Leave a comment

As it saw me approach, the Goblin Lord raised the sword… or rather, the giant flat rock that it held in its hand, and swung it down on me.

It goes without saying, but there was no way I, with just an illusionary body, could ever hope to take that blow head-on.

I changed my course almost perpendicularly and dodged it by jumping sideways to the left. The rock it held mowed down the place I stood a moment ago, its excess power hitting the ground.

That one attack was enough to make a crater several meters wide, hollowing out the ground below. Seeing that, I realized that something was wrong.

Goblins held adult human strength despite their childish bodies. The Goblin Lord was two sizes bigger so its height was over two meters tall. The power it could draw from its body could rival up to three or even five adult men.

But what about this destructive force?

Seeing how it wielded the giant rock, or the force it used to gouge out the ground, it was hard to imagine that five men’s worth of strength would manage to do that.

Was this guy really a normal Goblin Lord?

While holding that uncomfortable feeling, I faced the Goblin Lord that was full of openings after that attack and swung my spear sideways aiming at its upper arm.

You may think it would be more effective to stab with a spear, but in battles, stabbing your opponent carries the risk of them dragging your weapon along.

Thus, I judged that it was better to cut its limb muscles and slowly rob it of its mobility.

Without missing my mark, the Goblin Lord’s arm sustained a deep cut—or so I expected to happen.

But the recoil I felt in my hands felt as if I had just slashed at something hard like a tree; it didn’t feel like I had managed to cut deep at all.

In fact, the Goblin Lord didn’t seem to have even felt that wound, and just by putting strength to pump its upper muscles, it managed to easily stop the bleeding. Not just that, even the wound seemed to be closing.

“Are you for real!?”

I exclaimed in reflex.

I had my fair share of experience fighting against monsters. As such I have seen enemies with high-speed regenerative powers like this one.

However, I had never heard of a Goblin Lord that had that power.

Defeating enemies like this often required some time. Given that we ended up wasting quite a lot of time getting here, I wanted to defeat it as fast as possible, so this was a bad development.

“—Even so…!”

I was in the middle of the enemy territory. The others were busy fighting the enemies in front of them, so none could come to my aid. Which meant, I had to be the one to defeat it. Above all, if this guy didn’t go down, Cortina would be in danger.

“Like hell I will allow that!”

I yelled to fire myself up and fixed my posture. The Goblin Lord swung the rock sideways with the hand that was loaded with power.

I could anticipate this attack, however. Its attack wasn’t as slow as that of an Ogre, but it wasn’t so fast that I wouldn’t be able to follow it.

I used a cartwheel to dodge the upward slash from the low position. And the moment I landed, this time I thrust my spear towards its toes.

Fingertips were a part that had a big concentration of nerves, and the bones were brittle too. The thumb was also an important point of mobility, so crushing it would significantly dull the Goblin King’s movements.

“GUGYAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

Just as I expected, getting its toe lopped off made it raise an anguished cry. But this wound, too, stopped bleeding in the blink of an eye.

Fortunately, it didn’t seem like its severed toe would be regenerating any time soon, but the fact that I couldn’t accumulate damage on it was shaving away my willpower.

“At this rate, I bet it’ll stay alive even if I cut its artery.”

In the first place, it was hard to say whether I could cut its skin that was as tough as trees or rocks. I was using bestowal magic to strengthen my body, but this guy’s toughness was on another level. Despite being crowned with the name of a Goblin, it might actually exceed Den in strength at least.

Against an opponent that turned out to be far tougher than I expected, I stopped momentarily, not sure where to aim next. But another Goblin made use of that opening and attacked me.

I used the b̲u̲t̲t̲ end of the spear to knock it down and quickly fixed the speartip towards the Lord.

I was in the middle of a battlefield now, so the more time I took, the danger to Raum is one thing, it would even endanger me.

Goblin Lord once again rushed at me who had gotten interrupted.

It charged with the usual downward swing. Giant weapons naturally needed power, but on top of that, they also made movements difficult, and had few variations of attacks.

That said, the destructive power it held was more than enough threat against inexperienced people. They would start fearing what would happen if even one of those attacks landed on them, which would significantly suppress their power.

That said, unfortunately for the Goblin Lord, the one standing before it was me. If this was enough to make me freeze up, I could’ve never attempted subjugating the Evil Dragon.

I nimbly jumped to the right—but the Lord’s right hand was waiting for me there.

It probably judged that even an unarmed hand would be enough to deal a fatal wound on me. And that judgment was correct, as my real body hidden by the disguise was frail enough to get blow away with a simple graze.

I immediately used my spear as a shield to block it and made a light jump. Doing this made it easier to take on the attack compared to standing your ground, and could avoid a serious injury. On the other hand, getting flung away meant you couldn’t do anything so your posture would get broken.

I got blown over five meters away, rolling unshapely on the ground. The Goblins suddenly flooded to my side, at least over five in number.

I thrust my spear at one of those Goblins and skewered it at the throat. This was a reflexive action so I suppose there was no helping it, but due to that, I wasn’t able to quickly pull the spear out.

Judging that I couldn’t use the spear any longer, I immediately let it go. If I kept holding on to it, I could’ve gotten crushed by the horde of the Goblins.

Then, I poured magic power into my gloves and summoned my trusty gauntlets. I couldn’t use them since Cortina was monitoring the battle with the familiar, but there was no choice given my dilemma. Protecting the capital was a given, but I couldn’t let myself get killed here this time.

I beat down the remaining four Goblins, slit their throats with my wrist claw, and tripped their legs with threads and crushed their jaws with a stomp.

I roundhouse kicked the remaining one too. By then, I noticed that something was blocking the sunlight.

While I was busy dealing with the Goblins, the Goblin Lord had managed to approach me.

It already had its rock raised overhead, with an expression convinced of its victory.

However, to me who had threads now, that action could be called fatal for the Lord. I immediately flew the thread to twine it around its raised arm at the elbow along with its neck.

All that was left was for it to swing down its arm and strangle itself. It was the same strategy I used against the twin-bladed Devil.

Convinced of our respective victories, smiles appeared on our faces. And then, the Goblin Lord started to slowly swing its arm down—

Only for a steel arrow to pierce through its head.