NOVEL NEXT Chapter 62
A horde of twenty goblins wielding clubs, ten throwing soldiers with baskets on their backs, and two goblins that looked like sorcerers. It’s a subtle number—small if you count, but a lot if you don’t.
But since it’s just the two of us, it was a pretty heavy burden.
And those goblins were trudging toward us, probably because we had been making a ruckus in this dungeon. I grabbed Sif by the scruff of her neck, hoisting her up and said.
“Run over there.”
“Over there?”
Sif turned her head in the direction I pointed. There was an open space.
“Wait, suddenly?”
“Just attract some attention. I’ll handle the rest.”
I pushed Sif’s back gently as she hesitated. With a pout, Sif sprinted in the direction I indicated. Being a cat must have its perks because she was quick. Her scream echoing into the distance certainly caught the goblins’ attention. Being fueled by lust, they seemed to have quite a good aggro.
About half of them seemed to have followed Sif.
The remaining half was coming toward me.
Looks like a good number of those stone-throwers were still left. The sorcerer hadn’t even moved. I wished more had followed Sif.
If they just distracted me from a distance, I’d be happy. It’s tough for me to take down enemies from afar with my abilities.
To be precise, it’s not that I can’t, but using my abilities to the extreme to take out stone-throwing goblins would be inefficient. I can’t exhaust myself before facing the boss. I felt it even during the wyvern fight; I need a solution for long-range opponents soon.
It wouldn’t be easy to survive relying solely on this one skill, which was highly dependent on materials and the environment. It’d be nice to gain a new skill, or I need something like a gun or a crossbow to cover my range. After this, I thought it might be good to have at least one means prepared.
“First, I need to deal with those clueless goblins…”
I adjusted my grip on the shovel and stared down the goblins rushing toward me. Twelve of them. The stone-throwers kept their distance while the club-wielders rushed in, and the sorcerer was behind, mumbling something.
Definitely looks like they’re about to use some magic.
“Crafting.”
First, I needed to block the long-range attacks.
I erected a wall between the goblin soldiers and throwing soldiers. As the goblins hesitated in the newly blocked line of sight, I stuck my shovel in the ground and used my skill again.
“Crafting.”
Pillars shot up from the ground. The goblins that had run close to me were knocked down by the pillars rising from the ground. Three of them were sent flying, so they probably met their end.
“!@*#$!!?”
So loud! Avoiding a pillar brilliantly, I swung my shovel and struck the side of a goblin leaping at me. A swing that would make a baseball player proud. The grotesquely shaped goblin was sent sprawling, blood spraying everywhere. A breather at last. Immediately, I used my skill to take care of the remaining goblins.
With the dumb ones dealt with, next up…
“…Look at this sorcerer trying to use magic.”
I clicked my tongue at the wall that had been shattered by a fireball. The earthen wall clearly had its limits. It crumbled even from a monster’s magic that was supposed to be beaten easily at this stage. But hauling around expensive materials to keep crafting and dismantling was just way too taxing.
I let out a displeased chuckle, glaring at the sorcerer aiming a staff at me. The distance was about thirty meters. Not too far, but not exactly close either. The sorcerer might unleash its magic at any moment, but if these two had the intelligence to use magic in succession, rushing in recklessly was out of the question.
But if I put up a wall, that idiot sorcerer would just distance itself, turning it into a pointless struggle. A means to easily block the sorcerer’s magic…
Oh.
I looked down at the goblins at my feet. Some were dead, some were alive, but it didn’t concern me right now.
I grabbed a leg of a goblin and threw it at the incoming fireball. The goblin’s body collided with the fireball, accompanied by a scream, causing it to explode. One down. The other dodged in just the right moment, judging by the booming sound from behind.
I deflected a stone flying at me with my shovel as I moved forward. Now about twenty meters.
When’s the next fireball coming?
I focused on the sorcerer’s actions, dropping my attention from the stone-throwers and unleashing my skill at the stupid goblins wielding clubs.
