Goblins Are Weak? (4)
He had faced strong opponents before, but never in his life had an attack of his been stopped like this.
'Which means it understands technique.'
The fairy was a different matter entirely — back then, he had been carrying Regressor Arin's power within his body. In truth, that strength could hardly be called his own.
'The mutated slime of the 1st Floor was strong, and so were the cave wolves of the 2nd.' But nothing about them could properly be called 'technique.' At most, you might call it the 'traits' of the boss-tier monsters of each floor. The ones that spewed electricity and poison had certainly been unusual, yet they fell outside the category of technique — they were, if anything, expressions of those creatures' innate individuality.
The goblin before him, however, was different. Its raised fists guarded the jaw and the temple respectively, and its chin was tucked in to shield its own vital point. What was more, in the instant of impact it stepped forward, denying his offensive a clean landing — and that seasoned craft was plain to see.
'Well, this is fun?'
Eunho felt a thick current of interest. It was common knowledge that goblins possessed a measure of intelligence, but he had never once seen a case like this. If anything, it prodded at his curiosity in a way that bordered on the academic.
"Good timing. Fighting an enemy that actually understands technique is excellent experience. Getting it on the 4th Floor... not bad at all, right? I figured I wouldn't see this until at least the 6th or 7th."
She was right. This was a good opportunity — for him, and for present-day Arin alike.
'If it ends too quickly, there won't even be anything to show her.'
Eunho looked on the current situation favorably. Every exchange was carving the fundamentals of martial arts into Arin's eyes — and he got to audit his own technique in the process? What better experience could there be?
'Besides, this is still the mouth of the cave. What kind of creature might be waiting deeper in?' Perhaps something out there was 'fusing' mana with technique. The very method he needed most — he might even get the chance to study it.
Steadying a heart that had begun to race faster still, Eunho thrust out his fist. The opening move was a light jab — a loosely rolled punch that cracked the empty air like a whip.
The goblin hardened its guard and fell back before the sudden offensive — and in the same breath, a second goblin's fist came flying at him, carving an arc through the air.
'They even understand the concept of combinations. Which means they're confident enough that their lines of movement won't tangle with each other.'
He claimed the defensive line first. One step to the north-northwest. His weight already tipping diagonally, Eunho twisted his body on the spot, and the goblin's fist grazed past his face and split nothing but air.
Eunho's hands moved like a loosed arrow. His right hand caught the wrist of the swinging fist, twisted, and dictated the creature's every movement; his left clamped onto its armpit and shoved, light and precise.
Crack! The creature's arm bent where no arm should bend, and it shrieked.
"Kiyaaaaah—!"
Crunch! The instep of Eunho's raised foot came up under the shrieking creature's jaw and shattered the joint — and in the same motion, his lifted leg coiled around the arm of the second goblin, which was pressing in with cold composure despite its kin's scream.
His leg wound around the outstretched arm like a serpent. The knee folded, his sole gliding past the creature's biceps to plant itself feather-light on its ribs — and in that same instant, Eunho kicked off the ground and drove his knee into the creature's temple.
Crunch! To the sound of splintering bone, two goblins met their ends. The last one's pupils quivered — and only now did it show him the goblin he knew.
Which is to say, it ran.
"Where do you think you're going."
The moment his feet touched the ground, Eunho launched himself after it. Sensing the pursuit, the goblin flailed a desperate backhanded fist — but even a strike aimed dead-on would barely have grazed him, and an offensive ruled by terror had no hope of landing at all.
He burrowed in deeper still, cutting off the flow of the creature's strength at its source; his arms crossed as if weaving a snare and clamped its shoulders, while his advancing leg slipped between its knees and forced its body to betray it.
As the goblin pitched over, he snapped a rising knee into the back of its neck and hammered a descending elbow into its face.
Like a savage beast finally claiming its prey, the creature's limbs shuddered violently — then, at last, it slumped, boneless, into the dirt.
