Shock strikes the heart of the commander. Then a hint of fear and irritation in a strange mix settle in his face. A moment later a new emotion settles on his mind.

Damn, that cursed fool. We bloody need him. He is the lynch-pin for our efforts to make enough items for everyone. Future expansion will need him. If he went and got himself killed it would put a crimp to many of our plans.

It may be hubris on our part, but we are probably the best chance our entire instance has to make something of ourselves. Depending on how well we do things, we might become a beacon to humanity when this tutorial is over.

If that fool, however, gets himself killed it will be a huge blow to morale. He also has a way of making things just work out wherever he touches them. Perhaps he has some type of luck skill.

The next few moments gives me some relief. He acts as if that had been his plan all along, lands and rolls on the ground. With a massive acceleration, I see him dodging the first of the arrow volleys and sprinting to the forest. That’s a relief.

Shit, shit, shit. With everything I have I run. I try to make the archers have a hard timing hitting me. Why did I have to jump? I was just fine up there. Now I’m surrounded by all kinds of dangerous stuff down here. With an especially hard push, I jump over one of the spiked obstacles.

Given what I observed the goblins are much more focused on constitution and strength. I’m not sure if that is the best build for them, but I’m just glad they don’t have agility high enough to leap over these obstacles. If they did they would already be over the walls. With concentration, I zigzag getting closer to the forest. If I manage to get there I will be good.

A few more volleys are shoot in my direction, but not getting a single glancing hit, they stop shooting at me. A hundred meters away, I take a quick look back. Staring straight at me, I see the goblin leader. He stands as tall as he can without exposing his head to our archers back at the wall. Even with him slightly hunched I shiver. That is a scary face.

In another few seconds, I reach the forest and their visibility of me goes to nearly zero. I run a little deeper and to the side before climbing a tree. Slowly and with as little disturbance as I can, I make my way back. With the leaves obscuring me, I’m only a few meters from the edge of the forest. I look over and see what the goblins are doing.

The battle goes without change for another thirty seconds. I look over and I’m glad to not see charred wood. I feel the burns from the steam. It wasn’t too bad, the fireball was moving away from me, but the people in the front of it might have died if the fireball had hit at full power.

Relieved and with no clue what to do from here, I run to the wall edge farthest from the goblins. After a moment preparing myself, I set out on a sprint. A few goblins see me and try to chase me, but I’m too far and too fast. Luckily the people at the edge of battle are paying attention and see me coming. I won’t have anyone confusing me with a goblin and trying to stop me from climbing.

Hitting the wall after a jump I grab at the ropes tying the wood together. With a heave, I climb and the goblins can only curse in their strange language. I wonder what the language could be but ignore it. It’s not like I care too much, especially at this particular moment.

Without waiting for a single moment, I run to the command center near the gate. Near it, I see the houses set up for taking care of injured people. With a glance, I see the number of collared tags and guess we are down 150 people with various severities of injuries. I’m happy to see no black tags.

The numbers of the goblins and wolves are slowly dwindling. By now there are only 100 to 120, plus the dozen people in the protection of the damned earth bunker. Paying a little more attention to the earth wall from this side, I see all the ballistae shooting at it simultaneously. With each impact, handfuls of dirt fly, and the shaman has to keep repairing it.

A couple of hits are annoyances. A dozen hits in the same place might allow for a hole to form. At least he is spending mana to fix the wall. While he is concentrating on that, he is not shooting fireballs of death.

I get into earshot distance of the commander and I see Greg and his group. He stands there with a commanding aura. A powerful warrior, wielding the same spear and fully covered in leather armor. Armor malleable enough he has very good maneuverability, but thick enough to protect against most arrows.

Everyone in his group is well equipped, if not to the same standards as him. All of them have quality spears and breastplate leather armor. I then hear the commander speaking.

“Now is not the time to attack, the enemies are still in too great a number. We would be unnecessarily risking ourselves. We have to take into account not only the number of enemies at the walls but also the magic-user and the goblin chief.”

