Captain Garp.
An adventurer whose overall strength approached that of a professional.
As the captain of an adventurer team recommended by the guild, Garp was not only formidable in strength but also possessed rich adventure experience and calm, accurate judgment.
After noticing the charred corpse that had flown out of the cave and blocking the seemingly powerful, yet only slightly stronger than his own strike from the Goblin Warrior, Garp instantly understood the characteristics of this Goblin Warrior before him.
‘Its evolution tends toward elite rather than berserker?’ Realizing this, Garp mustered his strength and, utilizing techniques learned from the guild’s training grounds, activated the skill [Slash] once more, forcefully parrying the Goblin Warrior’s attack.
“Haus, Zem, you handle the other goblins.
Russell, protect Jack!” Seizing the opening from the “parry,” Garp issued orders to the team.
At this moment, aside from the Goblin Warrior, over twenty ordinary goblins had already crawled out of the cave and were eagerly closing in.
Garp was confident he could handle this Goblin Warrior alone, but only in a one-on-one fight.
Once other Goblins seized the chance to harass them, the scales of victory would immediately tip.
Now, they could only pin their hopes on the other two teammates still capable of fighting, as well as the newcomer, Haus.
Upon receiving the order, Zem shifted his attention away from the Goblin Warrior, gripped his hand axe, and charged toward the group of goblins.
But what greeted his eyes was a goblin corpse lying on the ground.
Looking up, he saw Haus wielding a longsword, fearlessly charging into the goblins.
As he charged, stones and clubs struck Haus’s chest but were inexplicably deflected.
Seizing the opportunity, Haus swung his sword, cleaving through the ordinary goblin before him, whose stature was less than a meter tall.
In the moment, the goblin was clutching its neck in agony and struggling; Haus followed up with several more slashes, cleaving it diagonally into several pieces.
Scattered limbs, foul-smelling entrails, and warm, sticky blood littered the ground.
Some of the blood splattered onto Haus’s face, yet his expression remained unchanged.
At this moment, Haus realized that his heart was unusually calm in the face of such a scene.
He didn’t know how others would feel when confronted with a scene of flesh and blood flying and bones exposed, but he felt neither disgust nor fear.
Perhaps it was because he had grown up in the countryside, helping to slaughter chickens and geese from a very young age, and even assisting the elderly in butchering pigs when he returned to the village for the New Year.
Thus, he harbored little aversion to such bloody scenes.
On the contrary, when he met the gaze of these goblins, Haus clearly saw the evil in their eyes.
It was an innate, utterly pure evil, an evil that must be completely eradicated.
Goblins were destined to be slaughtered beasts.
Following the guidance of his heart, Haus swung his longsword.
The ordinary refined iron sword, originally priced at forty silver coins but bought second-hand for twenty, combined with the standard adult strength of 5 points, easily cut into the goblin’s flesh.
Occasionally, due to the angle of his swing, the blade would get stuck between the ribs, but with a slight adjustment and a forceful pull, he could easily free it.
However, after continuously slaying three of them, Haus’s stamina gradually depleted, and his movements began to slow.
The intense combat, coupled with the weight of his armor and weapon, rapidly drained his energy.
He simply couldn’t hold out for much longer.
Just as Haus swung his sword with all his might once more, a sudden pain shot through the outer side of his right thigh.
A goblin had silently circled to Haus’s side and seized the perfect moment to launch a sneak attack.
A club struck Haus’s thigh hard, the spikes at its tip instantly piercing over a dozen wounds less than five millimeters deep.
Although the wounds were shallow, they were enough to bleed.
If not bandaged and stopped immediately, within just a few minutes, the continuous blood loss would render Haus immobile and cause him to faint.
Ultimately leading to his death.
This was why, even though goblins were extremely weak, so weak that a single individual might not even defeat a stray dog on the roadside, countless adventurers still lost their lives to them.
These goblins, capable of wielding weapons, were precisely the so-called “glass cannons.” Low defense, relatively weak strength, yet the weapons in their hands were incredibly lethal.
After being ambushed, Haus clutched his injured thigh and immediately retreated a few steps, letting out an intimidating roar at the goblins before him, hoping to buy himself a few seconds to think.
