Once Yervin returned, the goblin army that was resting in the dungeon formed into ranks, marched outside, and fortified themselves in front of the entrance. They used the apple trees from the dungeon to create barricades and spikes. Not the best wood for the job, but the more mana outside Ian’s dungeon the better. It would have been better to just let the goblins die outside, and have the ogres die inside his dungeon, but the lack of fortifications may have hinted to the ogre chief that something odd was going on.
As the goblins were meant to die, it currently wasn’t a problem, but his lack of ability to see outside his sphere of perception would make it hard if he had to prevent an enemy from getting into his dungeon. Considering the nature of dungeons, however, that seemed unlikely.
He’d known how the battle against the ogres was going due to Yervin’s reports, but not having any visuals of it meant any of his orders were reduced to basic commands such as ‘stick to the plan’. The goblin captains and lieutenants ended up doing most of the decision making. He couldn’t complain much, that was what he made them for. Although, according to Yervin, the goblin army didn’t end up doing much beyond the first volley to get the ogres’ attention.
Yervin, Mina, Izu, Narcy, Botan, Pugi, and Arc were waiting in the dungeon to combat the ogres to the best of the abilities. The groonvat were in the village not fighting. He didn’t expect them to as they wouldn’t respawn. Contracted creatures couldn’t be added to the respawn room apparently.
The goblin army stood at the ready for a couple of hours. Seeing the unflinching desire to defend his dungeon was the first action that reminded him these were dungeon monsters and not the ones that lived out in the world. Oddly, seeing the goblin group respawn didn’t have the same effect. Even if there was a goblin king, his goblin army wouldn’t have been able to stand at the ready for so long.
While the unusual antics and too immediate personalities of the goblin group had shifted his perception of monsters closer to sapients, he needed the reminder that they weren’t sapients. They were dangerous creatures that no matter their strength or intelligence would attack sapients without remorse. His dungeon monsters even had the normal desires of self preservation replaced with the desire to protect the dungeon.
Earlier, the groonvat that accidently split into another instance had relieved some of the pressure that the flesh tongues may have been sapients. It also eased the blackness over his heart at killing the flesh tongue children. If he had let them go, they would have just killed others. A contract with them might have removed their monstrous tendencies, but taking that risk while they were invading his dungeon wasn’t worth the possibility.
Feeling relieved, Ian waited with the rest of his creatures for the man-eaters to arrive.
A short while later, the forest within his sphere started to shake. The goblin army responded by smacking their own weapons against the ground and stomping their feet. It seemed they took Yervin’s ‘make noise’ suggestion to heart.
First, the ogre spearman appeared, then the swordsmen, the axemen, the warhammer wielders, and the fist fighters. Behind them appeared an unarmed group with some children. Ian wanted to purse his non-existent lips. Killing them would not be pleasant, but leaving an ogre child filled with revenge alive always ended up with a village being destroyed and its inhabitants eaten years down the line. Ogres never forgot their revenge, no matter how young.
Bringing up the back was a group of robed ogres, and what Ian assumed was the chief and his retinue. His eyes shifted between the ogre mages and the fortified position of wood that surrounded the goblin army. Yervin had mentioned seeing some flames in the directions of the horde army. He mentally renamed the fortification setup to ‘deathtrap’.
However, his worries were unfounded as the goblin army rushed out of the fortifications, screaming at the top of their lungs, towards the ogre army as soon as they stopped. Good thing he only ordered them to build it and not that they had to stay. He chuckled. It seemed that goblins would still be goblins even with some dungeon tendencies.
With the goblin spearman up front, the melee fighters rushed forward. Behind them, the archers, crossbowman, and mages sent their ranged attacks in waves. Distance wise, none of the projectiles missed, but none went past the melee fighter section of the ogre army. Even with good accuracy for goblins, the ogres received almost no damage. The only damage being burns to the skin from the light mages and a couple missing eyes from stray arrows.
The ogres with arrows in their eyes pulled them out with a grunt. The deflated eyeball stuck to the shaft of the arrow, while the ocular nerve snapped. These ogres either had reduced or no vision, but sadly were still alive to fight. No brain piercers for the goblins.
The ogre spearmen lowered their spears. Wicked grins crossed their faces. Their only worry was the invisible hobgoblins, which were still weak when found. A normal army of goblins? Worthless. They were eight times as tall as the average goblin; they were a sub-race of giants!
With a roar, the ogre spearman thrust their spears forward. The spears of the goblins stood no chance. Once the spears were broken, ten plus goblins were bisected by a weapons meant to pierce. It seemed their army formation worked against them. Being so close together, numerous goblins died with each thrust of a spear and swing of a greatsword. It was a slaughter. The ogre spearman even stepped back and let the other melee fighters take turns mowing down the goblins.
Goblin body parts flew everywhere. When the ogres were halfway through the melee fighters, the first bisected goblins began to disappear.
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Ian waited for the mana to rush back into him, but it did not. He sighed with relief. It looked like having mana rush back into him after trying to have a goblin leave the dungeon was a punishment. It made sense, if all mana in his sphere of perception rushed into his dungeon then he would not have been surprised by its presence initially. The words on his pages transformed into a grin. With goblins his mana buffer would increase by a much larger amount.
When the goblin melee fighters were completely eliminated, the ogres rushed forward and began slaughtering the ranged fighters.
