Ichor Cell-Chapter 55: Goblin Slaying III

Ichor Cell-Chapter 55: Goblin Slaying III

The muted crunch of wet leaves announced the passing of the strike force as they delved deeper into the forest.
Dozens of boots pressed silently into the dirt as the mixed-rank group advanced in a loose formation, spaced out just enough to avoid hindering each other but tight enough to provide help if needed. A few mages among them had shimmering mage-lights floating above their heads, illuminating the way forward.
Alex walked near the front, a few paces behind the guild master and the Gold-ranked adventurer beside her. The Bronzes followed behind him, and the Silvers flanked the group. They were trying to be quiet, but he could hear them whispering curiously among themselves, wondering why the guild master let a Wood join the expedition, much less have him walk up front with her.
He thought back to the moment of their departure.
“I’m gonna go.” Grenil said. “It’s not like I can come along with you, and I also don’t particularly want to.”
“That…” Alex hesitated before realising that the old man was right. “Yeah, you’re right. Go ahead. I’ll see you guys later back at the inn.”
Turning around, Grenil left with an exasperated shake of the head.
As Alex watched him leave and the strike team filed out of the hall, the guild master paused on her way out and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Walk with me.” She said.
Taken aback, he ignored the looks of confusion sent his way and jogged to catch up to her deceptively long stride. They didn’t see him asking to be part of the team, and therefore hadn’t seen him show off his strength. A random Wood receiving special attention from the Platinum ranked guild master was indeed cause for a few raised eyebrows.
When he caught up, the woman was already walking at the head of the procession of adventurers. The Gold rank—Remus—walked just behind her. The man sent Alex an inquisitive look, but didn’t seem too surprised by his presence beside him.
“So.” The woman called over her shoulder without breaking stride. “What made you choose to become and adventurer, Alexander?”
“You know my name?” Alex tried and failed to hide his surprise.
The woman turned just enough for him to see her roll her eyes.
“I’m the head of this guild branch, boy.” She said. “I am aware of
every
adventurer that registers in these halls, much less those that have gathered significant strength even before joining.”
Alex nodded in understanding. “I see, miss…?”
The woman snorted. “Don’t ‘miss’ anything me. I’m old enough to be your grandma’s grandma. You can just call me Eve, or guild master if that makes you too uncomfortable.” The woman that didn’t look a day over thirty flashed a wolf-like grin over her shoulder.
“Of course, guild master.” He didn’t take the bait.
“Tsk, boring.” The woman faced the road again. “So, you never answered. Why join our little organisation now, when you didn’t before?”
It didn’t take much thinking to figure out what she meant.
“I, uh… My previous place of residence did not have access to the guild and its services, so I wasn’t even made aware of its existence until recently.” He rubbed his head.
“Really?” The guild master gave him a disbelieving look. “I know Orenthia is rather… peculiar, but surely someone at your level of power should have at lease
some
awareness of what goes on beyond its borders?”
Alex simply shrugged as an answer.
“As for why join the guild at all… It’s just exactly what I need, I guess. A job where I can work my unusual hours, get paid a lot, and have access to various resources to help me eventually fix my problem.”
“Your problem, huh?” She sent an assessing glance his way. “And how exactly did you get cursed with a weakness to sunlight? I’ve heard of such things, but it’s usually limited to the extent of a mild rash at most. My gut is telling me your circumstances are slightly more extreme.”
“If by ‘slightly more extreme’ you mean I get severe burns from just a few seconds in the light, you would be right.” It was Alex’s turn to snort. “I don’t really know how or why it happened. One day I was happily walking around in the day, minding my own business, and then suddenly I wake up and find out the hard way that I can no longer get a tan.”
“Hm…” The woman hummed noncommittally as they approached the city gates.
Now that the interrogation was seemingly over, Alex took the opportunity to inspect their surroundings. Although he had been in and out of Luterra a few times already, this was the first time it was with such a large and intimidating group. It was obvious in the way passerby hurried out of their way and drunks suddenly sobered up as they neared.
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He figured that it was unusual to see such a large group of heavily armed people walking through the streets at night. The people that saw them as a group of thugs on their way to take someone’s kneecaps were scared.
Those capable of making out their adventurer’s guild badges were absolutely terrified.
Alex understood why. Anything that roused such a response from the guild—especially with the eye-catching Platinum and Gold ranks leading the procession—was probably not great for the continued peace of the city.
This became especially apparent at the gates themselves, where the guard’s faces turned incredibly grim upon recognising the guild master.
They didn’t even ask where they were going or what they were doing; they just wanted to know if they should start evacuating the citizens and if they had time to run away themselves.
The guild master had promised that she would die before she let it come to that.
The experience had sobered Alex up. It was one thing to treat this as a personally dangerous money-making opportunity. If it went well, he was rich. If it didn’t… well, he wouldn’t be around to care.
It was another thing to realise that his failure might lead to the deaths of thousands of innocent people living their lives in this city.
“We’re getting close” Someone whispered, finally breaking Alex out of his thoughts.