Seeing this, the goblins seemed to share the idea of stalling for time, waiting for Haus to slowly bleed to death.
Thus, they stopped attacking and instead spread out to surround Haus, confining him within their encirclement.
Seeing the goblins cooperating so readily, Haus secretly rejoiced and immediately began assessing his current situation.
The next moment, he activated the skill he had acquired when contracting the slime.
[Slow Regeneration] [Slow Regeneration: Your physical healing ability is slightly enhanced] The skill activated, and Haus felt a surge of heat flowing within his body.
The heat rushed and boiled through his veins with each heartbeat, circulating like blood throughout his entire body before finally converging at the wound on his thigh, where it gradually dissipated.
As the heat faded, the blood lost from the wound was partially replenished, and the damaged flesh began to slowly repair itself.
In just a few seconds, the wound stopped bleeding.
Not only that, Haus clearly felt that the energy consumed during the earlier fight was also rapidly recovering under the skill’s effect.
His limbs, which had felt somewhat heavy, and the longsword in his hand regained their lightness.
While his wound healed, Haus quickly scanned his surroundings.
Seeing his other teammates struggling in difficult battles with goblins, his heart sank.
He shifted his gaze back to the goblin in front of him.
In the next moment, he abruptly turned and swung his sword toward the goblin behind him.
…
Meanwhile.
Russell was holding a staff in one hand, locked in a difficult struggle with a Goblin Imp wielding a club.
At her feet lay another goblin with its head crushed by her staff.
Her other arm hung limply at her side, with droplets of blood seeping from her sleeve.
Like Haus, Russell had also been ambushed by a goblin, though her injuries were not as severe as his.
Beside her, Jack lay on the ground, trying to raise his hand to fire another arrow.
But the aftereffects of his earlier skill activation lingered, and the worsening wound on his chest left him utterly weak, unable to draw the bowstring.
“Russell, don’t worry about me.
Get out of here and go help Haus.” After assessing the situation around them, Jack spoke with difficulty.
He had seen Haus being attacked by the goblin and noticed the large bloodstain spreading on Haus’s trousers.
After all, he was still a novice.
Even with the courage and strength to face monsters head-on, his overall abilities were insufficient, unable to sustain him for long.
Now injured, without help, he would likely fall under the goblin’s club within minutes.
And Russell was also injured.
Rather than protecting a useless cripple like himself, it would be better to help Haus; perhaps they could hold out a little longer.
“Don’t worry about me, Russell.
Go help—” “Shut up!” Russell roared, forcefully swinging her staff to knock the goblin to the ground.
Then, she quickly chanted a spell, completing the casting while the creature struggled to rise.
A fireball shot out, striking the goblin squarely.
“How could I possibly abandon you?!” Russell turned back and shouted at Jack.
Her usually calm face was now etched with tension and anxiety.
This surprised Jack.
It was the first time in all these years he had seen Russell wear such an expression.
Jack wanted to keep looking at this novel expression, but a flash of green in his peripheral vision caught his attention.
When Jack instinctively glanced behind Russell, his pupils involuntarily widened.
A goblin, one that had hidden itself, lurking in a nearby bush, using its natural coloration for camouflage, waiting to ambush!
This goblin seized the moment when Russell turned to shout and launched a fierce assault, charging forward with a small bone knife!
“Russell…” “Die!” The sharp tip of the sword pierced through the goblin’s chest.
Haus, who had arrived just in time, roared as he put all his strength into his hands, lifting the ordinary goblin that had attempted a sneak attack into the air before hurling it aside.
Immediately after, he raised his blood-stained longsword and brought it down with a heavy slash, much like how Zem swung his axe.
Under the astonished gazes of the two, Haus fiercely dispatched the goblin before him.
Then, he turned to face the remaining few goblins that were chasing after him.
Haus began tirelessly parrying, blocking attacks aimed at his vital head area, and seizing the moment when his opponents struggled to strike again, he swung his sword in wide, sweeping cleaves.
Watching the seemingly inexhaustible young man, Jack, who was already past thirty, opened his mouth as if to say something but found himself at a loss for words.
Had he ever possessed such abundant stamina in his youth?