Dove POV
The setting sun lit the sky red. The time had come for the Goblin Camp attacks to begin. The Leaders and Vice-Leaders of the top Parties gathered. I left Canary outside the Elven Camp and made my way to the main tent where Hawk waited. Salvador and Sylvie were present inside.
I sat beside him and asked, “Was your stay successful?”
“The first reason was finished. All that remains is the second.”
A few minutes later, Swan arrived along with another girl. The other girl was an average looking girl. While she exuded the same aura as Swan, she was nowhere as overwhelming. Her eyes were blue and his hair was brown. She was neither fat nor thin; she was neither tall nor small. Her short brown hair was kept in place by a plain blue headband. She kept a serious and unemotional face.
“Long time no see, Sheev.” greeted Hawk to the girl.
“You as well, Hawk.” replied Sheev in a serious tone.
Blitz and Burst arrived a bit later. Following them were Purge and Razor. Another Player arrived soon after. I assumed to be Golden Warriors’ Leader Kin.
Kin facial feature matched Gin perfectly. According to Hawk, they were fraternal twins. The main difference was Kin’s golden hair and aura. Unlike Gin’s delinquent appearance, Kin held the disposition of a well-distinguished business man.
Kin approached me and bowed, “I’ve heard about what happened. I apologize for by brother’s actions.”
“It is alright.” I replied.
“So? Where is he?” asked Hawk.
“I forced him to sit out of action today as punishment. Not that the punishment affects him in anyway.”
“Sigh… I can’t believe you two are twins.” replied Hawk.
The sun had already set when Zoe and another boy arrived. The boy was around fourteen years of age. If Zoe could be compared to a queen from a fairy tale, then the boy could be compared to the prince. Having the same blonde hair and deep black eyes as Zoe, the boy was likely a relative of Zoe. He even held the same royal aura as her. His body still hadn’t completed puberty so he was smaller than I.
“Hawk! I missed you.” said the boy excitingly as he ran towards Hawk.
“Did you train hard, Kotel?” asked Hawk with a smile as he petted the boy’s hair, messing it up.
“Yes! I will become even stronger!”
Once everyone assembled, Salvador distributed the Goblak leaves to the Players. Each group of five would be accompanied by an Elf. In our case, Sylvie would be coming with us.
The Parties exited the Elven Camp and went their separate ways. We found Canary waiting for us outside sitting on the ground.
A few seconds later, a girl wearing a dark cloak and hood approached us. From her aura, I could tell it was Crow.
“As you requested, I’ll be helping you.” said Crow.
Hawk had already notified us beforehand that he would be hiring Crow. Canary looked at her with suspicious eyes due to her shady clothing. As she continued staring intently at her, Hawk said, “You can trust her.”
“If you say so…” replied Canary reluctantly.
Hawk took out the Goblak leaf and began heading towards the direction in led us to. After a few minutes, the leaf fully withered when we arrived at the destination.
“Is this fine? We have only four Players instead of the maximum of five.” I expressed my worries.
“Don’t know, but there’s no harm trying, right?” replied Hawk jokingly.
“We die if we fail.” I replied in annoyance.
“Then let’s not fail.” said Hawk in the same moment he dropped the stem unto the ground.
The ground begins collapsing as if it turned into sand and a hole was created. Hawk dropped a small rock into the hole, but it hit the bottom immediately, indicating the hole was only one and a half person deep.
We dropped ourselves one by one into the Goblin Camp.
For around three meters, the path remained narrow and dark. From there, we could see an open illuminated area up ahead and went there.
The open area was lighted by several glowing crystals on the ceiling. The floor, wall, and ceiling were all smooth and polished. Due to the slight wetness of the rocks, reflections of light emanated from them. From the distance, the pillar could be seen extending up from the ground. In all honestly, the Goblin Camp looked more like a natural wonder than a camp for hideous creatures.
The time for sightseeing was not now as twenty-five Goblins spawned and attacked us. Hawk and I moved anticipating the attacks and prevented the Goblins from penetrating to the back Party.
With the addition of Sylvie and Crow, we adapted our formation to their presence. I moved to the front of the formation to better improve the close range fighting for our Party.
From the back end, Sylvie shot arrow after arrow in great speeds with perfect accuracy. When Hawk used Skadi’s Caress, Sylvie capitalized immediately and timed her arrows to cancel the animations of the Goblins. While I had mostly gotten used to cancelling Enemy animations, doing it with arrows still proved too hard for me because of the delay between shooting the arrow and it landing; however, Sylvie did this without much effort.
Sylvie’s bow differed greatly from my Basic Bow in that the design was more beautiful. According to her, her Bow was an Artifact Rarity Bow named Skyreach. The Bow was yellow with a line of brown flowing down through it. Jewels lay at the end of the bow, one blue and one yellow. Around both jewels were pure white feathers of uniform sizes.
Canary performed as she usually did. As Hawk told her to always do, she held back on her use of Mana to reserve some for later.