He looked around for any sign of their target, but this stretch of woods looked just like any other, with no hint of goblin activity—at least to his untrained eye. It took him straining his already incredibly good hearing to just
barely
catch a hint of sound far in front of them.
‘Maybe I should learn some tracking in my free time.’
He turned an impressed gaze to the one who had spoken. The Silver rank adventurer nodded at him.
Sure enough, they continued forward until the terrain changed enough for even Alex to be able to tell that something was up. The ground was noticeably more worn here, with large patches of dirt showing where countless small feet had trampled the vegetation flat. Bones, broken tools, and scraps of fabric were scattered around in no particular pattern.
A few more steps brought the den into view.
It wasn’t subtle.
A large opening was carved into the side of a small rise, wide and tall enough that a medium sized elephant could have comfortably fit through it. Crude wooden beams held up the edges, and torches burned around the entrance, casting uneven light across the clearing. Dozens of goblins were visible immediately—walking around, arguing, fighting, dragging materials, or simply loitering.
Alex could make out even more movement inside the cavern. It was impossible to tell how many were in there, but from the level of constant noise coming from the opening, he was sure it wasn’t a small number.
A few of the wandering goblins were noticeably larger and different looking from the others, but there was no sign of the monstrous variant that had wiped the previous team.
Eve raised her hand, and everyone stopped.
She watched the clearing for a few seconds, eyes flicking between the patrolling goblins, the entrance, and the hill above it.
“Get ready,” she said quietly, “We attack on my go ahead. Archers, mages, I want you focusing on the large ones. Melee, you protect them.”
“If the ed variant or something else shows up, I will take care of it with these two.” She indicated Alex and the Gold rank Remus.
Another round of curious glances was sent his way, but Alex ignored them, mentally hyping himself up for the task ahead.
As they walked, the guild master had resumed her interrogation under the guise of making small talk. In his ignorance, Alex had accidentally let slip that he was very hard to kill. The woman’s eyes had lit up like it was Christmas, and now he had been saddled with tank duty.
Unfortunately, unlike in a game, he had more to worry about than a depleted health bar.
Once everyone was in position, the guild master held out her hand and counted down from five. When her last finger went down, death descended upon the visible variants.
Crackling beams, shadowy blurs, and glinting projectiles streaked through the air and stabbed, froze and ignited all three of the large goblins. Two of them were shredded outright, dead before they could make a sound. The third, perhaps due to its bony exoskeleton or the weaker attacks it had suffered, still had the strength to let out a desperate scream—not that their attack hadn’t already alerted the enemy to their position.
As one, every goblin in sight turned.
The ones nearest to them scrambled to grab whatever weapons were at hand. Some picked up rocks, some sticks, and a few had weapons already sheathed at their waists. Others simply let out high-pitched screeches and started running without bothering to arm themselves.
The guild master didn’t step forward. Neither did Remus. Alex tried to go out to assist, but the woman grabbed him by the arm and shook her head. “Save your strength. We’re here to take care of the big guy or any other unexpected threat. Leave the swarm to the others.”
He tried to argue that he wouldn’t get tired and that he needed the money, but she shut him down by promising a substantial reward upon returning to the guild.
The first goblins reached the line.
A Silver met them immediately. Her spear flicked once, twice, three times. Three goblins dropped before the next wave even made contact. Another Silver to her right cleaved straight through two with a single sweeping cut. A third used a short-range spell that sent half a dozen tumbling backward like they’d been shoved by a giant.
The few that slipped past the powerful vanguard were quickly dispatched by the second line of defence.
The Bronzes weren’t as clean or fast, but they didn’t need to be. One of them blocked a club strike, countered with a shield bash, and cut the recovering goblin across the torso. Another fought off three at once by simply out-muscling them, grabbing one and using it as a battering ram to knock the others over.
All the while, the number of goblins in the clearing only grew as an endless stream of them rushed out from the cave system beneath.
Thankfully, the situation seemed under control since the frontline was holding, and any variant that appeared was swiftly neutralised by their ranged combatants. But when he glanced over at the two adventurers beside him, he saw a frown mirrored across both their features.
“They’re using up too much energy.” Remus said when he saw Alex’s quizzical expression.
“And there’s still no sign of the big fucker.” Eve nodded along, her face serious.
With a nod of understanding, Alex re-assessed the field of battle. Now that he knew what to look out for, it was easy to spot the problem. Although only a few minutes had passed since the battle began, over a hundred goblins had been slain by the adventurers. While this sounded like a good thing, their group was originally only twenty strong.
With six or seven of them busy providing ranged support against any variants that emerged, that left barely a dozen men to hold against the wrath of the entire den.
Though their rate of killing remained impressive, Alex could see that some in the frontline were already beginning to flag, their strikes coming in slightly slower and their blocks just a little bit less forceful.
The stream of creatures pouring out of the cave had not slowed in the slightest.
And the big bad had still not shown himself.

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Chapter 55: Goblin Slaying III