62. There Are No Poor Dungeons in the World (4)
62. There Are No Poor Dungeons in the World (4)
Twenty goblins with clubs. Ten throwers with baskets strapped to their backs. Two more that looked like shamans. A number that was small if you called it small and large if you called it large.
But there were only two of us, which made it a considerable force.
And that considerable force was walking toward us. Naturally, we'd made quite a racket inside the dungeon. I grabbed Sif by the scruff of her neck, hauled her upright, and said,
"Run that way."
"That way?"
Sif's head turned toward where I pointed. There was an open clearing there.
"A-all of a sudden?"
"Just pull enough aggro. I'll handle the rest."
I shoved the hesitant Sif forward. She ran in the direction I indicated with a miserable look on her face. As expected of a cat, she was quick. Her screams in the distance drew the goblins' attention perfectly. The sex-crazed bastards' aggro pulled pretty well.
About half of them seemed to go after Sif.
The other half were approaching me.
Quite a few of the stone-throwing ones stuck around. And the shamans didn't move at all. Would've been nice if more of them had chased after Sif.
If she drew even the distant rock-throwers away, she'd done her part. My abilities made it difficult to deal with enemies at range.
More precisely, it wasn't impossible, but pushing my abilities to their limit merely to kill stone-throwing goblins would have been inefficient. I couldn't exhaust myself with the boss still waiting. The wyvern had taught me the same lesson: I needed a countermeasure for ranged enemies soon.
Surviving indefinitely with a single Skill so dependent on materials and terrain wouldn't be easy. A new Skill would have been ideal. Otherwise, I needed some way to cover long range, even if that meant using a gun or crossbow. Once this was over, I should secure at least one option.
"For now, I'll start by dealing with the goblins charging in cluelessly..."
I adjusted my grip on the shovel and glared at the goblins rushing me. There were twelve. The stone throwers approached while keeping their distance, the club-wielders charged recklessly, and the shamans moved their mouths from the rear.
They were obviously preparing to cast some kind of magic.
"Craft."
First, I had to block the ranged attacks.
I raised a wall between the club-wielders and the throwers. The blocked sightline made the goblins falter, and I planted my shovel in the ground and used the Skill again.
"Craft."
A pillar erupted from the ground. It struck the goblins that had reached me and sent them flying. Three were hit. They flew far enough that they were probably dead.
"!@*#$!!?"
Loud. Too loud. I swung my shovel into the side of a goblin that had managed to avoid the pillar and leaped for my head—a full swing that would have impressed a baseball player. The hideous creature flew away spraying blood from its mouth. That gave me a brief opening, and I immediately used my Skill to finish the rest.
The idiots were taken care of, so that was that. Next...
"...Look at them actually casting magic like proper shamans."
I clicked my tongue at the wall the fireball had blown apart. Earthen walls had obvious limits. Even magic from an early-game monster could smash one. On the other hand, carrying expensive materials around and repeatedly using Craft and Dismantle would have been far too much work.
The shaman let out an unpleasant laugh and aimed its staff at me. It stood roughly thirty meters away—not extremely far, but not close either. I did not know when its magic would fly, and if the pair had enough intelligence to alternate their spells, charging blindly would be difficult.
But if I just blocked with walls and the shamans gained distance in the meantime, it'd turn into a pointless war of attrition. A way to easily block the shaman's magic...
Ah.
I looked down at the goblins around my feet. Some had ruptured limbs or broken bones. Some were alive and some were dead, but none of that mattered at the moment.
I immediately grabbed a goblin by the leg and hurled its body at the incoming fireball. The body collided with the fireball, which exploded amid a scream. That took care of one. I rolled aside at the right moment to avoid the other. The blast behind me meant it had struck something.
I deflected the incoming stones with my shovel and advanced. About twenty meters left now.
When would the next fireball come?
I watched the shamans' movements and used my Skill on the stupid goblins that had abandoned their stones and picked up clubs.
"Craft."
