Rezak Al'Sherda hated goblins with a passion. As he walked through the destroyed village, he felt his hand curl around his sword hilt and grip it tightly in its sheath. The sight of the formerly peaceful and lively community that was now ravaged and pillaged brought flashbacks of a past trauma.

He and his teammates had been planning to enter the city's dungeon when they'd heard rumors of bandits attacking villages. Rezak had made the decision to investigate; he was glad he had.

"When was the last goblin purge?" He asked his teammates, grimacing at the sight of a dead villager.

The villager had died from a brutal clubbing to the head, as evidenced by the brain matter leaking out of it, but the goblins had taken enough bites out of his body to leave it unrecognizable.

"Clearly not recently enough if they've gotten bold enough to attack a village this close to Renarda."

He and his team had scoured the buildings, looking for life in the dead village. It was rare, but there were sometimes survivors of goblin raids who had hidden and avoided being killed, eaten or enslaved. He would know.

He had been found in a hidden basement, insensate from fear and grief. The experience had been what motivated him to become an ascender.

"The City Council has been too busy dealing with the Tuvak Tribe attacks to pay attention to the goblins," Anna said. She was tall and svelte, with long, waist-length luminous red hair and blue eyes. She was the strongest member of the team aside from him and was the most talented he'd seen at sand magic.

"So aside from the Tuvak rebellion, your city also has to worry about goblin incursions, too," Keton spoke up, standing from where he had just closed a child's eyes.

The quiet man had on a cloak and pants. Although they seemed simple and unadorned, they were enchanted to withstand high degrees of damage. Nothing below Ascendant-level could fully destroy the self-repairing clothes. Rezak was envious of them and had always wondered how the man had afforded them but was not close enough to him to ask.

He had green skin, no hair and tiny, slightly discolored bumps across his forehead and scalp. Around his neck and shoulders, fat bulbs of flesh and fat protruded. Those had disgusted Rezak for a while, but now he'd gotten used to them.

Keton was from one of the Myriad Races of the Realms.

He was also the main front line fighter of the team, a pugilist with great strength, high regeneration and incredible stamina under the light of the sun.

His race, the Emeralds as they called themselves, had been expelled out of their Realm and now journeyed across multiple Realms, hoping to get powerful enough to take back their Realm and unite their race once more.

He was a quiet, taciturn man but Rezak could notice the signs of his anger. The Emeralds considered children and homes sacred.

"We could still catch up to the goblins," Caylon said, with a careless grin as he kicked at a dead goblin's head. "Goblin hunting might turn out to be more fun than dungeon delving."

He cast the dead body a hungry look.

Caylon was the fourth member of the team and a Demon. He had dark, red-tinged skin and looked like a human except for the dusky purple horns that swept back from his forehead and his completely purple eyes.

His casual, careless attitude usually annoyed Rezak and made him wish he hadn't teamed up with him but this time he ignored the irreverence to consider the demon's words. Goblin hunting, to Rezak, was always a good idea. He made it a point to kill every goblin he came across.

"We'll need to report this to the Adventurer's Guild first," Anna said to him. "We can't just go after them like that. The Guild must still be unaware of the goblins."

"Or, we could report the raid later. It's just some goblins," Caylon said, shaking his head. "They have captives amongst them. That would slow them down a lot. This is an opportunity to get them back before they rejoin the horde."

Rezak knew Caylon cared more about fighting the goblins than reclaiming any captives.

"If they've gotten bold enough to venture this close to Renarda, their horde population must have skyrocketed," Anna warned. "They have to be running out of food in their dens to come here."

Rezak nodded at her words. Previous purges had instilled in the goblins an ingrained fear of the regions around Renarda. For them to come this close meant they must have run out of food. It also meant that the further villages must have been pillaged and destroyed some time ago. The lack of trade must have been what brought on the rumors of bandit attacks.

Normally, goblin raids were reported quickly. Warnings should have been sent to the Adventurer's Guild for them to give out goblin culling missions before it got this bad. However, there had been culling missions and they'd only come by this village from rumors of bandits.

On one hand, they could go report to the Adventurer's Guild and probably get mired in bureaucracy as the Guild officials attempted to verify their reports before giving a rescue mission and a goblin purge mission. On the other hand, they could save all that time and go directly after the creatures and their captives.

He looked around at the team. It had clearly been a while since the goblin raid, which had happened in the early hours of the morning. The goblins already had a huge headstart over them. Even if the goblins were slowed down by the captives, only Caylon, Keton and he could move fast enough to catch up with them before they entered the desert expanse and rejoined their hordes. Anna, Yva and Jason wouldn't be able to move as fast as them.

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His choice was to split the team temporarily. He, Caylon and Keton could chase after the goblins. Going without Yva, their healer, was not an ideal plan, but they would have to do without her.

Goblins shouldn't be able to hurt them too much, even in numbers.

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Marc was feeling tired and cranky.

Despite his improved physique, the constant need to be aware of nearby creatures and careful of his pacing was beginning to wear on him. The heat hadn't been doing him any favors either.

He was following the group ahead without getting close enough to be detected. He had gotten close enough to confirm that the greenskins ahead were goblins. They were probably called something else in this world but Marc could recognize a fantasy goblin when he saw one. From the treatment of the humans in the group, he could guess they were slaves. He didn't know why humans existed in this world but that had basically nixed any idea of joining the group.

Heck, he was even now considering whether or not he should continue to follow them.

