"NOOO! WHAT IS GOING ON!?"

There it is.

"SPREAD OUT MY BABIES, MOVE AWAY FROM YOUR INFECTED SIBLINGS!"

I gotta give it to her, she's quite clever to come up with that solution so quickly after having just seen the spell. The Goblins obeyed their overlord and started running out of the village, which is when the second part of my plan began.

Six disks float up from the ground, about 50 centimeters apart, right around the spot where I entered the village. They stop to hover at about 30 centimeters from the ground before blades of wind coats and elongates their width, increasing their range by about fifteen centimeters on each side.

I may not have the ability to multitask and control all six disks individually, but making six fly in a formation is more than manageable. They fly straight at the running horde, cutting legs and feet, immobilizing quite a few unsuspecting Gobs. Awesome!

From my vantage up here on the protrusion, I run distraction and crowd control using the disk, making their situation all the more chaotic. Meanwhile, a faint sweet smell enters my nose as I am busy controlling the disk, making me pause to take a quick glance around, finding nothing else but the occasional scent itself which I decide to ignore…

"Huaatcihhh"

I sneezed out of the blue a few minutes after my mission to distract and amputate. Some parts of my body, mostly the exposed skin under the armor not covered by my clothes, started to slightly itch… ignoring them only made it worse!

Eyeing the only possible answer, 'Inspect!'

** DING **

Rashsnot Spewspor. This toadstool has been modified to defend itself from nearby predators by emitting spores that cause rhinorrhea when inhaled, the spores also irritates any exposed skin on contact, causing itchiness. May be used in alchemy.

Dang! The gamer in me wants to collect some of the mushrooms, just because. But the uncomfortable feeling on my nose and skin made me do otherwise. I had the disks quickly finish their current journey into the woods, there are maybe half the goblins left. Then cast Spider Climb and moved out! Sneezing along the way.

I even had to expand my armor a little to pull in my left arm for scratching the various itches I've accumulated. There were no decent sized protrusions nearby, the only one of acceptable size also had mushrooms growing out of it, forcing me to continue on.

I eventually used the two disks I kept on my person to eliminate a whole pack of bats on one of the larger ones. Running out of patience to keep at walking and looking around for a decent spot whilst sneezing and scratching like mad. These spores need to go! I tried to use Unsoil on them, but only managed to clean the area. Though that spell made me recall its peer, Disinfect, which worked like a charm. A few additional applications of Lesser Heals and I'm as good as I can be with the itching and scratch injuries gone, and the sneezing on a decline.

"Atchoo"

"I CAN HEAR YOU INVADER!"

Her booming voice came out of nowhere, startling my distracted mind. Right~, there was that!

"YOUR LITTLE TRICK IS USELESS NOW!"

I pretend to look around as if unsettled by the reverberation her voice is causing in the chamber, but have no idea what she is saying, before turning my focus back into the village. There are even less of them now, maybe a hundred or so separated between three spherical domes that protects them from my woe-lifes. Hmm~, might be helpful if I can choose to give them abilities or spells to use instead of only relying on copying some from their targets.

The spheres, which I now believe is something of a mana barrier, coalesce into a bigger whole, maybe five times the single barriers. Now about maybe one and a half baseball fields. My woe-lifes surround the barrier trying to eat or break through them, but has so far show no visible progress.

"Atchoo"

** zwing **

An arrow bounced off my armor! breaking one of the triangular plates. Looking down, there are a party of, 1, 2... 20 Hobgoblins wielding short bows with a quiver of arrows somewhere on their person, shooting at my general vicinity with varying rates of success, due to only aiming at my sneezes. Or maybe some are just better archers.

"Atchoo" – it's raining arrows!

After two volleys, I tried to move and relocate, but they followed me unhindered, maybe assisted by the local overlord semi-god entity-person. If running is not an option, I drop my camouflage, fight back then!

I boost the two disks I have with me by giving each some mana and further enhancing their sharpness, then sent both at one of the twenty enemies pestering me. The strike hits true, but fails to kill the Hobgoblin, an advantage of their higher level and constitution. The ones nearby jumped at the disks, maybe trying to pin them down though numbers before I suddenly lost control of both. Which is when I see them both fall to the ground, totally inert, a void to my Mana Sense. Why? How?

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"WHAT CAN YOU DO WITHOUT YOUR WEAPONS NOW, BOY~"

eww… I pulled back the other six disks and stowed each of them in slits I just made on the back of my armor, quite similar to cd players found on car dashboards, keeping them out of reach just to be safe. Meanwhile the Hobs started climbing the walls using tools that seem to be made from parts of the local mutated faunas, how that works I have no time to find out. They're climbing up fast!

Darn it! Wind Arrow!!

Summoning 20 ammunition cost me 84 mana, that 30% less cost is truly something. The arrows manifest and float above me. So I aimed at the closest Hob and shot at it, missing when the hostile leapt from one precarious area to another. Tsk! Two now fly at the same Hob, this time I try and lead the arrows to curve at their target, one managed to hit.