Sharp spikes pierced through the goblins' bodies. Lucky for me they really were low-intelligence creatures. I hurled my shovel at a goblin shaman who flinched in surprise and hurriedly aimed its staff at me.
Get hit by the shovel and get hurt, or give up on the magic and dodge. I didn't know which it would pick, but either way, the shaman's fate was sealed.
"Craft."
It was a method I used often. A pillar burst from the ground, crushed the shaman's skull, and scattered its brains.
"!()&*#!&$!!"
One more.
"Craft."
I looked away from the two shamans lying dead side by side and called to Sif, who was still being chased.
"Sif! Over here!"
"Oooookaaaaaaay!"
Like the fools they were, the goblins chased Sif in a woman-crazed frenzy. Only when she drew visibly close to me did they seem to understand what was happening. They stopped and watched warily. I thrust a club taken from a goblin corpse into her hands.
"Wh-why the sudden club...?"
"You can handle this many, right?"
"No way, no way! If it were one or two maybe—"
"!@*(&!#$()!"
Those goblins seemed pretty cowardly too. Even with us standing openly exposed, they didn't charge. I glared at them, then spoke to Sif, who held the club with a terrified expression.
"I'll take half, you take half."
"A-are you trying to kill me?!"
"You thought you'd earn a living in a dungeon without even being able to do that?"
"...Fine! I'll do it, okay? I'll do it!"
"!@*#$(!!"
"Craft."
I broke the goblins' formation with a wall. The wall appeared in an instant and split the group in half. The goblins shrieked and looked around in confusion. I needed to finish this quickly.
"Craft. Craft."
I added two more walls and sealed their escape completely. The suddenly trapped goblins panicked, then realized their only way out was to kill me and charged. Yet no swarm of early-game trash mobs could defeat someone who had spent ten years playing cat-and-mouse with the Hydra on an uninhabited island.
Partly to keep my island instincts sharp, I stabbed, slashed, and crushed them one by one with the shovel.
In moments, goblin corpses lay scattered around me. I turned at my leisure, walked about twenty paces, and watched Sif struggle against the remaining goblins. Despite being covered in wounds, she was holding her own.
A repeating cycle: bruises building up all over her body, beating down goblins in proportion to the bruises, and the bruises multiplying again.
"...Weak."
I'd been like that once too.
Looking back, it had been one impossible survival after another—from bears the size of houses that shattered boulders with a single swipe to the poison-spitting Hydra.
Still, watching her defeat the goblins one by one, she might have been better than I had been in my clueless days. I approached Sif after she finished them all. Battered and bruised, she glared at me with venom in her eyes. That convinced me I'd made the right choice.
My plan required Sif to become at least somewhat stronger.
"I... got them all...!"
"Good job. Now, let's go and meet the master of this dungeon."
"What?"
I immediately opened the door leading to the boss. It slowly swung inward with a groan that seemed to warn us the coming fight wouldn't be easy.
"...Hobgoblin."
It looked nearly half the size of a troll. I stared at the hobgoblin, which towered over a basketball player. It and its subordinates had been sitting in a circle as though enjoying some group activity, but now it glared at me.
"!@*$*)!!"
Twelve goblins, not counting the hobgoblin.
That was a lot.
It would've been nice if they were simple and stupid like the ones outside, but the goblins inside the boss room seemed to be under the hobgoblin's command and didn't recklessly charge at me.
Had the hobgoblin figured out what happened outside? Well, the fact that I was standing here was basically the same as saying I'd wiped out the goblins out there, so it was only natural.
"...This is going to be a tough fight."
"A tough fight? We're both gonna die at this rate!"
Why was she so frightened? Gauging whether a fight would kill you was survival basics. How did she expect to live if she couldn't even judge that?
"Don't be so dramatic, X-ru."
"Who the hell is that?!"
Ah, did I let that slip? It didn't matter.
What mattered right now was the hobgoblin in front of me, not Sif yapping at my side.
"Whether you pull your weight here will decide your fate."
"Obviously. It's do or die. Ow ow ow..."
I adjusted my grip on the shovel.