*Swip*, *swing*, *swip*...
Okay, I'd say I've covered quite some ground now. And I can see the goblins. Er, the Feral ones. ...Whatever. Grumble's no longer here, so it should be fine just sticking to "goblins" from now on.
Comparing the map I borrowed from the Union with the one I made during my search through the island, there seems to be no big difference between the Iron Isle of the past and the present. It seems renovation isn't the strongest forte of the goblins living here. It's a good thing for us. It will be easier to locate the stolen goods.
According to the Union's map, there are three large areas located above ground that could be used for storing the stolen facilities. Some of the items include Armveil's heath, something they can't use underground unless they wish to die from smoke inhalation or they have so impressive ventilation that underground forging is a possibility. While it's not impossible, the chance for those two scenarios is low.
This, plus I've discovered goblins wearing shiny new armor, even if it's a little shabby. Unless they've stolen it from somewhere and the theft hasn't been reported, then the clues lead to the goblins having already started producing new equipment for themselves. To do that, they have used the stolen smithing tools, at least.
Two of the three suspicious spots are located near the hidden cave and the goblins' port. Let's call them spots A and B respectively. Before we arrived, I had already tasked Mira and Grumble to look at spot A, meaning the latter plus the third spot C are my quota.
Among those two, the one furthest away from the ports seems like the best bet. The goblins I spied on wearing the fancy new armor were all higher-ranked species than the common Feral Goblins—specifically, one Feral Hobgoblin and one Feral Goblin Warrior.
While we're on the subject, a common Feral Goblin is rank F and can evolve into either of these two. Non-Feral goblins are G-rank and can evolve into the F-ranked High Goblin. Afterward, they can evolve in the same fashion as their Feral counterparts.
But enough about that. If my theory of the new items being provided only to the high-ranking monsters, then it's less likely that they will store the newly made equipment in the open area near the port. Notes from adventurers in the past say that area is the hub for the rank-and-file goblins. If I were a Feral, I wouldn't have allowed the equipment meant for me instead of my weaker compatriots to be made too close to them. They would steal it when the first chance appeared.
In short, spot C is the best candidate if only the high-ranking goblins can use the new gear. Of course, spot A could be another candidate, but that's Mira's and Grumble's job. I can confidently say that spot B has the biggest odds of being a dud due to the reasons mentioned above. There might also be a hidden spot D, but let's worry about that after checking out the most likely candidates.
Other than that, I should also look for hiding spots where [Monster Radar] doesn't detect anything. That person is likely to hide there if they're safe. The new [Infrared Sight] skill allows me to detect leftover heat signatures, while [Ultraviolet Sight] gives me an eye for noticing blood and bacteria. The latter is kinda restricted due to only working on stuff related to Poison and Blood, the skill's attributes alongside Light, but it should help to look for clues the goblins have overlooked.
For now, nothing suspicious has appeared in my search... Okay, that's a lie. Everything about this island feels suspicious! I can't put my finger on what, but something is going on here that I don't like. Call it my sixth sense or whatever you like, but the faster we find that person and clues about the goblins' actions, the better.
Right before I was about to launch myself from the cliff I had used to hide while sorting out my thoughts, I decided to observe the naval warfare for a moment. The battle on the lake seems...to be in either party's favor. Three of the goblins' ships have been sunk already, two due to the goblins' bad steering causing them to hit a reef, but more ships are on the waters now.
Alf is doing a good job maneuvering around the reefs, evading any harm from the environment or the goblins' arrows and magic, while also luring the enemy ships into favorable positions for our side. Looking at the goblins left stranded at the reefs, it might have been Alf's tricky sailing that caused them to become marooned instead of the goblins' incompetence as I first believed.
Hmm, they seem to be doing a good job for now. Let's leave worrying about the lake to Alf's gang. I have a mystery spot to investigate.
---
Meanwhile, on the borrowed adventurer ship, "The Marauder":
"Drop the anchor!" - Alf
"Excuse me!?" - Noire
"Anchors dropping now!" - Seira
As the anchor hit the shallow "sea" floor, the Marauder turned around the "corner" of a reef bank that would normally be impossible for an ordinary fishing vessel. Alf, however, armed with the experience of having survived the monster-infested seas near his hometown, along with the Marauder's top-tier quality for a naval vessel, allowed him to maneuver the ship with gusto and no big amount of fear for the ship falling apart due to the reckless movement.
