Chương 85: Goblins

The Benault Forest was home to all manner of Ferocious and Demonic Beasts and Damion could not help but be curious and a little anxious on what they would find in this part of the dungeon. As Damion looked around, paying careful attention to the trees, since that is where the Forest Froth Spiders were likely to hide, he noticed a strange absence of noise. In the Wind Wolf forest dungeon, Damion had noticed the forest seemed just like the real forest.

Filled with various smells and sounds typical of the Benault Forest. But right now, there was nothing. No insect noises, no birds singing in the distance, nothing.

"Listen," Damion said before going silent.

"What?" Travis asked after Damion did not say anything.

"Just listen," Damion reiterated and everyone in the party went silent doing as he said.

"There are no sounds of life," Matthew said as he looked around the area again.

"This is most unusual."

"It is possible the Aerico Brood Mother drove everything away with her aura, similar to how other Aerico drive creatures away," Arica offered.

"But it is also possible that there is something else in this dungeon worse than the Aerico."

"The Brood Mother was the dungeon guardian," Matthew said.

"There are probably other creatures left, certainly at least one champion, but there should not be anything stronger than the Brood Mother."

"Stronger is a relative term," Arica countered.

"There may not be a creature with a higher magic power than the Brood Mother, but we may still encounter something that is harder to fight because of its defense or other abilities."

"Very true," Matthew conceded.

"Shall we head out?"

"As long as everyone remembers where the cave is," Damion said looking at the hole they had all climbed out of. The cave was mostly a big rock, with a hole in the side that led down into the cave system. If they did not know it was here, it would be very easy to miss.

"Arica. Leave a lantern here," Matthew suggested.

"It will help us not miss the hole when we come back to destroy the dungeon core." The group soon set off in search of loot and Demonic Creatures to fight. Damion was being careful to keep an eye out for anything that might be valuable. What they found instead, was signs of the disturbance in the forest. From the cave there seemed to be a path and Damion thought it would be a decent idea to follow it on the off chance it led to somewhere. It was not much of a path, more of a game trail beaten through the brush.

But as they traveled along it they found in various spots evidence the ground was heavily disturbed, as if someone or something had dug something up.

"What do you think is doing this?" Damion asked as the party crouched around a disturbed mound of dirt.

"It could be a Demonic Beast that roots through the dirt for food," Ethan suggested. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Or perhaps an underground Demonic Beast that pops up and snatches food from the surface," Travis offered.

"Or just weird piles of dirt," Matthew told them sternly.

"There is no point in speculating. This path seems to have been made by something; I reckon we will find that something further down it." For the next fifteen minutes, the party moved along the path. The number of disturbed places increased, but they still found no signs of the cause. When they finally heard a change in their surroundings, everyone froze in their tracks. Ahead, Damion could hear movement and what sounded like voices, though not in a language that he could understand.

The party all looked at each other and silently agreed to slowly creep forward. As they moved closer and spied through the underbrush at the sounds, Damion was surprised to see what looked to be a village. Five small huts of wood and a central hut with stone walls and a thatched roof were in a clearing. There were several campfires going cooking meat.

Moving between the fires and the huts were what appeared to be small people, they were around one meter tall, and had greenish grey skin, large bald heads and the fingers on their hands were quite a bit longer than normal for a person. Each one wore a shirt of bones tied across their chests like armor, but Damion noticed differences in the size of the bone shirts and wondered if they were also some sign of rank.

"Goblins," Matthew spat.

"Goblins?" The rest of the party questioned.

"Yes, they can be quite dangerous, and some can cast magic just like a mage," Matthew explained.

"I don't see any mages in there, but if there is one, it is probably in the stone house."

"How do we handle this?" Damion asked.

"I don't see any weapons, let's just run in and slaughter them," Travis suggested.

"They'll have weapons nearby, or warriors resting in the houses," Matthew told them.

"Damion, how fast can you cast your fire attack?"

"It depends on how much power I want behind the attack."

"Say you did a full powered attack on the stone house, but only weak attacks on the other huts, just enough to set them on fire?"

"Well, I can pre-charge my sword and unleash my fire pillar attack at the stone house first, then it will take 5 to 10 seconds between weak casts on the other huts."

"No more than a minute for that many casts?" Matthew asked in disbelief. Even if Damion's attacks were not powerful, casting that fast was practically unheard of for a knight.

"He can do it, don't worry," Arica reassured Matthew.

"What is the plan?" Theodore asked quickly.

"Damion, unleash your strongest attack on the stone house and then set the other houses on fire. Once the entire village is on fire and the goblins are in disarray, we move out of the brush and start the slaughter. Don't underestimate these goblins because they are small. They are far more dangerous than normal Demonic Beasts."

"Why is that?" Ethan asked.

"Because they are almost as smart as humans. Get ready. We'll go when you are ready Damion." Since everyone was waiting on him, Damion began to channel mana into his sword. Figuring that he had already shown off too much this run, Damion did not channel his mana as fast as he could. After a moment Damion pointed his sword and sent out his fire pillar attack.

Immediately after Damion's attack was launched, an alarm sounded in the village and the goblins began racing around searching for the attacker and readying their weapons. Before the village could get organized, Damion unleased five more smaller attacks. His five fire slashes took the form of flaming birds leaping off his blade and crashing into the wooden huts' roofs. With the entire village on fire, Damion and the group rushed out of the underbrush and charged into the village.

Damion took the lead and was able to unleash another fire slash at a goblin before he closed the distance. Damion's last fire slash struck the goblin, but to Damion's surprise, the goblin shrugged the fire slash off. The fire did not seem to burn the goblin and appeared to only make it angrier. The goblin grabbed a dagger at its waist and leapt at Damion from three meters away.

Damion could not believe that such a small creature could jump so far from a standing position, but he did not have much time to be awed as he was suddenly fending off the goblin's dagger as it slashed at his throat.