The people inside the basement turned to look at the incoming smoke—including Dom and Eleanor. There were short steps that could be heard from the smoke, and right behind them, heavy thumps with a slower pace.

“Does your large, and wondrous mind think we’ll find them here? This one’s esteemed, most honorable, and greatest of all creation’s senses could not find the shape of the yellow marigold human girl that was seen during the afternoon’s bout with the tall, yet sheepish elf that refused to listen to this one’s reasoning words as he—”

Suddenly, the owner of the voice stopped when he entered the room. It was a tiny being, which would hardly reach Eleanor’s hips, equipped with a couple of daggers on the side; light, black armor; and most striking of all, green skin all over his body and face, which had a long nose, completely black eyes with tiny red irises, and a bald head. A goblin.

“What wrong?” asked another one with a deep bassy voice, whose steps stopped right behind the goblin before his shape was revealed from the smoke and the head turned to Eleanor’s direction. “She here.”

This one was much larger than Eleanor by almost twice her size, with his width being much larger than any man in this place, so much so that he hardly fit through the door, being forced instead to crouch and reduce his shape as much as possible. His face was hidden behind a mask that only had a couple of round dark shades, with a few tiny holes around the mouth area that wouldn’t reveal any details of his face. On top of it all, his whole head was covered with a metallic round helmet, so it also made it difficult to see the person behind the mask, even if I tried to peer beyond it, in my current form, I couldn’t see the features.

However, judging from the large arms that almost reached the floor, the tiny but wide legs, and the hunched way with which he stood, I could tell that this was probably an ogre.

Noticing the new people’s presence, the basement was filled with silence, where even the aggressive Dom stood still with his eyes turned to the intruders.

“Demons!” shouted one of the men and they all turned their magic and weapons to them.

“Please, esteemed humanoids of beyond the black seas of His Darkness’ Shape, we come here with the sole purpose of extending a helping hand towards those which we, as living beings of this wonderful world, might find—”

“AAAHHHH!” shouted one of the men, who rushed to attack the goblin as he was talking, interrupting the little one’s high-pitched voice.

“Time waste,” was all that the ogre said before the rushing man reached the goblin.

With a nimble jump, the goblin went over the head of the man that was going for him, who was then grabbed by the head by the ogre’s large hand. The man struggled to break free, but the ogre simply clenched his hand and the man fell lifeless to the ground. The other men shouted and rushed to the couple of demonoids, all of them using their own magic.

“Gentlemen, please, there’s no need for—”

The goblin tried to speak, but the shouting men and the flying magic wouldn’t allow him to continue. The goblin was much faster than everyone else; his shape would disappear and reappear seemingly out of nowhere, and each time, he would either push magic away, or just tilt someone’s arm away so their magic would completely miss.

Eleanor remained in place, stunned at what was going on and without any idea of what to do. I wasn’t sure of the demons’ intentions for coming here, so even if I wanted to, I couldn’t give her any guidance beyond just being on her guard.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It was while the goblin was easily moving around the attacking men, that the ogre by the entrance—who was just standing in place as magic from the men was forced to miss and the men themselves forced to focus on the goblin—turned his head to look around the basement.

He looked at all of the dead women strapped to the walls, who had fallen prey to the many spells that had been thrown by the men as they tried to kill Dom, or the boss that tried to take Eleanor down. He then turned his face to the attacking men, inspecting them carefully as they all shouted, used more magic, and tried their best to catch the nimble goblin. Finally, he turned his eyes to Dom, who was just watching with wide eyes, and then to Eleanor, whose eyes were widened and looking at the ogre.

“Jul,” the ogre calmly said.

“Hm?” the goblin replied just as calmly while spinning in the air. “This great one is currently busy trying to get our enemies to listen to the great words of—”

“They bad too,” the ogre interrupted, then pointing a finger at both Dom and Eleanor, “They good.”

“Is the great, amazing, powerful, nearly all-knowing, and fantastic Grool saying that I should swiftly and immediately, henceforth, eliminate the ones that I’m facing, except for the honorable one that isn’t fighting, and the yellow flower?” the goblin asked while dashing from side to side.

“Yes,” was all that the ogre said.

The goblin then stopped all movement right in the middle of the room, behind the men. They all looked for him for a moment, but quickly realized where the goblin was. Without wasting any time, they summoned their magic and rushed to the goblin.

This time, when the goblin moved, a fountain of blood appeared. The man closest to him had his head chopped right off, with the body falling backwards soon after the head hit the floor. The rest of the men looked stunned at the sudden death of one of their own, but in such a state, they were left open to the attacks of the goblin, who was now swiftly moving from one man to the other, doing the same thing that he did to the first one, and each one falling lifeless to the ground with a pool of blood forming under them.

“You make mess,” the ogre said, shaking his head.

“This is naught more than the work of one that has been blessed with the highest and most prestigious of skills amongst those that dare walk the same ground with which this one’s greatest—”

“Talk too much too,” the ogre said, interrupting the goblin that had already slaughtered half the men in the room without breaking a sweat.

It was then that the temperature of the basement increased, and from the place where the boss had been buried into a wall, a powerful flame exploded. The few people closer to him, like the few remaining men, or the women strapped to the walls, were set aflame; and the goblin, along with the men he was fighting, were forced to take a step back.

The boss gripped the edge of the hole with burning flames that heated the rock’s surface as he slowly walked out of the hole. “Disgusting demons. You dare walk into my territory?”

“This great one hath been trying for a long time to talk to those that hath been forsaken by the world and thrown into its deep and dangerous depths to become the thing that will—”

“Silence, demon!” shouted the boss, who exploded in a ball of raging flames to the goblin.

The goblin seemed surprised at first, but with a nimble dash, he passed right under the flaming man, who continued flying straight in Eleanor's direction. She raised her eyebrows and her arms to block at the same time, but it was while the boss was flying towards her that another loud explosion was heard from the ogre’s position.

Something going at an even faster speed than the boss hit him in the side, piercing him completely and causing him to lose his flight trajectory as he hit the wall to the side of Eleanor. His flames disappeared soon after, and his body sagged to the floor. The boss tried to stand back up with struggling hands, but another explosion was heard from the ogre, and the same thing hit the boss in the head, causing it to explode in a mess of blood.

“Done,” was all that the ogre said, nodding in seeming satisfaction with a strange, long tool in his hands.

The goblin appeared to not be happy with what had happened, but he simply sighed and turned to look at the still standing Dom, and then Eleanor. The two of them looked with anxiousness in their eyebrows, and Eleanor swallowed heavily.

They prepared themselves to face these powerful foes, but to their surprise, the goblin put away the weapons, spread his arms wide, and smiled.