After a minute’s much needed breather, Sylvia figured that the time to go on the offensive had come. Her breathing had returned to normal, and the majority of her exhaustion had disappeared, so the most advantageous move. Thus, she ended up going with a mix of both options she had thought up. Before making her move, she charged her spear with a lot of mana in preparation for dealing with the minions.
With the goblins gathering in a large group, they obviously produced quite a lot of noise, so placing their location near the non-center large building was simple. As she made her way over there, she noticed goblins along the way move towards the area as well after they had spotted her, but she far outpaced them, so there was no need to bother dealing with those.
When she arrived, it quickly became obvious that she was just in time to catch the full group; there were two goblins of equal size to enhanced hobgoblin, with one carrying a spear and the other a longbow, and the two of them were barking out orders while pointing in different directions. Realizing that she only had a couple moments before they’d notice her and react, she got an idea.
While switching her spear over to her left hand, she had an earth spear rise from the ground behind her. Gripping it, she invested a lot of mana in |Sper Enhancement| and converted it to |Spearhead Explosion|. Aware that the spearhead would explode shortly and with it in position to be thrown, she thrusted her arm forwards with everything she had, to throw with as much power as possible.
Just before the spear left her, the archer noticed her, followed by the spearman the moment it was thrown, and to the extreme credit of the two goblins, they both dodged the spear with ease. However, a direct hit had at no point been her intention, and the spear exploded mid-air shortly after, sending shrapnel flying all over. The force and shrapnel took out a decent chunk of goblins and even made the two commanders stumble slightly from the unexpected hit.
In the time she’d just won herself, she deftly regripped her spear and made a wide swipe, releasing the built-up mana in a large wave of hot fire. As the wave swept over the hordes of goblins, all the regular and enhanced goblins were burnt to death on the spot and the hobgoblins got some pretty severe burns. However, the spear commander had only been slightly burned and the archer hadn’t been burned at all, they did, however, look a little exhausted. She was also awarded two level ups from the hundreds of goblin deaths.
With the exception of one enhanced goblin and the flame bear, Sylvia’s only experience with magic was through her own usage, so she wasn’t aware of how to counter magic attacks. As the fire approached the commanders, they had responded by covering their bodies in a layer mana, allowing them to try to disrupt the incoming mana. Actually, the technique was quite similar to what the previous enhanced hobgoblin had done, just slightly less proactive.
Once the fire had dissipated, Sylvia could see that besides the two commanders, her remaining enemies consisted of seven hobgoblins, of which six were fumbling around as if they couldn’t see anything. That was when she noticed the archer knock an arrow and take aim. Weirdly enough, it kept the arrow steady for a couple seconds, and just before it was released, she felt that something was completely wrong right now. This sense of danger was what saved her life, as she barely managed to bend and twist out of the way from the near instantaneous arrow, reducing a heart-shot to one that just left a gash across her left breast.
Unlike the goblins that seemed to care little for pain, Sylvia couldn’t keep a cry of pain from being released. When she, in the corner of her vision, saw it knock another arrow, she immediately raised a decently thick wall of earth in front of her. As the wall rose, she noticed the spearman make its way towards her, and that was when it really struck her; these two enhanced hobgoblins would be the unconditionally most dangerous foes she had fought to date.
When she raised the wall, she had used the earth to either side of her while keeping the surface intact, to make two small pitfalls. Aware that she only had a couple seconds tops before the spearman would arrive, the only thing she could think to do was listen for whether it’d come from the left or right. With it running towards her, it was pretty easy to locate the sound to come from her left, but all of a sudden it stopped without warning.
Stumped at that development, it took a second for her to realize that it must’ve jumped; it had certainly sounded close enough for that to be feasible. Looking up confirmed her fear, as the goblin was already on its way down, ready to thrust towards her. In a moment of clarity from the pain in her chest, she sent mana back through the wall and took quick steps back.
Although the goblin managed to mostly orient itself such that it’d land properly now that its target was gone, it had no way to prepare itself for what was about to happen. The moment it passed the top of the wall, said section shot back at a decently high speed, striking the goblin’s spine with quite a lot of force. As it was sent flying towards Sylvia in an uncontrollable manner, it realized too late that it had involuntarily released its spear from the impact.
Before it could land and get its bearings, it found its chest pierced by its target’s spear, and a burning heat began to spread inside it. With its mind all over the place, it could do little to disrupt Sylvia’s fire. Its last thought as it let out a death cry, was how it regretted going for a jump attack. With its death, Sylvia was able to level up an additional time.