Due to the sheer number of Goblins, even Hawk and I could not avoid every attack. Thankfully, Crow’s Ability Shadow Heal as a Dark Priest worked best against weaker attacks. Shadow Heal was a relatively weak AOE Heal.
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Shadow Heal healed around 3% of Hawk’s and Sylvie’s Health and 2% of Canary’s and my Health per casting. Due to the Priest’s high Mana pool, Mana consumption wasn’t the greatest issue, but Hawk told Crow to no consume more than a third of her Mana, six Shadow Heals.
Two Goblins attacked our Party from behind, but Sylvie shot one of them down before it could reach us. She then switched into dual-wielding Knives and struck down the other one as easily as Hawk would. Her Knives were Rare Rarity Knives called White Knives. As their name may imply, the blade of the Knives were white as snow. The blades did not appear to be sharp at a glance, but in truth they sliced through Goblins like hot knife on butter. The hilt was made of light brown wood of high quality.
Sylvie could not only attack from both melee and range, she could also cast a variety of Elven magic.
When one of the Goblins managed to break through and approach the mages, Sylvie casted Elven Spell: Immobilize on it, inflicting the Status Effect: Immobilized.
Immobilize prevented the victim from changing its location. While it could still attack freely, it was stuck in place, making it effective against enemies without range attacks.
When Crow’s healing failed to be sufficient due to the high number of attacks, Sylvie utilized Prayer, a healing spell to top us off. When Skadi’s Caress was used, Sylvie would occasionally use Ray, a damaging spell, to continue to animation cancelling. After one of the Goblins reached close range to Canary, Sylvie casted Disarm to inflict the Status Effect: Disable on the Goblin.
Disable prevented the victim from attacking. While it could still move around, it was incapable of attacking, but it could still use Abilities.
Both Status Effects wore off after an amount of time.
According to Sylvie, Elves innately held insanely high Mana that they never worried about spending it all. Those of direct descent of Elven royalty had very close to infinite Mana that would never run out even if the Elf spent days using Elven Spells.
Most Elves were proficient with Elven Spells to differing extents. The strength of Sylvie’s Spells were said to be average among the Elves.
Sylvie could also use a higher tier of Elven Spells known as Ancient Elven Spells. Ancient Elven Spells directly altered reality by creating, changing, or removing the laws of nature. Unlike normal Elven Spells, Ancient Elven Spells held unbelievable high Mana costs that only some of the Elven royalty could afford. Even with their near infinite Mana, Ancient Elven Spells drained their Mana at a rapid rate. Using an Ancient Elven Spell consumed around 70% of Sylvie’s Mana, so she refrained from using them.
After we defeated the initial attack, more Goblins emerged and rushed towards us.
“Everyone, gather together!” commanded Hawk.
As ordered, we grouped in reaching distance to one another. We were in a triangular formation with Hawk and I in the front and Sylvie in the back. Canary and Crow stayed in the relative safety in the middle.
We slowly inched our way closer to the pillar in the middle while maintaining the formation. Canary’s Electron Overcharge covered the gap in our formation.
The Goblin waves never ended. We killed Goblin after Goblin, but with each slain, more came. Unless we took out the pillar, the Goblin forces would not stop.
The pressure of the attacks began to take its toll on us. Canary and Crow were forced to waste more Mana than desired. As we reached halfway towards the pillar, I saw a group of Goblins in the distance from the corner of my eye. Unlike the normal Goblins, these Goblins held bows.
“Tch…” grunted Hawk as he noticed the same thing I did.
As the Goblin Archers moved closer to begin aiming at us, I abandoned defending against the nearby Goblins and switched to my bow and shooting at them.
After all this time in Reality, my accuracy with Bows had improved greatly compared to when I began. I shot at the Goblins before they began shooting at us. This was not because my Bow held greater range than the Goblins’ Bows. The range was created by skill. While the system assisted in the firing of Bows in a certain range, shooting beyond the system assist range was possible. I could hit stationary around 1.5 times further than the assisted range with reliable accuracy. Sylvie could hit over four times further than the assist range
Seeing this, Sylvie immediately changed positions with me and chose to shoot down the Goblin Archers. I instead began fighting the Goblins behind us. Unlike in the beginning, the Goblins behind us were comparable in number to the one in front of us because we were in the middle of the Camp.
The pressure of fending off the Goblins was enormous. Even with Canary’s perfect control of multiple Electron Overcharges covering our blind spots, fending off over thirty Goblins alone was unbelievable difficult. At any moment in time, there were at least fifty Goblins attempting to attack us.
Things went from bad to worse when the Goblin Archers finally got in range for us. Due to their sheer number, even Sylvie could not shoot them all down before they reached us. They began firing at us at will. Crow was forced to cast Shadow Heal upon cooldown to maintain our life. Our only saving grace was that it was easier for Sylvie to use Prayer when using a Bow compared to using Knives.
