Chapter 68

 

Site of the Goblin Invasion; Gnome Warren Entrance

The battle is intensifying but hasn’t gotten to every part of the courtyard yet.

I tried to feel my mana pulse again, as I get ready to reveal my new secret skill. It felt stable. If I was careful then…this should work right?

But then I realized another idea. Before I’d been trying to use mana until exhaustion and that had contributed to the manaburn condition. This time I should do the opposite. I should try to continually push for mana regeneration and then only burn off the excess mana carefully at higher levels when it felt really thick and intensely charging.

Of course I was sure situations would force me to go below that, but at least I had a good control measure in place to keep myself from having problems.

“What do you want us to do? Shun you have to save us please! Please, please, please I’ll do anything!” Asakura asked me.

Gulp*

But I’m scared too. Wait, no, I’m just nervous. I can do this.

I just received a ton of skills recently too. Let’s make this happen; I told myself.

“Shun, don’t let us down there, now that the cowards have left,” Rina says flipping off Akira near us. It seems he was staring at Rina for some reason just a second ago. Was he trying to get her to leave too? I was going to have to punish him.

“I want a bodyguard formation. Asakura to my left, Rina to the right, and Yumi you are our front shield. Follow my lead,” I said.

“I don’t see why Shun gets to be…” Yumi was elbowed in the gut again, by Rina.

“Just do it,” Rina put her in her place. She was giving Yumi an ugly look again. Yumi’s defiance melted into a lost puppy look.

“But why does he always get to be in charge?” Yumi huffed wanting to protest.

“That’s just the way it is,” Rina shrugged. “You got cheated in the life before this one, I guess. You rolled a one, and bro rolled a ten. That’s fate.” Where did she get such a weird ass idea? Life was more than a dice roll.

“Actually Shun, has the best chance of getting us out alive. That’s why he’s leading and not me, even though I’m the adult here,” Asakura said to Yumi.

That surprised me. But she’s right.

“Please Shun, get us through this,” Asakura said again desperately. “Please!” She leaned forward and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Of course to do so, she had to lean her cleavage into my face.

They moved into position. Everyone had their weapons out. The other humans were being encouraged to join the defense in their same teams as before.

So it was a good chance to try out my new skills.

I hoped we’d have enough time to test things on a dry run before the goblins got here.

I remembered the names for the skills in Egyptian that Sunghee and Fox had shown me. First was the runic shield. I put one on me. I drew the same rune in the air that I’d seen as before. The magic flared in the tip of my finger while drawing the symbol and then it looked like for a brief two seconds that I was standing in a clear translucent bubble of solid protective force. Thankfully it doesn’t impede movement in any way and adjusts well. But there is a good feeling of it being there, in spite of this.

The others were noticing this. They’d seen me use the heal skill before, but nothing like this yet.

“What?! Did you just get a new skill?” Asakura asked.

I smiled at her wickedly.

She reached out to touch it. Then her hand goes through. “How come it didn’t work?” Asakura asks.

“Huh?” Rina is puzzled too.

Yumi is just staring forward at the battle. She knows she has to trust me. “I hope you guys are getting things together,” she called back to us.

“I think it worked didn’t it?” I’m not sure.

Asakura feels out with her hand. It goes through the air without touching it. Was the bubble gone? This was the runic bubble spell and I hadn’t mixed it up. But this was like a crash course.

“Where did it go?” she asked.

“Try hitting me with your fist?” I suggested.

“Are you sure?” Rina asked.

“Just once, Asakura do it,” I said.

Asakura pulls back and tries to hit me.

“Shun, I hope your weird skills are useful,” Yumi mutters without looking at us. She thinks we are fooling around it seems. Her trust and opinion of me aren’t that good after all, despite all the hard work I’ve done.

The bubble bounces Asakura’s hand off and the runic bubble flashes. There’s a slight line in the air where the bubble was. Strange, it feels like nothing is attached to me. I half turn and step to the right. The crack is still in the air. OK, so it would let positive energy in, and keep out negative energy.

“So its about if you have harmful intent?” I wondered aloud.

