25

O(I)O(I)

Although he was out of sight he still made himself salient when he banged on the dinner door behind the portrait. Roui knew what he was doing—telling him to leave or he wouldn't go and his banging would alert the goblins.

"I-I..." Roui looked down at the charm. It felt rough and brittle, but in it was conviction of his king. Not wasting this opportunity he ran away.

He made it down one flight of stairs and a jog through a corridor no longer encompassed by maids and butlers before he heard an ivory statue drop. Sneaking subtly, his back pressed against the wall, he turned his head into the dining room where dozens of lavish antiques rest on pedestals—goblins were in there.

They were acting in a very unruly idiosyncrasies, licking the silverware, pushing pots off the pedestals and even lifting portraits so they could abolish them with their heads right through the expensive woven material. Roui had no way to defeat that many goblins. His armor could protect him from their small blades but these ones were bespoke in different light armor suggesting they were stronger than the usual brownies.

Suddenly, a flash rattled the room. The goblins screeched from the explosion; some holding their heads and roaring ferine throughout the room.

Roui took the opportunity to run straight exposing himself for a horde to see and thank the goddess Lorchen mother to all paladins they didn't—it was his hare downstairs that led him to a goblin. This goblin had three yellow eyes with only the ghostly apparition of death as its color, an X-mark over it chest from the tawny tails of sabercats, two knives in its hands and jagged teeth protruding from its drooling mouth.

He didn't wait to draw his sword—and thank Lorchen again the goblin didn't—he just ran down the escalier stairs. He could hear his footsteps reverberating through the staircase, but he didn't hear so much as a peep from the goblin he flitted from, and now he was on the first floor luxurious carpet.

He expected heavily armored goblins to be guarding the door with shields and spears, and they were there...arms stretched lying on their sides as if they were asleep...only they weren't sleeping.

He stood still making sure the killer wasn't still around; maybe he was a hero but there was still a chance it was another goblin...

And then—he was grabbed by a pair of hands with a knife to his throat. Roui couldn't reach his sword in time; if this assassin wanted to kill him then his throat would've been slit right now.

Instead, he put his blade away and looked at him—he saw the assassin was female from her eyes because the rest was covered.

She had white skin with sharp pointed ears with the bottom covered in black loincloth covering her nape and her mouth, silver eyes, bowlcut blonde hair, a patch with a red turtle insignia on her black cloak, and two sharp prongs protruding from both of her black boats.

"You can bless your vivacity your not a goblin; you'd already be dead. Let me guess: king's guard?" Roui nodded his head. "Your either a deserter or your king is hiding in the shelter, so which one is it?"

Roui's eyes stuck out, he felt a spider crawling down his throat with each passing second, he looked so foolhardy until he flashed the charm before her eyes.

"The king told me to take this and abandon him." He lost his train of thought seeing her pointy ears. She glared at him, her eyes spreading to her own ears mimicking his own eyes, she said "That seems too convenient to be true, but this is war and a stolen charm is the least of my worries. I'll allow you to tag along until all these goblins are vanquished—and if there is no sign of the king.."

She traced her finger in a way that told Roui the dreadful news. He nodded in understanding. They hobbled to the door; Roui having a question before they were bathed in the moonlight.

"Was the explosion I saw outside your doing?"

"No..." The way she answered his question made everything feel more somber. "Those were the last resorts, the gold rank adventurers. May Onvyr forgive us for what they do."

O(I)O(I)

The goblins were intoxicated in victory, but they didn't forget to free the demi-humans. Some goblins loathed the idea of coming to a demi-human to aid them, but they feared that vampire who evolved them would lynch them if they didn't fulfill their side of the bargain.

All the demi-humans were lined up at the crack in the wall; Horsewhip near the back. They kept leaving five meters from each other.

"Nex-"

Suddenly, a wave of light spread through the forest engulfing two demi-humans at once and creating a wall of flames. The goblins perspired beads of sweat when their attacker sauntered through the flames and made himself visible.

He was a brown skin light brown haired six 'n' half foot tall man with buzzcut hair, blue eyes, turquoise green heavy armor, a mahogany hilted spear with a conical yellow tip, three three straps over his green hauberk's, and his whole torso was painted with a tree making a bad face with a knife plunged in it.

The knight squeezed the hilt of his spear doing a thrust imbued with cataclysmic magic. The thrust unleashed a small yellow orb that sank into the ground before exploding eviscerating hordes of goblins and demi-humans.

Horsewhip was trembling more by the shock of the strike rather than actually feeling anything from it—one goblin could be heard breathing haggardly.

The goblin was charred all over its body starting from its chin, was missing an arm but its arm was crushed to look like sleeves holding the blood inside. While it was clinging barely to life, the gold adventurer sauntered towards it. He wasted no time squeezing his gauntlets around the handle and plunging it right through its heart.

Horsewhip tried to look innocent in the extreme adventurer's eyes. The adventurer looked at him, saw the tears welling up in its eyelids and he scoffed.

