CHAPTER 102: Goblin Hoard
The next morning the normal tribe collected in the Inn. Today I planned to start on the first stage of my dream for Obon. It was going to be the first test of creating residential buildings using a combination of earth skill and transmutation. The first residential section of my new town happened to be located about thirty minutes’ walk southwards, outside of town. Hana and I walked out there as the sun became warmer. All around us stood the usual thorny bushes, blocking out any prying eyes.
“Are you starting here?”
Hana asked me. Unusually, she was smiling. She itched to see the town design we worked so hard on come to life. I nodded, but she added something I hadn’t expected.
“Mark this place. I want to put up a plaque here one day.”
“Seriously?”
“I always thought people took me seriously.”
She mimicked the voice of King Leopold. I couldn’t help but laugh at her antics.
“You know, I appreciate you sharing this with me.”
“I know, I know. Stop talking, start building.”
She jabbed me in the ribs with her finger. How could I resist someone as motivated as that?
Since the whole town layout already existed in my mind, Ara simply created an image of the template on the ground for the section I wanted to create. Then, as the building I created raised out of the ground, I added utilities as I went. It reminded me of plastic print moulding where the earth became my medium. At a later stage, I intended bringing in water from near the roof via small aqueducts so the steel water piping for the house terminated at an outside water day tank. That would supply the water pressure to the house, albeit lower pressure than I would have preferred. All the technology I intended created needed to be maintainable by the people. Unless the system would last forever and no changes would be made to it, then maintenance became a moot point.
The first few test houses I made from dirt. Once I felt confident of our house designs and my construction method, future houses would be made from stone. Stone as a material had good thermal mass, making it a bad choice for cold and warm environments. Stone conducted too much heat in the sun and cold during the winter. Wood would be a far better insulating material. So why use stone in the houses you might ask? According to Ara, the stone we used in Endeavour had different qualities to normal stone. For one thing its heat retaining qualities performed better during the cold and its cooling ability improved in high temperatures. Ara described the technical details to me, most of which I couldn’t recall if anyone bothered to ask me.
All Obon’s houses were raised on plinths at least a meter high above ground level. Haruhime once told me that there were two reasons for that. Due to the heavy snows in winter, it meant houses could still stay clear of snow drifts. The second reason related to flooding in spring, when the Wildemere Marsh overflowed its banks, probably because of melting snow on the flanks of the Mistral mountains.
“That must be a lot of water.”
I mumbled to myself. A familiar voice reminded me of my present responsibilities.
“Hey, stop slacking off. I’m dying to see the next house.”
Sheesh, you would think it was her making the houses the way she went on. By the time we finished the last house I planned, darkness already descended on the place. Hana wandered from house to house, walking up the outside porch stairs and peered into the doors, since the houses had no doors or window shutters. We visited the first house I made. It was a double storey house with a roof lookout. From the top there was a good view of the surrounding moonlit scrub. At that time of the evening, the mist wasn’t too thick, so the moons and the stars were visible.
“The town layout looks a bit messy from here?”
Hana knew the scattered layout design of the houses was done with purpose, but aesthetically it lacked.
“Yes but remember that when we eventually place all the trees, it will look far better.”
We kept still for a while with our backs against the wall just standing there watching the moon and enjoying the cool evening. Hana suddenly turned around and looked over the parapet, her ears straining forward as if picking something up. She ducked and motioned for me to do the same.
When I followed her prompt, she whispered,
“Goblins, lots.”
My heads up lit up like a Christmas tree. I could pick them up now. What the heck were goblins doing out there I wondered. I didn’t have much time to ponder the issue because Hana wasn’t kidding, there were at least fifty-three of them and they were heading towards us about a minute away. I suspected it might be a raiding party trying their luck out. Unusually this group didn’t have any ogre brawn normally following a goblin group of that size. Even then we couldn’t take on all the goblins at once, but at least I could apply a new effect I recently acquired.
I whispered to Hana,
“I can deal with about thirty of them at one time. Can you help me sort out the others?”
