It had been five days since Daron first went scouting in the goblin village. While he would have loved to jump in and save the elf, that would be stupid. Sadly, as an F- ranked monster, he was much too weak to take on this opponent, so he needed time to prepare. For instance, the thing he spent most of his time on was modifying spells so he could cast it with his bunny body. An example would be ‘Burning Hands’ a spell that requires you to spread your fingers and place your thumbs together, but he didn’t have thumbs or fingers, so he had to modify it to use his horn, it was simple but time-consuming.

But it wasn’t like that was the only thing he was doing, he also would go every day to the camp and scout around, making sure he knew about the number of goblins, and what types there were. And it was a frightening 150 goblins, that’s about the size of a small army! Of course, any self-respecting town would be able to fight that off with a tenth of that and decent walls.

He also finalized his plans, he split the plan into three phases. Phase one! Steal the Chieftain’s staff, the Chieftain’s main close combat skill was his ‘Staff Mastery’ so without it and he would be next to helpless in melee range. Phase two! Start a fire, so one of the biggest problems in assassinating the Chieftain was that he couldn’t kill him in one strike, so that meant his subordinates would be quick to join in and gang up on him, so by starting a fire, he would distract them because while the Chieftain had control over the goblins, he doubted that would matter if a fire was consuming the village. Phase three! Ice that fool! So yea simple enough, fight and kill the Chieftain.

But he did come up with a combat strategy, dodge all of his attacks, now hang on, because that might sound obvious, but up until now his battles had mostly been attacking with spell then they die, and that’s how most mage vs. mage battles go, but he had worked up a bit of Agi so he would try and use it to his advantage, but as he wasn’t used to dodging in his new body, it would take some luck to actually dodge anything, well not entirely…

_________

He arrived at the goblin camp for his usual watch, as for when he planned to attack? During the new moon, while the goblins had torches, the moon was still an important tool for guards, so during a new moon where there isn’t any moonlight, it would be harder to spot him… but life has a way to screwing you over when you plan for something.

“#*&^$” (It’s just up ahead right?)

“^&*$%” (If the info’s right? Than yes)

Using his Enhanced Hearing, he was able to detect two voices talking a bit away. Heading towards them while still sneaking, he activated Cloak of Shadows.

“&%^$^%” (how many goblins were there again?)

“*#$&^#$@!@#$” (around 50 or so meaning other than the chieftain, there should only be a few warriors, and maybe a rouge)

When he came across the source of the voices, it was revealed to be a group of four, in the front was a man with a heater shield a sword strapped to his back. Next to him was a slimmer man that without a doubt was some sort of rogue, holding a map in front of his face, he must also be the navigator.

Behind them were two others, a cute girl with stark green hair, wearing a robe of similar colors, and a large man covered in muscles, (but not cloths).

As the front pair were talking so were the rear pair.

“@^*%#*^%&” (thanks for protecting me Vorus)

“@*#^&#$&#@$#$@!” (No problem Sera, it’s my job, NO! Honor to protect you while we march)

The girl beamed the guy a smile, and in response, the man’s cheeks turned red as he scratched the back of his head.

It wasn’t hard to tell that these four are adventurers, mainly because on all four of their necks were a dog tag looking Medalion dark brownish orange. Adventurer plates, of which this group are D ranked, as shown by their bronze plate. To quickly sum up the adventurer’s guild, it’s an international organization that manages a specific group of mercenary dealing with monsters, and other specialized tasks. And they rank their members and quests with ranks corresponding to the ranks monsters and classes have, with bronze equaling D ranked.

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This wasn’t good news for him. These adventurers probably came to destroy the goblin village, but unless they already knew about the leader being a powerful variant, he doubted they would be able to properly siege the goblins. And after being attacked, the leader would amp up security! He had no choice, he would have to move his plans to now!

Running back towards the camp, he vaguely heard them say something but paid them no mind, he didn’t have time to. Getting into the camp was easy, the guards being their usual sleepy selves. With almost all of the goblins being asleep in their homes, he decided to drop his spell, wanting to conserve as much mana as possible.

Slipping under the door for the Chieftain’s hut, he found he and the elf were both asleep, with his target, the staff, laying off to the side. Once he got in range, he cast Mage Hand. The ethereal glove-like hand appeared, floating silently off towards the staff. The hand slowly descended to the staff, grabbing its midpoint it began to lift. However, whether it was because the staff was made of heavy wood, or because the spell’s level was too low, the hand wasn’t able to lift the staff, only getting part of it off the ground.