Despite this, Alf was not acting rashly. Every action he did, even the reckless "anchor slide" move just now, was calculated according to Alf's motto of "work smarter, not harder". Using the reef as a barrier to block incoming attacks to give Noire a break so her archery would not drop in performance, as well as allowing the elf Lester to re-arm the cannons added to the Marauder for this quest.
In the past, the opposite had been his guidelines in life, but witnessing the incredibly efficient take-over and improvement of his hometown by a pair of demons that should not be required to be named at this point had caused his worldview to flip on its head.
Albeit, 49.99999% of this 180-degree change did also arrive from how incredibly fatigued Alf's "work harder" policy had caused the poor man to earn various unflattering nicknames such as "the walking corpse" back in his hometown.
The ships of the goblins followed the adventurers around the corner only for one of them to have their underside pierced by a sharp pillar of ice. This is the result of Alf's new skill, [Ice Spikes], a trap-like skill that is most useful when trying to flee opponents. Alf had used consumable talismans to vastly enhance the skill's powers, a cost he was willing to pay if it helped them sink more of the goblins without endangering anyone. Any goblins not named Grumble are not counted, of course.
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However, Alf's wallet is not as deep as his Guild Master. The amulets used for this cold-blooded trap are too expensive for the common man to buy, so Alf could only acquire a few of them for this quest. Had he requested some funding from his Guild Master, the albino demoness would gladly help, but alas. Some of the stubbornness from Alf's hardworking days has yet to be removed. Or perhaps it is just his virtue of not wishing to trouble the leader of his Guild that is coming back to bite him.
The half-sunken goblin ship acted as a blockade for the ships, but one of them managed to steer around the broken driftwood formerly a ship. Feral Goblin Shamans stood at the ship's bow and prepared their spell chants while wielding magic staves adorned with the skulls of humanoids of various races and ages. The canes were nothing better than clubs with added humanoid remains attached to them. They could not act as magic catalysts even if their lives depended on it. The Shamans simply wished to ridicule anyone not of Feral origins, as part of their sadistic nature and as part of a foolish attempt to make themselves look greater than other beings.
"Magic incoming!" - Alf
"Yes~. Leave it to me~." - Seira
The cleric Seira produced a wall of white magic to repel the various magic spells consisting of fireballs, lightning, rocks, and most of all, blocks of metal. The goblins' mages looked with shock as their magic bounced off Seira's wall, with faces that screamed "This is not possible!!". This result was inevitable, however.
Unlike proper mages who continue to train their magical capabilities after learning their spells, the Feral Goblin Shamans were content when they had enough firepower to fry rude, lower-ranked Feral Goblins when the latter party refused to follow the Shamans' commands. The idea of there being someone with more magical might than them failed to appear in their tiny heads. And it never would in the future either, as a set of arrows flew into the Shamans' brains through their eyeholes.
"I finished off the casters!" - Noire
"Good. When their anti-air capabilities are down, could you try to aim for the captains?" - Alf
"Try? Did you forget who you are talking to?" - Noire
Already in position, Noire released her arrow toward the nearest goblin where it found home in between the goblin captain's eyes.
On an unrelated note, the captain goblin, despite being dressed like an old-fashioned pirate with a fake pegleg, eyepatch, and beard, was just a common Feral Goblin that was slightly better at reading the winds and currents. It was NOT an evolved species that earned its bread through piracy.
With the captains down, the crew of the ship started to fight among each other to become the new captain. All while forgetting about the fact that they were already in combat.
*Boom!*
"Nice shot, Lester." - Alf
"It's nice being the one with the firepower for once." - Lester
Sitting behind the cannon still spewing smoke, Lester had a face painted with satisfaction. The Scholar class might grant impressive power of knowledge and analytic abilities, but the rush coming from being able to destroy massive ships is not lost on the knowledge-rich elf.
"Keep aiming at just above the water level. A single shot isn't enough to destroy it, but all we need is to make them sink." - Alf
"Roger that! ...By the way, do you hear something funny?" - Lester
"No...?" - Alf
Trusting the long ears of the elf, Alf turned his attention away from the half-destroyed ships for a second and noticed. A shadow was jumping from reef to reef as it came closer to their position, having gone the long way around to not be noticed alongside the goblin ships.
