I Am Not Goblin Slayer

Chapter 459: True Future Sight

Nira cautiously crept deeper into the cavern.Despite her rational mind telling her that the red dragon was an extremely dangerous creature to her kind, best avoided entirely, an inexplicable curiosity and restless urge made her sneak over anyway.

She poked her head out from the cave entrance, her gaze peering into the depths of the cavern. Years of cave living had trained her eyes to see well in dark environments.

There, coiled within the cold, rocky cavern, lay a beautiful and enormous dragon. Leaning against the dragon's back, like a sleeping beauty, was a man more handsome than any she had ever seen in her life.

"Truly... truly beautiful..." she murmured, her words jumbled as her heart began to race uncontrollably.

Just as she had suspected, he was indeed a handsome man. Even more handsome than she could have imagined. Especially compared to the scruffy, disheveled men she was used to seeing around her, his appearance stood out exceptionally.

Forgive her meager intellect; she really couldn't find a suitable word to describe his looks.

Perhaps her stare was too direct. The red dragon Hephaestus, who had been resting with his eyes closed, turned his gaze toward her. Nira flinched and retreated, hiding her body behind a rock.

Fortunately, Hephaestus was merely curious about what she was skulking around for. After glancing at her, he withdrew his gaze again.

Not hearing the dragon stir, Nira peered back into the depths of the cavern. She possessed an almost instinctive intuition, capable of precisely detecting malice from other creatures. This intuition had saved her from danger many times. Trusting this ability, she had mustered the courage to investigate the red dragon's cave.

She did not sense the unbridled malice she felt from other monsters from this terrifying beast.

She looked at Gauss's clean face and noble attire, feeling a hint of envy. "What are this dragon and this man? Are they from the human kingdom in the north?"

Since birth, she had lived on this land belonging to monsters, living a life of constant fear. The human territory to the north was a distant, unreachable homeland for their small human tribe, existing only in oral tradition. They did not have the strength to cross the monster territories.

There must be quite a few tribes like theirs, supposedly the descendants of human troops left behind during the last World War. Of course, over a hundred years had passed; that generation was mostly dead, leaving only them, these descendants hiding in the wilderness, seeking a sliver of hope.

Compared to the safe human kingdoms, their surroundings teeming with monsters were the real world they knew. Some of the younger ones had even begun to doubt if the northern human kingdoms really existed. Or maybe they were just a fantasy their ancestors made up to keep their descendants from losing all hope.

Nira had also been a proponent of that conspiracy theory, until this man had suddenly barged into her mundane world.

No matter how she thought about it, a cave-dwelling tribe like theirs couldn't possibly nurture such a powerhouse, could they? Or was there some smaller human tribe out there?

Countless thoughts surged wildly in her mind. The fragmentary information she could gather limited her understanding of the world. But her intuition told her that this man nearby might be able to change her and her tribe's fate.

Perhaps out of some perverse sense of fun, Hephaestus deliberately, under Nira's watchful gaze, took out a piece of preserved meat from the Storage Bag and tossed it into his mouth like a snack.

"Gulp—"

Meat!

Nira ungracefully wiped the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand, swallowing repeatedly. Even though it was raw meat, its plump texture made her drool with desire. She couldn't even imagine how fragrant that piece of meat would be if roasted.

She didn't often get to eat large amounts of meat. Most of their meat came from the giant rats that were their neighbors in the caverns. Wild beasts were rare in the relatively barren soil nearby; they mostly lived near direct water sources. But those places were often gathering spots for monsters. They had to scout multiple times before they could attempt a single hunt.

As she watched with longing eyes, the red dragon took out another piece of meat larger than herself and gulped it down. The snacks it used to satisfy its cravings were enough to feed her entire tribe.

At that moment, Nira was filled with intense envy. Was this the world of the strong?

Just as she could no longer bear the temptation and was about to turn and leave...

"!"

A massive piece of meat, weighing hundreds of pounds, landed precisely at her feet. She stared at the dust-covered, bright red meat without a shred of disgust, feeling only pure desire for it.

She turned to look in the red dragon's direction, hardly believing it. "Is this... for me?" she asked, pointing at herself while looking at the dragon.

"Mm."

