Goblin King
Goblin King
I warily watched the goblins who were wary of me, thinking to myself. They said, 'For the Normal difficulty tutorial, it's 1 Goblin Chieftain and 2 goblins,' but...
"Even if it is Impossible Difficulty, isn't this too many?"
The gap between Normal and Impossible Difficulty seems way too big. Even a rough count showed over 30 of them. Plus, that one over there... um... I should call it the Goblin King.
The Goblin King, three times the size of a regular goblin, including the somewhat flashy crown on its head, looks nearly 2m 30cm tall. Its muscles also looked quite... no, extremely massive.
It sat on its throne as if nothing could defeat it, looking indifferent and arrogant, as if everything was boring. Beside it, a huge sword, the size of the ones I saw at the National Hunter Equipment Rental Shop, was stuck in the ground.
"You do look strong. Could you kill me?"
I said, pointing my finger at the Goblin King. It was a display of vain confidence. Perhaps it hoped I would show confidence after catching a few goblins in the tutorial and kill me. For someone like me who came here thinking, 'If I die, I die,' it was a natural thought.
Seeing me like that, the Goblin King snorted and gave an order to the other goblins with a wave of its hand. At least, that's how it looked to me.
"Oops,"
An arrow flew toward me. An arrow aimed precisely at my neck, between my torso and head.
'Kang!'
I kept the hilt by my head, pointed the tip diagonally downward, and blocked the arrow as if covering my head with the sword like a slanted umbrella.
"Keureuk!"
A goblin that approached without missing the opening swung a cold weapon at me. From the previous stance, I rotated the sword outward to the right and struck down, shattering the goblin's head.
Keeping the sword at head height, I laid it flat to the left and swung it horizontally, slicing the throats of the two goblins following behind. Green blood burst out.
Normally, it's really hard to cut through mammalian bone with a sword, but perhaps because of the strength gained from Awakening, or because the sword was well-maintained, the necks of the two goblins were severed cleanly in succession.
"Hoo..."
It wasn't an excessive action that required catching my breath, but I performed one of the actions I did when learning swordsmanship, like a routine.
"Now, shall we keep going?"
I made an umbrella with my sword again. I lowered my stance and moved forward slowly. I became a moving fortress.
"Kireuk...!" "Kireureuk...!"
The goblins were scared and backed away. Their 'weapons' were pointed forward, radiating hostility and murderous intent, but their eyes, mouths, expressions, and actions—the 'goblins' themselves—were not. No, they couldn't be. I could even see the strength draining from the arms holding the bowstrings.
'Deulgeureok,'
In the room where the goblins' cries were heard intermittently, a small but loud sound echoed as a goblin let go of the arrow it had been holding on the string.
I lowered the hand holding the sword to waist height, pointed the tip even lower as if to touch the floor, then dashed forward quickly and stabbed toward the eye socket of the goblin in the very front.
"Kkeureuk..."
The sword pierced straight through and came out the back of the goblin's head, which hadn't been able to react. Even though its head was pierced, the final breath of the goblin, which hadn't died yet, flowed from its mouth.
"Kireuk...!"
A goblin next to it ran at me and swung its weapon. I pulled the sword embedded in the goblin's head out smoothly but quickly. As if swinging a sword in the air, as if drawing a sword from its scabbard, smoothly yet powerfully, using the force of the extraction to strike the goblin's jaw with the pommel weight on the hilt,
'Ttogak,'
The goblin's jawbone broke and dangled loosely. Without losing the flow, I rotated my body and sliced the throat of the goblin whose jaw was dangling. Meanwhile, I dodged an arrow flying toward my head by lightly shaking my head.
In that way, without losing rotational force, I kept slicing through the goblins' arms, legs, torsos, and heads. The power of the sword grows stronger as rotational force and acceleration are added. I kept cutting and cutting like that, but there was no way for these low-intelligence creatures, who had already lost their morale, to stop me.
"Hoo..."
After slicing through over 30 goblins, this time I was slightly exhausted and caught my breath. My whole body was splattered with the goblins' green blood, giving off a fishy smell.
"Now, then, you should come to me, right?"
I gestured provocatively toward the Goblin King, who hadn't blinked once during the long, if it could be called long, fight.
"Can you call a being without knights, subjects, or people a king?"
I don't know if it understands, but I keep provoking it.
It laughed. The Goblin King laughed. It laughed as if the ones I killed were nothing. And the Goblin King grabbed the huge sword stuck next to its throne and stood up, then,
'Kung!'
It leaped with a loud boom. With a single leap, it closed a distance of well over 50 meters in an instant and landed in front of me. The floor cracked around the landing point, and stone dust rose up thickly.