She nodded. Hana certainly didn’t know about my gravity skill yet, perhaps it was time to show her.
“We need to wait for them to get closer first. Wait for my signal before you start shooting your arrows.”
I closed my eyes and aligned the targets from my air scan with those targets of my earth sense. That action drained my ethereal energy like water down a bathtub drain. I placed my finger on a mustite bar on my belt and drew from that alternative source to save my own EE which I could restore later when I had time.
As soon as most of the goblins entered the range of the buildings I made that day, I activated the gravity skill on the nearest thirty of them. No sooner had I activated the skill that three goblin steps later they slowly sunk to the ground while moaning. Since they were down I didn’t need to spend any more EE on them. The gravity skill effect stayed in place until I spent as much EE returning their mass to normal again. They would stay down until I released them. I kept drawing from my mustite bar until my personal EE was fully restored.
Since the remaining goblins moved to within striking range of us, I decided to use the situation as a training session. With reduced goblin numbers, we were in a better position to reduce the odds further by hiding around the houses and attacking at short range with long range support, a typical modern arrangement. With fluid purpose Hana stood up and drew her first shot in one motion, I could see the muscles in her neck and arm tense as she pulled her bowstring back. The first shot fired with the soft ‘clack’ sound of the string followed by a distant thud of the arrow hitting its mark. Bullseye, my air scan confirmed the kill.
Within three quick successive shots she nailed another three goblins, all within in a matter of five seconds. She was exceptionally good. From our vantage point she could quite easily hit the goblins, but by then they started getting wiser as to Hana’s archery attacks, but at that stage they still didn’t know where she was. Most of the goblins moved closer to the walls and resorted to hiding in some of the houses. While crouching behind the rooftop guard rail wall, I motioned to Hana that I was heading down.
“Cover me.”
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She nodded.
Fortunately, I knew every corner of this town like the back of my hand. With my air scan I picked out the position of each goblin. I waited behind a corner while one goblin came scurrying around. I hit him with my knife at throat level as he appeared around the bend, using his own momentum to hit him. Hana’s arrow arched past my head hitting a second goblin further away. Making sure that I operated within Hana’s visual range meant that no matter how I moved she was able to help me. It was a deadly arrangement. Three goblins remained, having given up risking their lives outside, and waiting to ambush me in a house.
“Gravity.”
Bump, bump, bump. Gravity did the rest. I motioned for Hana to come down and she met me halfway down the street.
“Let us dispatch the goblins that are still alive but leave the three in that house untouched. Meet me there when we’re done.”
Getting the message across to the goblins to stay away from Obon, I needed to make a hard point with them. I followed her while also dispatching goblins affected by gravity. As agreed, we met up at the house where I finally put my knife away, instead activating a blue flame around my right fist. By using my air skill, I separated and ignited oxygen out of the atmosphere, creating an intense blue flame. From my perspective it looked awesome, if I could blow my own trumpet, but judging by the terrified look of the three goblin faces, they thought otherwise. I didn’t intend killing them, but I intended using them as my message to their leader.
Walking up to the first one making all sorts of uncomfortable heaving and gurgling noises, I took a good look at them. Those goblins looked different to the ones in the Blister Oak Forest. For one thing they didn’t look as well dressed, perhaps a little like their country cousins. Ara helped me with a language conversion skill already crafted from the elves’ exhaustive studies of the goblins.
“I know one of you might barely understand me, so I’m going to make this message really simple. If any of your kind walk into this town again, uninvited by me, I will eradicate every member of your tribe.”
I touched one collapsed goblin on the forehead with my finger. I flame tattooed a full red figure of my Lion standard on his head. On the other goblin I did it on his back and the last on his chest. I then removed the gravity effect on them and stood back while raising the temperature of the flame on my fist so that they could feel the heat. Getting the message, they started crawling out the door, eventually getting enough strength to get up on their feet and shuffle out the door like zombies into the night where they eventually disappeared from my air scan.
“Those goblins didn’t seem like the ones we dealt with before.”