It does seem silly to test it, but when you have to put your life on the line of course you will experiment to make sure it works.

“Do you want me to try again? I don’t know how much time we have though?” Asakura asks.

“Please hurry,” Yumi reminds us again.

“No, no, I think we’re good. It seems it lets through friendly touch, but just activates on harm?” I guessed.

“Next time let me try, not that lewd woman,” Rina says referring to Asakura. Both of us are surprised at her language. She’s got her nose scrunched up and her hands on her hips. “I won’t let you take Shun from me and Yumi.”

“Huh? But you promised me you’d go with me to the Girls Kingdom!” Yumi exclaimed.

“Eh?!” Both Asakura and I stare at Rina in surprise. Yumi would need some discipline after this. Apparently she was giving Rina a lot of weird ideas again.

“It-it’s a lie! I swear it’s a lie!” Rina says with innocent eyes. She’s blushing a little. “What?! I didn’t do anything I swear! I’m still pure! I’m still saving my…”

“Please don’t finish that sentence, I’m afraid to know how it finishes,” I interrupt quickly. I manage to contain the damage somehow.

Hmm, I’d have to sort that out later.

“You still can’t take Shun,” she mutters to Sensei.

“Good grief, doesn’t the rivalry ever stop?” Asakura asks. “Focus!”

Rina tries to stick her tongue out without me seeing, but I turned my head in time to see it. She’s caught, and looks down guiltily.

“Sorry.”

“Hey, you guys better hurry with what you are doing and stop fooling around. Those goblins will be here any second,” Yumi said anxiously in half panic. I can tell if I think too much about the goblins that I won’t be able to do this; best to focus first and then deal with it.

“So we can do this right?” Asakura asks.

“Wait, I have one more thing to try,” I said.

I then draw the Egyptian symbols in the air with my finger lit up with a blue mana spark again. This time I made the sign for the star missile thing that I’d learned about earlier.

But I’m shocked when it activates. I get blown flat onto the ground on my back, as the missile is heavy and hard to control. It shoots wildly and two sparkly glowing missiles fly up above the goblins I’d been aiming at. I missed. There’s a slight trail of sparks at first that disappears quickly.

IT WORKS!

YES!

I have an offensive skill too!

Wow, OK, it’s also got a lot of force. I just needed to know that. I’ll get it next time.

“Woah, when did you get that?” Asakura asked in wonder.

“Just recently.”

“Next time don’t miss OK?” Asakura said quickly.

“What the fudge was that?” Rina asks in shock.

“Wow. You can shoot stuff now?” Asakura is very surprised with her mouth wide open.

“Uh, bro, is that like an offense skill?” Rina asks.

“I guess so,” I shrug trying to not make a big deal out of it. “I hadn’t had a chance to practice it yet or try it before.”

Asakura is also looking at me and the cavern ceiling where the two missiles hit. The gnomes are looking at me in shock. I can hear an elder screaming at me, to warn me to not collapse the ceiling. I didn’t know it was a big fear they had, and of earthquakes until now.

I need to get it right. It will take practice. Those star missile things were so heavy and it felt like I was shooting a rocket of some kind or like a heavy rifle going off and acting against me. My shoulder could feel the impact when it’d left my hands.

Wow, video games and books of mage stories seemed to forget that part of how hard it is to keep it steady.

But my mana felt OK. I hadn’t used very much yet. It felt like I’d barely even used any of it.

“Guys, they’re here,” Yumi warned.

I wished we had more time. The goblins hit Yumi’s glowing mana shield and she stays up. Their blows rebound off it, and she’s shaking it off like she didn’t even feel it. She collects like three of them at once on her shield, and a bunch of gnomes close on our right and left to block the advance of the goblins. The goblins have some kind of club axe rigged weapons, and some with spears, or spike clubs. We learn quickly to watch for the spear users first, since they can attack before closing from range.

“What do I do? What do I do?” Rina screeches in fear. Despite her fear, she’s got some kind of viciously spiked club the gnomes had lent her. It did not look dwarven made but looked like something scrounged up from leftovers. It looks more dangerous than the other weapons, through sheer fear and gore it produces. She tries to swing at the goblins to beat them off Yumi’s shield. While Asakura is trying out the same orc spear she’d had before. She missed stabbing at one the first time, but parried its attack after that.