** DING **

Ignoring that, I managed to finish that first one with another four arrows, 13 left. One more down with 8 left. The third died to a lucky headshot. The remaining seven arrows managed to kill one more and injure another, causing it to fall.

"Please die from fall damage!" I shout at it.

"RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!"

Ah! I keep forgetting about her, but if she is a former human, which I assume her to be, it won't be weird for her to understand what I say. Just need to remember to hide that its also true the other way around. I didn't stick around to watch the falling bloke, another fifteen of its brethens are still approaching. On the walls or make a stand?

Mana: 308 / 405

Hmm, wouldn't it be darn fine if the rest of them fall too? The thought of Spider Climbing my way out of here made me recall the lubricants used in the spell, maybe something like and beyond D&D's Grease.

I manipulate about 40 mana to come out and explode onto the walls right before this protrusion I stand on, forming a two by four meters coat of liquified latent mana between me and the Hobs. They're gonna have to move through the coating, or maneuver around it. A coating I had just made to have the properties of grease.

** DING **

"You snot colored human wannabes are weak cowards that can't even win a one on twenty fight! Oh, and you climb like a tiny wittle wabbit!"

They said nothing of my Taunt, but the way their climbing speed seems to pick up is proof enough that they are affected. I want them riled up enough that they'll ignore the suspicious coating on the wall.

"DON'T LISTEN TO THE SMELLY MAN MY CHILDREN!"

"Here bunnies, here~." I motion as though calling over a cute pet. They are starting to make grunt sounds that tell me they are exerting themselves to move even faster, they're not. "Is that the fastest you can do? Come on! Keep this up and even the bunnies are gonna take offense at being compared to you. I suppose you're more alike compared to mushrooms with that climbing speed, I wouldn't doubt your rancid smell would give me the sneezes."

Maybe the notion of being less able at something compared to their prey got to them, or they're just that dumb, but those last words got them rushing at me like a massive spider monster is chasing them. They take risky leaps and spend unnecessary effort to reach further when there are better nooks and crannies nearby.

"SLOW DOWN!"

They probably sped up instead.

"LISTEN TO ME IDIOTS!"

You can say that again.

"STOP NOW!!"

Needless to say, they didn't. Soon enough the fastest among them arrives at the spot coated by my newest spell, so as expected, they fail to secure a grip and fall off. After a few seconds, the next ten followed their predecessors, meanwhile the Dungeon Core never shuts up. Two others arrived at almost the same time, but had finally started to register the screams of the Core and their falling friends, managing to stop in time right by where the coating began. Another impatient one lept and landed right inside the slippery area, taking the fastest lane towards the ground, while the last hob managed to stop right by where its two friends did.

Jokes on them. 14 mana and another one by two meters of magical coating splattered all over the last three, before turning greasy, they comically slid down the lubricated stone wall.

Ten mana to create a one square meter area of coating that can be almost any liquid a caster can think of, I like it!

I didn't stop at that, it's about time to get an offensive AoE spell. Area of Effect, which in gamer terms means something that affects a big area. I Spider Climb my way down towards where the fifteen injured plus one nearly dead hob lay and once again pull at my mana pool. Let's go big!

70% of 150 is 70 + 35; 105 mana. This one is inspired by an old but still prevalent MMORPG by the name of Ragnarok Online, fusing two synergistic AoE spells available for the Wizard class. Storm Gust and Lord of Vermillion. I dub thee Vermillion Lord of Storms!

The mana expanded from my outstretched hand to cover a dome-like area approximately fifteen meters in diameter. At the same time they are also exciting the nearby ambient mana and influencing them. Not a moment after, a majority of my mana coalesce into a humanoid vermillion-hued elemental-like form on the dome's peak. The Vermillion Lord forms and makes a dramatic spin that ignites the mana suffused inside its zone of influence, creating a spinning storm of snow and ice. Lowering the temperature inside to below freezing, frost visibly began to form up on anyone and anything unfortunate enough to be inside its AoE.

Every five seconds, like Zeus of Mount Olympus, the Lord would grab a bolt of lightning out of nowhere to smite a freezing creature, shattering their built up frost and flesh only for the process to begin anew. The spell lasts for approximately three minutes, leaving behind sixteen charred corpses in various states of preservation. The Lord even had time to salute at me as the spell ceased and dissolved into the atmosphere. I may say this for every spell but, totally loving it!

The Dungeon Core has not once stopped her tirade. Threatening me with death, elaborate descriptions of torture and the cliche promise of horrible things beyond my imagination. At this point, I'm doing my best to ignore her, haven't even bothered with camouflaging myself since when the Hobgoblins started wall climbing. Though my sneezing seems to have petered out for now.

Immediate threat to my life taken care of, my focus now shifts onto the last surviving members of this dungeon's denizens. Every one of them definitely spectated my battle with the strongest members of their tribe from within that barrier, they now watch me with terror filled eyes. We all know, time will come when those three shamans run out of mana, might even be earlier rather than later.

I might get to finish this by today, after all.