Goblin Bowling
“A… what should I do? Should I call up the wind? Or maybe blast those arrows with lightning…?”
While Meyril was still floundering, unable to make up her mind, Lilian drew her spear and hurled it.
“Haaah!”
The spearhead flew in before she could even swat the arrows aside. But the aura riding its shaft roiled, and the arrows were stopped dead in the air.
“A-are you all right? I-I’m sorry. I got distracted for no reason at all….”
Still clinging to Ho-yeong, Meyril groped frantically for wounds on his body.
“Step back. You’re in the way.”
Lilian’s voice came down on her like a blade.
“Y-yes, sir!”
Meyril scrambled upright in a panic.
Why is Deputy Commander Lilian looking at me like she wants to kill me?
Lilian’s gaze was sharper than the aura-laced spear itself.
“Phew. That was close. Thanks, Lilian. Meyril, you weren’t hurt, were you?”
“N-no, I’m fine! Thanks to my lord, I’m safe!”
Ho-yeong rose without ever noticing the suffocating exchange of glares passing between the women.
“Huh. Things are looking bad on this side.”
The goblins were raining arrows from a distance, never once closing in. Sicoop, the mage soldier, had raised a barrier, but the relentless volleys had already cracked it in several places.
Lilian and I are wearing dandanium armor, so a few arrows won’t matter much to us… but the regular soldiers are the problem. Even crude arrows can’t be underestimated.
Ho-yeong frowned.
No, even if you’re armored as well as I am… if an arrow comes for your face or another exposed spot like that, it’s still a real threat.
He had nearly been struck himself just now, if not for Lilian.
“Ugh. And why in the world is this so hard to pull out? It’s not some magic sword, for crying out loud.”
Ho-yeong wrestled with Lilian’s spear stuck in the ground, and found it far harder to budge than he’d expected.
“Because there’s still a great deal of aura in it.”
When aura was poured into a weapon and then thrown, it became difficult to control the moment the weapon left the hand. And as time passed, the aura within it naturally scattered in all directions.
But Lilian, in her urgency, had sent nearly all of her aura along with the spear. That was why so much of it still remained.
“I’ll do it.”
After reclaiming the aura embedded in the spear, Lilian pulled the spearhead free.
“So that’s the aura of a famous-sword spear master, is it? Quite something. Wait a minute—pouring aura into a spear…?”
A different idea flashed through Ho-yeong’s mind.
“Meyril! Call up the wind again.”
“B-but I’ve already used so much mana that I’m not confident I can do as well as before….”
“That’s fine. Just enough to stop the arrows. It doesn’t have to be a gale.”
“I-I’ll try!”
Meyril immediately began chanting. Instead of the strong, straight blast from before, she summoned a gentle breeze that moved up and down in wavering currents.
- Gob?!
Because the arrows had been fired in a high arc toward elevated ground, they couldn’t punch through the light wind and simply fluttered helplessly.
- Gobgob!
The arrows fell with no force behind them, but the goblins’ morale did not; the shield troops kept pressing forward with vigor.
“Doesn’t that mean our own ranged weapons can’t be used either?”
“True. You’re right. But I’ve got an idea, so don’t worry.”
Even with Lilian’s entirely valid concern, Ho-yeong remained unfazed.
“Number 8. Don’t worry about the arrows—go back to the left wing and bring the bakgyeokpo over. And Sergeant Sicoop! Come here!”
Sicoop ★★☆
[ Stats｜Rank｜Base Value ~ Maximum Value ]
Strength C: 25 ~ 30 (Let’s not have a mage do hand-to-hand combat.)
Intelligence C: 53 ~ 59 (Smart, but not exactly sharp-edged.)
Mana C: 43 ~ 48
Charm C: 30 ~ 32 (A reasonably sociable fellow.)
Leadership C: 31 ~ 35
Mentality C: 32 ~ 38 (Quirk: he has a complex about not having been born into a mage family.)
Edification C: 35 ~ 40 (Not a die-hard loyalist, but not the sort to betray anyone either.)
*Background*
Noble mages born through marriage between mage families are gifted with a large reserve of mana, but mage commoners tend to excel in a single field. Just like Meyril.
Sicoop, however, was a little unusual.
He had talent for all magic, but none of it was especially extraordinary, nor was his mana pool remarkable.
When he entered the magic academy, his aptitude had been rated at C rank, and he graduated with an average C-rank academic record. Sick of being hired by mediocre adventuring parties, he finally snapped and enlisted on impulse. Since mages willing to become mage soldiers were rare, he was welcomed there.
“You called for me, sir.”
“Dispel the barrier.”
Even in the chilly weather, Sicoop was sweating buckets.
“That barrier was difficult to cast, sir… and dispelling it isn’t exactly simple either, sir.”