Where else but to their territory could the goblins be leading the slaves to? It was basically guaranteed that there would be more goblins wherever they went and he wasn't even confident in coming out on top with the ones here.

However, anywhere the goblins had made their habitat was likely to have food and water.

After four hours of trekking, he could already see distant mountain snowcapped peaks over the dunes. With mountains and snow, there was sure to be running water and vegetation.

He did wonder why the goblins would come all the way here to capture humans for food - or at least, he hoped it was just for food - when there should be wildlife nearer to them. The only explanation was that wildlife closer to the mountains was too dangerous for them to hunt there.

The strength of the human communities should be the reason they hadn't migrated in the direction they had been coming from - that was, um, south -, so the goblins were stuck in the desert between the humans and the mountain, making forays into both sides for sustenance.

Marc wasn't sure if his theory was correct but he thought it felt likely those were the circumstances.

He briefly considered turning and going south but immediately after shot down that idea. First, he wasn't sure if his idea of powerful human settlements close by was true. The human slaves with the goblins right now might just be from a nomadic tribe or a caravan.

Secondly, he didn't know the distance he would have to cover to find a settlement. Night was drawing near already and he had already gone this far following the goblins. To turn around now would make everything a waste of time and energy.

He hadn't eaten or drunk anything since appearing on this world and occasionally, his stomach would cramp painfully.

There had been a cluster of desert shrubs that the goblins had foraged from but when he got to it, there was nothing left except some crushed berries soaked into the sand. The goblins had to have some food and water with them but he couldn't risk trying to steal some now.

Marc had gone without food before but never without water. The hunger was manageable, even reminiscent of his college days when he had to scrimp and save, but the thirst was another thing. In modern civilization, especially in cities, there was always access to water.

His lips felt dry and his throat was parched. The red sun's heat wasn't helping either.

The lifeforce within his body was sustaining him but the hungrier and thirstier he got, the less his body produced. His production rate wasn't very high in the first place. He had been periodically placing Essence points into his Physique to stimulate lifeforce production and it seemed to work. Every 5% increase in his Physique progress seemed to improve his lifeforce generation and general wellbeing. Less than 5% also did the same but he couldn't actually really notice the change without focusing while he added the points.

He hadn't encountered any especially powerful creatures following in the path of the goblins; they seemed to have a method to ward them away and those that ignored it and attacked them were usually killed quite quickly by some good teamwork and numbers. That was one of the reasons Marc hadn't tried attacking them.

Sure, they were weak individually and some of them died to the monsters, but they knew how to use their crude weapons and were clever enough to strategize. He had also noticed a few particularly strong goblins he was pretty sure could instakill him as he was.

He might be able to kill some of the weaker greenskins but the rest would quickly take him down in short order. He might be lucky to escape with injuries but he wasn't willing to trust in his improved Physique to heal him fully and he had no first aid equipment.

A few smaller, weaker monsters had attacked him, though and he'd racked up about 400 points. He had gotten a few injuries, mostly bruises and scrapes but on his left arm, four long, slightly deep cuts remained from when one of the hairy rodents, this one noticeably larger than the others, had scratched him.

He didn't have any water to wash out the wound but he had painfully and carefully wiped and bandaged it with fabric torn off from his tunic. It was a constant, painful reminder to always be careful. If a fantasy hamster could do that to him, a goblin with a spear could do a lot worse.

The best thing he could do was to wait for the goblins to set camp. Unless their dens were near, they'd have to stop for rest. He was actually surprised they hadn't stopped once already, but he guessed that was because of the slower pace they had maintained. Even if they weren't tired though, their captives were and they would have to stop unless they wanted them to die of exhaustion.

Most of the goblins should fall sleep at night unless goblins didn't require sleep. Hopefully, the goblins were also incompetent and didn't set up a watch. That wasn't very likely, though. They still had to keep an eye on their surroundings and captives. However, they would at least relax a bit and let down their guard.

By then, he could sneak into their camp the and find food and water. Maybe then he wouldn't have to follow them into their abodes.

What he would do beyond that, he didn't know. He felt pity for the captives. It would suck to be eaten but he didn't have the power to free them. If he tried freeing them sneakily, he would run the very high risk of one of their goblin guards - because he was sure there would be guards - discovering him and alerting the rest to his presence. After that, well there would probably be no more Marc.

He didn't know anything about stealth except what he'd read or watched, and if there was one rule about the internet and modern media, it was to trust nothing from the internet and modern media.

Just sneaking into the camp for supplies was already a big risk. Marc could only wait and see if any opportunities presented themselves.

He just continued putting one foot in front of the other, lurking behind the goblins. His eyes darted around him every once in a while, taking in his surroundings to avoid danger.

Some time ago, the terrain had started to shift from mostly desert sand to desert sand with rocks and shrubs scattered around alongside the occasional tree. The sun had started to set and it painted the brown sand in unique shades of rusty red and orange. A light wind periodically stirred the surface sand.

To the front, the goblins began to slow down as twilight set in. When the sun dipped behind the horizon, the goblins started to set up camp. Marc breathed a sigh of relief and moved further away after confirming they truly were setting camp.

He didn't want to be caught by scouts checking the area around the camp. He moved to stay behind a fairly large boulder, close enough to still be able to monitor them but distant enough that a cursory check wouldn't find him.

Once there, he sat against the sand and tried to rest as much as he could without sleeping. This was going to be a stressful night.