I waited just long enough for the Goblin to get absorbed and I took the orb and then took off in the direction of the Goblin cries. Well, they were coming from all around me, so any direction would’ve sufficed, what we really helped picked my direction was the sound of the big Goblin. I only heard one noise that fit it so I’m cautiously assuming there’s only one of them for now, and I think the sooner I can take it down the better.

I would hate to have to fight it while being swarmed the smaller ones and potentially fireballs flying at me. Either way, it only took roughly a minute for me to find it. It was charging towards me just like I was sprinting towards it. There were another 15 or so normal Goblins behind it charging along as well. This would be tricky.

A couple of steps later the big Goblin left its feet as it leaped towards me with its fists clasped together in an attempt to smash me into paste. It’s moving at the same speed as last time, but I feel like I can track its movements a lot better and could properly react. I know my spear wouldn’t hold up against its power, so I dodged to the side, its large frame just barely missing me.

I didn’t miss the chance to inflict a little damage, as it flashed past me, I stabbed out with my spear, and I managed to leave a small wound on its left thigh. Far from fatal but it will add up. Before it could refocus and attack me once more, I took towards the trailing Goblins and after a second, I could hear the monsters’ large legs stomping behind me, but I was much faster now than I was in our last meeting.

I reached the Goblins and managed to swiftly kill two of them with two quick thrusts before the large one was upon me once again.

The other Goblins kind of scampered a short distance away as it got ready to throw a punch at me. They were probably close enough to attack me with their little knives if I wasn’t paying attention but far enough to not get randomly stepped on by the big one.

Before I know it, I was on the backfoot dodging a flurry of punches, as I waited for a chance to go on the offensive, and I spotted it. Timing it as perfectly as I could, I ducked under a left hook and took off the side where I quite literally impaled a nearby Goblin on my spear and ran with it towards a rather large log. I jumped over it with the Goblin still impaled on my spear, it was still alive. I quickly turned around just in time to see the monster jumping over himself, but his landing wouldn’t be as peaceful as mine.

I used a similar tactic before with great success. As it came over, I quite literally threw the impaled Goblin at it with more power than I expected, it was akin to a fastball pitch. A fastball Goblin. Moving on, the monster swatted the poor Goblin away, but that small moment of distraction is all I needed as I was upon the large bastard with my spear firmly in hand, and I jumped up towards it and planted my spear as deep into its chest as I could.

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Turns out that was pretty deep. As I made contact with its chest, the power I met it with was enough to knock it off its feet and slam its back into the large log behind it. I landed with him without ever letting go of my spear.

He screamed out in what I would describe as a gut wrenching cry, and I screamed in turn as I hung on to the best of my ability and tried to drive my spear even deeper. Its eyes seemed to turn red for a moment before it managed to finally swing a wayward arm towards me. I didn’t want to let go of my spear, so I pulled it out and jumped backwards and, in the wound, I left a fountain of blood that seemed to sprout.

It flew out like that for a second or two as the large monster laid down with anger in its eyes as it stared at me. I could tell if the wound wasn’t clearly fatal it would have kept on fighting, but it wasn’t too much later that those some eyes began to dull.

That felt good.

I relished the moment for a second before I looked around to finish off the remaining Goblins.

They themselves were a bit dazed at what just happened, which was a bit weird as they usually just kept on fighting no matter how many of them died. Maybe the big one meant something? Either way it didn’t take too long after that before I finished all of them up. My pouch now had 16 total orbs in it. I was kind of expecting something fancy for the big one but…its body was still there.

I hope I’m not expected to have to dig out the orb from its chest or something. Hm, maybe it just takes a while before it gets absorbed? I’ll wait for now.

“Guhhhhhh!”

Oh yeah there were other Goblins nearby.

Coming towards me from all sides were I think…over a hundred Goblins. I guess most of them were concentrated in other areas since this big one only had 15 Goblins with him.

Either way, I could see a lot of magic wielding Goblins and a bunch of normal ones.

….

It was late at night when I finally finished fighting and collecting every orb from all the slain Goblins. I was more than strong enough to perhaps finish the fighting sooner, but I didn’t want to rush and potentially run into a situation where I wasn’t prepared to handle it. Who knows if there was another monster of a Goblin joining the fray?

Either way the forest was quiet as I circled around to where I left the body of the large Goblin, and lo and behold it had been absorbed and it in its place was an orb. The orb was the same size as the normal ones, but it seemed to be a little shinier, or was there something in it? I don’t know but whatever it was, it looked like it was worth more than the regular ones.

So, I guess that means that the big ones will take a while to be absorbed. Good to know.

I walked around for a bit trying to remember the way to the Outpost, before eventually finding my way and a short time later I was once again walking through the gate with a pouch filled with orbs. I had 20 plus Bonze coins back in my house so I was looking forward to how much closer these orbs would get me to my goal. Maybe with the orb from the big one, I’ll get all I need right now. Well, that’s if the shop is open at night, I never verified that.

Making my way to the central area, I didn’t spot anyone else walking around and when I tried to open the door, it unlocked, and the smile of Greja greeted me once more.