12 - Easy Fight... or not

As Drake finished his speech the first Goblin arrived and smashed into his huge shield, the goblin was repelled easily and went flying into the horde, it hopefully would have died from the impact, if not at least broken a few bones.

Val was impressed at the sight and was curious if that was a skill or not. Sheild Talents were very rare Martial Talents, often people would not become adventurers if they happened to awaken this Talent, because it was believed to lack combat power, but from what Val just saw, that could not be true.

The middle part of the horde slowed down their advances but the side kept approaching at the same pace, the left and right sides arrived, and Mark and Becky began their attack. Mark was thrusting his spear out rapidly, stabbing Goblins in the head, body, and throat repeatedly. Becky was swinging around her long sword with elegance and precision.

In just a few seconds they had killed three goblins each, Val was very impressed, remembering they were D-Rank adventurers and realizing that this level was to be expected.

Val realized that he would have to act quickly to secure the kill on the intelligent Goblin, otherwise it would succumb to the massacre from Mark and Becky.

Just before Val was about to move, Val saw lightning being shot from above his head. The lightning had hit the center of the horde which had now regrouped and was about to confront Drake. Val realized this must have been a skill shot by Margret. The lightning spread out after hitting the first Goblin, snaking around a striking another 6 Goblins that surrounded the Goblin that was struck by the skill.

Val was once again very impressed, but he was also very concerned that he would miss the kill, thus he decided to move immediately. Val moved off to the far left, drawing both of his shortswords. There was quite the contrast between the two swords, but Val did not care, he had far more pressing matters. He rushed over to a Goblin who was in his way and slashed his left sword (rusty sword), slicing through the goblin's arm, and then followed up with a slash from the right sword. The Goblin did not have time to defend itself since it lost its arm and the other arm was not in a position to block the attack. The Goblin's head went flying, and blood spurted out of its neck, spraying on Val's cheek and staining his clothes, but he did not stop and kept advancing towards the intelligent Goblin, who had stopped his advance and was observing Val.

Val was blocked again by another stupid Goblin, who was just mindlessly charging at them. Val attempted the same move that he had used on the last Goblin, but this one was prepared. He blocked the first strike with his rusty dagger, which caused both Val's rusty short sword and the Goblin's rusty dagger to chip. Everyone was right when they said the sword was crap and could break at any time, but Val did not have time to think about how shit his sword was, the Goblin's numbers were dwindling from the combined attacks of Mark and his party.

Val followed up his first strike which was blocked with another and then another. The Goblin could not continue to block Val's strikes which were coming continuously and from two different sides, and eventually, he lost his arm holding the dagger. Once the arm, which the Goblin was using to defend had been cut off, the Goblin could no longer defend himself and lost his head.

But as Val went to advance and attack the intelligent Goblin, securing the Skill Orb, the intelligent Goblin turned around and started fleeing. It was far more intelligent than the other Goblins and could see that their side had no chance of victory. Staying here would only lead to death, so the only thing to do was to turn around and flee.

Val wanted to run after the Goblin but he was suddenly attacked from both sides, two goblins had struck at him with rusty weapons, one with a sword and one with a spear. Val was forced to stop in his tracks and defend the two-pronged attack. Val knew that if he did not finish this fight quickly he would not be able to secure the kill on the intelligent Goblin, however, he did not even have time to attack as he was continuously forced to defend himself from the two attacks. He had never fought two opponents at once, not even when training at the orphanage. So he was slightly overwhelmed. Val was struggling further because his focus was still on the fleeing Goblin, he knew he would have to focus on these two Goblins if he wanted to win the battle. Thus he accepted that he probably would not get the skill orb.

But just as he shifted his full attention onto the two Goblin's attacking him, he saw a light beam shoot past him, striking the intelligent Goblin straight through the back of its head. The Goblin collapsed instantly, it was dead.

Val gave a small smile and yelled out,

"Good job Leo."

He then focused fully on his fight with the two Goblins. The battle continued for another 2 minutes, Val could only block the attacks of the two Goblins, so far he had not let even a single attack hit him. He was looking for an opening that he could take advantage of.