Shortly after its final cry, Sylvia saw the archer appear to the right of the wall with a clear line of sight towards her. Almost instinctively, she moved her spear over and heard a loud thud, as the tip of the fired arrow popped out of the goblin’s stomach. When her eyes returned to the archer, she saw that it had put its tail between its legs and was sprinting for the large building in the village center.
However, something else became clear for Sylvia, said goblin was painfully slow, even when just compared to some of the hobgoblins she’d previously faced. While she pulled an earth spear out from the ground, the hobgoblin that hadn’t been fumbling around rounded the wall and prepared to slash at her with its sword. Before it could strike her, it found a spear through its heart. While it had managed to avoid blindness, its senses had still been dulled considerably by the fire.
With that now dead, Sylvia’s focus returned to the archer, and she set off after it while charging the earth spear. Despite learning that running made the gash on her breast hurt a shitload more from them moving around, she pushed through, and the moment she figured she was within range, she threw the spear. Watching it pierce through the back of the goblin and then explode was incredibly satisfying, and it brought her to level 57.
Looking at the surrounding area, she realized that it may have been too late, as the archer had pretty much arrived at the central building and some explosion shrapnel had struck the building, not to mention the death cry. Though on the bright side, she managed to take down the goblin before it could team up with the chief, which seemed to be its intention.
All in all, those two goblins could’ve been a much more dangerous foe if they’d just worked properly together, not gone for the surprise attack, and not tried to team up with the chief. Though to be fair, she had to admit that the surprise attack would’ve ended things in an instant if she hadn’t noticed the lack of sound, still, maybe they weren’t the unconditionally most dangerous foes yet.
As she finished up looking back on her previous thoughts, the door was kicked off its hinges. From the opening, a goblin that even from a human perspective would be described as a hunk. Standing at well over two meters, it had a physique that bodybuilders would envy. Dark red tattoos snaked their way around its arms and legs, especially in the areas concentrated with muscles. In its right hand, Sylvia saw it hold the neck of a human woman with dead eyes, and she was quickly confirmed to be naked when the goblin just threw her multiple meters away, as if she was a ragdoll. From its furious expression, it was impossible to tell whether it was mad for its village being in ruins, or if it was from very clearly being interrupted mid business. Just like with the arms and legs, its crotch was covered in intricate tattoos, though these were mix of red and white. With how all the goblins had seemed to avoid this house despite everyone getting killed, it wouldn’t have surprised Sylvia if its anger mostly came from being interrupted.
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Seeing it treat the poor woman with less care than people treat their cutlery, a rage ignited inside of her. However, she didn’t get the time to do anything with or about that anger, as it immediately strode towards her faster than she’d ever seen anything of that size move, with its left arm back and ready for a swing with its massive log-like club.
With her instincts taking over and recognizing the sheer difference in speed and strength, her only reaction was to have a spear shoot up from the ground in its path. As it looked like it was about to just sidestep it, she had more spears shoot up, to the point where the goblin would have no choice but to run through the relatively short field of spears. In the moment where it stood in surprise at the unexpected change in surroundings, Sylvia tried to have spears come up from the ground and pierce it, but no spear could appear within a meter of it.
When it seemed to have gotten enough of thinking around, it began to fell the spears by simply swinging its club. It could’ve probably just charged through them, but even it, likely, didn’t see a point in running into a bunch of pointy things. Recognizing that she had only bought herself a couple seconds and that spear likely would be pointless, she began to instead hollow out the ground and move the dirt and stone to form two wall, creating somewhat of a corridor.
In an attempt to have the goblin actually use the corridor, she had made it more than wide enough for it to swing its club. As the goblin took the last swing to clear a path of spears, Sylvia realized that it had only taken as long as it had because the goblin had put way too much power into each swing, making it take a little extra time to swing again. Then she noticed its expression and its change sent a shiver down her spine; instead of being furious, it now seemed more lustful than anything.
As soon as the path was clear, the goblin set off, with the first step alone covering close to two meters. This act, however, was what Sylvia had both hoped and expected, as the ground crumbled beneath it upon landing. Now aware where it would land, she had a hole form as quickly as possible beneath it. Seemingly aware that its club would become more of a hinderance than a help, it managed to hurl it towards Sylvia with quite some force behind it.
The moment she saw it pull its club back for a throw, she changed her focus to raise a wall in front of her and strengthen it. The sound of wood breaking and dust coming from the wall let her know that the club was no longer a danger. With that out of the way, she hurried out from the wall and saw the goblin already attempting to climb out. Before it could get further, she had the corridor walls crash down and move over to completely entrap it.
