Happy Accident

{EIEEIIK!!}

This goblin had just been punched in the face by James a few moments ago. Even though James suffered more from that exchange than the goblin, it was still mad. A small bruise could be seen on its green, unsightly face where James had hit it.

The goblin lunged at James with a knife. It was old and rusted, but James still wanted to avoid being stabbed. James despaired. The goblin was fast! Way faster than James could ever hope to be. However, the goblin was coming from a few meters away, so James desperately tried to backpedal. Then, a happy accident occurred: he slipped.

James fell backwards. His head smashed into the stone floor and his vision went fuzzy. James' head felt like it was about to explode from physical and mental stress. Unconsciously, James clutched his head with his hands and brought his legs up, so that he was lying on the ground like a cockroach.

But, this accident did more than just giving James a concussion! Falling to the ground allowed James to avoid the thrust of the goblin. The goblin, in order to make up for the height difference, directed his strike upwards, but it cleaved through thin air. Then, it felt itself being lifted up. This was from James kicking his legs upwards when he felt the pain. The goblin was lifted up and over and went flying.

Being thrown like this wouldn't have been enough to kill the goblin, though. It was, from the perspective of the goblin, truly unfortunate that there was a wall directly behind James at this time. Because the goblin had aimed upwards when it thrust towards James, when the arm wielding the knife hit the wall, the arm bent upwards and pointed the knife at the forehead of the goblin, which was still flying forwards.

James, however was unaware of this. When he got up, he was still muddled.

"Huh? Wait. Where's the goblin?"

When he looked to the left, the goblin that charged at him was dead with a knife embedded in its forehead.

When he looked to the right, the group of 15 goblins stared at him.

{EIEKEKEK!}

{EIEIEEK!!!!}

The first cry came from a goblin that was wearing a weird feathered headpiece. This was probably the leader of the goblins. Then, all 14 other goblins let out a shriek in reply. The meaning was clear: "KILL THAT BASTARD!"

The archers acted first: 5 arrows shot towards James and all narrowly missed. Some of them ended up grazing James' clothing. One of them ended up pinning his shirt to the wall. James gulped and quickly yanked his shirt away, opening a hole in his shirt.

"Dammit dammit! What do I do?"

The archers had shot their arrows, and now the goblins that were armed with melee weapons were rushing towards him, brandishing their weapons. There were 4 of them and they were fast; there was no way James could outrun them. Running away wasn't an option. James' eyes fell on the corpse beside him. The knife! He could use the knife. At least with the knife, was possible to stab the goblins. Maybe he could fight.

James grabbed the knife with his good hand and pulled. It didn't come out. He tried harder. The knife still didn't budge. James looked behind him. The goblins were rapidly closing in on him. He focused again. James stood on the body of the goblin and used both hands to pull out the knife, ignoring the pain coming from his right hand. As he strained every single muscle in his body, the knife finally slid out of the forehead of the dead goblin, spraying dark green blood from the wound. Just as the goblins charging at him were about to stab him, the knife came free, and James' extra momentum sent him in a backflip over the goblins.

While James was in the air, he released his injured right hand and held the knife only with his left, almost blacking out from the pain caused by using his right hand. The left hand holding the knife stabbed deep into goblin number 1's eye, killing it immediately. The dead goblin fell backwards onto the ground, pointing the sword in its hands upwards. James fell down on top of goblin number 2, covering its face. His leg reached out and tripped goblin number 3, which fell and was impaled by the sword of goblin number 1.

James, who was spread prone on the body of goblin 3, looked up to see goblin 4 aiming a knife at him. He rolled sideways as the knife came down. The knife instead pierced the chest of goblin number 2, who shrieked and died miserably. However, goblin number 4 simply pulled the knife out of goblin number 2.

But, as goblin number 4 was about to stab James, a volley of arrows came from the goblin archers. One of the arrows hit James in his shoulder, but he was still luckier than goblin number 4, who was pierced through the stomach. Goblin number 4 stood still for a moment. But then, the walls of the dungeon were lit up, and a ball of fire blasted goblin number 4 into the air, who fell down and stayed down.

"What the fuck was that? Was that magic? How come these goblins can learn magic but I can't?!!?"

James looked up. Of the remaining 9 goblins, one of them was the chief who was holding an elaborate looking knife, and 5 more were holding bows. The other 4 goblins were chanting something and shaping masses of fire within their hands. They were magicians.

"I had a good run," thought James.

There was simply no way for him to reach the mages and archers, who were specialized in long ranged attacks. In addition, his body was completely spent, and he had an arrow sticking out from his right shoulder. So James had almost given up. But, he picked up a knife from the pile of goblin corpses and threw it with all his might, using his good left arm.

The knife aimed straight for one of the goblin mages. The goblin's eyes widened and it twisted its body to avoid the attack. But, the fireball that it was casting was sent in the wrong direction. The fireball hit the wall of the dungeon and exploded, letting out a small shockwave. But this shockwave was enough to distract the rest of the goblin mages. The mages' spells went out of control one after the other, and 2 of the fireballs collided with one another.

The resulting explosion shook the entire floor. The spells detonated where the rest of the goblins were grouped, engulfing them in flames. James' head hit the floor as the dungeon was set ablaze. Despite the brilliant light and the deafening noise occurring next to him, his consciousness drifted away from him.