6 The Journey to the Mountain

Later the day he received his shield, Hoshi got the survival kit, which was a small pouch along with a teleportation crystal that would teleport him to the nearest city with a Teleportation anchor.

Hoshi thanked the king and the rest of the people in the castle for the pleasant stay and ventured out to the right side of the wall surrounding the city, towards the mountains.

Hoshi had asked Arakan about the mountain before since he wanted to know more about it.

"Aaaah, you mean Aicre Mountain. It's quite dangerous." Hoshi recalled Arakan say, "First of all, upon it lives a tribe that worships the ice dragon that lives there and that the mountain is named after - Aicre. The tribe is said to be full of mages and powerful warriors, who have built up thick skin from living in the conditions that they are. And of course the dragon - they say that it has blessed the tribe and that its own power is undefeated."

'So that means the mountain is really dangerous.' Hoshi thought, "But there doesn't seem to be anything for a long time in the other directions and I heard that behind the mountain is another city. I would go around the mountain but it's connected to a bunch of other mountains creating a huge wall.'

Hoshi continued towards the mountain.

Between the city and mountain were kilometers only a few obstacles - a forest a lake and some small hills. He managed to get past most of the obstacles within an hour. He only had trouble when he got to the bottom of the mountain.

When Hashi got about 20 meters of the mountain he began seeing strange things.

At that moment he was still in the forest and he thought he saw shadows in the corners of the eyes. In the beginning, he ignored it thinking his mind was playing tricks on him from the long trip. When it didn't stop he kept looking in the directions he saw the shadows, but there was nothing.

It seemed that the closer he got to the mountain the more movement there was and eventually he started hearing small seemingly insignificant things like branches swing, leaves crunch and sticks snap.

When he was just a couple of meters from the forest that's when *they* showed up.

There was a group of 6 goblins — 3 running from each side of the path, surrounding Hoshi.

The goblins had greenish-light blue skin with green eyes. The had green and blue paint markings all over they're bodies. They were carrying clubs with spikes, small round shields, and axes.

It was clear what they were doing — protecting the mountain. Their skin looked as if the regular green color had mixed with icy blue due to them living by and on the mountain.

It was also clear that they had evil intent. They would attack. They would fight. They would protect the mountain until the death.

Now the question would only be — would they succeed or die trying.

Their eyes were glowing and they gripped their weapons harder. They were about to attack when Hoshi spoke.

"Look." Hoshi began, "I don't want to fight you. I just want to get over the mountain to the city behind it."

"Mountain ours!" one of the goblins began speaking in a simplistic manner, "We kill intruder!"

Hoshi knew — he could talk all he wanted, but there was clearly no getting out of this situation without a fight.

Hoshi put his hand on the handle of his sword, prepared to draw it, and took the shield crystal out of the pouch on his belt.

Then the goblin's eyes grew stronger than before, they shouted a battle cry and rushed to attack Hoshi.

Hoshi drew his sword, enlarged his shield, and was ready to battle.