Mizuya and Javi both watched in terror as she quite literally turned red with anger, and began growing to a size even bigger than the Goblin King. "YU CHAL PEEEYYY!!!" she SCREAMED, pointing at Javi.
"Oh shit."
The Enraged Queen rushed towards Javi, before delivering a blow to him with her bare fists. Javi tried to block with his kanabo, but it still felt like he had been hit by a truck, sending him backwards, slamming onto a wall, before falling to the ground.
As the Queen was heading over to stomp Javi's head in, Mizuya quickly summoned his Phantom, using it to distract the Queen while he headed to where the King laid dead so he could retrieve his own sword.
Javi slowly stood up, seeing that his kanabo had been horribly bent. When he went to take a second kanabo from his ring, he heard a voice from beside him saying "Use this!"
It was Mizuya, handing him the Goblin King's zhanmadao, barely able to hold it. Javi took it despite the nearly unbearable pain on his wrists, and they both got ready to fight again just as the Goblin Queen hit the Phantom with a powerful blow to the head, finishing the distraction.
The Queen, seeing that Javi was holding the King's sword, seemed to get even angrier, about to deliver a devastating punch to Javi's face, but Javi raised the stolen sword, which split the Queen's arm in two, showering Javi with blood.
The Queen quickly tried to use her other hand to hit Javi, but then Mizuya shouted: "Rise, Blood Moon!" This caused his sword getting covered by a layer of frozen purple blood, before he used it to sever the Queen's good arm in a single slash.
Javi and Mizuya smirked at each other, thinking they had already won, but a powerful kick sent them both flying once more, causing both the men to fall to the ground. Unfortunately, Javi hit his head on a wall before falling, being knocked unconscious on top of Mizuya.
"Javi, get off me, quick!" Mizuya shouted, panicking as the Enraged Queen got closer and closer. Just as Mizuya was about to push Javi off him, he heard a voice from behind the Queen.
"Fly forth, Double Helix!"
Two helical beams of rough mana pierced through the Goblin Queen's chest, ripping through her heart and lungs, causing her to let out one final roar of anger and pain before falling lifeless a couple feet away from Javi and Mizuya.
The mage standing behind the Queen was none other than the demihuman they had saved earlier. "Ah, I put too much juice into that one... Shit." muttered the demihuman, before falling to the ground.
Mizuya pushed Javi off him. He took his sword, the Blood Moon, walking over to the demihuman and getting ready to execute them, but he stopped himself. Javi had made a decision to spare this monster, and Mizuya wanted to respect that. Plus, this demihuman might have saved his life...
He didn't give it any further thought and sheathed his sword. He took Javi's ring, trying a bunch of methods to activate it and store the King's sword. He succeeded, although he had no idea how, though he didn't really care as the ring wasn’t his.
After returning the ring, he picked up the unconscious human and demihuman, carrying them under his arms, before he began to walk out of the stronghold through another path. The goblins were all in disarray with the death of the Goblin King and Queen, ignoring Mizuya as he walked past as they were too occupied with fighting to see who would become the next King and Queen.
On the outside, Mizuya spotted a few people who all seemed to just be standing there... Four men, one wearing very shiny armor, one wearing a golden skull mask, one that was dressed in blue wizard's robes, and a very pale man wearing a red hat. The strangest part, though, was that they all had red halos over their heads, except for the man in shiny armor.
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The man in the red hat seemed to be the leader of the four, as the masked man held an umbrella over him while the wizard served him a glass of wine.
Mizuya ignored the men, as he continued carrying his unconscious comrades through the wasteland, but then a voice spoke behind him: "Are you the ones who took down the Goblin King?" This caused Mizuya to turn around.
"Yes. Why do you ask?" Mizuya was defensive, but he felt there was no point trying to lie to those guys. As far as he knew, they could be messengers sent by God Himself or something like that.
