"Well, whaddayaknow..." - Garami
I looked at the large mine cart that had been left behind from times of old when the Iron Isle wasn't occupied by barbaric goblins but proud miners~. Not that I know if this mine cart is goblin-provided items or not. And even if it weren't, there's a big chance the pioneers who created Tir na Nog had a finger with this mining gear, and I hate them. Poor Revi suffered because of those fools... Not that she remembers her past enough to be bothered by it though~! I asked Alf to ask her for me. Revi seems to be the type that doesn't tell the truth if I ask her if her "previous" life was harsh on her...
"Master, they have left now, so stop daydreaming!" - Bloom
"Fiiiine..." - Garami
Hearing that the coast was clear, I peeked out from the hidden area Bloom and I had discovered on our trip to the crime scene where the Cheerful Hunters left that guy behind. As for why I spoke so quietly before, it was not only due to admiration of the hidden cultural heritage, it was also because there was this HUGE group of goblins running to the docks. Every man on deck, I guess. I hope the distraction team is doing alright.
They must be. They got both Alf and Iron there.
I jumped out of the hidden mining tunnel and looked around. The current area is like a maze of dirt walls. I suspect the miners from the old days were digging out so many tunnels that they started giving up on dumping it into the lake and rather started building walls. Or maybe it was from a time right before the goblins started living on the island and the walls were primitive defenses built in haste?
In any case, regarding the goblins in the present, they have indeed left the area. I can't detect any traps that they could have left behind, nor are there any strange feelings of being watched...
Okay, scratch that. There's SOMETHING here!
"Bloom, stay on guard." - Garami
"Eh!? Is it a goblin!?" - Bloom
"If it was, I'd either been attacked, or gone on the attack already. This is different..." - Garami
There is some presence nearby, but I can't put my finger on exactly where it is coming from, or what it comes from. I did have to evacuate into the mining tunnel quite hastily when we discovered the goblin patrol almost took us by surprise, but that isn't a good reason why I didn't notice this presence...this bloodlust until now...
"Ah, it went away." - Garami
"It did? Just what in the world was it?" - Bloom
That's the question of the minute. It didn't go after me, but it was some serious amount of bloodlust. It reminded me of the higher-rank species from the Water-Knot—the ones who weren't bosses, but still. The only other thing nearby is Bloom, but I seriously doubt she's the target. Then the next-next-closest potential prey would be...the goblin patrol just now?
Just to be sure, I started to tail the trails of the passerby goblins while being on guard for any potential traps. I'm getting further away from the "crime scene" from where that guy was last seen, but I'm not planning on following the gobs for that long.
And it seems I don't have to anyway! Right as I turned around to enter an open space in this artificial dug-out labyrinth, a green meat bag (read: dead Feral Goblin) came flying towards the wall right beside me and exploded in a shower of gunk and blood. I dodged the dirty firework's aftermath. Bloom, on the other hand...
"GYAAAAAAHH!!!!" - Bloom
Let's look for any fairy-sized spas in Velantas after this.
But what goblin launcher decided to make such a mess out of this place? The open space is even dirtier than the wall behind the entrance I came from. All the Feral Goblins have been bludgeoned to death by something. Even those giant scorpions a tamer-looking gob had with him. As for the culprit..., they are nowhere in sight. Though, I have a good gut feeling about who they are...
"Heya, Rassel." - Garami
"...! Garami~!! Sweetie~, what are you doing here~?" shouted the super-buff, super-feminine, male(?) bodybuilder of a monk, her(his?) fists still bloody with goblin gore. He better wash those before he starts cooking those delish skewers of hers.
Each time we returned from one of our "adventurers", I always made sure to go to her stall and celebrate my survival with the finest meat Rassel had to sell. I think it has something to do with the fact that Rassel's stall was the location where I got my first decent meal in my reborn life. I just get attracted like metal dust to a magnet whenever I get close to Rassel's stall.
"Why are you here~? It is dangerous for a sweetie pie such as you to wander around in such a filthy place~." - Rassel
"Rescuing you. Not that it seems it was necessary." - Garami
"Aww, you're such a jokester. Not to forget about your ability to have great timing~! Do you mind helping me with a little something~?" - Rassel
"What 'something'?" - Garami
"Just a little face-off against the blasted damn **** jerk who is robbing everyone in our beloved city of their joys!!" - Rassel
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Aaaaand now I'm smelling problems rather than delicious grilled meat. Eh, whatever. In for a penny, in for a pound. More importantly, an angry Rassel is scary enough that I don't dare to say no.
---
Meanwhile, back at the sea battle by Iron Isle's coast:
The Marauder manned by the four adventures sailed through the reef-infested waters near Iron Isle. The ship's unofficial captain, Alf, was causing goblins and scorpions to drop into the water like bags of lead they must be from their lack of swimming abilities, so Lester the Scholar took the helm for him.
While he is not that bad in the art of sailing a ship, Lester is far from a helmsman compared to the scorpion slayer dancing with goblin gore on top of the reefs. This drop in quality is allowing the goblin ships to start catching up on the ship and the trio of magic casters currently running the ship all by their lonesome.
However, as some might have noticed, the four on the boat, Alf on the reefs, and the three adventurers currently sneaking around on Iron Isle do not add up to the number of people who left Velantas on that boat.