“Ok, we will wait a little longer. I just wish I could get down there faster. Too many are being hurt.” Greg says.

“And that number would increase if you go prematurely down there. You would only be saving lives if you managed to survive. If you die in the attempt we would be in an even worse position.”

Greg grunts in response and approaches the wall. With precision he impales a goblin in the neck, pulling the spear so it won’t get stuck and be weight down by the goblin. Seeing my staff in a corner standing, I approach and take it back. Turning around the commander with his big frame and intense stare looks at me and is glad to see I’m ok.

“Good, you made it. You should have those burns looked at.”

“They are fine for another few minutes. The battle shouldn’t last much longer unless something significant changes.”

“Maybe, there is still much we don’t know. For all, we know the corpses will be raised as zombies.”

I shiver a little hearing those words. If that happened, we would be lucky to minimize the casualties to a dozen people. We could probably still win but by my best estimation, we would lose over a hundred people if zombies started to be raised. If they could be raised multiple times, we would be screwed. No two ways about it.

“Let’s hope not.”

“In the first attack, no, but in the future, there will be surprises like that. We will just have to grow strong enough to fight them.”

We both look at the wall. The whole situation is strange. A couple of paces from goblins trying to kill whoever they can and we are talking almost normally. I take a deep breath and dive-in. Observing the situation, I hit dozens of goblins with as much strength as I can. Slowly, I see everyone dwindling the numbers of the enemy.

A couple of groups is dropping fireballs in the heads of the goblins. That helps to thin their numbers. Having a closer look, by now, 300 people are back at the tents being attended for several injury severities.

Most of the people by my side are either tired or wield weapons with a +1 modifier. I can see their muscles straining. The whole battle must have taken less than 10 minutes but we are already exhausted.

When there are only 70 goblins left, I hear a cry went out. Every single goblin starts to push with all their strength. With our tired defender and their liberal use of energy, they manage to break through and a few goblins stand in the platform.

I see the goblin chief leap over the wall and push with powerful steps in our direction. Goblins look back and form a two-step stair for the chief. He steps with enough strength to break their backs and I see him up close for the first time. At almost 7 feet tall and two hundred pounds he is a formidable opponent.

Timing myself, I spun my whole body as I hold my staff by the end and aim for him. Without enough time he braces the impact with his arm. I hear bone-crunching and his face grimaces as he rolls on the ground. In the bigger space, we have I position myself to stop him from opening the lines on the wall. He gets up and sees me, Greg and his squad forming a half-circle around him.

He holds his spear with both hands. I wonder if the bone didn't break or what happened. His expression is unreadable, so I can’t tell what he is thinking. We all stand for a moment in an impasse, but he moves first.

With no hesitation, he comes my way. Holding his spear he performs a basic trust at me with incredible agility. He probably thinks I’m the weak link. Good luck with that. I probably still have the highest Stat Avg. in the village. People are coming really close and many have single attributes quite high, but I’m well rounded.

I deflect to the side with both my hands on the staff. Releasing one of my hands I try to grab the staff but he backs away. He does this to a couple of times testing different people but doesn’t fully commit.

Greg shouts and charges in to meet the chief. I and another member of his squad come closer together to close the gap he left. This way we stop any attempt of the goblin to slip out. Greg expertly wields his staff. With quick and precise trusts he meets the goblin.

With a moment to breathe, I inspect the goblin.

Goblin Chief Lv. 35 This is a stronger and smarter monster than your average goblin.

Level 35 is much higher than Greg's level. It’s a difference of about 20 stat points if their base stats are similar. Greg has more muscle, but the goblin has higher stats and probably higher skill levels.

As the fight goes on, it becomes obvious who would win if they were alone. Greg holds his own, but he would run out of stamina long before the goblin.

Behind me, at the foot of the wall, I feel a screeching that reaches my bones. Everyone who was moving in a dozen yards cringes at the noise and their movements become awkward. A second goes by and the noise gets worse.