As the battle went on, our Health slowly whittled down even with all the healing, yet we continued inching closer and closer towards the pillar. While things looked good for a moment when Sylvie killed all the Goblin Archers, the good news dissapitated quickly as another group of Goblin Archer with the same number as the previous group spawned from the same location and began chasing after us.
“Leave one of the Goblin Archer alive!” ordered Hawk to Sylvie. While she did not have the time to think why, the reason was obvious. The second group of Goblin Archers only spawned after the entire initial group was eliminated.
Thanks to this, the damage inflicted by the Goblin Archers reduced dramatically. We reached the mud pit with around 60% Health each.
As we did, more Goblins rose from the mud pit. At this point, over a hundred Goblins were in existence. Our pace slowed down even further as the pillar was within reach.
On the top of the pillar appeared another Goblin. On its head, I could make out words Elder Goblin. On his hands was a staff, which he held out. He began chanting in an unfamiliar language from the top of pillar. Upon hearing the chant, the Goblins began attacking faster and more relentlessly. Our movement towards the pillar completely halted due to the strengthened attacks.
“I’m going for the Elder Goblin.” I said.
I did not wait for Hawk’s permission and immediately use Fade Walk and ran as fast as I could to the pillar. While doing this was risky, it was better than slowly dying to the waves of Goblins. I snuck my way through the small gaps between the dozens of Goblins in the way.
I reached the base of the pillar and jumped as high as I could. The pillar was made of rotting wood and had the diameter of an average tree. While the pillar was too high to reach the top in one jump, I managed to stab my sword into the pillar around a third from the top from the tops at the peak of my jump. From there, I grabbed on to the pillar and finished the rest of the height with the second jump.
I was greeted with a fireball at my face. Upon reaching the top, the Goblin had almost completed using a fireball spell. According to Sylvie, Goblins had their own form of magic known as Goblic. It seemed the Elder Goblin could see me even while invisible. With only forty-three percent Health left, taking this spell would put me in critical condition if not kill me. Aside from that, getting hit at this height would throw me back down the pillar without invisibility into the Goblin army.
However, I held no fear. I attacked the Elder Goblin without hesitance. The fireball was interrupted. I knew this would happen. While I myself could not interrupt spells, Hawk’s Skadi’s Caress could. Hawk used Skadi’s Caress on the Elder Goblin when I reached it. While he probably couldn’t see the Goblics being casted, using Skadi’s Caress on the Elder Goblin was the best strategy regardless since it was the main target we had to kill.
Within the duration of Skadi’s Caress, I beat down and killed the Elder Goblin. The Elder Goblin was no sturdier than an average Goblin. The only difference was its ability to cast Goblics.
As I killed the Elder Goblin, the Goblins began climbing up the pillar with great speeds. I began slashing away at the pillar below me as quickly as I could. Noticing this change in aggro, my teammates immediately shifted focus to the pillar and attacked it will all their strength and Mana, ignoring all evasion and relying completely on Crow’s healing.
We managed to destroy the pillar before any of us fell into critical Health. Hawk and I were at a third or so Health and the rest were at one-fourth Health. When the pillar’s Health turned zero, the Goblins fell to the ground paralyzed.
The pillar collapsed as I was on top of it, throwing me off balance and causing me to fall back down. While I’m not sure of the exact the damage of falling from this height into the ground, I did not want to risk in anyway. I tried my best to regain my form, but it proved futile as not only the pillar but the entire cave was collapsing. The rocks falling from the ceiling prevented me from correcting my form as I fell closer to the ground.
Hawk caught me with his hand spread out, but we fell into the ground regardless and lost 7% of our Health. Without wasting any time, Hawk stood up and grasped my hand tightly and we, along with our teammates, made a beeline towards the entrance. As we ran, we watched the cave collapse around us, burying the paralyzed Goblins with it.
Unlike movies where the protagonists always escaped at the nick of time, we reached the exit with seconds to spare. As we jumped out of the Goblin camp, we waited for half a minute until it collapsed entirely. The camp caved in on itself and the entrance was sealed up with soil.
Looking at the time, we spent over two hours in the Goblin camp. The stars had already taken the sky, but the moon was yet to be seen.
As we were about to relax ourselves, Hawk, who was still holding my hand, appeared to realize something and said, “We need to hurry back.”
No one understood the reason of what he said, but we trusted him and followed regardless. With one statement, Hawk brought back the adrenaline from escaping the Goblin camp. We ran back towards the Elven Camp at maximum speed for an unknown reason. As we reached the Elven Camp, Hawk finally let go of my hand in surprise, and we realized the reason for returning.
[Priest]
A job specializing on supporting allies with Magic.
Stats: Health: ** Mana: ***** Attack: * Defense: **
Magic: **** Resistance: ** ** Speed: *** Dexterity: **
Usable Weapons: Staves, Rods, Books
Usable Armor: Light Equipment, Mage Equipment
[Shadow Heal]
Restores a small amount of Health to all nearby allies. Ignores Status Effect: Undead.
Range: Multi-Target, within four meter radius of the user.
Cooldown: 5 Seconds