Up close, the Goblin King's size felt even bigger. With the Goblin King now so close, I quickly swung my sword at its abdomen.
'Teong!'
As if I had struck a steel plate, the blade bounced off with a heavy boom. The Goblin King's tough hide didn't even flinch, and I felt a sharp tingling in my wrist.
The Goblin King showed me a big grin, as if it would actually make a 'ssiik-' sound. And,
"Ah, danger..."
'Kwang!'
A heavy sound echoed. It didn't seem like the sound that had just rung out. Yeah, I must have blacked out for a short moment.
When I came to and looked to the side, the longsword was shattered like thin glass. The longsword I had raised to cover my left forearm to block the thick, heavy sword swung by the Goblin King couldn't properly stop the Goblin King's greatsword due to its mass and speed. That must be it...
The longsword couldn't withstand the impact and broke, and the remaining force must have gone entirely into me. I, being relatively light, must have been sent flying, slammed into the wall, and blacked out just like that... There's no other explanation.
"Haha... what absurd strength. The word 'Impossible' wasn't wrong,"
'Tinggeureureu-'
The middle part of the longsword, which had been barely hanging on, fell off. The longsword now had less than 1/3 of its original length left.
I'm going to die.
For the first time, the fear of death washed over me. What is the fear of death, you ask? It feels like bugs are crawling all over your body, it makes you feel so nauseous you want to take out your stomach and scrub it on a washboard, and your limbs don't move the way you want them to. I thought, 'Is this the end?'
I thought of my sister. I remembered seeing her struggling on TV. My sister, who did her best, must have felt this emotion, this feeling too. It must have been really scary and hard. But did my sister think the same thing as me? Am I really dying after doing my best?
No, I didn't do my best. Until now, I had been fighting using only the body strengthened by Awakening. I had been fighting only with pure physical strength and swordsmanship.
Magic—the thing I couldn't use because my sister's face would pop into my mind whenever I tried to use it. Every time I tried to use magic, I would remember my sister's face as she showed me herself using magic, looking happy, joking with me, and laughing. I would feel something blocking me, and I couldn't use it.
'Uung-'
I pushed the sensation of Magic Power into my free hand, the one not holding the longsword. I felt an unknown tingling sensation in my veins, and something like a blue sphere began to form in my palm.
'Hey! Hey! Look at this! I think we won't have to pay electricity bills anymore!'
I remembered the image of my sister running around the whole house, making the blue orb in her hand sparkle, like a phantom. The blue light that drove away the pitch-black darkness and filled the room, and my sister's bright smile contained within it, flickered before my eyes.
At that moment, the gathering of Magic Power stopped as if blocked by something. It stopped just below the amount instinctively needed to use magic. No, rather, even the gathered Magic Power was decreasing little by little.
'Paseut,'
The Magic Power that had gathered in my palm vanished. The glowing sphere disappeared. The Goblin King was walking toward me slowly, as if sensing its victory. Is this the end? Is this my best? Was my Magic Power insufficient?
'Hyeryeong-ah, no, this isn't your best. Our Hyeryeong can do it,'
I grabbed the longsword, which I should now call scrap metal, with both hands. I placed the hilt near my chest, gathered Magic Power in both hands, and the gathered Magic Power moved through the sword's hilt toward the broken blade.
As the Magic Power reached the broken part at the end of the blade, as expected, it felt blocked and wouldn't go any further.
"...If it's blocked, I have to break through it,"
I closed my eyes, focused on the flow of the blocked feeling, and pushed the Magic Power in endlessly. My eyeballs, which could be said to be the most fragile part of the human body, felt like they were burning. But I didn't stop.
Keep going,
A little more,
With all my heart,
Doing my best,
What is my job?
'Jiing-'
Even though my eyes were closed, blue light came through my eyelids. I opened my eyes and looked ahead. I saw the Goblin King.
The blade, emitting a brilliant blue radiance, filled in the broken spot and regained the appearance of a whole sword. The Goblin King's eyes wavered visibly at the sight of the hideously broken sword returning with a sacred blue light.
However, the Goblin King did not stop approaching because of that bewilderment. No, this time it ran at me even faster.
I turned the sword that was near my chest slightly to the left and took my stance. I looked at the Goblin King,
and focused.
'Pajeuj-'
A very short moment, a very short movement, but a movement that felt bigger than anything else, and the sound of something being cut, but I didn't feel the sensation of cutting.
"Kkeureuk...,"
However, I had cut the Goblin King's hide, which seemed like it would never be cut, cut its muscles, and cut its bones.
The Goblin King fell.
"...My job is Magic Swordsman,"
And
I fell too.