“Is it over?” Makoto dispels the defense and steps out when Lexar kills the red goblin.

*rumble**rumble*

An earthquake comes and shakes the floor where Makoto is standing. A moment later, cracks start appearing on the walls and falling apart, leading to the whole building crumbling.

*swoosh* Makoto flies out off the hole with the wind propelling. When she turns back, a disastrous wave of destruction caused by the giant monsters occurs in front of her eyes.

“Graaao” The Earth Snakes roar loudly as they slam and swing their tails at the building. They act in a chaotic and crazy manner, like the one controlling them just died.

“Is it because their special squad is annihilated that they start acting amok and destroy everything? Damn it. Because I cannot extract memory from the dead creatures, I cannot investigate why they sent out a special squad.” Makoto bites her finger, thinking hard how to deal with the situation.

“Makoto.” A cat falls next to her feet.

“You are amazing, Lexar. That red goblin is so fast yet you managed to kill it. However, its death brings a more troublesome problem.”

“What will come will come. We cannot avoid it. By the way, Makoto, have you noticed anything out of place?”

“Out of place? There are too many things out of place here. Why do the goblins can tame so many monsters that are much stronger than them? Why do they stop acting and not destroying this place? And many more things.”

“That’s right. But let us change our perspective. We have been analyzing a lot about the enemy, but what about our side?” Lexar gives a hint.

“Our side? ….. Wait, where is the town manor, Sir Brian? He ought to be the highest authority here. He should have been here and commanded the army. Why is he nowhere to be seen?”

“Probably his disappearance is related to the objective of the special goblin squad. I have investigated the locations where the snakes came from. They selected the buildings used for dwelling and other facilities. But places like the weapon, food storages, and treasuries are not attacked. We can assume that there is something there and the goblins do not want to destroy them. But the strange thing is that the special squad goblins do not head there but a certain direction. That gives us two clues. First, they are knowledgeable about this place’s layout and know what they want. Second, this military base is hiding something that the goblins want and is afraid to accidentally break it, not letting the Earth Snake go on rampage. More importantly, this thing is something that Brian knows and headed there immediately to protect right when we were attacked.”

“Then what on earth is that thing? We have just come here and barely know anything. We have no idea what it can be.”

“Why don’t we just ask a solder? Maybe he can tell us something useful.”

……………….

Harold strugglingly runs from building to building. His movement is quick and nimble, jumping from roofs to roofs, floors to floors on the different buildings in a more professional manner than park out experts. If there is a game nerd here, he will definitely shout “Wow, assassin creed.”, judging from his get-up: a hood covering his head and a cloak over the whole armor body.

The cloak is not only there to dress up like a scout. It is a magic item that is enchanted with invisible spell, making it hard for people to detect him. Dark magic can serve the purpose, but as his proficiency with it is not good enough at the moment, relying on item is the answer.

The snakes have started their rampaging, attacking both the soldiers and buildings. If they let the snakes keep on freely, the casualty will be massive. His objective is to go to a further vacant area, get on an open space and shoot the snakes in their eyes. That way, he can attract their attention to the vacant area, lowering the casualty to the other soldiers.

Buildings can be built again easily with magic, but the life of the competent soldiers can take years of training and fighting. The soldiers have an important mission: achieve the class change to commander class or true mage. Only by becoming a commander or true mage, he can be the true protector of the country. The seeds of future commanders and true mages lie in those young soldiers.

Harold is already above 40, an age near to retirement, but has not yet achieved the commander class, a sign of only mediocre talent and ability. A man of his age, still being placed in the green zone, means a failure in career to him. Although he is respected for being an upstanding solder, it still pains him when he realizes that he is one of the oldest soldiers in this town. Realizing his incompetence to be part of the true national force, he devotes all of his effort in whatever he can do to create a better path for the younger generation. He does not hesitate to sacrifice himself to save more soldiers.

Reaching the roof of the watching tower, he watches over the entire battlefield. Soldiers busy with fighting the goblin, attacking the Earth Snake, dodging their attack, citizens evacuating under the adventurers or soldiers’ command. The scene of a losing city etches in his mind. He does not know when the reinforcement will arrive but as an aged veteran, he chooses to draw the enemy’s attention to himself, not only minimizing the damage on the soldiers, but also to buy more time for the reinforcement.

Harold takes out a vial from his pocket and drinks it. The cold bitter liquid flows in his throat, later gives a warm feeling through his stomach. That warm feeling starts to move upward, through his spine, and reaches his brain, then flows to his eyes. The strange energy flowing in his eyes and brains give Harold a brief feeling of enjoyment in this chaotic night.

Archery potion, a potion that gains the consumer a power-up when using the archery skills, increases accuracy, concentration and far sight. It lasts for several minutes depending on the user. A very powerful consumption item for any archer in this world. Just consuming it can raise the one’s archery skill proficiency one to two levels for a brief period of time. Therefore, this is a very hot product and always sold out when a new batch comes out despite its expensive price. Harold only has one vial and now is the right time to use it.

“Eagle eye”

“Sharp concentration.”

“Night vision.”

Three skills boosting his vision are used. Right now, he can see things clearly 5 km away, even in the dark. He can see clearly the yellow eyeballs moving around even with this distance. His target is clear to see.

From his back, Harold takes out an arrow. It is not an ordinary arrow with the body made of wood and feather tail, but a whole body made of silver metal. With a close examination, one can see tiny runes carved along the body, a proof of a magic enhanced weapon. This arrow is called Mythril arrow, made with Mythril, a rare metal used in magecraft. It has the property to retain the full power of the enchantment cast on it for a long time, making it the common component for all magic items and weapons.

This arrow is embedded with a homing spell, automatically following target until it hits, a god sending feature for all the rangers in the world. By setting the target with a spell, all the archers need is to enhance the arrow to the maximum, using all the skills he has, and release it. With Harold’s current ability, he cannot kill the snakes with only a few of these arrows, but that’s enough to draw their aggro.

Drawing the arrow on the bow, he sets his target on a snake at the center of five more snakes. With that one in enraged, it will attract the attention of those nearby, possibly dragging more of them to come along and target him.

Mana flows again in his hand, the bow and the arrow. The blue aura wraps around the silver arrow beautifully, making it more mystical than ever. However, Harold does not release it but still keep it on the string. The mana aura on the arrow becomes brighter and brighter, bright enough to cover the whole outline of the arrow, and shine like a big white torch in the dark sky.

“Arrow cannon, fire.”

A boom sound and the arrow flies in the sky. It draws a white arc on its track and heads with a high speed toward its destination. Like a shooting star in the sky, it appears for a short moment and disappears, followed by a loud explosion on one snake’s head.

“Gaaaaaaahhh!” The snake cries in pain as one of its eye is charred black upon contacting the arrow. It furiously turns to the direction of the arrow, glaring with intimidation at the culprit. The ruckus also stops the other snakes, making them all turn toward the same direction.

A second later, a second white arrow comes, heading to another snake far away from the previous target. The snake moves its head away, but the homing feature kicks in, turning a sharp angel at the snake’s surprising face. An explosion comes and the snake appears behind the smoke with one of its eye closed.

“Khhhaaaaa” A monster scream comes like a signal, and all the snakes move in one direction, the watchtower where the outstanding archer stands.

“With this, I can buy some time for everyone.” Surprised by the result, Harold is overjoyed with his agro drawing working much better than expected. He then braces his self, preparing to drag out as much time as possible.

In a corner of the battlefield, a girl in samurai armor stands there, hand holding on a katana piercing a goblin’s head. She mutters “So that’s how the archery in this world works like.”