His mind was racing a mile an hour! What to do! If he dragged it, the staff would make too much noise… wait noise? Could he possibly!? But with his Int, it might not work, but he already came this far he can’t stop now!

A black fog began to spill out of his horn, crawling along, as soon as it covered the staff, he started dragging it. unfortunately, there was a problem, keeping both spells up at once was too taxing on his mind. To imagine both spell formulas at once was a toll. The way you cast a spell is to imagine the spell's ‘formula’. Looking at one it would look like a magic circle, with rune after rune interconnected to each other, but only with a trained eye would you be able to make sense of what rune did what, and how to connect each of them, with learning a spell mostly being about understanding the runes, and the pattern you needed to place them in. At high levels, the spell will usually manifest it within the air, so if you knew what the runes meant, you could guess the spell’s effects.

But back to the present situation, with Daron having to cast two spells continually, it involved him imagining both, try it now, thinking of two shapes at once. Luckily he didn’t have to actively concentrate on Dammpening Shadow, so he was just able to manage. Pushing through the growing migraine, the staff bounced off the ground as it made its way to him. He backed out of the hut with it, dumping it in the alleyway between it and the house next door. Now for phase two.

He began running, while he could have left the distraction to be the adventurers, with only four people, he didn’t think they would take up enough of the goblin’s attention. So he dashed towards the other side of the village. Eventually, he came across a decent spot, a storage hut that was a tad bit too close to the hut next to it. Inside were some spears, the stone, and stick kind, that the goblins he first met were wielding.

Not wanting to wake anyone while he was still here, nor destroying the hut, he chose to use Create Fire rather than FireBolt. The fire moved to one of the walls made of tied together sticks, quickly finding perches on the twine that tied the walls together. As the fire spread to the rest of the hut, he dashed back to the chieftain, even if this didn’t work, he couldn’t afford to waste more time.

Getting back, he took a moment to catch his breath. Taking the last deep breaths he needed, he looked over to see the fire starting to get big enough that he could see it from here. Showtime! Slipping under the door once more, he faced his foe. His opening spell was obvious, Scorching Ray. Out of his horn, three red beams of searing hot mana blasted out, striking the goblin.

*YEAAAAAA!*

Screaming out in pain, he began flopping around, Daron even swore he could see tears in his eyes. The elf girl seemed to wake as well, but unlike the goblin, she was quiet crawling into the nearest corner as to not be sighted.

The goblin began to get to his feet, having not attempted to hide, the goblin easily spotted Daron. But just as he did to many of his opponents, Daron capitalized on his attempts to glare menacingly at him, with another Scorching Ray. However, proving that he wasn’t chump change, the goblin was able to roll to avoid one of the beams, only being hit by two.

The goblin reached out with his hand clutching… nothing, looking at his hand in confusion, the goblin began to search the room with his eyes. No mercy! Daron blasted another Scorching Ray. Skillfully, the goblin dodged two of the beams only being burnt by one. But maybe that was enough as the goblin was looking charred. A good deal of his body being covered in black craggy skin.

The goblin seemed to realize he wouldn’t be able to use his staff in this fight and turned to Daron. Reaching out of his palm a blast of greyish smoky looking mana shot towards where Daron was, but having seen him point his hand towards him had already jumped to the side, earning a ding from the system he ignored.

Snarling, the goblin charged at him. As he was doing so, a phantom bear appeared behind him, at the same time his muscles seemed to expand. Some kind of Str buff spell? The goblin quickly arrived before him and threw a meaty punch at Daron. Daron was able to jump back, dispersing a good deal of the blow. But as he used his weaker front legs, it still hit him a barrier of mana appearing on his body to block the rest of the blow.

Borrowing the force of the attack, Daron flew outside the hut. The fires had picked up speed and were spreading towards here as he looked around.

*AHHHH… ehhhh?*

Chasing after him was the goblin Chieftain, who after getting outside and seeing the flames, was slacked jawed letting out cries of confusion… and possibly despair? NO MERCY! Another Scorching Ray burnt through the Chieftain’s body, filling his eyes with just as many flames as the ones consuming his life’s work.

The Chieftain leaped onto him, attempting to claw him with his sharp fingernails. But having none of that, Daron kicked off of the chieftain’s chest, doing a flip he scored another Scorching Ray, putting the chieftain at death’s door. There was a problem however, Daron could feel what’s known as mana fatigue, essentially it’s what you feel when you have little to no mana, a quick glance at his screen confirmed it, next to none.

Well, this isn’t ideal now, is it?