The man in the red hat began to laugh. "Hehehehe... Hahahaha! Very interesting!! Tell me, are you three lost in this wasteland?" he asked, before sipping his wine.
"... Maybe."
"Then, I, Lord Hexpectro, may have an offer for you... Join my army, and the three of you will be Elite Soldiers, like Casner and Skull over here." Hexpectro said, motioning to the wizard and the man with the golden skull mask.
"I can't answer for my friends." Mizuya said, before turning around and starting to walk away again.
But another voice spoke up. "Wait! You haven't heard about the benefits yet!"
Mizuya turned around once more, seeing the man in shiny armor looking exasperated and trying to reach his hand out to Mizuya. Hexpectro calmly pulled the man back. "Well, I was going to use other methods to make them join us, but I like your thinking, Groll." Hexpectro said calmly, crushing something in his hand, causing blood to drip to the ground.
"Well, what are the benefits?" Javi, now awake, asked. Skull seemed to be paying extra attention to Javi.
"Dental insurance, paid sick leave, a retirement plan, and one of these..." Hexpectro said and pointed to his own halo. "Casner, explain."
"Very well, Lord Hexpectro." Casner cleared his throat, pulling a scroll out of his robe, and opening it, before he started to read it. "The 'Energy Conservation Halo ™', is a magical artifact that has the basic function of making the wearer consume only half the life energy they would otherwise consume, effectively doubling their stamina and total magic energy. It was originally created by the gods Ogun and Wayland, for --"
At this point, everyone, except for Casner, was spacing out. Eventually, Casner rolled up the scroll, putting it back into his robe, which caused everyone to snap back to reality.
Hexpectro asked about whether the trio would be joining his army, and Javi and Mizuya agreed. Unfortunately, the demihuman was still unconscious, and couldn't respond, but Hexpectro decided they would be joining too anyway.
"Very good! Skull, do you mind flying us to the tower?"
"As you wish, Master Hexpectro." Skull said, before raising his hands, creating a large purple cloud over himself, and tossing it at the ground. "It's done. Please get on, and do keep in mind it might cause mild itching, sirs."
"Uhh, can you put me down?" Javi asked Mizuya.
“Oh, I forgot.”
...
"So, why are we becoming elite soldiers? All we did was beat up some goblins for fun." Javi asked Hexpectro while Skull was flying them to the tower.
"I did it on a whim. Vanquishing those goblins was supposed to be Groll's mission, but when we got there it was already done, so I decided you lot would be a nice addition to my ranks." Hexpectro explained, slowly sipping his wine after he was done speaking.
Javi lost some respect for Hexpectro, but he didn't mention it. In the horizon, a tower of stone bricks became visible, so tall that it extended beyond the gray clouds that covered the skies.
"Skull, land at the entrance instead of the top of the tower so we can drop these guys off, they need to get their halos. After that, bring us to the top of the tower, we need to let Joke Card know about his new comrades."
"Yes, Master Hexpectro." After Skull said that, the cloud instantly began descending.
"Groll, when we get there, why don't you show them to Jamess' chamber?" Hexpectro chuckled as if he was joking, but Groll knew he was being 100% serious, and this caused him a lot of fear.
"Sirs, we have arrived. You may get off the cloud now." Skull said, ending the conversation.
Groll knew better than to question Hexpectro, so with a heavy gulp, he got off the cloud and began leading Javi and Mizuya to Jamess' chamber.
They walked into the tower through the front gate, passing through the guards, and seeing some of Hexpectro's soldiers walking around, some doing tasks, some just chatting. Groll, Javi and Mizuya simply walked past them, going down a flight of stairs to reach a dark hallway that had a single door on it.
"Now, be very careful about what you say." Groll said, before knocking on the door and opening it.
A masked figure looked at them for a moment, and before Groll could even introduce the new elite soldiers, the masked man spoke gratefully. "Oh Groll! You brought me three new test subjects? You didn't have to!"