Chapter 13: A Road to Follow

A week has passed since the battle, Ben spent his time chopping wood, going into the forest to fight the goblins, overseeing Grant’s house and his grave. His thoughts were simply about his lifestyle, the dull common life of an adventurer. Yet... something felt wrong, Ben could feel something calling to him, something that wanted him to continue on.

Ben looked at the book that Abbs gave him when he visited the receptionist desk. It was a book from Grant.

Abbs:“Grant told me to give this to the kid if he came back… well here you are. You’re back, so.. I’m sure you have some sort of… fate with Grant”

The journal of Grant’s listed all the places he had gone with the party, the temples and the people they had met within the world. The fights that they had and the friends that they had lost. Eventually, before the big fight Grant backed away due to a woman that he loved, and the idea that he wouldn’t contribute much to the fight, a fight that Grant called beyond his capabilities. The saviors were fine with his decision and left him to his own devices as they themselves continued forward, including Grant's brother.

A map was unveiled at the end of the journal… the path that they took around the world. Seven temples were marked on the map alongside with a red x mark on the map where each of them were in.

******

Ben stood next to a tree, breathing in and out. A red aura slowly appeared around his body, his fist burned of flames. Using his full force he smashed his fist into the tree, a large dent appeared on the tree trunk. The lingering feeling of power floated around Ben, as the tree slowly fell down with a sharp crack in it's trunk.

Ben slowly withdrew his hands as the red aura dispersed. Ben silently watched his hands as the red aura left it, eventually dissappearing into the air.

***********

Ben grabbed a subjugation request off the wall with ease and used his badge marked Rank D adventurer to scan over it. Ben walked over to Abbs in the receptionist area. Who with a lazy eye looked towards Ben with no motivation to keep up his look.

Abbs: “*sigh* you know Ben… you can just give all the goblin ears to me and not do this redundant thing.”

Ben handed over the bag of ears and grabbed the 2 silver that was on the desk already. He only smiled and answered Abbs.

Ben: “Well.. I’m going off on a short camping trip. Cover me on my firewood taxes, reason why I'm keeping the goblin ears. Is to not hold onto money. I wouldn't want any attention from the people around here."

Abbs:“Your firewood taxes can cover you for awhile… ah right here’s your week salary of 15 silver coins. The goblin ears are common... there won't be any attractions from anyone, especially the girls. *Sigh*.

Ben: “That’s quite a lot…” Ben answered without a pause.

Abbs:“Well. Ever since the village was attacked the number of people that remained are barely enough to hold up it's facilities. Shorthanded in other words. You’re our constant source of firewood, since you've been diligent. The amount of firewood you chopped is enough to hold this place for around 2 months which is appreciated."

Ben nodded at the thanks and pondered for a moment longer before he continued at his own pace.

Ben: “Hmm… I’ll be off for a bit then. See ya.”

Abbs waved Ben goodbye.

*************

Ben stood in the middle of the woods, staring at a black blob in front of him. Reaching his hands inside of it, he grabbed a pocket knife from the dark space. After a week of looking into the dark void, he noticed that he could place items in there. It was basically an item storage area. There was no indication of a limit, however there was always an innate fear from Ben's heart. It was an indescribable fear, as if it was a 6th sense telling him that this was no ordinary... yet it should... it should not harm him.

Ben walked through the forest, the stale smell of nature surrounding him. There was no magic, there were no creatures, simply the trees and shrubs around him. Ben found an old campfire, yet upon closer inspection there was a couple of animal bones and a burnt out fireplace, the tracks led deeper into the forest. The tracks were not of humans, but of humanoid. Having grown accustomed to the sight of goblin track it indicated that goblins had gone through the shrubs, they were hauling a large creature or luggage of some sort.

Following the tracks, Ben found the group of goblins near a cave entrance. They were hauling dead deers. The group slowly brought the dead deer within the cave entrance, with leisure. Two other goblins simply sat down next to the entrance and grabbed a raw mutton leg on the ground and began to gnaw on it.

(Seems like there’s a large group of goblins in there…)

Ben grabbed a fist sized rock on the ground, channeling his red aura onto the rock. He threw it into one of the goblin's heads. A gunshot like sound blew the goblin’s head apart.

(H- H - H headshot!... where are those narrators or announcers when you see that effect…)

Seeing it’s fellow goblin’s head blown up from nowhere the other goblin started panicking and ran inside the cave. Ben slowly stood from behind the bush and grabbed his pocket knife out from the shadows.