By this point, only its head and shoulders were sticking out above the ground. Though that didn’t stop it from trying its all at breaking free, be it through mana disruption or sheer strength. After around half a minute of Sylvia continuously suppressing its attempts through her earth magic, the goblin actually passed out. It surprised her at first, but then she remembered what happened last time she ran out of magic.
Without giving it a chance to wake up, she walked over and thrusted her spear through its gaping mouth, lighting it ablaze with a hot flame. As the goblin chief burned to death, she mouthed. “This is way too light for what you’ve done, but it’d be too dangerous to keep you around.”
Killed lv. 61 Hobgoblin Chief. Gained exp. Leveled up.
Leveled up. Gained 4 strength, 3 vitality, 3 endurance, 4 mana, 4 wisdom, and 2 perception.
Seeing the notification made her fall on her butt in relief at having avoided an encounter similar to the bear. Looking back on the battles, she chuckled upon realizing that the goblins’ attempt at being smart was what lost them the fight: The spearman had tried a stealthy jump attack, where just going around the wall would’ve been less predictable, as she would’ve been forced to react to an audible difference moments before it could attack; the archer should’ve continued to shoot instead of just letting the other one go alone, not to mention that it straight up ran away; the chief probably thought it was smart to remove the spears first, but it failed to realize that there was room above the spears, i.e., it forgot to think outside the box, thus giving her enough time to prepare its grave; finally, the swordsman was the only one to not die from trying to be smart, it was instead its haughtiness that caused its downfall. Had it not alerted by laughing, the two hobgoblins would’ve got her.
“Time to deal with the rest of the camp and gather up their gear.”
To begin with, she went over and finished off the burned hobgoblins from earlier. Then she moved on to killing all the remaining goblins in the village, including those that steadily returned from their lookout post, of which there were surprisingly many. In total, killing the entire remaining village netted her a single level.
By the time she felt like most goblins were dead, she decided to check her status to see how much progress she had made by raiding this village.
Name: Sylvia Hisprit
Race: Elf
Age: 24
Gender: Female
Level: 60
Class: Intermediate Spearwoman Trainee
MP: 4261/9878
Titles: [Person of Many Faces], [Unusual Mana Growth], [Blessed by God of the Earth, Geb], and [Great Bear Hunter]
Strength: 157 (141+ 16)
Vitality: 201 (193 + 8)
Endurance: 137 (129 + 8)
Mana: 392 (2(191 + 5))
Wisdom: 100 (97 + 3)
Perception: 70 (70 + 0) |Basic Spearmanship|
Level: 35
Rating: Common
Improves one’s ability with a spear.
Effect: Increases damage done using spears by 35% |Spear Enhancement|
Rating: Uncommon
Level: 36
Enhance the durability of the spear through with your mana. An affinity with the materials of the spear will both increase the effect and mana efficiency. |Spearhead Explosion|
Rating: Rare
Level: 26
A very self-destructive technique that uses |Spear Enhancement| as a base to gather mana in the spear head, before forcing the spearhead to explode, sending shrapnel flying at high speeds. Increases the damage of the spear by 260% in addition. |Elemental Emission|
Rating: Uncommon
Level: 22
Use the spear as a medium for connecting, manipulating, and emitting elemental mana. Increases damage done this way by 44%. Make the mana 11% easier to manipulate this way.
As she searched the place, she found a building that she’d wish she hadn’t opened. Inside, she found 12 humanoid women and 30+ female goblins in a similar state to the woman thrown by the chief. Not to mention, the goblins looked to be only a little bigger than the level 1 and 2 she had found in a separate building. While they all seemed to be alive, their dead eyes and limp bodies seemed to beg for death, and after practically all the women begged for her to end their suffering, she reluctantly did as asked; the exp message that popped up brought her no joy or satisfaction, like they usually did. Neither did the knowledge of why she’d only faced male goblins do any good for her.
After spending a couple hours in the village, she had stacked both Frank and Calysta with around 20 metal weapons, 40ish pieces of armor, and a bunch of food. She had also found a decent number of baskets, though of even lower quality than her own, that she’d use to carry everything home.
For the chief’s building, she set it ablaze; it was not a place that she wished to continue existing in this world. Once that was done, she left the village with a heavy heart at the horror she’d seen that day. Compared to being hurt and having near death experiences, witnessing such disgusting scenes and behavior gave her a much better view into the darkness of the world, as the former two were a natural part of living in a fantasy forest, while the latter felt incredibly human in a bad way. With such thoughts running through her mind, she trekked the path home.