I feel the mana the goblin shaman is emitting. It is very little for such an effect. He could keep it for a minute if his mana pool was only as large as mine. Worried about how long he can keep it I wish I had put all my points in willpower. Suddenly a blue screen flashes by my face.

You have attributed +6 to Willpower

Crap, I forgot the system does this. It isn’t all bad. This is probably what I would have done. I was divided between willpower and intelligence for these first stat points. The effects are immediate, the screeching affects me only a little.

Looking at Greg however, I see him struggling to keep his movements at the same pace. I jump in and aim my swing for the head of the goblin chief. I notice that the movements from him are also slightly impaired. That means it hits everyone not just us. It isn’t quite as bad as I was expecting. With my help, Greg and I push the goblin back.

He dodges almost all of my swings, but I position myself to not get in the way of Greg while being a good distraction. Behind me, I feel a big fireball being dropped and the screeching is gone. Good, that was annoying and getting in the way. I sense no response, so they probably managed to kill him.

We swing, stab and slash at the chief and he manages to keep on fighting. Sounds slowly wind down behind us. We all take turns on the chief goblin. One time that he opens about 4 paces from all of us we hear a twang from the ballista and it almost takes him out of the fight. Even without 2 of his fingers, he keeps on fighting.

I’m impressed by it. The fighting sounds behind us are gone but he does not relent. He does not rest, he does not ask for mercy. He knows the end is nigh, but all he does is a fight as well as he can. His physical limits are obvious after 30 minutes fighting, but even in his exhaustion, we see his precise movements.

For a second time, he goes a little too far away from us but takes care to stay out of the line of fire from any ballistae. What does hit him however are four small fireballs. One of them hits him squarely in the hand and we hear his screams as only the charred bone is left. He tries to fight with only a single hand and I ask everyone to back up. As he trusts at me, I deflect and grab his spear.

I kick him and my grip is stronger. With his spear in hand, I roll it back out of his reach. Having grappled with the wolves I have a couple of ideas try on him. He however does not cooperate. Strung up and with no chance of hurting he uses all his might to try and bite me.

“Give up,” I say in a commanding voice. “You have no chance of even injuring any of us. You have no weapon, no special skills, and no strength left.”

In the strange language of the goblins he scratches:

“*¨#&$¨ *@(*# *83 &¨&2)(% #*%*%(% *&57 *&#* &$*& *$”

“Can’t you speak in our language? The system translates for all the languages from Earth.”

I hold him for minutes and not for one second he stops fighting. I have to use all my strength to keep him pinned, but I manage. After his initial phrases, he just repeats a couple of short words and I have a feeling he is cursing. Outside my field of view, Greg takes his spear and drives in the brain of the goblin.

Now soaked in blood and hugging a dead goblin I curse at him.

“Damn it. Why did you have to do that?”

“Nash, there was no talking to him. We get what you were trying to do. Hell, by the end I was impressed with his stamina, but there was no other choice.”

“We could…”

Abruptly he cuts me off.

“We could what? There is nothing we could have done. He chose to attack us and that means death. We can’t afford to be soft.”

“But what if he didn’t choose, what if..”

Again he interrupts me. “The same problem stands, he attacked us. Even if he was coerced into it, it doesn’t change the facts. We need to protect ourselves.”

I look at every one. Hearing Greg’s words in their eyes I can see the agreement and the unyielding conviction. They would kill all that stood in their path without even trying to come to terms.

This kind of mob mentality and binary thinking is dangerous.

The seed of their collective will was forming and it would not be shaken. None even blinked at the chief goblin death. None questioned why, or try to come up with an alternative before settling on death as the only possible alternative. Perhaps in the end that would be the only alternative, but we could have done more, at least in this single case.

With a heavy heart and soaked in blood, I walk away. I just hope we don’t become the monsters we were trying to defeat.