Battle with the Goblins
Carefully, but quickly, we made our way through the ruins.
Grulf took the rear.
While he was a pup, Grulf wouldn’t allow the goblins to surprise him.
I kept looking back to make sure that Nia and Grulf were still behind me.
“…”
Nia was following silently and with a serious expression.
It would have been nice to turn this expedition into a lesson.
I could ask her to inspect the footprints to guess the number of goblins.
Tell her what you could learn from the leftover food.
Which rooms were likely to have goblins.
However, this was a time when it was most important to stay alert.
Normally, you wouldn’t be able to talk to each other like that once you enter the goblin cave.
It was possible to communicate through Telepathy, but I decided against it.
We just used hand signals as we made our way forward.
Several goblins attacked us on the way, but we killed them without much effort.
Nia had trained every day, and so she had skills that were shocking for her age.
I inspected the tracks and continued on.
It seemed that there weren’t any human captives after all. All the better.
This mission would be able to end without incident.
It was just as I started to have such hopes.
“…?”
I found a strange footprint.
It was bigger than a goblin’s. Maybe four or five times as large.
I looked at Nia. She had noticed it too.
She pointed at it and looked at me. Like she was waiting for instruction.
It was good that she hadn’t panicked.
It could be a Goblin Lord.
I had encountered a Goblin Lord the first time I met Shia.
Shia was a B-rank Adventurer and struggled in that fight. That was how strong Goblin Lords were.
Still, Nia would be fine as long as I was here. Especially if we could ambush it.
However, it was strange that the footprints seemed to appear out of nowhere.
Goblin Lords couldn’t fly. So it must have walked in from the entrance.
And yet the footprints seemed to start here.
(Was there a different entrance?)
There could be, if this was a cave.
But this was a dragon ruin.
A dragon ruin that Kathe had cast magic on to protect.
I think Kathe would have told me about any other exits.
But then again, this was Kathe. Forgetfulness wasn’t entirely out of the question.
I decided to use Telepathy.
And with that, I connected to Nia and Grulf through magic.
And then I talked to them slowly so they wouldn’t be alarmed.
‘This is Telepathy. Be calm and listen.’
“!”
Nia and Grulf looked shocked for an instant, but then nodded in unison.
While surprised, Nia hadn’t made a sound.
But even I was surprised that Grulf was smart enough to also stay silent.
‘I don’t have time to teach you how to do it. So just be quiet and listen for now.’
“…”
‘There is likely a Goblin Lord up ahead. But there was no trace of it coming in here. And so there must be a teleportation circle.’
Nia and Grulf were alarmed by this again, but kept quiet and listened.
‘In other words, there could be an even stronger enemy than a Goblin Lord. We will have to retreat for now.’
The dark ones often used teleportation circles.
So my guess was that it was a Vampire Lord.
‘Grulf. Return to the entrance as quietly as you can. Nia, you follow after him. I’ll take the rear.’
Grulf obeyed quietly and began to walk.
Nia and I followed.
I recalled the Goblin Lord that Shia and I had first encountered.
That Goblin Lord was the underling of a Vampire Lord.
Not that much time had passed since then, and yet it was almost nostalgic.
Just as I had taken my third step back to the entrance, I felt something move right behind me.
A sharp slash of a blade. I quickly block it with the Devil King Sword.
The blades clashed and sparks flew.
The person who had attacked was a handsome man. He appeared to have fangs.
“Are you a vampire?”
“No human should be able to stop my attacks.”
He said with an amused laugh. A Lord, no, a High Lord?
I glanced back at Nia. Nia and Grulf were both slowly backing away from us. Nia had her sword up and Grulf crouching, as if getting ready to jump.
That was good. But a vampire was too much for Nia to handle.
And so I needed to insure that the vampire looked only at me.
“Not sure if I should be flattered by that. Blocking a lesser vampire’s attempt at a surprise attack isn’t exactly difficult.”
The vampire’s eyebrows narrowed.
As of now, every single vampire I’ve met has been susceptible to taunts.
And so I wasn’t going to abandon this tactic just yet.
“You scum!”
Enraged, the vampire swung at me with all of his might.
This wasn’t a time for playing around. It wasn’t a time for testing one’s skill.
I had to kill him as quickly as possible.
I dodge the vampire’s sword by a hair’s breadth.
He must have been very confident that he would hit me. Because his sword went straight into the ground, splitting the floor open.
That caused him to lose his balance.
My sword swung horizontally.
His right arm, ribs, breastbone, lungs and heart, and his left arm. I cut through them one by one.
“Gaaahhhh!!!”
The vampire’s terrible cry rang loudly.
“Ahh! Come! Quickly!”
The vampire shouted. And then the goblin lord appeared from the back room.
“So you caught an overgrown goblin, did you? It must be hard being a lesser vampire with no real servants.”
“Hey! Kill this man!”
The vampire screamed. He was just a head and shoulders now.
“GAAAAA!!”
The goblin lord roared and swung his club made of stone.
This was annoying. I would not give him enough time to strike at me even once.
And so I rushed forward in an instant and took off his head with a quick swing.