“You can do it Rina, just follow Shun,” Asakura says steadily. She continues to put up a good show.

“Stay calm Rina, trust me,” I said.

I drew the bubble thing in the air again, but this time I put Rina in it. Success! I feel it working.

Now she’s shielded with the skill!

“Eh?! That’s so cool!” she says as a goblin club bounces off it just in time as it appeared. But there’s a small crack about eighteen inches long on the bubble now as the goblins try to swarm us. I hadn’t anticipated that the crack would be that big however. She’s still admiring the bubble and its ability to block the cracks while the goblin is pulling back for another swing.

“Stupid! Don’t stand there! It doesn’t make you invincible! It’ll only absorb so much damage!” I yell. While yelling at her, I let loose another starry missile spell. This time it’s heavy force I keep grounded and shoot it off knocking a small goblin flat on his back before he closes within melee distance of us.

It worked.

But I’m not sure I killed him yet or not, because right after that a bunch of goblins ran past him blocking my view.

“Eh?!” Rina is shocked at the shield and tries to fight back.

“Can I have one too?” Asakura pleads. She’s terribly afraid and barely holding off a goblin. She managed to block again, so I cast another bubble on her.

“I’m getting there. Don’t worry,” I countered.

“Hey what’s that you just did?” Yumi asks.

“Nothing, don’t worry about it. We’re just keeping people alive back here,” I said. “Rina that shield has a limit to how much it will absorb. Don’t waste it,” I remind her.

Yumi frowns but is hanging on with three goblins on her shield. But the shields help with confidence a lot. But they get a lot of damage quickly it seems.

I wonder if there’s a way I can duplicate Yumi’s anti-grappling effect, I think briefly.

I try to feel my mana core to tell how I’m doing. I still feel my mana is holding up tons better compared to before. But Rina’s shield gets a ton of cracks in it quickly. Now there are three cracks total on hers that are over two feet long. She’s trying to hold back the goblins but it’s not going well. The shield is literally what’s keeping her alive.

“You have to stay moving Rina. Don’t let them box you in,” I caution.

“Yeah, sorry! Please keep me safe too!” she swings at a goblin and mashes its arm. But she’s got two on her now while Yumi is pinned down. Yumi looks like at any second she might abandon the front to run to Rina.

“I’ve got it Yumi. Keep the front wall up,” I managed to stop her in time.

I hear her curse something under her breath.

Asakura seems to be holding up, but for insurance I open up my item box and pull out my axe. Quickly I chop a goblin in two while carefully monitoring Rina’s shield. It seems she’s our weak spot, and within another ten seconds she’s overwhelmed with another new crack on her shield. It crackles with energy and I’m worried. Now I can see and feel that her shield is going to buckle at any time.

Still, even though it’s a really simple spell, it’s taken four solid hits that would have been disabling blows or good sized wounds.

Wow, this is an amazing skill!

The goblins are trying to swarm Rina still, and I can see from the hungry looks in their eyes that they want to carry her away. It worries me. They are both swinging and bashing at it. Will the bubble stop them from carrying her off?

I chop my axe down and sever one of the goblins arms. It’s staring at the stump where its weapon was in total shock. Rina finishes it off with a blow to the head. But by then a fifth crack opens up on her shield, the magic bursts like a water balloon spraying weird ozone smelled air around us.

Weird. It has a smell too? I didn’t think magic could be smelled before…

As the goblin is pulling back for another strike I hurry and draw the rune in the air, just in time to reactivate another shield before he can kill Rina. The bubble opens up and envelopes her quickly.

She cringes in fear as the blow was about to hit her but stops momentarily.

“Come on Rina! You have to fight! Try to defend yourself!” I said. “Stand up to them. As long as the shield is up you don’t have to fear. But you can’t just let them break the shield.”