After another 30 seconds, Val had moved back a few steps when defending against the sword-wielding Goblin, to continue the attack the spear-wielding Goblin took a few steps forward and was now directly next to the other Goblin. Val saw this opportunity and knew this was it. As the Spear of the Goblin shot forward in an attempt to stab Val, Val spun around, defending against the spear and pushing the goblin off balance. The spear-wielding Goblin fell into the sword-wielding Goblin, causing them both to become off balance. Val then used the momentum gained from the spin, cutting the head of the spear-wielding Goblin with his first sword in his left hand, followed by cutting the head off the sword-wielding Goblin with his second sword in his right hand. Neither Goblin could defend as they both had their stances broken and were off balance.

After both had been killed, Val let out a deep breath. That was a hard-fought victory, but he felt very proud of himself. As he looked up at the battlefield around, he realized that the battle had come to an end, and everyone was looking at him with a smile. It seems they had finished their fight a little while ago and had been watching Val's fight.

Val was slightly embarrassed but still very happy with himself. Everyone congratulated Val for his efforts,

"Good job little man!" (Drake)

"Well done! HAHAHA." (Mark)

"You are cute when you fight all seriously! hehe" (Becky)

"Well done." (Margret)

Val just smiled, he was feeling quite shy from the praise, he was not used to it after all.

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After that everyone had to go around and collect the left ears of the Goblins for proof of subjugation. There was no part of the Goblin worth selling so everyone just collected the ears. Val had killed four Goblins himself and Leo had killed one. During the fight Leo noticed that Val's attention was solely on the intelligent Goblin, Leo did not know why but knew that Goblin was important, so when he saw it getting away he chose to attack it.

Val collected the ears of the four Goblins he killed and then headed over to the corpse of the intelligent Goblin which was a bit far away from the other corpses because the Goblin had been fleeing, he had to remove its left ear and secure the Skill Orb. He cut off the ear and put it in his spatial pouch, then proceeded to cut open the Goblins chest and remove the Skill Orb, which was a dull grey color, it was not very dense, indicating it was a low-rank skill orb, probably F-Rank or E-Rank. Val stored it in his spatial pouch and turned around, about to return to the others when he was stopped by the powerhouse.

Val did not know when he got behind him, nor why he had come, but for some reason, he was scared, very scared. The powerhouse was staring at Val, and as Val was about to ask him what he wanted, he spoke,

"How did you know there was a Skill Orb in this specific Goblin?"

Val was stumped, he did not want to share that he had a Physique, so he quickly needed to come up with an excuse. Val had not ever really needed to lie before and had not needed to keep secrets, so he was not used to coming up with believable lies on the fly. As he was rattling his brain trying to think of something, Mr. Gregory had come over and interrupted them,

"That Goblin had a short sword and was more developed than the rest, you could tell by its intelligence and actions. There is a lot of research stating that abnormalities and monster's and beast's behavior are caused by Skill Orbs developing in their bodies."

The powerhouse, whose name Val still did not know, looked deeply at Mr. Gregory, and asked,

"Even if that is true, how could the kid have known that?"

Mr. Gregory just looked at Val, waiting for an answer.

Val thought for a second, and replied,

"I had heard it from some adventurers a while back, who had come to town escorting some merchants. They had told me that an Orc had been acting strange and after they killed it, they found it had an Axe Skill Orb in it. "

"Also, I don't know how but I just had a feeling. I don't know how to explain it, it was like my mana was resonating a little."

The powerhouse was not believing Val's story until he mentioned his mana resonating with the Goblin. This statement from Val was true, he did not have time during the fight to examine or think about the feeling, but his mana was definitely reacting to the Skill Orb inside the Goblin.

The reason the powerhouse changed his opinion on the matter after hearing Val's last statement, was that he had experienced a similar situation a few times in his life. It was not something that everyone could feel, the research on the topic was inconclusive, but the powerhouse believed people with strong talents and large amounts of mana could feel a reaction from their mana when facing a monster with a Skill Orb that corresponds to your Talent.

The powerhouse sighed and spoke to Val,

"You're lucky kid, finding a Skill Orb so soon after becoming an adventurer is unheard of, even if it is low rank."

After he said that he turned around and started to head back.

Val and Mr. Gregory looked at each other and...