Before his voice even faded, a second Arrow flew from the darkness. The guard who had just shouted about an enemy attack opened his mouth, only for the Arrow to nail him in the throat. Clutching his neck with both hands, he let out a GURGLE, then tipped forward and plunged into the campfire. The Flame leaped high, and the stench of burning flesh mixed with the tang of blood filled the air.
"Fuck! What a jinx." Watching the two men who were just laughing and chatting suddenly die before his eyes, Lorin felt a chill run down his spine. The attack happened so fast that he hadn’t reacted at all. If the targets of those two Arrows weren’t them, but himself... Lorin certainly didn’t think he could have dodged them.
In his past life, he was just a law-abiding, Ordinary person. Living for over twenty years, he rarely even argued with anyone. The fiercest conflict he had ever seen resulted in losing half a tooth in a fistfight; he had never witnessed a scene like this. But he knew this wasn’t the time to space out. He grabbed Pip by the vest, trying to drag him behind the cart’s wheel. However, Lorin found that while the short man looked agile, he was actually heavy as hell. Unable to budge him, Lorin used his momentum to roll and hide behind the wooden cart, shouting, "Watch out! Take cover!"
Pip sprinted over on his short legs and huddled next to him behind the wheel. The wheel was taller than his head, shielding him completely. Lorin swung the Broken Sword off his back. Gripping it in his hand, he realized he was so tense he had forgotten to unsheathe it. He drew his blade; though it wasn’t some divine weapon, holding it gave him a measure of comfort.
Having steadied his nerves, he finally had a moment to observe his surroundings. He noticed that the guards, Soron, and the others had quickly scattered, each finding their own place to hide.
"In the woods!" someone shouted. "They’re in the woods!"
"Do you see anything?"
"It’s too dark! They must all be behind the trees."
Soron quickly nocked an Arrow to his Bow, firing a shot back in the direction the attack came from. The Arrow disappeared into the darkness without making a single sound. The TWANG of a bowstring sounded again. He hastily ducked back and shouted, "Raise your Shields!"
This time there were at least ten. Hearing the shafts piercing the air, Lorin instinctively ducked his head low. An Arrow grazed his ear and nailed into the wheel, its arrowhead piercing through the wood to protrude by half an inch.
"HISS—" Lorin drew a sharp breath in pain as his outer ear was scraped bloody, but fortunately, a quick check revealed it was only a flesh wound.
A driver trying to hide beneath a cart wasn’t so lucky. His burly physique prevented him from fully crawling under, and his Shield couldn’t cover his entire body. His exposed lower leg was struck by an Arrow, causing the man to scream and roll around clutching his leg, only to be shot dead on the spot by the ensuing barrage. Seeing his gruesome fate, the others were chilled to the bone. They could only huddle desperately behind the carts, praying the Arrows wouldn’t hit them.
The Arrows stopped. After a brief silence, Lorin carefully poked half his head out, staring in the direction of the woods.
Dark silhouettes emerged from behind the tree trunks. They had short, hunched figures, pointy ears, and green-brown skin that gleamed with an oily sheen in the light of the Flame. They clutched crude Short Bows in their hands and had bone knives tucked into their waists, their gaping mouths revealing jagged, yellow teeth. This image was all too familiar to Lorin; they appeared in countless games and movies. It was a pack of goblins!
"goblins, they’re goblins!"
"Fuck, how can goblins shoot so accurately?" someone cried out in terror.
A low growl echoed from the woods. All the goblins simultaneously dropped their Bows, drew their bone knives, and charged at the camp. Lorin readied his sword. Just as he was about to stand up and meet the enemy, he noticed the Halfling beside him pulling that Long Hammer from his back. Pip’s eyes were dead set on the charging goblins, his breathing turning heavy and ragged.
"Pip?"
Pip took a deep breath and suddenly roared in the Dwarf tongue, "Fuck your mothers, you green-skinned bastards!! I’ll smash your fucking heads in!!!"
Lorin blinked, wondering if there was something wrong with his ears.
Pip quickly vaulted over the cart, his two short legs pumping fast. The Long Hammer dragged along the ground, plowing a shallow trench in the dirt. Before the oncoming goblins could react, they were swept away by a full-circle swing of his hammer. Two of them crashed into each other, rolling away in a tangled heap.
"Come on!" Pip smashed his hammer down, bursting a goblin’s head like a rotten watermelon. He grinned, his smile looking incredibly ferocious in the glow of the Flame. "Hahahahaha! That feels good!!!"
"Is he really not a Dwarf?" Lorin wondered. But there was no time to marvel.
The goblins bypassed Pip and swarmed into the camp from all directions. Lorin tightened his grip on the sword hilt. He sidestepped to avoid a goblin pouncing from a wagon and slashed his blade across its neck. The Broken Sword failed to sever its cervical spine, but the force still sent it flying sideways. It slammed into the cart’s wheel, twitched twice, and stopped moving.
[First Enemy Kill — goblin]
[Reward: 50 Exploration Experience points]
[Current Balance: 91 Exploration Experience points]
"It seems... quite easy?" he thought.
Lorin looked at the twitching corpse. Black blood bubbled from the goblin’s cleaved neck, its dead eyes staring blankly at him. He swallowed hard and forced himself to look away. It was a fight to the death. Only the survivors had the right to be squeamish. He kicked down another charging goblin and drove the tip of his sword into its belly. As he yanked it out, warm liquid splattered onto his hand. Lorin realized these creatures weren’t actually hard to deal with. As long as one wasn’t swarmed, in a one-on-one fight, even an Ordinary person with a pitchfork could kill them.
He fought while retreating, taking a moment to observe the situation in the camp. The guards were fighting individually; some were surrounded by several goblins and fell with agonizing screams. The drivers cowered under the carriages, wildly thrusting outward with wooden sticks. Soron and the two Adventurers stood back-to-back, cutting down one creature after another. But there were simply too many goblins. For every ten killed, twenty more charged out of the woods.
Something wasn’t right. Creatures like goblins were bullies who feared the strong. Yet, there were at least twenty of their corpses littering the camp, and they were still surging forward as if they had no concept of fear.
"Watch out, I feel like something’s wrong!" Lorin frowned, shouting a warning.
Soron hacked a sneaking goblin to death and spat on the ground. He heard Lorin’s words and had also noticed the anomaly.
"How is this kid such a good fighter?" Soron thought. "I thought he was a greenhorn. I actually misjudged him... But where did all these goblins come from?"
His eyes flickered as he scanned the people resisting the attack. Rubbing the hilt of his sword, he signaled to his companions nearby. The few of them stealthily gathered together, retreating all the way to an area with fewer goblins.
"Retreat!" Soron said in a low voice.
One of his subordinates had been waiting for this word for a long time. Unable to hold back, he vaulted over a wagon and hurriedly fled into the woods. Soron looked at him with an ugly expression, cursed under his breath, and also hopped onto the cart, intending to escape in the chaos.
But immediately after, he froze in place. The annoyed expression on his face stiffened, and he let out a trembling, terrified shriek:
"H... Hobgoblin!!!"