Rina is totally crying like a baby and sniffs, “OK. I get it now.” She does seem to now think she’s got a good cheat or a good chance. She hacks awkwardly at the goblin. It’s actually worse to be cut up the way she’s doing it. Instead of one clean killing blow, she’s cutting it up by the bits in a really messy and despicably awful coordinated way.

Yumi has somehow glanced at part of this while still using the overpowering shield to keep three other enemies back. “That bubble thing is so cheaty! No fair!” she cries in frustration.

But then I have to turn back to Asakura who now has three goblins on her. Her bubble has three short scars across it while she blocks and then hacks back at the goblins. She’s doing better than Rina, but I’ll have to check on her often. It seems like she’s not used to combat too.

“How do you know how much the bubble will absorb?” she asks.

“I don’t know. Just try not to use it up.”

She cringes and bites her lip while hanging on. She hacks at another goblin breaking its spear after knocking it away and then kicking it full force against the long handle of the spear. It falls on its back and then I can lend support by having my axe chop into the side of the next goblin with her.

But it’s hard doing this and keeping an eye on Rina at the same time; who is losing easily because of her weakened condition. I help Asakura with blocking on the other goblin while she finishes off the one that was helpless with the broken weapon and now being beaten senseless on the ground.

“Try to block more. I don’t have infinite mana, and we have to keep your shield going as long as we can,” I hint to both of them.

Yumi suddenly realizes that these bubble shields will keep us alive and her eyes light up. “Hey we can do this! Holy crap! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh! We have a chance! We could win!” She’s getting excited.

By then I have a goblin charge me but I block, and then kick it in the kneecap forcing it to the ground. I block its attack just in time to redraw the rune in the air to replace Rina’s shield. But to do so I had to hold the goblin’s weapon against my own for a second to make it want to pull back.

The shield on Rina shattered right then. It had already nearly collapsed again with two more goblins above her. She’s now pinned to the ground using her club to block downward strikes. I have to rescue her or she’ll soon be killed or kidnapped.

OK, so far so good.

My mana is holding up. I think we could do this awhile, but not forever.

My bubble flashed into existence again, just as the goblins almost finished her off. She’s staring up in wild shock that she’s still alive and uninjured. But she can’t get up. I have to hurry. I hate close calls like this though. I don’t like the idea that anything is luck.

So I block the goblin in front of me again and then kick it in the ribs. I gained some room and then chop at the side at one of Rina’s attackers. My axe goes deep into its ribs and it starts spewing blood all over, from both its mouth and its rib cage. Then I have to kick back again at the goblin behind me that I’d turned my back towards. It squeals as I block it twice in a row and then whip my axe into the goblin’s side again for the other one on Rina.

But we have to hurry. There are other goblins still trying to get at the people in our trench line and the other teams aren’t doing as well as ours. I heard screams coming from the other human refugees and even from some of the gnome teams as they’d lost people.

Our team is doing much better than the others, I suspect.

Rina finally gets up as her other goblin turns to face me. It’s hard for her to get up. She pushes back spider crawling and regains her grip on her club. She struggles to her feet finally.

“Help!” she cries out.

“Get up!” I scream at her desperately. It somehow motivates her.

Finally she’s up and blocking again. I risk casting a heal on her for fatigue. Ironically it’s not like before where I was completely exhausted in one heal. It seems like enough to last for her treatment but I know this environment isn’t good for her.

It’s a tricky operation because I can hear a few goblin weapons make glassy sounding cracks in Asakura’s shield now behind me too. I block several more blows from the goblin that’s nearest to me and finish it off.

But Asakura’s shield has a big gaping one foot diameter hole in it somehow from some type of power strike that’s punctured it wickedly, while she blocks trying to keep the two on her from swarming her. One of them is a bit bigger. I need to get rid of him fast.

Hm, so sometimes a mana shield can get a hole in it before it collapses?

“Guys, don’t forget me!” Yumi pleads. She’s sweating like crazy, still with three goblins on her like before. They can’t seem to pull her shield away though they have been trying for a long time.

Asakura blocks another power strike, but a new crack appears on her shield on the other side. I don’t have much time. The shield runes take some time to draw in the air. I’m careful but not that fast. The missile runes are a shorter drawing. Its hieroglyphic is simpler and with less pen strokes.