Hephaestus turned his head away, letting out a low rumble. He hadn't originally planned to give it, but her longing gaze was just too intense; it even made him feel a twinge of guilt. Oh well, he was a True Dragon with a dragon's heart and a kind disposition, wasn't he? As rent from Gauss, giving away a piece of meat didn't seem excessive. After all, he wasn't the type to occupy someone else's home and be unreasonable about it.

And although Hephaestus acted indifferent, Nira, who had received the heavy piece of meat, clutched it like a precious treasure.

That might sound exaggerated, but for their human tribe struggling to survive in the monster territory, such a large amount of clean meat was truly uncommon.

"Thank you, Great Red Dragon!" Nira said, her voice choked with emotion as she bowed deeply toward the dragon.

Part of her joy came from obtaining the precious meat; another part came from his willingness to offer food. This indicated that he was quite kind. They probably wouldn't have to move their settlement again. They didn't expect the red dragon to protect them; they only asked that he not slaughter them.

"Then I'll be going back now," Nira said, swallowing her saliva, eager to leave.

"Hmph." Hephaestus caught a glimpse of the gratitude on her face in his peripheral vision. He felt somewhat pleased but still let out a cool, disdainful snort.

Although, because of Gauss, his impression of humans had completely changed—no longer seeing them as food—humans were still just humans. He was a noble dragon, and he was supposed to be above them. Of course, that didn't include his master Gauss and his companions. Especially Gauss, who, despite wearing a human form, had more dragon blood flowing through his veins than he, a True Dragon, did. In Hephaestus's heart, Gauss was already considered a high-ranking dragon.

Still, watching Nira struggling to haul the heavy piece of meat away, he felt a strange, indescribable joy.

---

In Gauss's spiritual world, his consciousness gradually awakened. It was like waking from a very long, long sleep.

At first, he dreamed of his past life. There, he continued the ordinary life he had before his transmigration. After graduation, he joined a large design company, worked hard for eight or nine years, and finally became a project manager. Then came the down payment for a house, blind dates, marriage, children. In the blink of an eye, he was middle-aged, facing unemployment and searching for a new job again.

Until, in the dream within a dream, as his elderly self took his final breath in a hospital bed, he seemed to realize he was in a double-layered dream. He woke with a start, but what awaited him was still another dream.

"Whoosh—"

After experiencing a simulated life, he couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat in the first layer of the dream. That kind of life wasn't a tragedy—no illness, no disasters, a happy family—but compared to the life of his current, more magnificent self, it felt far too monotonous.

Perhaps it was the contrast that made this feeling so profound. If given the choice, compared to the stable urban Gauss, he would probably still prefer his current life, even though he himself wasn't sure if he could live to a ripe old age like he did in that safe, past life.

Without realizing it, he had formed deep bonds with this world. He had companions: Aria, Serlandul, Shadow, Albenia... He had elders who had looked after him: the inn proprietress Sophia, the halfling Andni, the blacksmith shop owner Garon Bates. He even had a dragon mount.

Honestly, he really did prefer the life in this world, even if it was full of uncertainty.

The moment he confirmed this thought, something seemed to change drastically in an intangible place. His spiritual world began to undergo earth-shattering transformations.

"Boom!!!"

The many special constructs within his consciousness began to collapse. The sea of memories started to reshape; even the stable spell models began to tremble. Gauss felt a strange sensation, as if his small boat on the vast ocean had finally dropped its anchor in the turbulent sea. His connection to the world, to himself, and to his very soul on all levels quietly became more solid.

In fact, even he hadn't noticed before, but although he had been transmigrated for over two years, he still carried a faint sense of alienation. He would occasionally think back to that just-begun life in his past life. But now, in the dream within a dream, he had already lived through that ordinary life. The last shred of regret for his past life seemed to vanish as the simulation completed. The soul named Gauss had finally settled here.

An invisible force surged from deep within his body, weaving his past, present, and future together. This miraculous phenomenon even reversed time and space to some degree.

In the real world, the bored Hephaestus, who was watching over Gauss, suddenly felt a profound and unfathomable power emanating from him. Even though Gauss still looked the same, and his body was still in the same place, it was as if he existed in another dimension simultaneously.

