Part Four - Goblins

“Yeah, I know nothing about this.”

We were in a sporting goods store, or at least I thought it was one. Turned out it held a lot more than just sports equipment. While there weren’t any firearms, probably because they weren’t licensed to sell them, they had an extensive selection of camping equipment. Which was probably more useful in our current situation.

I’d asked Cameron to keep a eye out for any monsters, while Alicia and I loote- perused the goods on offer. While she looked over the selection of bows, I was searching the rest of the store. So far I’d picked up several kinds of trail rations, along with some basic camping necessities. I figured that being prepared could never hurt.

Of course that wasn’t all I’d found. In the backroom was something wonderful. It wouldn’t be the most useful thing, but it could help out in a real pinch. Heheheheheh, this’ll be fun.

As I was coming up with devious plans of dubious origins, Alicia seemed to have found a bow that she liked. She’d thus moved onto looking at arrows and seemed like she was trying to find a way to use multiple quivers.

“Here. Try this.”

I handed her my spare magic bag. While it’s space storage was only a tenth of my current one, it would work quite well as makeshift quiver. Once she’d Analyzed it, she quickly started filling it with arrows.

Her sudden enthusiasm is kinda cute. It’s much better than her silent staring.

“Hm?”

The familiar tingle that signified Survival Instinct had activated was warning me of imminent danger, and on cue.

“Michael!”

Shit! If it isn’t one thing, it’s another!

There was a mob of goblins approaching the store. There were at least a hundred, if not more, and I could see E-rank and D-Rank Goblins in the horde.

Tch, I’m not going to be able to hold them off by myself. The low ranks aren’t a problem, but there’s at least a dozen D-Ranks. While I’ll win one-on-one, I can’t just kill them indiscriminately.

“Let’s get out of here. I don’t want to fight such a large horde head-on.”

“So we’ll just leave them? That doesn’t seem safe, they’re clearly after us.”

“I never said we’ll leave them be. Heheheheheh, we just need the right plan to whittle their numbers.” Oh yes, this’ll be so much fun!

“Lad, your expression is creeping me out.”

“…!” Alicia looked terrified.

Oh what do you know? If you’re going to fight monsters, sometimes you have to think like a monster.

[???’s POV]

It was supposed to be an easy assignment. The Great Leader had told him that one of the outer nests had been destroyed. Scouts were sent to investigate and a small group of humans had been discovered nearby. While it was shocking that the humans in this land could wipe out a nest, it was, in the end, only an outer nest. There had only been a handful of enhanced goblins within. So surely an army of two hundred and multiple enhanced beings could deal with a measly three humans?

So why was this happening!?

*Bang bang bang bang bang bang*

“”“Gyaaaaaaaaa”””

Even as he tried to rally his brethren, the human’s strange fire-weapons continued to blow holes in their ranks. The explosions weren’t enough to outright kill, but were still capable of maiming those hurt.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, a human had climbed onto the rooftops and was repeatedly shooting those in charge of the army. Without them, even the Great Leader wouldn’t be able to coordinate such a large throng.

Furthermore, the other two humans were not sitting quietly. The smaller of the two had charged straight into their ranks, and was currently slaughtering anyone that stood in its path. Even a Goblin Brute could make no more than two or three exchanges before being cut down. Even if some goblins got past that one, the other was waiting to mow them down with an axe capable of cutting them in half.

“Gyaga gya ga gyaaaaa"

As he was attempting to regain order, the smaller human suddenly changed course. It began to charge straight for him. He quickly gave orders to his subordinates, who quickly formed a shield wall. The leader thought that would be the end of the foolish human. But a few moments later he felt a tremendous weight land on him, just before his consciousness cut off.

[Protag’s POV]

Man, that sure was refreshing. This guy’s just been yelling his orders from the back of the group, so it’s nice that he’s dead now.

I’d used the goblin’s own shields to catapult over them, and kill their commander. Our plan was extremely simple. Alicia was in charge of sniping the important, but fragile commanders, while I was killing the E and D-Ranks. Cameron didn’t have the strength to deal with them on his own, and the D-Ranks could survive or block Alicia’s arrows.

Cameron was currently dealing with the regular goblins that came his way. Since he was using a superior weapon, dealing with small groups of F-Ranks was a piece of cake for him. Each swing of his axe cut a Goblin in half.

This wasn’t all I’d planned. I’d also brought out my special surprise.

*Bang bang bang bang bang bang *

Why the hell did that store have M-80s? I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to be regulated in Pennsylvania. Maybe someone brought them in, or it was part of some black market fireworks scheme. Either way, they’re mine now and I’m using them to blow up goblins.

Of course, they wouldn’t outright kill them. M-80s didn’t have enough gunpowder to do that. But they could still maim them, just enough to leave the goblins weakened. There’s been plenty of examples of fans throwing these onto stages at concerts and injuring the musicians.

With their leadership killed, the goblins had regressed into a disorderly mob. The weaklings had started to flee, while those who were overconfident attacked me directly. But it didn’t matter what they did, death would come to all of them equally.

Hm, maybe I should start humming a little song while I do this? No, that’s too creepy. It’ll make me seem like a psychopath.

“Gyaaaaaa!”

I finished off the last of the Goblin Brutes. They were much tougher than the rest of the horde, as their bodies were mostly muscle. But they couldn’t compare to Minotaur’s hide,, which was extremely difficult to get through.

Wait, maybe it won’t be so hard. I do have these new swords that are far sharper than what I had before.

“Haaaa. That was quite the workout. I won’t need to work on my cardio today.”

“Lad, I’m glad you can joke about this, but that was exhausting for me. Though the lass looks fine.”

Looked like Cameron was lacking stamina. Though I can’t really blame him. I’d originally had to take frequent breaks after fighting in the labyrinth. Now though, I only needed to rest after extended fights of those with monsters at my level.

“Shouldn’t we clean up the corpses? Leaving them behind is just going to create unhygienic conditions.”

“…?”

Should we? Come to think of it, aside from right after I’d killed a monster, I never saw any corpses. Heck, even though there’s been plenty of evidence of fighting, there hasn’t been a single monster corpse. What do they do with their dead? Do they eat them?

“No. We leave them as is. Disposing of them will take too long, and could attract other monsters. Though we should take any weapons we can actually use.”

We quickly looted the corpses. Goblins were more likely to be using pieces of wood or metal, rather than actual weapons. Even the ones that carried them barely maintained them. All the swords and axes we found were half eaten by rust. They looked like they could snap at anytime.

The only ones in good condition were the hammers carried by the Brutes.

I’m so sad! If this was a dungeon, I’d have gotten so much loot! This crap sucks! Why can’t all monsters turn into useful items? Alas, this is but a pipe-dream.

“Do we really need this stuff? We’ve already got weapons, and hauling it around seems like a pain.”

“I’ve got the extra space and ya never know when it’ll come in handy. Having some disposable weapons could help us out in the future. I’m more concerned about those goblins. The fact that such a big group came after us out of nowhere is rather disturbing. There’s clearly something going on here.”

I wasn’t just going to sit around as something tried to hunt me down. If these bastards want to play, then I’d hunt every one of them down and crush them.