"Lester, two more ships in front of us!" - Siris
"Damn it all!!" - Lester
*CRASH!!*
Along with Lester's cursing, the sound of destroyed wood could be heard. The source of the noise was one of the ships the cleric woman had warned the elf about. The ship was starting to sink into the great lake, the goblins aboard as rowdy as they would be when they had kidnapped young maidens from the cities. Luckily, the ones in crisis this time around are them.
Who could the culprit of this act of vandalism of good wood be? It was not the Marauder's cannon that had destroyed them, as Lester, the only one who could man them, was busy with the helm. It was not Siris, as she does not possess any offensive magic capable of destroying a ship.
And for the two members of the Nightmare Voyagers, they were too busy fending off the ships that were trying to catch up to the Marauder from behind. Noire's magic arrows found their home in between the eyes of the goblin ships' captains while Revi used her 300-year-long experience with [Death Magic] to produce solid "Death Wall" spells to fend off attacks almost better than Siris' walls, despite Death being an anti-person-type attribute as opposed to the Cleric woman's Purification attribute.
No, the culprit behind this mystery is found underneath the lake's surface...
"Yes! Got one more! Terd, be ready for the next one!" - Brak
"Roger." - Terd
The two Cheerful Hunters made such banter while Iron descended to the lake's bottom. Then the trio had to high-tail it out of there so that the sinking ship would not land on top of their heads.
Iron, thanks to his nature as a ghostly knight, does not need to breathe, so Garami and Brak planned out this strategy of attacking the goblins' ships from below the day before they set out to the island. The undead knight alone would not be enough, so Garami ordered Noire to acquire a set of "Underwater Breathing"-type accessories to allow other people to assist Iron in his underwater expedition.
The effect of these accessories allows the user to not only breathe in locations without any oxygen, it also allows the user to communicate with other people despite there being any air that can be used to transmit the sound.
Thanks to Noire, the team obtained 3 copies of this accessory, however, due to the lack of volunteers for this expedition, the only people who could help Iron were Brak, whose [Wind Magic] allows him to send the heavier fighters flying (literally) up from the relative shallow lake bottom and reach the ships, and Terd, whose strong axe could easily cut holes in the ships' hulls.
As for Iron, he is burning holes in the hull through his newly obtained Magma attribute skills. As a side-effect, the magma-infused shield bash made it impossible for Brak and Terd to get close to the same area without getting boiled alive, so they preserved Iron for whenever Terd needed a break.
This strategy had born great fruits. The underwater trio had sunk more ships than the sailing quartet, a feat Brak was starting to get suspicious of.
"You guys, where did those goblins get all these ships?" - Brak
"...They built them?" - Iron
"A reasonable deduction, I have to agree with you there, but that's not what I was trying to ask. What I meant to ask is, where did the goblins get all that wood needed to make all these ships." - Brak
"Iron Isle is famous for their iron veins, but they do not have much in the form of vegetation." - Terd
"That's my point! Forget vegetation and trees, there are barely any weeds on that bare wasteland of an island! Heck, even Little Wasteland is rumored to be greener than this place!" - Brak
As the conversation moved to include the Iron Isle, Iron the Ghost decided not to speak up for fear of inviting confusion to the discussion. Instead, he was trying to figure out the mystery that Brak had discovered, but to no luck. A knight he might be, but Iron can still be considered a "country bumpkin" in the eyes of people who lived outside of Tir na Nog. He is missing the wisdom of the outside world that would help him unravel this mystery.
Therefore, he decided to take care of the things he had the power to do.
"Could you throw me onto the ship, sir Brak?" - Iron
Saying that Brak was surprised by Iron's sudden suggestion would be an understatement. However, the party leader had learned his lesson not to expect any common sense from the Nightmare Voyagers, so he played along with the ghost knight's plan.
A magical incarnation later, and the deadly menace of metal, magma, and ectoplasm boarded the last remaining goblin ship. The goblins had a look of surprise for a moment, but the second that moment ended, they competed on who could bash in the invader's head the fastest.
Using his shield to deflect the vanguard fighter goblins' handaxes, swords, and spears, completely unaware that their rash behavior prevents the goblin mages and archers from attacking, Iron started to generate a sphere of molten magma and fired it toward the ship's main sail.
[Magma Bomb] is the name of this attack skill. It is similar to Garami's [Poison Ball] skill, but it has more attack power (along with being more unstable) due to the skill's nature of generating a "bomb" that detonates instead of a globe to throw.
Iron, however, does not flinch even in front of the Magma attribute's intense heat. It is equally due to his low skill level with the attack skill as his natural defensive powers, but for the goblin ship, the heat is more than enough to cause the entire main sail to turn into a blazing candlelight.
While the goblins panicked as they tried to extinguish the fire, Iron used the chance to investigate the ship. As he looked over the deck, he quickly noticed that while the ship was shabbily built, the wood itself had been processed to an utterly perfect degree. Despite the goblins having trampled all over the wooden floor with their dirty feet, the wood seemed polished like the deck of a luxury cruiser.
Iron's knowledge of woodwork might not be the best in the world, but even he understood that goblins cannot process timber to such a miraculous degree. Keeping that in mind, he released another [Magma Bomb] at the goblins before jumping off the ship and landed onto one of the reefs close by. Thanks to his lighter-than-it-looks body and impressive physical strength, he easily jumped from one rock to another until he reached the Marauder.
"Is there a need for a guard here?" - Iron
"Our knight!!" - Lester & Siris
Defense is more in his style than trying to boil everyone alive in the lake after all.