Hephaestus couldn't help but blink. In a daze, he thought he saw several Gausses overlapping. Each Gauss seemed to project multiple futures. One Gauss stood up and smiled at him, another sat still in place, while another walked over to the cave wall to examine the surroundings.

But in the next moment, as he focused his gaze, all the Gausses merged into one, leaving only the body of the Gauss sitting steadily in place.

Hephaestus was dumbfounded. This was the first time he had experienced something between illusion and reality. This power was beyond his comprehension.

What was Gauss doing...?

Though he couldn't grasp it, he knew this was a critical moment for Gauss. He quickly got up, blocking the entrance with his body to prevent those humans from barging in and disturbing Gauss during this crucial time.

And the upheaval in Gauss's spiritual world was far more intense than what was visible in his body. His cerebral cortex had entered an unprecedented state of activity, as if every cell was working. His mental power began to increase rapidly.

Gauss's earlier feeling had come true. His Intelligence attribute breaking through from 20 points to 21 points was indeed a breakthrough to a new level. And because of a certain special power residing in his body, this transformation was even more intense and unique than normal. That trace of special power seemed to grant him a certain higher-dimensional authority.

This part of the authority was so powerful that his current level of strength was far from able to digest it. He could only do his utmost to absorb and dismantle an extremely tiny portion of its abilities. And this seemed to be some kind of special protection. If fully unleashed, it would probably burst his current "small pipe" in an instant.

Even though he was already seen by many as a transcendent combat force high above them, in the face of this power, he seemed no different from any ordinary creature. If his Intelligence attribute hadn't broken through to 21 points, barely meeting the minimum threshold to bear even the smallest part of the ability, even if the special power deep within his body had begun to awaken, he would have gained nothing.

Soon, his consciousness began to blur. His past memories spread out before him like an unfolded scroll. Every single detail was presented in excruciating detail to his consciousness. Every conversation he had heard—whether spoken by him, spoken to him, or overheard from unrelated passersby—was crystal clear, as if happening in the present moment. Their expressions and movements were vividly recreated.

Every battle from the past began to replay. His mind churned violently as he quickly identified many of his former shortcomings. Not just his own, he could even stand from his opponent's perspective, weigh both sides' strengths, and reverse-engineer how the opponent should have countered him. Then, from his own perspective, he would perform another layer of deduction.

This cycle repeated itself, like an AI model from his past life undergoing autonomous training. Because the sample data he could observe and absorb was so detailed, his database of just over two years in this other world was actually richer than decades of life memories of others in normal circumstances.

Moreover, he could also perform unlimited extrapolations based on existing data, iterating constantly. His brain began to accelerate its processing.

At a certain moment, he felt like he had touched some kind of threshold. The dense database continued to extrapolate and deepen, seemingly extending into an even more unfathomable domain.

That was the ability to deduce a predetermined future based on the past, combined with the present.

In this dimension, all futures were actually predictable. Every attack move was preceded by a preparatory move, and defense was no different. If a prediction was wrong, it only meant that there weren't enough samples, and the amount of thought wasn't sufficient.

Of course, normal creatures couldn't achieve this. Especially higher-level creatures, which could take a far greater number of actions in an instant, making them much harder to predict than weaker ones. But the most crucial factor was that Gauss's special ability had incorporated a small part of the just-released special power.

"Future Sight!"

The perfectly fitting name suddenly popped into Gauss's head. Yes, this new ability wasn't just about mental deduction; it also involved the power of time. As long as he activated this ability, he could predict all high-probability actions of an enemy within a few seconds. Multiple future projections of the opponent would overlap before his eyes, allowing him to know the enemy's actions before they did.

Don't underestimate a few seconds. For battles at his current level of strength, that was enough to kill an enemy several times over. No matter the era, any power that touched the dimension of time was always the noblest.

When facing an enemy stronger than himself, he could also activate this ability to find a possibility of victory or escape. All possibilities unfavorable to him would be eliminated, ultimately guiding the situation—based on the opponent's choices—toward a future favorable to him.

This would create a situation where "everything that happens works in my favor."

Of course, this ability wasn't omnipotent. The stronger the target, the more possibilities it could generate, and the harder it would be to select the most favorable future by targeting its possibilities. After all, there would always be situations that far exceeded what this ability could control.