“I wonder where she went?” The man asked himself, still feeling the right side of his face with his hand—remembering how after he caught the falling woman earlier, she slapped him across the face, ran away without saying a word to him, and then somehow disappeared from sight. “I need to find her again, but the question is, was she a Player or an Npc? Or maybe I’m just overthinking it, and the answer is plainly obvious.” As he turned the corner—back to the alleyway of the painting—he saw an extremely bloody scene, with a dark hooded figure standing right over an extremely bloodied body of a woman, holding a longsword in one hand, and a shortsword in the other—blood dripping from both swords.

The man was momentarily shocked by the sight of the bloody scene, but quickly came back to his senses, and angrily called out to the dark hooded figure, “Hey! Did you do that?” The hooded figure turned their head slightly towards the man, but before the two could confront each other, bells could be heard ringing from all over town; and with the curious ringing of the bells, the hooded figure decided to walk the other way—escaping through the other side of the alley.

Thinking that the bloodied woman might be the woman he was looking for, the man didn’t bother chasing after the figure, and just rushed towards the body. A great feeling of relief came to him when he realized that the bloodied body was of a different woman, but at the same time still felt really worried for the barely breathing woman. The man quickly examined the body, noting that she had a huge puncture wound in the middle of her chest, and that her stomach looked to be completely cut open, with most of her guts spilling onto the ground. Speaking softly and calmly, the man said “I don’t know if those bells are ringing because of what just happened, but you’re really lucky I found you, Miss. Now just stay with me for a bit, I’ll try my best to heal you back to normal.” As the man started to heal the woman—his hands emitting a bright green magical glow.

***

Instantly equipping her armour and katana, Mako ran out of the shop and immediately saw 5 Wolves charging towards her, with Goblin Riders and other types of Goblins on their backs—two on each wolf—and about 10 more Goblins running on foot close behind them. Already in reach, the leading Goblin Rider thrusted its spear at Mako’s chest, with the Wolf it’s riding on trying to bite her; but being too easy to read for Mako, she rolled forward—under both attacks—dodging both of them, and then with a quick draw of her katana, she sliced deep into the left side of the Wolf’s legs as it went passed her, causing it to collapse and throw the goblins on its back right off.

Mako couldn’t find an opening to do the same with the other goblins and wolves, as they were all readying to attack her, so she just focused on trying to dodge their overwhelming number of attacks, and waited for any openings. Though the number of goblins and wolves attacks were too much for her, getting a few cuts and arrows on her body through her still damaged armour from the Dungeon Boss, and she quickly found herself backed against a wall—surrounded on all sides.

Having her cornered, the goblins all attacked at once, but then someone shouted, “Stay behind me!” As Drune somehow suddenly dropped from above—landing in front of Mako—and let out an extremely loud shout, “Warrhhh!” Then all attacks that were directed at Mako suddenly changed targets, and were all directed towards Drune, as he easily stopped and blocked all of them with the solid metal tower shield he held. Without hesitation, Drune countered with a one handed battle axe, shouting “Cleave!” Swinging the axe with one unusually powerful and strong swing—easily cleaving through the bodies of all 25 enemies surrounding them, and killing them instantly.

The moment the enemies died, a burst of golden light erupted from Mako, and all the wounds on her body rapidly healed themselves. Feeling rejuvenated, Mako quickly praised Drune, “That was amazing, Master! I never knew you were so strong!”

“Hah, that? That was nothing.” Drune replied, liking the praise, “If it’s just goblins and wolves like that, I can easily take hundreds of them.”

“Really? I thought you were just a blacksmith, Master?” Mako asked, surprised with her Master’s strength.

“Just a blacksmith? Hah! There’s no such thing as ‘just a blacksmith’!” Drune stated, “Always remember that Mako.”

“Yes, Master Drune!” Mako bowed, finding new admiration for her Master.

Then pointing his axe at one more wolf heading their way, Drune said “Now show me what you got!” Adding, “And know that this will also help you becoming my apprentice!”

“Yes, Master!” Mako answered, charging at the wolf and goblins on its back.

This time fully motivated by her Master, familiar with their attacks, and less afraid of them, Mako easily dodged the first attacks. She then immediately countered with another slash at the wolf’s legs, and caused the wolf to fall and throw off the riders again. Running straight to them, Mako finished the wolf on the ground with a stab straight down to its chest, and turned to the recovering riders.

The Goblin Rider and the Goblin Warrior both quickly got up from the ground, pulled out their weapons, and ran towards Mako frantically. Taking a deep breath in, Mako widened her stance, sheathed her katana, and stood in place; she waited patiently for the goblins to come in range, and when they did, she calmly said “Drawing Slash.” The sheathed sword enveloped by another orangey-yellow aura, Mako lunged forward with incredible speed, swiftly drawing her sword and cleanly decapitating the warrior with one swing, and the rider with another—their headless bodies spraying blood from the nape, and falling limp onto the ground.

“Nice work, Mako.” Drune praises her back, “I can tell you know how to use a sword.”

“Thank you, Master.” Mako replied, flicking the blood off her katana, and wiping the rest off.

Looking down both directions of the street, Drune said “Okay I think it’s all clear here, let’s go check on the other areas of the marketplace.”

Leading the way back to the mainstreet of the market area, with Mako following close behind him, it took them less than 3 minutes to find townspeople running away from even more goblins and wolves—some having already killed a few townspeople, and breaking into the shops in the area. There were also a few town’s guards trying protecting the townspeople, and with the help of Drune and Mako, they easily cleaned up the rest of the monsters.

Having a moment to talk, Drune yelled at one of the four guards, “Guard report, what happened?”

Intimidated by the mighty looking dwarf, the guard stuttered “G-Goblin Horde, Sir! B-But their numbers show that it might be a Goblin Army!”