The pocket knife slowly turned into a one handed sword with three colored lines running through it’s blade. Through the first week, Ben spent his time unlocking the potentials of his dagger. Using the ideas of past anime like action scenes as he had noticed that magic flowed alongside the idea of imagination, science and magical abilities. The chanting structure in this world allowed a connection between the host and the spirits of this world. The spirits assists the host during the aura creation and creates a path of understanding between the host and the aura. However, if Ben were to use his imagination and science behind the idea of aura creations the spirit that connects him to the aura can focus more on amplifying the purity of his abilities.

Heading towards the blasted gore of the goblin, Ben knelt down and grabbed a broken ear on the ground and edged the wall, listening for any movement inside.

After a moment had passed, Ben looked inside the cave. Tables were flipped up and a door that was there was opened ajar. He saw a group of dead bodies on the side of the walls. These figures were human yet their clothes were all rugged and smelled of filth.

(Bandits… the goblins seemed to have been able to take care of these bandits by themselves, yet Goblins should not have been able to kill bandits this easily.)

Ben walked over to the pile of dead bodies and picked up a silver key from one of them. Quickly stuffing the key inside the black space, he continued over to the opened door. A narrow stairway leading to a lit room, the light from the flames showed a goblin’s shadow panicking.

“ Zutto, kelum oslslug ösna!! GARBA!”

“ZËR!”

(Goblin talks… I don’t understand anything they say but I’m sure it’s about me)

*pitter patter* *pitter patter*

(They must be coming up…)

Ben backed away from the door and moved towards the entrance of the cave with caution. Waiting for the number of goblins to come out. The goblins came in sight, rusted daggers on their hands and worn out rags were on their body. Signs of gluttony could be seen as they grabbed the table wine on the ground and drank from the bottle opening.

(2… 3… that’s it huh…confident as always.)

The goblin that seemed to be a leader as it held a tomahawk and looked around it’s surroundings.

“Zër? Ogab?”

The guard goblin looked around in a distressed state and pointed towards the entrance.

“BUTUR BUTUR!!”

(Did they see me?)

Ben quickly drew up his sword and quietly listened to the panicked goblin run up towards the entrance door. As soon as it’s leg was in sight, Ben quickly stabbed the waist of the goblin, hoisting t's body up into the air.

“AGHA AGHA AGHA!” blood spilt from its waist as the sword entered, the goblin flailed with pain as it pleaded with tears.

Ben swung his sword to the side, flinging the body of the goblin to the walls as he turned towards the other two goblins.

“ZER!” the goblin with a tomahawk pointed at me. The other goblin with a spear immediately charged.

Ben flicked off the blood from his sword and red aura entered into his hands once more. As the spear neared, Ben’s sword sliced through the sharp wooden head of the spear and hacked the goblin's body in half from where it stood.

A tomahawk flew at Ben, who quickly knelt down, dodging the tomahawk and dashed towards the unarmed goblin. The sword quickly slashed through the goblin’s chest to it’s shoulders. Sounds of bones cracking echoed through the hallway.

As the last goblin fell onto the ground with it’s mouth filled with blood, Ben turned towards the stairs.

********

The stairs led to a small hallway with four prison cells, two on each side of the room and a table in the middle, buckets and food platters were scattered about. A dead bandit was at the end of the hallway with a few ice spears embedded into his chest. A large blue goblin was staring into the farthest right cell while there were two other goblins trying to open the jail door with futile efforts.

The blue goblin having sensed a presence looked over at Ben. It looked at Ben's sword and a sneer came up on its face.

“ZER! STEXUSM ZAT!” The two goblins at the jail door immediately got away from the door and picked up the spears on the ground, their grunting and panting as they eagerly got into their positions. Next to the blue goblin. The blue goblin started to chant as it notices that his bodyguards are ready.

“M-May the water blast myne en..en..enmy-”

(A spell casting goblin?)

Ben immediately ran up to the table and kicked it over as the blue goblin finished it’s chant. A large water ball went forth and smashed onto the table, shattering it apart. Water spouts splashed everywhere.

““Wind, Slasno-””

Ben’s eyes saw the green orbs appear on the two spear goblins that ran towards him with speed. Ben set his sword to his side and thought about something.

As the two goblins ran up to him, he immediately backed up and swung his sword.

The sword missed the two goblins by 2 foot, however suddenly a wave of flames in the form of a slash burned itself onto the two goblin’s chest. They immediately fell down, one was holding its face as it burned beyond recognition while the other one fell dead on the ground as the flames ate away it’s chest.

“GAH!” the blue goblin was in shock. Before it could move once more, Ben rushed it down and finished the blue goblin off with a slice. The goblin that was holding it's face in pain turned silent as the blue goblin had died.

Ben looked over the scene, double checking everything before finally turning his head to the cell that the blue goblin was interested in. It was two girls inside the cell, both of them huddled in one corner. With their backs turned towards the cell door.

Slowly the little girl turned from the corner looked at Ben, their eyes met.