“Crafting.”
Sharp spikes pierced through the goblins’ bodies. Luckily, these were truly dimwitted creatures. In a panic, I hurriedly threw my shovel at the goblin sorcerer aiming its staff at me.
Whether it gets hurt by my shovel or forsakes its magic to dodge, the choice was theirs, but either way, the sorcerer’s fate was sealed.
“Crafting.”
Using a technique I often relied on. A pillar emerged from the ground, smashing the sorcerer’s skull and splattering its brain.
“!()&*#!&$!!”
One more.
“Crafting.”
I turned my eyes away from the sorcerer, now lying side by side in death, to call out to Sif, who was still being chased.
“Sif! Come this way!”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
The goblins, being stupid enough, were crazed over a girl. As Sif got closer, they seemed to realize the situation and halted their pursuit, looking wary. I handed Sif a club taken from a goblin’s corpse.
“Why… why suddenly a club?”
“Can you handle that many?”
“It’s impossible! Maybe one or two—”
“!@*(&!#$()!”
These guys seem pretty cowardly. They’re not rushing in despite being caught off guard like this. I glared at the goblins and said to Sif, who was gripping the club with a frightened expression.
“I’ll take care of half, so you handle the other half.”
“Are you trying to kill me?”
“Did you think you could eat in this dungeon without doing that?”
“…Got it! I’ll do it, just do it!”
“!@*#$(!!”
“Crafting.”
I shattered the formation of the goblins with a wall. As the wall materialized out of nowhere, the goblins shrieked and looked around in confusion. I better wrap this up quickly.
“Crafting. Crafting.”
I added two more walls, completely blocking the escape route. The goblins, trapped in an instant, frantically realized that their only chance of survival was to take me down and charged at me. But even if those early-game mobs came swarming, they had no chance against me, who had been playing a game of survival with a hydra on a deserted island for ten years.
I prodded and slashed at them with my shovel, utilizing my senses honed on the island.
In no time, the ground around me was littered with the cold bodies of goblins. I leisurely took a step back, about twenty paces, and watched Sif’s battle with the goblins. She was putting on quite the fight despite being covered in scars.
Bruises all over her body, managing to knock down a goblin for every bruise, cycling back to earn herself another bruise.
“…She’s weak.”
I had been like that once too.
Looking back on it now, surviving seems like a miracle. From bears smashing boulders with a single paw to hydras spitting out poison.
But watching her take down the goblins one by one, she might be doing better than I did back then. After defeating all the goblins, I approached Sif, who looked at me warily, battered and bruised. Seeing that venom in her eyes, I felt I had made the right call.
According to the plan I came up with, Sif needed to get stronger to some extent.
“I… finished them all…!”
“Good. Then let’s head to meet the boss of this dungeon.”
“What?”
I immediately swung open the door leading to the boss. The door creaked open slowly, foreboding that this wouldn’t be an easy fight.
“…Hob Goblin.”
This one looked like it was half the size of a troll. I gazed at the massive hob goblin, who seemed to have been having a gathering with its subordinates, now glaring at me.
“!@$)!!”
Excluding the hob goblin, there were twelve left.
That’s quite a bit.
I’d prefer if they were as mindless as the ones outside, but it seemed like the goblins in this boss room were taking orders from the hob goblin and weren’t recklessly charging at me.
Maybe the hob goblin has sensed the situation outside? Well, it’s natural that me standing here means the goblins outside have all been taken care of.
“…This is going to be a tough fight.”
“Tough fight? We’re both going to die at this rate!”
Why is she so frightened? Assessing the danger of life and death is the basics; if she can’t even gauge that, how does she expect to survive?
“Quit panicking. Xlu.”
“Who the heck is that?!”
Ah, did I slip? Doesn’t matter.
Right now, the important thing was the hob goblin in front of me, not Sif, who kept babbling beside me.
“How well you handle your part here will decide your fate.”
“Of course! It’s either die or survive. Aah…”
I tightened my grip on the shovel.