Quickly I draw it and manage to brace myself better as the two missiles hit the biggest goblin yet that we’ve seen in the chest. He’d been about to grab Asakura’s leg to take her away. The shot of magic missiles hurts to release though because it’s like shooting a gun and if I did that all the time my shoulder would probably dislocate. It knocked him back hard.

But the big goblin isn’t killed, to my astonishment. He’s landed back like ten feet into a bunch of other goblins but he’s struggling to get up on wobbly legs with two big gaping holes in his guts. Wow, how is he not dead?

“What?! How is he not dead?!” Asakura exclaims. She can now block the other goblin much easier now. She does so in time to keep her shield active.

But the tag team keeping Asakura and Rina alive is hard work. I’m suddenly very grateful for what Fox Girl has been doing to train me. This was possible because of her.

I redraw the runes on Asakura just in time to see a death cry from someone in our survival group; Eri I think her name was? It was the new girl that was with Akira, Yuriko, and the earth mage girl. She just took a goblin spear through the gut, right under the sternum. Then two more goblins pierce her heart, right after that.

Akira’s team is now a mess and paralyzed from fear after seeing it.

The worst part is, if they’d stayed with us then she would be alive still. And they’d be having an easier time of it.

Akira and all the others in that group are being hard pressed by goblin troops right now. They all are bloody and scratched up too. While my group is struggling and weaker, but being kept alive by the bubble shields. Still I can’t help but be envious of Akira’s log swinging mega death all around it.

“Eh? They didn’t try to kidnap her,” Rina observes in shock.

“That’s a good thing,” I corrected her.

Asakura grunts but is too busy fighting to look over. Finally, that means she’s learning something.

Now I have to go back to Rina. I suddenly feel tired. Like before she attracts a lot of goblins, while looking like easy prey but at least she’s getting better at swinging her club. She seems to be able to keep them from disarming her thanks to the bubble shield enchantment. But she keeps getting overwhelmed.

It’s strange that this could work.

I bat off a goblin that’s attacking her, kick it between the legs, and then clip the hands off one that has been hanging onto Yumi’s shield the longest. It screams littered the cavern joining with the screams of dying gnomes and goblins both. I’m also learning to use more than just my weapon. My kicks are getting better but I have to also watch for getting stabbed when I kick out. So I can only do it when they are off balance already or have just finished a swing.

Still...most of my time has to be focused on watching buff statuses on our team. I have to renew them also.

“Oh thank goodness. I was so tired,” Yumi says. She’s now able to fight at the remaining two without being bogged down.

I then cut down the one on Rina that had been about to add a second crack to her shield enchantment.

Yep, the shield enchantment was now almost as good as the heal spell. It was so valuable that I couldn’t imagine fighting without it now, even if it did have a lot of limits. I pushed two more goblins away from Rina, but she was terrible at fighting.

I did pause quickly to renew Rina’s treatment. Her hard breathing had signaled me it was time.

“Thanks,” she said stiffly.

How am I going to keep her alive?

It’s so hard.

The minute I turn my back on her...I shook the despair from my head. I had to keep everyone in my team alive; no matter what. My mana was still holding up, but it was only because I was using the benefits of the magnified mana regeneration and Fox’s mana pool shared percentage.

I broke a goblin’s hand axe that tried to parry my steel axe. Then as he froze, not knowing what to do I had the axe bite into his hip between the legs going under. He screams and falls to the ground, and then I step on the wound. He screams even more.

So far both shields on Rina and Asakura are holding up. Good, I just have to keep this up.

“Please don’t abandon us!” Asakura pleads while crying.

Did she think I’d abandon her?

“Dito,” Rina says.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said.

I’m guessing they said that from seeing other teams collapse and survivors ditching teammates.

Actually this ditch we’re fighting near is pretty good cover. We can use it to help prevent the goblins from charging us. It helps a lot, but doesn’t guarantee safety. We have to back up a bit because a stream of shredded flesh and goblins with other dead are piling up making the ground slippery.