Eunho steadied his breathing and looked back. Present-day Arin was staring at him, blank-faced.
"What do you think? Easy, right?"
"......"
Arin couldn't manage an answer. Instead, the chat windows watching his stream caught fire.
It took a while for the chat to settle back down. By then, present-day Arin had gathered herself as well, and she asked in a calm voice.
"Eunho. You've never even taken a martial arts class, have you? How did you just do that?"
"? This? I just did it?"
"......Huh?"
The question-mark cowlick above present-day Arin's head shot up all over again, her expression asking whether she had heard him correctly.
"What did you say?"
"No, I mean — you know how comics always show those standard techniques? I just copied what I saw. And it worked. Guess that's the skill doing its thing."
"......"
Arin couldn't find a single word to say.
In the silence-soaked cave, only Regressor Arin's voice drifted faintly through.
"Eunho, Eunho-yah... skills don't normally work like that, you know. Just because you acquire one doesn't mean everything clicks on the spot."
Contrary to any hope that their first goblin encounter upon entering the cave might also be their last, no such luck awaited them.
"Oof. Even a horde this size is a bit of a workout."
Goblin corpses packed the walls around Eunho — so many that the cave's scenery seemed dyed green rather than dark. By rough count, their number exceeded fifty.
"They must have all charged out at the first scream. Honestly, that worked in our favor. Thinning the herd like this is far less dangerous than digging in right where the boss-tier one is waiting."
'Right?'
"Mm. However intelligent they're supposed to be, they apparently can't tell that much apart? Or maybe something is actually commanding the pack. Be careful, Eunho-yah."
Listening to Regressor Arin's worries, Eunho turned his eyes to the chat. The viewers who had at first reacted as though confronted with something beyond comprehension were now holding a festival.
'If this were the past, a reaction like this would have been unthinkable.'
Until a mere two days ago, he had been an underachiever with no trait, a boy who couldn't so much as handle mana. And now he had become a rookie the citizens of South Korea would rally behind? Had he ever even dreamed of such a thing?
"Eunho-yah. Your face is making a really weird expression right now."
Brushing off Regressor Arin's jab, Eunho settled his emotions. From here on, he needed to advance with a cooler head.
'This must be where the boss-tier one is holed up, right?'
Just like at the end of the 3rd Floor's cave-wolf den, the passage split. One branch gave off no presence whatsoever, while from the other he could feel a numerous pack stirring.
"So? Heading straight for the boss-tier one?"
'No. Not this time.'
Eunho's gaze slid to the opposite branch of the fork.
Back in the cave wolves' den, he had faced the final fork and gone straight for where the boss-tier monster lurked. The reason was simple: the other branch had offered up nothing to sense at all.
But not this time. His mana, threading down the fork, had detected something — the surface of an 'object,' not a living creature.
"Let's try that side."
Playing the party's scout, Eunho proposed the route, and present-day Arin nodded without a word of protest. Proof enough of just how deeply she trusted him.
Advancing along that path, they soon came upon a door.
"An iron door? Goblins set up something like this?"
Even Regressor Arin was wearing a rare look of astonishment by the time Eunho stepped up to the iron door.
'Mana is flowing. Through this keyhole-like opening, mana has been passing in and out.'
"Probably some item drops once you take down the boss-tier monster — something you need before this door will open?"
'Yeah, probably something like that. But... I think I can just open it.'
"Huh?"
As Regressor Arin tilted her head, Eunho laid his hand on the iron door.
'I can feel it.'
Mana had already passed through here before. Which meant the door's inner structure was all but engraved in his mind.
Calling that memory to the surface, Eunho poured mana inside and, with the most delicate of adjustments, undid the iron door's lock.
Click.
Kuuuung—!
With that titanic roar, the door swung open. Thick clouds of dust billowed out, and by the time they settled, every eye present had gone round.
"Whoa. How much is all of this?"
Spread out before them was a treasure vault.