Sicoop had created the shield by hardening the mana in the atmosphere.
“You may not know this, Commander—no, my lord….”
“I know.”
“Pardon?”
Startled by the unexpected answer, he blinked.
“To undo all the hardening in that mana barrier and return it to your own mana flow afterward would take a great deal of time and mana, wouldn’t it?”
“H-how did you…?”
Having played Sicoop in the game, Ho-yeong could infer the rest easily enough, since the hero’s skills followed the exact same mechanism described here.
“I know all that. Anyway, you don’t need to flow it back into mana. You don’t have to dispel the whole barrier at once.”
“Then you mean…?”
“Dispel it little by little, and shape it into a fat cylinder. Make the top part into a cone—no, make it long and sharp like a spear.”
“You want me to cast a mana bullet? But….”
A mana bullet. An attack spell that hardened the mana in the air and hurled it at high speed.
Sicoop had tried it long ago, but it had yielded no real results.
“Right. I’ve seen those things get blocked by the enemy shields.”
“Ugh. Sorry about that.”
“No, I’m not blaming you. I’ve just thought of a better way. From now on, all you need is for the mana bullet you make to be big, hard, and pointy. Big enough to pierce those bastards and their shields together.”
Instead of a toothpick-sized mana bullet, Ho-yeong was proposing to win through mass and penetration.
“B-but if I make it that big and heavy, my mana won’t be able to send it at high speed. And if you want the diameter, length, and cone angle precise, you’ll have to give me exact units….”
Just then, Mandragorani Number 8 arrived carrying the bakgyeokpo.
“As big as will fit in here.”
The Ancient Mana Stone is about to finish charging. Current mana capacity: 70%
“As for power, leave that to me.”
Ho-yeong mounted the bakgyeokpo at a very low angle, just as he had done on the left wing.
“Sicoop, prepare!”
“Yes, sir!”
The round was not a stone shell but a mana bullet.
Sicoop reconstructed the barrier into a cone-shaped mana projectile and transmitted it into the bakgyeokpo’s barrel.
“In five seconds, fire at power thirty!”
Ho-yeong clutched the bakgyeokpo and focused all his attention, channeling aura through both hands to wrap the barrel in it.
And then the mana bullet was fired.
- KWAJIJIJIJIJIK.
- Gooo…b.
It tore through the goblins, punching huge holes through both their shields and their bodies.
“That’s it! That’s what I’m talking about!”
Unlike the stone round, which had stopped after crushing several of the enemy flat, the mana bullet burst forward as if it meant to keep traveling to the end of the continent.
I wasn’t sure it would work, but thank goodness it did.
The Ancient Mana Stone’s explosive force was tremendous, but because the mortar’s barrel could not withstand that power, it shook and scattered the energy. Since it had been a makeshift contraption thrown together from scrap metal, that was only natural.
But when Ho-yeong protected the inside and outside of the barrel with aura, it was different. The mana stone’s power no longer weakened, and the trajectory stabilized as well.
“Th-this kind of power….”
Sicoop adjusted his glasses and gaped.
“Why waste precious mana from a mage? Just fire it out of a cannon. All right, load the next shot. Move!”
After several more rounds, the second wave came to an end.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“Hah. This is a bit much, don’t you think?”
The third wave was truly shocking.
“Since when do mid-bosses come out like ordinary mobs?”
Goblin shock troop commanders were mixed in among the goblin horde.
“Huh. Hah… this won’t do, sir. The barrier’s still up, but my mana can’t hold out any longer.”
“Good work. Stay in the rear for now.”
Sicoop had burned through so much mana that his face had gone pale.
“Is mana bullet the answer to everything? Berneval, give me a hand!”
By then, Berneval seemed to have already eliminated quite a few enemies with the special stone shells he’d made.
- Gob gob!
The remaining shock troop commanders were using ordinary goblins as meat shields to reduce the damage.
“This game is so damn unfair!”
After showering the game with heartfelt praise for its value, Ho-yeong came up with another approach.
“Meyril! Make a thick fog. Baunal, throw sandbags, bits of rock, whatever you’ve got—make a hell of a lot of dust kick up!”
“Y-yes, sir!”
“A-alrighty.”
And then the Byeonbangbaek summoned the monster standing by in the rear.
“Gremlin Prototype One, come out.”
The gremlin swarm that had appeared at the road. Ho-yeong had captured one of them and converted it.
“This is your time to shine.”
Smaller even than a goblin child, its body was covered in fluffy fur. Its legs were short, but its arms were absurdly long.
- Gremgrem! (Yes, yes.)
The gremlin’s bright, beady eyes gleamed incongruously from a batlike face. In its hand was a dagger made of karoum.