I had told my goblins to be quiet, but apparently they forgot. As soon as they started charging they also started yelling. The four men looked up in shock. The nerdy one was still holding his knife but the other three still had their rifles in hand. They raised them and started firing at the goblins.

The only thing that saved my goblins was that the men were carrying hunting rifles. They were bolt action instead of semi-automatic rifles. Which meant the men only managed to fire twice before my goblins were on top of them. The drugged man missed his first shot and his second shot only grazed one of my goblins. The goblin still fell to the ground screaming though, goblins didn’t have much pain tolerance.

Josh managed to hit two of my goblins in the chest. Both those goblins fell to the ground also. Somehow Doug nailed two goblins in the head with his shots. The nerdy guy managed to get his gun up but only got off a single shot. Unfortunately that one nailed Chief Sharpstick in the stomach. It didn’t kill him but it knocked him to the ground. He was back up in a moment and charging though.

It was now four goblins against the four men in close combat. The men didn’t seem to have any experience fighting in close combat at all. One of the goblins managed to stab the drugged man in the gut. Chief Sharpstick managed to get Doug in the shoulder with his spear.

Meanwhile the nerdy one was swinging his rifle like a club. He managed to bash in the head of his opponent. Josh on the other hand was scrambling backwards away from his foe. He brushed into a strangle vine and it wrapped around his neck. As he choked the goblin he was facing started stabbing him.

Doug dropped his rifle and pulled out a pistol. Then he put three bullets through Chief Sharpstick’s head. Even though he killed my goblin boss I couldn’t help but be impressed. Meanwhile the nerdy man bashed in the skull of the goblin that was standing over the body of the drugged hunter while stabbing him repeatedly. Surprisingly the goblin that had killed Josh didn’t keep on stabbing his dead body. Instead he turned around and stabbed the nerdy man in the side. The man crumpled and ended up falling on a spore shroom.

As the puff of spores billowed out he swore and looked up at the goblin standing over him. Suddenly the goblins' head exploded. I sighed as I realized that I had lost the fight. It was all Doug’s fault. He had managed to kill half my goblins. I wondered if he had some sort of training either in the military or as a police officer.

Doug shot the goblin that had been injured in the charge, it had spent the entire fight rolling around whimpering in pain. Then he staggered over to the injured nerdy man. “Don’t worry Jeff I’ll get you back to town. The doc should be able to get you patched up in no time. I wish cell phones were still working.”

I didn’t know much about injuries but I was only going to give Jeff a fifty percent chance of surviving a two mile trek back to town. At least I knew that the messages hadn’t been a total lie. It looked like guns still worked but some other technology wasn’t.

As Doug carried Jeff out I couldn’t help but trigger another rock trap. As the rocks fell he stumbled forwards. Jeff hit the ground hard on top of him. A strangle vine wrapped around Doug’s arm but he quickly pulled out a knife and cut the vine. Doug and Jeff both groaned but it looked like I hadn’t managed to kill either of them. Doug got back up and then carefully left while watching for any more rock falls and dangerous plants.

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I could have mounted another attack. I still had all my female goblins and the one weird goblin in the plant room. I also had enough mana to create and equip over half a dozen more goblins. But it would take too long to get the goblins organized. Plus I wanted to keep something in reserve.

I quickly moved everything the two men were carrying into my inventory. Then out of curiosity I tried to move their bodies. Surprisingly it worked. I wasn’t sure what to do with the bodies but for now I didn’t see any need to get rid of them. I’d tested it and it looked like anything in my inventory didn’t decompose, or decomposed at a much slower rate, so it wasn’t like they would start rotting or anything.

The men had left a bunch of equipment behind. Most importantly they had left four rifles and a bunch of ammo. I absorbed one of the rifles and bullets to see if I could create them. I created a single bullet but it cost as much mana as a goblin. When I tried to create a rifle I got a message saying I didn’t have enough mana. Obviously creating more of them wasn’t cost effective.

At that moment I noticed that the weird goblin had walked into the room. He was carrying a stick and had a bunch of ground up herbs. I hadn’t noticed but two of my goblins were still alive. He knelt beside a goblin that had been shot in the chest that was still barely alive. Then it smeared a bunch of herbs on the wound and started chanting.

Next it got up and walked up to the unconscious goblin. A few chants and a couple swift kicks and the goblin had groggily woken up. I was pretty sure it was the kicks, and not the chants, that got him conscious again. Still I was happy that it meant I had a second semi-healthy goblin. While all the goblins staggered back to their lair I checked my notices. There were a bunch of goblin level ups but I filtered them out.

One of your goblins has become a goblin shaman.

You have reached level 3

Congratulations on receiving one hundred thousand views. 6 points awarded.

Congratulations on receiving ten thousand positive ratings. 5 points awarded.

All of those points put me at ninety three points saved up. I was almost to the point where I could make a tier three purchase from the shop. I selected the viewership tab to see how close I was to getting my next rewards.

Arthur’s show information

Views: 382,008

Views Ranking: 469,133

Race Views Ranking: 87

Positive Ratings: 26,992

Negative Ratings: 3537

Ratings Ranking: 560,891

Race Ratings Ranking: 96

You will receive rewards daily based on your views and ratings ranking in addition to rewards whenever you reach a new milestone.

It looked like my fight with the hunters had given me a ton of views and ratings. Unfortunately it looked like I was still a long way from reaching my next set of rewards. Also I was pretty sure my viewers didn’t like my goblins which was resulting in a lot of negative ratings. Hopefully that wouldn’t be held against me.

While I was looking at my information another one of my goblins respawned. I looked around and realized I only had five male goblins alive, and two were badly injured. At the same time I had fifteen female goblins. I wondered if that was going to cause problems.

I sent the two healthy normal goblins to guard the dungeon entrance. I breathed a sigh of relief when they managed to avoid the strangle vines. My new shaman goblin was back in the plant room, I’d have to remember to look at him later.

Meanwhile my female goblins were either sleeping or mining. I was almost done with the fourth room in my dungeon. With any luck I’d be able to get far enough away from my goblins that I couldn’t hear them. Given the level of noise they produced it may take a few dozen rooms though.