The goblins mistakenly think Asakura is giving up after she’s cried out. So I chop down the big one that had tried to sneak up on her again. I want to prevent them from surging against her. He has to retreat now that my axe has clipped his leg bone, but I’m surprised how tough he is. Strangely he’s got such powerful willpower that he doesn’t scream but I can see he’s in intense pain. The other goblins are trying to cover his retreat.

Slowly this cavern is becoming one of the pits of some broken and bloody hell.

Dang.

He was probably some kind of sub leader. The goblins are ready to sacrifice themselves to help him get away. I don’t understand their reasoning. How can they train them to be willing to face death like that?

Yumi manages to cut down the one in front of us using the dwarven war hammer she’d been given. She just has one goblin left.

I’m able to focus on Rina some more. She doesn’t swing very good, and is still sloppy, but at least it’s better than before. There would be a lot more suffering on someone before she managed to kill them.

She finally kills a goblin. We’re shocked.

“I-I did it? I mean…I got one by myself,” she breathes in surprise.

But it seems like it was an accident. She’d tried to wind up her swing and pull back for a power strike and in the process her spike club had hit an already wounded goblin that had been trying to sneak up behind her.

We’re all too surprised to believe it for several seconds.

“No way! Rina killed something?” Asakura almost drops her weapon too. It sounds like hearing someone caught a ten foot long shark in a mountain lake fishing story.

“It’s just a buildup of critical luck,” Yumi says dourly.

“Yumi keep your eyes in front of you,” I warn her as two more goblins are back on her shield.

Down below us the killing field of the courtyard is a total mess. The dwarves are still alive right at the front of it. I’m very surprised by this because they’ve been at the forefront of all of this. They must have taken the worst part of the battle. I don’t see them having had very many losses but they are cut up and many of them bleeding badly. But they are still hanging on.

They must be elite troops of some kind I think. There’s no other explanation other than this.

Still we aren’t getting anywhere. We keep up fighting like this for awhile. At times I renew the magic shielding, but right now I’m trying to save my power and stamina for our escape opportunity; whenever we can spot one.

Still they have been forced back and starting to do a fighting retreat even while they are slaying a ton of stuff.

Why are they retreating? The battle is too early for them to run away.

I feel something sneaky is happening again.

“Shun, something’s happening,” Asakura confirmed.

“You can save us Shun, please,” Rina said quickly.

Even though I saw it already, I’m glad to have confirmation from someone besides myself. It lends credibility that I’m on the right track for a safe route.

I’m also very humbled because the number of goblins slain by me and my team is much smaller than the whole group of them slain by even one dwarf. In this entire world so far, it seems their strength is supreme. How did they cultivate such strength?

But if the dwarves are doing a retreat then where will they head towards? Since there is more than one tunnel leaving the top of the bowl lip of the courtyard it’s not entirely obvious.

This is a very awkward time for a language barrier. I wish I could ask them, so I could get there first. If they got there first then I’d be shielding them instead of them shielding me. If I split from using the dwarves as a shield our survival chances will decrease significantly. So we have to figure out where they are headed and go there before they do it themselves?

“This is so not fair,” Rina whispered.

Our team would have probably have had a loss without the trench as a defense mechanism to help us despite our opponents being in a slower number than the others.

I lose track of time while we continue fighting, this time more quietly. I end up repeating the sequence for some time over and over; cast and renewing runic shielding on each of the team members and keeping them alive! Sometimes I’ll have time to intervene with an axe blow, but most of the time I’m super busy!

The runic shielding seems to have a calming effect on the girls still. They aren’t talking as much lately. We’ve been trying to follow the direction the dwarves seem to be working towards.

I couldn’t risk the usage of a huge amount of mana yet of trying to pull Sunghee through yet without having a test under a controlled environment still. It was tempting however…

If I use mana to pull Sunghee through, then I won’t have as much mana for runic shielding.

“I wish I had more options,” I said.

“Don’t we all,” Asakura echoed after me. She cuts down a goblin.

Wow, she’s doing it. If Asakura can get this, then maybe I can mold the others into little fighting machines too.