Dave sidestepped a sword thrust, feeling the gush of air from the blade passing him. He pivoted on his heel, and released a spark directly on the attacker's head.

It wasn’t difficult since his attacker was barely three feet tall. Spasming his opponent fell to the ground and after a few twitches he stayed still. Dave looked at his fallen foe with a mix of hesitation and fascination.

Since the incident where Mira got wounded, around two weeks ago, the waves of attacking monsters seemed to be switching quite regularly. The wave after it turned out to be a handful of these snake monsters. Almost as tall as a man, but quite slow. Since there were only so few of them, they dealt with them easily.

The wave after it seemed to a pair of wolves, but instead of four legs, they had only three, with only one in the front. As one would expect it made them quite immobile, but they made up for it with sharp claws and fangs.

A few of Dave’s friends had gotten cut quite badly that night. Since then Dave decided to take a more active role in defending their camp, which turned out to be a good decision.

Because today they were overrun by little green humanoid monsters. At least that’s what Mira had screamed as the first few rushed at their clearing. Dave and Max had only shared a smug smile.

“Goblins!” They exclaimed almost in unison. Those things were unmistakingly goblins, they shared all the characteristics. Small, green, long pointy ears, wearing rags and makeshift weapons, and most importantly, they were rather dumb. One had practically impaled himself on Dave’s spear.

“You know what Goblins are?” Bixby asked them, raising an eyebrow, more interested than confused.

Max shrugged. “Sure, they’re pretty common in fantasy lore where we come from.”

“Yeah little buggers are a staple of culture!” Dave added as he took a few steps away from his smoldering corpse.

Bixby looked thoughtful. “It’s interesting that humans had even included goblins in the lore to teach you, usually they’re quite low on the food chain.”

“Oh yeah that’s exactly how they were portrayed.” Max said while reholstering his gun. “More annoying than dangerous really.”

“But the fuckers have sharp little sticks.” Ryland cursed. He sat a few feet to the side while Sam was healing his wounds. He had been overrun by three goblins with spears at the same time, but while they had scored a few shallow cuts, he had beaten them to mush. Quite literally. One on the ground had more in common with a watermelon dropped from the tenth floor, than a goblin.

Luckily it turned into blue smoke, drifting away in the wind. Had he looked at the wet mess any longer, Dave wouldn’t have been sure of his ability to keep his breakfast down.

Suddenly more screeches rang out of the woods.

“What? Even more?” Sarah frowned towards the direction of the sound.

“The waves really get harder huh?” Max said, sharing the same frown. “Must’ve been like what? A dozen of those already?”

Dave tightened his fists, took a step forward and rolled his shoulders. “I don’t mind the extra levels.”

“Me neither.” Ryland said enthusiastically, jumping up so fast he almost knocked Sam over.

Max chuckled. “Well I won’t let you have all the fun alone.” He turned towards the rest of the group in general, but Dave saw his eyes lingering on Sarah. “Would you mind staying back? Just so none of these green bastards sneak by us.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Fine. You guys go have fun.” She said drily.

“How do you know they’re bastards?” Bixby said, but no one paid him attention. Dave and Ryland were too eager and the rest distracted.

Max took a step forward and clasped his hands on Dave and Rylands shoulders. “I would’ve never thought I would say it, but today my friends, we’re going to hunt goblins.” He said with a wide smile.

And with that they took off.

“Why are they so excited about goblins?” Mira asked, a ton of confusion and a dash of worry in her voice. Sam and Bixby shared her look.

Sarah sighed. “You never really played video games or were much for fantasy stuff huh?” Seeing the others shake their heads, she sighed again. “Well then, the short answer is, because men are idiots.”

It took a moment before Sam registered her words.

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“I almost think this is too good to be true.” Dave said while they were walking through the small forest around their clearing.

He knew he should probably be a little nervous, but surprisingly he felt not much fear in him. The goblins they had faced back at the camp were rather easy to take out. So maybe he shouldn’t lure himself into false security.

But killing goblins was what every adventurer did. In dungeons and dragons Dave had played multiple sessions where killing goblins was the most fun to be had. It was hard to explain, goblins were always seen as the first and easiest of foes to kill, a minor nuisance and past time for adventurers really.

It turned out that it was surprisingly fun too. Somehow Dave had always dreamed of fighting goblins, it made him feel like the knight in shining armor come to save the village from the danger of goblins. The fact that he would gain levels from killing them helped a lot as well.

From the eager looks of his friends, they weren’t much different.

“Is it weird I’m somehow excited to kill goblins?” Ryland asked.