“A Goblin Army!?” Drune exclaimed, then asking “Do we have an actual estimated number of them?”

“W-We do, they are estimated to be about 10,000 strong.” The guard answered.

“10,000?!” Mako repeated in shock.

“Yes, about 5000 at each gate, but only about 5000 in total were able to make it inside before we could close the gates.” Another guard informed them.

“This must be why there were so many attacks recently…” Drune said to himself, scratching his beard, “Do you know how the gates are holding up?”

“Th-The gates are currently being sieged by fire spells from the goblin mages, and the hobgoblins trying to ram them down, but they should still hold for a while.” The first guard informed them.

With the second guard, saying “Vice Captain Galen is dealing with the eastern gate siege from the walls, along with all of the newly trained archer guards, while Captain Wyn is at the western gate alone, ordering the rest of us guards to help out the townspeople.”

“Sounds just like her.” Drune said, shaking his head, “What about the leaders? Where are the ones leading the army?”

“I believe only one has been sighted outside the western gate.” The second informed them.

“Only one? That’s not right, there should be—” Before Drune could say more, more townspeople came running towards them, and chasing right behind them was about 50 more goblins and wolves. Deciding to save first and talk later, Drune surprisingly took a huge leaping jump forwards, landing in between the townspeople and the monsters, and shouted back to Mako and the guards, “Don’t just stand there, attack!” Leading the charge into the horde of monsters.

***

“Ahahaha...this is my fault...” The older man blamed himself, as held the lifeless bloodied body of the boy he was gambling with earlier in his arms, “All because I didn’t think twice about taking yer Luck, or think about what it could really do to ya...hahaha” Then hearing goblins behind him, the older man grabbed a gold coin from the pouch on his waist, flipped it into the air with a green magic emitting from his hand, grabbed 3 throwing knives on his body, and threw them without looking or knowing exactly where the goblins are—the coin disappeared in thin air, and somehow 3 goblins could then be heard screaming to their deaths. “I’m so sorry…” He apologized, carrying the lifeless body in his arms, and bringing it out of harm's way.

***

Standing near the front of the eastern gate entrance, a hooded bronze skin dwarf quickly looked around, but didn’t see what he was looking for. “Did I miss it?” He thought to himself, “They said the western side of town had a barracks near the gate, so if it isn’t here, does that mean I went to the wrong side?” But being curious of the multiple explosions and loud noises coming from the gate, he decided to check it out before he left, and saw fireballs flying into and exploding against the gate, with a few dozen Hobgoblins carrying and ramming a giant tree trunk against the gate—creating more cracks on the already burnt and brittle wooden gate.

“That’s not gonna hold for much longer.” Looking past the hobgoblins, and seeing hundreds of goblins waiting for the gate to break open “I guess I’ll help out while I’m here." He thought, taking out an old key and chain out of his Inventory. He then began dragging the chain from one side of the gate opening, to the other side of the gate opening; and each time the chain glew with a grey magic and attached itself to the wall, then easily being broken off from the main chain as it attached to the wall on the other side, and somehow the main chain never seemed to run out of chain.

Adding more chains across the gate opening, the dwarven man quickly built a solid 5ft high fence made completely of magical chain, and he even threw a few chains to the heights he couldn't reach. Stepping back to see his efforts, he thought to himself “Good enough, that should hold a couple hundred, the ones that make it through aren't my problem.” Moving away from the gate and heading into a quiet alley, “Now to find the Mayor’s place.” The dwarf’s body turned ethereal, and he began running through the buildings, “This mission already seemed pretty easy, but with the chaos in town right now, I might not even need to kill the Mayor myself if I play my cards right.” Smirking as he headed towards the other side of town.

***

On top of the eastern gate wall…

“Vice Captain Galen, Sir! We are running out of arrows, and are down to the last 500!” A guard reported.

“You heard em men, make every shot count! We only need to kill enough to have them run scared!” Galen shouted, with the guards cheering at their Vice Captain, but even with their cheers, Galen thought to himself “This is not good, we haven't even taken out half of them, and at this rate they’re going to break the gate really soon. I should start sending some to the ground in preparation for the breach.” Looking at his men, he shouted again “Those who run out of arrows, grab a sword and shield and head straight down to the gate! We can’t let anymore get inside of Asheton!” The guards cheered again, but suddenly a loud slam came from underneath them, and all the goblins outside of town cheered loudly before all charging forwards. “No, already?!”

A guard then ran up and reported to Galen, “Sir, they have broken the gate, but…”

“What, what is it?” Galen asked, continuing to shoot arrows at the horde of goblins.

“Well Sir, you see, the goblins that are passing through the chained wall are getting bound together right now...” The guard answered.

“Huh? What nonsense are you talking about?” Quickly making his way to the other side of the wall, and looking down below, “What the hell is happening!?” He questioned, seeing groups of 10 hobgoblins and goblins being chained up together by a single old but magical chain—some goblins chained at their legs, while others by the body. “Didn’t I tell you to watch the gate and tell me if something was happening to it? Why and how are the goblins being chained up right now?”

“Uhmm...a hooded dwarf was looking at the gate, and then just began making a magical chained fence. I assumed he was an adventurer trying to help, so I let him do it, and I guess he did help.” The guard explained.

Galen sighed, “Fine, I’ll let you off the hook this time.” Then raising his voice, he shouted to the rest of the guards again, “Change of plans men! The gate is broken and I need all of you to grab a sword and shield and guard the entrance no matter what!” Turning back to the same guard, he said “Go bring me all their arrows, we are winning this battle.”

“Yes, Sir!” The guard quickly went to go gather the remaining arrows.

Continuing to whittle down the charging horde with arrows, Galen thought to himself “Captain's alone, I hope she doesn’t take on too much for her to handle.”