Missing Persons Search Operation (7)
Whoosh.
Something came flying into the cave. Caught at the edge of the bright lantern light was the gleaming tip of a spear.
Clang!
Trisha's hand moved faster still. Her shortsword, swept through the air like a gust of wind, knocked the spear aside.
Then came the twang of bowstrings, and the trained soldiers leapt forward on pure reflex, shields raised to block the way ahead.
Thunk! Thunk!
They ducked low behind their shields just as goblins began crawling up one by one from the cave floor behind them.
"Captain!"
"Pass me a shield! I'll hold them! Just think about getting out — push forward!"
At Gert's shout from the rear, the soldiers advanced as one. Gert slammed a shield down over the hole where the goblins were trying to climb out and crushed it under his boot. Spears and daggers stabbed up through the gaps in the wooden shield.
"Uoooooh!!!!!"
"Forward! Forward! Keep moving!"
"Don't break formation!"
"Look after the wounded in the back!"
The soldiers shook off the chaos with remarkable speed and drove ahead, shields first, through the narrow passage.
Kerrrk!
Thwack-thwack-thwack...!
The rain of arrows broke against the soldiers' shields. What came next was a pack of goblins charging in — ten of them at a glance, spears and rusted swords clutched in their hands as they rushed as one.
"Stab through the gaps in the shields! Attack!"
At Gert's bellow, as he carved through the goblins that slipped past the shield wall, the soldiers' blades moved in unison. Steel flashed between the shields — chopping down, thrusting home — bursting goblin skulls and splitting them clean in half.
But the enemy had been waiting for that opening. Arrows and spears came flying again, and the shock dropped the soldier at the very front.
"Damn it!"
"Rotate!"
"There's too many of them!"
From the rear, Trisha's eyes flashed. She hurled a throwing dagger toward the darkness where the arrows were coming from. Whsshk. The blade punched straight through a goblin's brow and dropped it. More daggers followed in rapid succession, cutting goblins down — but others simply filled the empty spaces.
The party had already killed more than ten goblins, and still the numbers kept coming.
"Break through!! Break through, damn it!!! Shit!!!"
Even Squad Leader Gert, starting to feel the strain from behind, was spitting rough curses now.
Trisha glanced back, clicked her tongue once, and scanned the area for Angela. Angela was, at that moment, carrying a wounded man on her back.
"Angela."
It was the first time Trisha had spoken her name.
"Lady Trisha?"
"If we keep going like this, we're all dead. We need to punch a hole through. You and I look like we can manage it."
She pointed at the wounded man on Angela's back.
"Ditch that."
"I cannot."
Angela handed Belford off to a soldier who had fallen back from the front line.
"Please look after this man."
"Understood. But the two of you alone — how are you going to..."
Angela didn't answer. She simply picked up the shield the soldier had dropped. It was already in tatters, one hard blow from splitting in half.
Trisha raised her shortsword and began murmuring under her breath. Sensing the magical act, Angela took stock of the battlefield.
...Too many. At least twenty meters to the cliff entrance, and thirty goblins visible at a rough count.
"We're going. Keep up."
As Trisha finished her chant, wind began to swirl around her body. Recognizing it as the Blessing of Wind, Angela understood her intent at once.
Trisha meant to smash straight through the front with pure speed.
"Understood!"
Trisha took the lead at a run, Angela close behind. The soldiers who had overheard them stepped aside of their own accord.
A goblin that had leapt high to bring its blade down found Trisha's shortsword flashing across its throat instead — and its head went spinning high into the air.
Slash. Slash. Slash.
Trisha's shortsword flickered through the dark cave in tightly controlled thrusts. Goblin heads flew. Fountains of blood erupted and painted the walls.
While the blood-soaked mad elf cut a swath of slaughter, something just as vicious followed in her wake — a set of three-pronged claws, blades raised and ready, carving goblins into pieces.
In an instant the tide of battle flipped. Watching the front ranks get butchered, the goblins in the rear lost their will to fight and began to back away.
The soldiers of the rear line finished off whatever still twitched as they pushed through. A ruthlessly efficient charge. But Squad Leader Gert was reaching his limit.
"Damn it...! How's the front looking?! We're done for back here!!!"
Gert, who had been holding back goblins pouring out like a kicked hornet's nest, finally roared that he couldn't take any more.
"Wait."
In contrast to Gert's desperate cry, Trisha's voice was calm as she sensed a shift on the battlefield.
At the far end of the tunnel the goblins were fleeing through, one of them was not running. A goblin in a black mask held a staff, and a red flame was coalescing in the air above it, spinning.