The mages were able to do more damage than any of the other goblins. The illusion mages copied themselves and the light mages, distracting the ogres with fake opponents. Using the illusion mage’s distraction, the light mages focused their slow light balls on vital points and when they were about to die used the beam spell. Ogres lost hands and feet to the beam spell, and a few had their vital organs pierced, resulting in death. However, as expected, their best wasn’t enough, and the ogres completely wiped out the goblin army.
Ian saw the last goblin fall and the ogres begin to make their way to his dungeon entrance. He quickly stuffed his conscious in the blink hobgoblin template he had prepped and formed it on the G- rank floor. With his focus split between the dungeon and the hobgoblin body, he made the hobgoblin body completely invisible and waited. Hopefully the ogres would be done before his two hour time limit was up.
The ogres made their way inside the dungeon and the frontliners kept tentatively poking at his transfer formation before the ogre chief yelled at them to get on with it. They crowded inside the transfer formation, which had grown much larger to accommodate them, and transferred to the G- rank floor. Slowly the G- rank floor began filling up with the entire Kath’lak tribe, even the non-combatants, though Ian thought calling B rank monsters non-combatants was a cruel joke.
The ‘non-combatants’ were arguing back and forth with the chief. The chief wanted them to stay behind, while the warriors and mages dealt with the dungeon, but the non-combatants were having none of it and wanted revenge. He initially assumed their revenge was for attacking them, but it seemed beyond the normal ‘they attacked us so we attack them’ revenge that ogres applied.
As he listened more to their conversation, he got the jist of what happened: his goblins attacked the ogres from behind, the non-combatants (including children) had moved to the back of the tribe to get away from the horde, the goblins successfully did a surprise attack on the ogres and killed some of the children. He understood their rage, but he doubted the goblins even knew that the ogre children were children considering they were larger than an adult goblin. Still, it didn’t matter. He would have to kill them all anyways. He did wish the feelings of guilt brought on by seeing the goblin group as sapient went away though.
Once all the ogres were on the G- rank floor, they began marching forward. Well, the best they could anway. Although the floor had expanded to accommodate their size, it was still proportional so only a couple abreast were able to walk through the halls.
Unsurprisingly the ogres made short work of any monster and biota, each boss destroyed by a single strike annoying Ian every time. Surprisingly the mages and chief completed his puzzles, even the math ones. He wasn’t used to ogres being so quick witted. Even the mages he came across, while intelligent, mainly studied magic for its destructive potential. The chief arguing that the non-combatants should stay behind was another oddity.
There was one hiccup in their walkthrough of his dungeon: the goblin group. Arc, the spider automata, tanked up front while the other goblins tried to harm the ogres in any way they could. While the goblins couldn’t do any damage whatsoever to the ogres, Arc was able to crush the legs and then stab the head of a couple ogres before they learned to stay away from the seemingly unstoppable monster. Persistent attacks from both the melee fighters and the mages eventually brought Arc down as he crumbled to dust. Ian was impressed and finally understood why Arc was an S rank monster with such pitiful attack skills. If the goblins actually had firepower, then a lot more ogres would have died.
The ogre chief, who he learned was called Magrok, only joined beating up on Arc after dealing with Yervin. When the ogres initially confronted Arc and the other goblins, Yervin had blinked into the midst of the mages and killed two before Magrok rushed at him. Yervin, still invisible, blinked away, but Magrok tracked his blink and was upon him in a second. Dagger in hand, Yervin swung it towards the ogre chief, but Magrok caught his hand, his left fist heading towards Yervin’s head. Yervin’s mind went into overdrive, all of his mana was sucked out of his hand, and he blinked away, leaving his hand behind. Magrok looked at the hand with wide eyes before throwing it away and chasing after Yervin.
The process of blink and chase repeated with Yervin occasionally having to give up body parts until he ran out of mana. Once out of mana, Yervin’s body was turned into paste by Magrok as he repeatedly smashed it over and over again into the wall and floor of the dungeon.
Ian was pleased with Yervin’s performance, but he really need to get some useful opponents for the rest of the goblin group. Getting pummeled to death over and over again wasn’t the best training. Still, the fight only delayed the ogres ten to fifteen minutes max.
With anticipation he watched as an ogre with a warhammer swung it towards one of the checkpoint golems. However, he ended up disappointed. Magrok stopped the warhammer with his open hand and punched the other ogre in the face. The other ogre flew back against the wall and then fell flat on his face unconscious.
Magrok shouted to the rest, “Do not destroy anything before the mages and I have looked over them! I will not have this dungeon outsmart us!” The rest of the group nodded and let the mages go about their work.
He could only sigh in disappointment as the mages slowly figured out the sequence while the other ogres fought the monsters in the newly visible rooms. Ian could only yawn as the sequence of five enchanted rooms proved a walk in the park. At least they only spent a half an hour total, they didn’t really need to explore when five hundred ogres could expand throughout his floors in a couple minutes at most.
He had been lucky with the wolves as they dashed further into the EX rank floor, but these ogres, while revenge bidden, were smarter. Like before, the groups slowly made their way into the floor, but unlike before, the fury and arrogance that permeated their eyes was slowly being replaced with fear.
As more ogres entered the floor, the first ogres had to spread deeper into the floor. Unlike the previous floors, they grouped together as much as possible not moving to far from the entrance. One of the ogres had returned to inform the chief about the darkness of the floor, but returned shortly after with the message that they were to continue as normal. Soon after, however, an ogre with a spear stepped on some saffron.