking like they belonged to at least eight or nine individuals. The prints were small, shallow, and scattered. On closer inspection, they looked a bit like children's footprints, given their small size.
After observing for a while, a rough analysis formed in Fang Zhen's mind.
'There are a lot of footprints, but they probably don't belong to children. It's unlikely that so many kids would suddenly appear here, and they wouldn't have all fit in the carriage. They might have been left by humanoid creatures similar to humans.'
'And the footprints are shallow, which means whoever or whatever left them is very light. My gut tells me they weigh around forty or fifty pounds, similar to a large dog.'
At this thought, Fang Zhen felt a bit more relieved.
Seeing the wrecked carriage and the bloodstains, Fang Zhen had keenly sensed a hint of danger.
However, after some analysis, the footprints indicated that the beings who left them were very light.
Generally speaking, in a fight between ordinary people without combat training, the one with a significant weight advantage usually wins.
This is one of the reasons why combat sports divide competitors into weight classes.
Another secondary factor is mindset.
The footprints on the ground already showed that if the ones who left them were human, they were either dwarves or children. If they weren't human, they only weighed around forty or fifty pounds. In that case, Fang Zhen's size and strength would give him a huge advantage.
With this assessment, Fang Zhen's confidence grew noticeably.
'Whatever they are, I can probably beat them. The only issue is that there might be a lot of them. If I run into real danger, I'll fight if I can win and run if I can't. Whatever left these prints is definitely shorter than me. If I decide to run, they might not be able to catch me,' Fang Zhen thought.
Feeling much more certain, Fang Zhen glanced at the direction of the footprints and continued down the quiet forest path.
Fang Zhen walked for about another two minutes.
He suddenly slowed his pace.
Ahead, on the edge of the forest path, someone was lying there, motionless, and there was no telling if they were dead or alive.
Fang Zhen's breathing grew slightly ragged.
He hesitated for a moment, but still walked over.
Fang Zhen approached the person lying by the roadside and looked. A moment later, his heart sank.
The person on the ground was indeed human, appearing to be in their forties. They had short black hair and unremarkable features. Their skin tone was neither Caucasian nor East Asian, but somewhere in between.
The person wore gray linen clothes and was about five-foot-one.
The person lay on the ground, unmoving. There was a pool of blood on their abdomen, dark red and congealed.
The person... was probably dead.
Sensing the aura of death, Fang Zhen took two steps back, as if to escape its oppressive presence.
Fang Zhen was a little nervous, and his heart sank a bit, but he didn't feel the fear he had imagined.
A dead body. It was terrifying in his imagination, but seeing one for real, it wasn't so scary.
Fang Zhen bit his lip.
'A Nameless World setting, on easy difficulty... and people still die?'
'What kind of standard is that?'
Fang Zhen took a deep breath to steady his emotions, then carefully examined the corpse on the ground.
The fatal wound was on the abdomen, but there were seven or eight other wounds all over the body. They looked like cuts from a blade, perhaps a dagger. The weapon didn't seem very sharp, as the wounds were shallow and irregular. The fatal wound on the abdomen, however, was extremely deep.
Suddenly, Fang Zhen jolted. He shot to his feet, turned to look behind him and to the right, his eyes widening abruptly.
Up ahead on the forest path, he suddenly saw three green-skinned, dwarf-like monsters. They were huddled together, muttering something unintelligible, and heading in his direction.
Fang Zhen's heart suddenly began to pound!
He stared for a moment and realized these little monsters looked familiar.
'Aren't these goblins?' Fang Zhen recognized them instantly.
The little monsters were only about four feet tall. They were green all over, and the clothes they wore were tattered rags. They had pointed ears, surprisingly large eyes, and ferocious expressions.
They were exactly like the goblins Fang Zhen had seen in games.
Fang Zhen was quite familiar with this type of monster. Goblins were entry-level monsters for adventurers. They usually traveled in groups, had low Combat Power and low intelligence, and were cruel and frenzied.
For some reason, goblins had recently become popular protagonists in certain adult anime, and his friends had even sent him image collections from their stories.
When Fang Zhen played games, he never paid much mind to creatures like goblins. But that was on a computer screen. Now, he was looking at three living, breathing goblins not far in front of him, and he could even faintly see the sharp teeth in their snarling mouths.
A sense of profound shock washed over Fang Zhen.
At the same time, the three goblins also spotted Fang Zhen.
Instantly, the goblin in the lead acted as if it had taken a stimulant. It let out a piercing shriek and, without a second thought, brandished the wooden club in its hand and charged straight at Fang Zhen.
Fang Zhen was startled, but in the next instant, he realized he wasn't afraid. In fact, he felt a sliver of excitement and eagerness to fight.
'If it were gnolls or something, that'd be one thing. But mere goblins? How dare they act so arrogantly in front of me?' Watching the goblin's wobbly gait and aggressive posturing, a flicker of anger ignited in Fang Zhen.
'These goblins don't look special at all—they look weak, and they don't know their own limits. So what if all three of them attack at once?'
Out of the corner of his eye, Fang Zhen saw the nameless corpse on the ground, and a sense of righteous indignation even welled up inside him.
He didn't know the person on the ground, but they were a human, a black-haired human at that. He figured they were probably ganged up on and killed by a mob of goblins.
'These damn goblins... they deserve to be killed!'
In that instant, Fang Zhen had already charged forward. He let out a sharp cry, "Attack!" and swung the retractable baton in his hand at the foremost goblin brandishing the wooden club.
Fang Zhen's arm reach was already much longer than a goblin's. Combined with the eighteen-inch-long retractable baton, his attack range far exceeded theirs. The goblin's reactions and strength were average at best, and at only about four feet tall, it had no advantage against Fang Zhen.
He swung the baton in a full circle through the air, and the tip of the weapon smashed into the goblin's head.