Magic... crude, but still...
Trisha poured mana into her shortsword and further strengthened the Blessing of Wind.
Whooooosh....!
The flame hanging in the air compressed into a sphere and launched. Trisha swung her wind-wrapped shortsword and struck it back the other way.
Softly cradled by the wind, the fireball curved like an impossible breaking ball and flew back the way it came — and the charging goblins all turned and fled at once.
BOOM!!!
Kishaaaaaaat!!!!!
Keeeeeek!!!!!
The fireball slammed into the goblins' own ranks instead, and the damage was catastrophic. Even the one in the white mask saw it and bolted in terror.
Goblins went up in flames, and the dark cave lit up as bright as midday.
Trisha kept weaving through them, the slaughter never stopping. Whatever remained fell to Angela, who tore them apart with the claws on both hands.
"The exit is right ahead! Captain Gert! You can come through now!"
"Got it, Deputy Head Maid!!! Hup—!"
Gert swung his sword like a baseball bat, dropping three goblins at once, then ran without looking back. Everyone charged for the exit as one.
"Uaaaaaaaah!!!!"
"Let's go! Home!"
The soldiers' half-mad battle cries did their part too.
At the cave mouth, as they pushed out into the light, something came down from above. Trisha took a step back. Angela crossed her claws on pure reflex and shredded it.
....A net?
She looked up. Goblins standing on the cliff were throwing nets down at them.
"...Kh."
They were so tough she could barely cut all the way through. When her claws snagged in the mesh, Angela yanked her wrist free, tore the blades out, then seized the net with her gauntlet and hurled it aside.
Arrows poured down from the cliff next. She deflected a few, but the sheer volume of fire forced her back into the cave mouth. Only when the soldiers behind her raised their shields overhead could they press forward again.
Whsshk!
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
They reached the cave exit under a rain of arrows — and what waited beyond was despair itself.
Kerrk. Kerrrk.
Kerrrrrk.
Ugly laughter rose from every direction. From the cliff tops, from the trees — goblins had them surrounded on all sides.
Trisha narrowed her eyes and looked up the hill.
There stood the black-masked goblin that had used magic earlier, staff in hand, busily directing the others. Beside it, goblin riders sat astride wolves or dogs, spears ready.
"...This does not look good."
Gert came out behind them, breathing hard.
"Damn. There's way too many."
"Dying to goblins? Never even imagined it."
"Don't say shit like that. Bad luck."
"Should've stopped by the brothel before we came out here. At least gotten laid once before I died..."
Faced with a goblin horde that looked well over a hundred strong, the soldiers muttered in defeat.
"Snap out of it, you bastards! Think about getting home alive!"
Even Gert's shout did nothing to improve the look on their faces.
"...This many. There wasn't a single trace around here. How in the world..."
Even Angela, who had seen every kind of battlefield, swallowed hard, tension written all over her. She shook the blood and scraps of flesh from her claws and kept her eyes fixed ahead.
Grrrrr...
Kerrrk. Kerrk. Kerrk.
Kerrk. Kerrk. Kerrk.
The goblins snickered as if mocking the party trapped in their encirclement.
Every time that unpleasant laughter spread, the men's expressions darkened further. A few of the creatures openly rolled their hips in the air, leering at Angela and Trisha. Angela's face twisted in disgust.
The goblins were careful. They didn't rush in at once. They closed the circle slowly, spears and swords in hand — one step at a time, very deliberately.
The sight of them moving like well-drilled soldiers put a faint smile on Trisha's lips.
She reached into the pouch at her waist, took out a wooden seed inscribed with runes, and brought it to her mouth.
"When I give the signal, run."
"What?"
Crunch.
Trisha bit down on the seed and flung it straight ahead. The brown wooden seed split open and blazed with brilliant light.
"Now!"
The flying seed burst. Cotyledons shot up, leaves became branches, and in the blink of an eye the thing grew into a tree dozens of meters tall. The massive trunk spun as it grew, launched like a colossal siege weapon, and smashed through everything around it with a deafening explosion.
KRAAAAANG!!!!
Kryaaaaat!!
Keeeeeek!!!!
Goblins were swept clean away. In an instant, a path opened through the front of the encirclement.
"What."
Everyone stood stunned by the sheer spectacle.
A tree seed that just grew a little bigger?
She'd been talking about collapsing the cave with something this absurd?
Anyone still inside would not have gotten away with mere injuries.
"...What are you doing? Aren't you coming?"
Trisha's words snapped them back to their senses, and they scrambled after her.