"It's an ambush!" - Alf
Along with the warning, a giant scorpion leaped toward the Marauder, a Feral Goblin Rider on top of the arachnid monstrosity. The little fiend sneered with glee as the scorpion monster's claws came closer to the boat. Its joy was cut short as a wall of ice blocked its path, causing the scorpion monster to fall into the water. The Goblin Rider? Turned to mush on the cold walls. Its reliance on its steed had prevented its own body from growing strong enough to survive the impact.
"That was too close." - Alf
"Little lady, it seems we need you sooner than we thought." - Lester
"..." - Revi
The "little lady" looked bemused at Lester while she retrieved various strange materials from her item bag and placed them around her. Alf tried to keep the scorpions away in the meanwhile, but not without difficulties.
Certain skills, mostly the Active types or Attack types, such as the [Ice Wall] Alf used to defend the ship with earlier, have what is known as a "recast" period. During this time, the skill in question cannot be used again, preventing rapid deployment of the skill several times in a row, a disadvantage that comes with the skill's almost instant deployment and high attack power.
Compared to Combat Arts, which can even be chained with one another at the disadvantage of consuming difficult-to-recover SP or live ammunition, or magic that either requires a long chant or a magic catalyst, direct skill usage is easier, but the stress some of them puts on the soul forces this recast period to be added to the skills. The ability to keep track of the timing of this recast period and not let it create complications during combat is a mandatory requirement if one wishes to call oneself a true warrior. Many aspiring adventurers have often fallen due to not being able to do this.
Then again, some people, like a certain demon girl, possess an almost unbelievable combat instinct that allows them to use their abilities without a break. People with this instinct are often not even aware of how difficult this kind of feat is, as they only act in a manner they consider "natural". Then again, it might be because they instinctively prefer skills with a short recast period, such as the Bullet series.
"...No choice, I guess." - Alf
Seeing as defending from the ship would be too difficult due to his lack of long-range attacks and reliable and constant defense, especially if the goblins decided to brute-force themselves onto the ship, Alfred decided to go on the offensive for once. Creating an [Ice Pillar] underneath his feet, he used it to catapult himself over to the scorpions crawling on the reefs. One of them tried to stab the flying angler with its stinger.
To his defense, Alf used a common Combat Art from [Spear Arts], "Straight Trust", to deflect the stinger. The goblin riding the scorpion grinned in evil joy, expecting the attack to fail fending off the scorpion's venomous weapon. Despite the expectations, Alf's halberd did not only parry the stinger, it outright destroyed it. The force of the impact even caused the scorpion, with the Feral Goblin Rider still on, to fall off the reef and into the sea.
The reason for this event lies in another new skill of Alf's, [Bat Swing]. An attack skill that adds a Knockback effect to any blunt-type attacks, or attacks using blunt-type weapons. Even if the attacks are Combat Arts. Also, Alf's customized halberd counts as a slashing weapon due to its axe blade, a stabbing weapon through its spear tip, and a blunt weapon through the hammer part attached to the opposite side of the axe blade at the end of the weapon.
Using his weapon's unique traits, Alf had created a loophole that allowed him to bypass the skill's restricted usage.
"Knockback isn't too bad." - Alf
Looking pleased with the result of testing and training in Tir na Nog, not to mention the many years it took for him to master the strange alternative halberd, Alf turned his attention to the Ferals. They had been standing there, gasping over the "impossibility" in front of them, seeing one of theirs being beaten by such a simple Combat Art.
This was part of Alf's plan, as he needed a small moment to get into position after having jumped from a solid ship to dry land in such a quick fashion. It might seem like a wasted effort to be bothered about something that unimportant, but it is thanks to worrying about these tiny details that Alf has survived for so long.
"Well, who is next?" - Alf
Through verbal and skill-based [Taunting], Alf had one of the nearest Feral Goblin Riders try to attack him. Before the scorpion could jump, Alf used a [Shadow Snare] to trap the arachnid giant just before it could jump over to his reef. The sudden halt in the air caused the goblin to fall off the scorpion's back and was sent flying toward Alf with strange arm movements as if it tried to imitate a bird in its panic. The goblin met the business end of Alf's halberd, getting its skull smashed in by the hammer part of the polearm.
That is two. For how long can I hold on? thought Alf as he tried to calculate how much he needed to exert himself to keep the attention of the goblins on him and not on the draconic witch who was currently preparing a witchcraft spell of death to defeat the Goblin Riders. No one can say this man is without a plan.