Max stopped and thought for a second. “You know, I think it is. But somehow I always wondered what it would feel like, to be the hero getting rid of a goblin plague you know?” He resumed walking, a grin on his face. “And now even get to do it with a laser gun. Life is awesome.”

Maybe because they were talking too excitedly, they didn’t hear the sounds, or maybe they wouldn’t have heard them anyways. But while Max was raising his weapon, four goblins, half naked armed with crude weapons, rushed out of the bushes.

The first one caught Max with his spear, piercing his leg. The second one, ran into Ryland, swinging with his club. But it bounced off without much effect on Rylands bicep.

The third and fourth ran towards Dave, hoping to catch him off guard. Which was unlucky for them, since Dave was always ready.

One fell pierced by his spear, before the thing was even halfway in reach for its own attack. The other managed a swing with its dagger, but Dave parried it swiftly and knocked the legs out from under the goblin. Then he brought down the tip of his spear as quick and decisive as a frog snatching a fly out of the air.

As he looked up again, his friends had also dealt with their respective foes.

“I expected a bit more.” Ryland said, absentmindedly rubbing his arm.

Max cursed as he was examining his leg. “You were right, Ryland.” He looked towards his friend. “These fuckers really have sharp weapons.”

“Are you okay?” Dave asked, more out of politeness than worry.

“Yeah only a shallow cut.” Max said.

Sam’s rapid healing Skill brought them two distinct advantages. One, injuries that would usually bother them for a few days, were gone in a matter of minutes. That’s why they had started treating most things as minor scratches.

Second, by having constant access to such a healing ability, they grew a bit complacent. With their lifestyle wounds were a regular occurance, but thanks to Sam, they could train hard and fight while taking small risks. So by now they were all so accustomed to pain, that they mostly shrugged it off.

Taking a closer look, Dave could see that the shallow cut was rather a pretty nasty gash. No reason to run back to Sam immediately, but still nothing they usually downplayed. He worried a bit for Max, with getting beaten almost senseless every two days, Max had become rather stumped towards pain.

A shrill shriek filled the air and reminded Dave of what they were there for.

He made a mental node to talk to Max about it sometime later. Than he pushed the thought to the back of his mind and focused on what was in front of them. Goblin hunting.

They followed the sound. By now they were already quite a bit away from their clearing, way past their barrier.

Dave felt a bit nervous out here. Like a fish out of water. He had walked their safe zone up and down so often these past few weeks, that the forest out here felt unfamiliar. Strange even.

He wasn’t worried so much that they might run into Nodefoxes. If the Nodefoxes had any significant number of troops stationed here, they would’ve simply overrun them. So if they were really short on fighting power, it seemed illogical to waste them here. So it was more just a general nervousness that filled Dave.

After a short while of walking, they finally found the sound of commotion.

Almost a dozen goblins were gathered around a small clearing in the forest. The forest floor was slightly downhill from here, putting the little green monsters a few feet below them. Dave could see them from the hidden vantage point behind the trees above, and what he saw made him scared of goblins for the first time.

In the middle of the goblin bunch was a dead boar. Dave knew it was dead, because the goblins were feasting on it. They were ripping whole chunks of flesh out of the animal, some biting into its thick hide and ripping out fistsized pieces of meat with their crooked teeth, others were tearing flesh out with their bare hands, ravenously shoveling it into their bloody mouths. Savagely butchering the dead animal.

It was chaos down there, the goblins were snapping at each other and shoving themselves around, quite violently, eager to get more meat for themselves. The sounds they made were bone chilling, resembling laughter and screaming at the same time. And all of them were dripping in blood, their hands, their teeth, their whole bodies. It was pure pandemonioum.

For the first time they truly seemed like wild monsters instead of the dumb things they knew from DnD and video games.

Max and Ryland shared Dave’s look of horror. Ryland had turned ghostly pale, in stark contrast to his usually tanned philipino skin. Max on the other hand looked fine at first glance, but Dave knew how strong a mask his friend could put on. Looking closer, he saw Max’s hands shaking slightly around the handles of his weapon and there was a slight frown on his face.

“I’m not so sure about this anymore.” Ryland said, and took a step backwards.

Dave felt the same, but unfortunately Rylands boot had met a dry twig on the forest floor by his stepping backwards.

The sound of it snapping echoed through the forest. Not terribly loud. But apparently loud enough. Ten heads turned upwards at once. Hungry eyes and bloody teeth stared at them, glad to have found new prey. With a unison howl, the goblins started running towards the group like a green wave of destruction.

“Oh shit.” Dave said.