Goblins, Goblins, And More Goblins

Again! The sun wakes me up right as it passes through the window. I swear the beds are placed so that the sun hits them before the rest of the room. Now that I think about it, that makes sense since everyone needs to wake up and there are no alarm clocks in this world. I miss the small, everyday things from Earth.

I stretch a bit after freshening up in the bathroom and immediately head to the guild, skipping breakfast in the process. I make a mental note to buy something tasty from the food stall district before leaving for the goblin quest I'll be taking. It's still over an hour before the guild opens for the morning, unless you knew the secret. There is a night shift for adventurers, so if you have connections with a night shift guild worker, they can let you in before morning rush.

I'm pretty sure everyone knows that, but most people don't want to skip breakfast and the morning scramble isn't a bother to them. I'm not like that at all. I prefer the quiet. Although, I'm not sure how much longer that'll last with these overpowered skills.

I go around the side of the Guild building to the employee only entrance and knock on the door. A moment later, my night shift buddy, Rex, opens the door for me. "The board is already set, so you can go grab a quest. Just make sure to not bother the rest of the night shift too much. We're very tired."

I thank Rex for allowing me in, and walk over to the board in the main room. There are a few other early bird adventurers there, but not many. To my surprise, two guys and one girl from the training course I went through are also here. Their names were Evan, Galdo and Bella. I raise a hand toward them in greeting and they start heading toward me, surprising me a bit.

"Hey Luke. we were planning on taking a goblin extermination quest, and when we saw you, we decided to ask if you wanted to join us." Evan said to me. Behind him, Bella seemed to be pleading with her eyes and I quickly gave in. She was too cute with those puppy dog eyes.

We temporarily set our Status Cards to show us as a party at the Quest Counter, and once the quest was registered, we left the guild.

Our party composition was pretty good for beginners. Galdo was an archer, and he was wearing some basic leather armour and a long glove to protect his arm from the bow's whiplash.

Evan and I were both sword wielders, equipped with some light armour made of a chainmail and leather mix, allowing maximum movement.

Bella was a wind and earth magic user, and she wore some robes with an enchantment to raise it's durability, and held a wooden staff. She claimed it helped her focus on using magic, but it wasn't strictly required for magic use.

We headed to the south gate, which was a direct route from the guild entrance. I had entered from the north when I first got here, and this was my first time leaving the town since. I could feel the tension in our every breath once we passed through the gate, heading towards our first ever extermination quest.

The forest which the goblins we would be hunting lived in stretched out for tens of kilometers to the south. We were not allowed to go very far in, as much more dangerous monsters appeared quite frequently. This Forest was known as Dreamwood Forest, named after the trees found by most of the water sources deeper in the forest. They were trees called Dreamer Pines because if you stepped on the pine needles that fell off the trees, they let out a gas that would knock you out for a few hours.

After an hour of walking, we finally reached the edges of the forest. Until now it was all fields the farmers of the town harvested from. There was a small buffer of empty land between the forest and the fields, so it was less likely for goblins to come out and take the crops.

We stopped to check our equipment once again. Being prepared was just as important as being strong. During the walk, we had started talking about our statuses, since it was important to have a grasp of your parties abilities. We didn't talk about our skills, as it was considered rude to ask about them.

I found out that my agility was considered very abnormal for my level, which I had already assumed, but now I had confirmation. I guess it had to do with the fact that I was quite the athlete when I was on Earth. I ran marathons in under two and a half hours as an average. But I could tell that speed in this world worked differently. If I pushed myself right now, I could probably finish a marathon much faster than I ever could on Earth. Since getting my Status Card, my agility had risen quite a lot, so it made sense.

I was quite satisfied with my preparations, so I looked up and saw everyone else was finishing up. we nodded to each other, as we had decided not to talk until we found some goblins. The trees were relatively spread out, so we had no problem seeing our surroundings except for the occasional bush or boulder blocking our vision. As long as the goblins weren't hiding, it wouldn't be hard to find them.

We moved forward into the forest with Evan in the front, followed by Bella and Galdo. I took the rear, as my agility would allow me to move forward to the front almost instantly when we started fighting, and if there was an ambush from behind, I could react the fastest.

Twenty minutes later, we heard some rustling up ahead. We stopped and Evan and I unsheathed our swords. Bella and Galdo already had their weapons out. Galdo knocked an arrow once we confirmed the sound had indeed been goblins, and Bella held her staff out as she started collecting the Mana in the air. I would need to ask her after this quest if she could teach me about magic.

There were three goblins up ahead picking berries from a group of bushes. They were a little taller than the average ten year old, and had olive green, leathery skin. Their only clothing was a leather cloth hanging down from their waist. A club was strapped to the back of one of them, and the other two had rusted iron swords they had probably been using for years.

It would be a simple fight. Galdo and Bella would unleash their attacks simultaneously, and the remaining one would be taken out by another arrow from Galdo, unless Bella managed to hit them both with her wind magic.

Bella nodded, indicating she was ready, and they both released their attacks. Galdo hit the goblin on the left directly in the head, his arrow cleanly piercing through the back of it's skull. Bella's magic fireball was slightly slower, but still hit the second goblin right in the back, slicing it in two. The third one had reacted fast enough to get away from the sharp wind blades and didn't get hit.

As Galdo was readying his second arrow, the goblin saw us, and raised it's rusty sword before letting out a loud shriek and running at us. A moment later, it met it's demise at the hands of Galdo's arrow.

We needed to take it's left ear as proof of the hunt so Evan and I moved forward to collect them. Bella and Galdo came forward with us as planned, since if we got ambushed, it would be bad if they were alone. I bent down to cut the ear off, but immediately felt something was off. I quickly stood up, sword at the ready.

Everyone have me a weird look, so I said in a hushed voice, "The birds have stopped. It got too quiet all of a sudden."

At that moment, we could hear a war cry from goblins in every direction. We had been surrounded.

Bella quickly started preparing to use more magic and Galdo readied a few arrows in hand. Evan and I held our swords at the ready. We moved away from the bushes so we could see as far as possible, being as careful as possible. We started moving in the direction of the town, but then we saw the goblins.

There were easily over fifty heading in our direction from all over. Maybe even as many as one hundred. Most of them came from deeper in the forest, but a decent amount had come from the direction of the town.

The closest ones had come from the direction of the town, and before Galdo and Bella could start shooting I said, "Aim for the group coming from deeper in the forest. Evan and I will take out the ones coming from the other direction. If we all focus on the smaller group, the big group will be much more difficult to deal with."

Everyone nodded in agreement and Evan and I moved forward to intercept the smaller goblin horde while Galdo and Bella held off the ones in the distance. The unexpected battle had begun.