[NR] Elevated Goblins - Chapter 557 (Patreon)

Of course, even with proper weapons and armor, the first wave isn’t all that hard to beat, even if there are thirty of the goblins. They’re still normal goblins. It is the second wave where things get spicy.

Twenty high goblins, a rarity even among the three-eyed goblins. Unlike most goblinoid variants, they actually stay goblins, instead gaining in cunning over the normal gain of larger bodies and strange abilities. For such a large group to show up together, they had to come from a pure goblin settlement, which is rarer than rare. Even among the sapient goblins, most go for the more humanoid hobgoblin evolution if they even have the choice as it seems the presence of hobgoblins alters the evolution pool of those around them.

But these high goblins are here to get compared to hobgoblins. They’re here to fight and they aren’t shy about it. As soon as the twenty have finished marching out from behind a tree that definitely didn’t have them behind it a moment ago, they throw a barrage of spears at the group.

Lily is small enough to not be targeted in the first place and Rosha nimbly rolls off her platform, getting below it for cover. However, most of the twenty spears are aimed at Jason and Courtney.

Jason does alright for himself, dodging most of them, though taking one to his right arm. Courtney, on the other hand, takes the worst of it. She was already closer to potentially getting in a sneak attack and the highgobs were able to spot her right away. The saving grace for her is that she manages to take all the spears to her arms. Her organs and legs being protected even if both arms are out of the fight.

Back with Jason, he charges at the highgobs to provide cover for Courtney to retreat. While the spear to his arm had hurt, they were just wooden and so his body easily resisted being pierced.

Courtney is slow to start retreating, the spears stuck in her arms not being the most conducive to such things. However, she manages it with Jason taking up most of the highgobs attention.

This isn’t the most healthy thing for him, as while they have some difficulty, their metal swords are more than capable of leaving cuts on his body. Viscous blood wells up all over Jason, only to scab over within moments as he kills two of the highgobs with a blast punch to the chest combo-ed into an elbow to another’s throat.

More swords rain down on him from all sides. Jason barely keeping the attacks away from his head as he strikes out, wounding many.

Then Lily joins the fight and proves to be a decent counter to this group of highgobs. While their swords can attack her, they clearly aren’t trained in fighting foes smaller than them, especially not by this much. Which, to be fair, is true for most beings. While clearly not a rule, most monsters grow not only in power, but in size. A rabbit as powerful as Lily really should be at least as tall as a human’s knee, if not their waist.

As this is happening, a small group of three highgobs split off to chase Courtney. Her slow retreat gives them hope of an easy kill. And yes, there is an easy kill, it is just not by them, but Rosha who has reclaimed her spot on top of her platform. Suffice it to say, she was less than pleased to see Courtney in such a state.

The first arrow takes the lead highgob in the eye with enough force to knock it back into the other two. Those two are very much shocked by this development and then the left one is very much dead as an arrow slams into its gobsmacked mouth that was conveniently hanging open. The last one drops the body of the first and tries to run for the main group, only to fall to an arrow piercing its chests, striking numerous vital organs.

After that, Rosha plays overwatch for Courtney’s retreat, leaving the rest of the monsters to Lily and Jason. Well, mostly Lily. While Jason had taken the lead with his first two kills, being surrounded necessitated a more defensive approach.

Lily was under no such restrictions and her Energy charged fur and claws made quick work of her targets. Whether it was ripping out throats or pin cushioning vital organs, Lily devastated the highgobs in a way they just couldn’t respond to.

Not that Jason was useless. His steadfast defense and numerous cuts were the cost paid to keep the highgobs focused on him. And once the number of foes fell? Well, then he was more than able to assist Lily in killing the remaining monsters.

While this all is happening, Courtney makes it back to the building, retreating into it where they stored their supplies. They didn’t have many medical supplies, but what they did have would have to be enough.

Since she was pierced through by multiple spears, a simple coagulant wasn’t going to be enough. At least not on its own. It, however, was a good place to start and a liberal application stopped the external bleeding. Though the difference between external and internal is a little mixed up at the moment, what with the spears. The saving grace being that they were smooth spears and not barbed.

Though speaking of those spears, while she couldn’t remove them, something needed to be done about them. And thank goodness for magic, because they certainly didn’t have the tools to gently handle things at the moment. So, it is with a simple warp wood spell that most Mana users learn along with the gather water and spark spells, that Courtney snips off the spear about two finger spans away from the arm on both sides.

She honestly should have probably done that before entering the building, if only because it would have made doing so much easier. However, she was worried about any follow up ranged attacks and so can be excused for rushing to get inside.

Though now that things are stable, she slumps over and focuses all her magic on recovering from the blood loss. Without the support from the System and her stats, she would have died from blood loss not even halfway to the building. So for now she tries to fix that and hopes the others are able to succeed and come assist her in healing further.