"Lie on the ground where you belong halfling. Because you so much as speak...I'll end your indigenous life."

O(I)O(I)

Saitama heard a faint noise at the bottom of the pit. This noise told him to go to it. He fell into a pitch black pathway with glowing yellow gluts all over the wall. Just looking at it reminded him of a time when he was younger and he used to lick stuff like this.

He walked with delight through the path of gluts. Dark and dull place sort of like his life after three years of training. He was better off than some both physically and financially; he was just never excited about things anymore.

Through the darkness he found a glint of light and a lumbering creature heading towards him. She was a six foot tall bipedal monster with celadon green skin flaking all over the ground. Embedded in her cheekbones and collarbone were triangles canary yellow and behind her back were butterfly wings. Saitama looked at her bored as she meandered one leg at a time towards him not even glimpsing into his eyes.

Saitama wouldn't hold it against her if this was just a ploy for him to lower his guard before taking a punch at him, but she walked past him acting so nonchalant; it seemed like he wasn't even there.

Saitama stared, he shrugged, and eventually he moved on—and waiting for him on the end of the hallway were two cold familiar bodies lying in a dereliction. He approached the bodies, bent down, and felt one on the nape—and he knew they were cold but he didn't think they were dead.

He prepared to look...

"I found you!"

He writhed in surprise before turning around—a flamboyant young girl with wings. She was dark skin with gray everywhere else but not only gray...stony. And she had white hair which was weird for someone her age but not as uncommon as stone arms and legs.

She was standing with her fingers wriggling excitedly, a small smile on her face. Saitama stood with his face hardly twitching.

"Do you want to fight me?"

Her face instinctively changed to a shocked reaction as she nattered out an incoherent sound.

"AGGGHHYYYD."

When the noise stopped, she gave Saitama a warm smile.

"I was trapped in that abandoned labyrinth for over a year—stuck with the singular order of coming to life to slaughter any intruders, but after waiting and never getting to experience real cold from wind or heat from the sun...all I could find myself thinking of was means of escaping that dungeon...or labyrinth now since those dungeons need monsters and it's gone.

Saitama diverted his eyes away from the gargoyle to the cold bodies of Lenise and Pief.

One question came out of his pursed mouth:

"Did you do this to them?"

"I didn't...just ask them yourself."

Saitama was baffled by that turning his head to the bodies...and craning his head slowly up at the wall looking through the transparent bodies of two familiar females.

"I should have known moiling with you against a forest teeming with monsters and going where the gold was stashed would lead to my death." Lenise said with a frown and crossed arms.

Lenise wasn't apologetic about it.

"Your not free of guilt. You didn't abruptly desist when that insectoid queen showed up and I tried to stop you from expending all your potions, magic and elixirs only to die."

Saitama watched their squabble with uninterested look in his eyes.

"Why is all this isekai nonsense happening to me. All I read growing up was sports manga."

He continued to stand, inert, until he decided to go check in the room.

"Wait, you with the cape."

Saitama should've known better then to listen to Lenise—her own sister did and that was what got her killed.

"If I give you front stage passes to my next show could you—"

"It's not going to work, non-reader." Pief said with a growl of dissonance. "He needs to be near Niaz Aaol Gown's level of necromancy or light magic to pull off a resurrection spell and he doesn't even have enough magic inculcated to heal a flensing cut."

Lenise went through the whole ordeals with a mask of disapproval or a fake smile; to see her start to tear up and cry was unsettling. Pief looked at her coldly. All she saw was a terrible sister finally get her comeuppance after three decades she has been ridiculing her; until she stared for twenty seconds and saw a likeliness of herself crying in her rare moments where she was alone.

Pief, having a new sense of sorriness, said, "But perhaps there's someone out there who can copy the spell needed to bring us back."

She turned her head to Saitama. "Since we are now ghosts we are impervious to danger. Feel free to run back to Yakime Kingdom and tell the guild master what has happened to me and he shall reward you for your valiant efforts by promoting you to the next rank."

"No problem...okay, maybe a small problem. I don't know the way back to town."

Pief frowned hearing him say that.

"As much as I would like to assist you in returning to the kingdom myself, we are in the sprawled outskirts most necromancers and powerful sorcerer's are inhabiting. If they even feel the presence of a ghost...they'll use their skills to transmute us into some hideous monsters, maybe even a...well I'm not comfortable showing my body to strangers."

"I can be your guide," the gargoyle offered. "Think of it as my way of thanking you for freeing me. Also, you wouldn't happen to be a summoner?"

"I'm a hero for fun," he replied.

"That's too bad. You could have carried me around anywhere and feed me—not sure how normal humans are going to react seeing a gargoyle roaming around."

"Check the stash." Lenise suggested.

"The same stash that killed the two of you?" He deadpanned.

"Trust me. If there's one thing I've gotten good at over my years it's differentiating the treasures and in there was a concealment treasure under a pile of beautiful gold coins."

"Cool . Think you can get over the blight of your death to come in and help me find it?"