Was Hana’s casual observation.
“They’re not. I bet if you draw a straight line from here to the direction they ran in, you’ll intersect the dungeon.”
I already confirmed that theory on my heads-up display. Like homing pigeons to the nest, goblins also knew where to find home comfort.
“Hmph, now we got to clean up this mess.”
“I’m not picking up all those bodies on my own.”
Said Hana looking away, as if washing her hands of the situation. I purposefully ignored her while bending down to get a better look at one of the goblins on the ground. I hadn’t really paid much attention before with all the action that always surrounded them but unlike ogres, goblins had more human-like features. Their rounded noses were slightly flatter, their ears smaller and pointier, and their skin looked like a brown tan, but certainly not green. We collected 50 goblins into smaller piles as best we could, retrieving Hana’s arrows in the process. It cost less EE for Ara to fix the broken arrows than to replace them from scratch. After retrieving the guild subjugation evidence, we tipped the bodies one at a time into my transfer storage. There were only four gold earrings and I expected five, perhaps one of those three I released was a leader type. Oh well, I already released the buggers, couldn’t catch them again, although I was tempted.
“I can’t believe you’re thinking about recapturing that leader goblin you released.”
Hana said astonished at the miser look on my face.
“What? I’d never think that.”
“Yeah, right.”
Since the adventurer guild was already closed, we headed for a cold shower at the inn and then to bed where once again I lay on the floor of the room and Hana, lying on the bed, spoke to me.
“Today again, I have seen things my mind would not easily absorb. Even now it seems like a dream. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
Sweet dreams Hana.
The next morning Karato already waited for us in the dining room. I explained to Karato about our goblin incident. He just shook his head and didn’t say anything as I described the details. I think he used to m. I wanted to claim a reward for the fifty goblins we had killed but I couldn’t just release them outside the guild, it would cause a bit of stir. I had a private word with Olivia, who fully understanding the situation, allowed me just to present the usual evidence albeit a large one, and confirmed a few details with me.
“You say you subjugated the goblins outside of town?”
“Yes, some distance out. I can’t recall the precise details.”
What I was doing there, what exact time it happened were all vaguely answered by me with enough wiggle room for two carts to comfortably pass side by side. Olivia wasn’t stupid, she knew I purposely evaded the specifics. Afterall she knew my skills were not to be advertised something more than one official, including His Majesty, made very clear to her a while ago. While the questions were answered accurately enough to pass the guild requirements, it certainly made life easier for her. Besides, adventurers were usually not calculating their exact steps or keeping meticulous track of time when hunting monsters, so my vague answers were the rule and not the exception. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if my information were too accurate, it would attract more attention from disbelieving auditors.
Looking at the fifty silvers in my palm I couldn’t help but sigh at the irony. There was a time I would have rejoiced at the sight of those shiny coins, happy at having enough coins to stay alive another two and a half moon cycles. Perhaps it was good to come back to ground and common sense again. Besides, there I still had an entire junk pile from the king’s storerooms to sell off, not including the old man’s storeroom that had thousands of things I could pawn off. The only flaw in that strategy being the lack of places to sell to in Obon. Schneider was an option, but he could easily recognise royal treasures and my reputation would suffer if word got back to the king that I unscrupulously sold off the royal silver. I still thought it would be best to give most of it to Karato who would probably sell his life for the opportunity. I smiled to myself as I thought about how I could take advantage of that situation.
“He’s thinking dumb things again.”
Hana dryly commented.
“Yeah, totally.”
Karato agreed with her.
Philistines!
“Anyhow, what are we doing today?”
Asked Karato.
“I didn’t know we were doing anything.”
I said nonchalantly.
“How about some dungeon practice?”
Hana offered.
“There’s still enough time for that.”
Karato rubbed his hands in anticipation. If he carried on like that, I seriously doubted Karato would receive even a dusty statue from my royalty collection.
“Okay fine, but I’m not holding back with my skills today.”
Since nobody complained, at the very minimum it would be an opportunity for me to practice some skills again, something I neglected of late.