With Derek in stable condition, Roy entered the meeting room and opened his new backpack on the ground. He put all of the red monster gems that they had gathered today inside, before taking out the two scrolls and the rest of the gems from the jar. After making sure that everything was nice and tidy in his backpack, Roy put the silver iron inside the jar, or else it wouldn’t have taken too much space.
Now ready to continue his nocturnal hunt, Roy went down the stairs and met up with Robb and Jaimie. He looked around the room, only to find Lorenz groggily waking up.
“Good morning princess,” Roy grinned while walking over to the young boy.
Seeing the stupid expression on Roy’s face, Lorenz shook his head, “Truly a bad omen that I’m seeing your face first thing after I wake up.”
Roy flicked Lorenz’s forehead with his middle finger, “When did your tongue grow so sharp?”
“Ouch!” The young boy held his forehead with both hands before looking at Roy with tearful eyes. “You gotta learn how to control yourself you monster. Your flicks are now deadly!”
“Well, what can I say? I’m just strong,” Roy shrugged his shoulders. “Now, you coming with us or should we just go?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” Lorenz stood up while yawning. “That sleep was so good. It felt like I slept for a day.”
“Well, good for you,” Robb took the lead and walked to the front door. “Now, let’s move. We only have a few hours until midnight.”
Roy nodded at Robb’s words before following after him along with Jaimie. Seeing that everyone was walking out, Lorenz who was still stretching and yawning quickly tensed up and followed after them.
“Wait, I’m coming.”
Lorenz ran toward the group of three before stopping next to Jaimie. When the two made eye contact, Jaimie let out the biggest smile he had ever seen.
“Tch, weird,” After grumbling for a bit, Lorenz looked at Jaimie and asked, “So, what did you guys do today?”
As if he was waiting for this question the whole day, Jaimie’s smile grew even wider. In an instant, Lorenz felt a foreboding omen that made him regret his ever asking such a question.
For a whole ten minutes, Jaimie retold the same story he had told Jack’s and Marth’s group for the third time. As both Roy and Robb heard that story with the same twists and same words so many times, their eyes glazed over as they inadvertently lost focus. Even Lorenz who was listening to the story for the first time was torn between being impressed by the events or annoyed at the fact that Jaimie did not stop talking for a second.
Thinking that enough was enough, Lorenz finally cut in, “Okay, okay, I understand. You guys just went through stories from the legends in real life.”
Jaimie looked with surprise at the young boy before smiling once again, “Yeah!”
Seeing Jaimie’s ever-joyful attitude, Lorenz gritted his teeth. As his emotions were taking over his mental space, he shook his head and regained his concentration.
“Okay, so what’s the plan for tonight?” Lorenz looked at Roy to change subjects.
“Same as yesterday,” Roy shrugged his shoulders. “We take care of the ogres, you guys clean up the goblins.”
“Why don’t we let them fight an ogre this time,” Robb cut in. “I can let you borrow my sword.”
Roy raised an eyebrow at Robb’s suggestion before looking at Jaimie and Lorenz. Their reactions couldn’t be any different.
“Yes, let’s do that! I wanna fight those ogres without you guys,” Jaimie jumped out in excitement.
Looking at Jaimie’s reaction, Lorenz’s heartbeat almost stopped, “No, no, no! What the hell?! We were barely killing goblins yesterday and now you want to do Ogres?! You can do it alone. I am definitely not doing it!”
Jaimie pouted at Lorenz’s reaction, “Aww, but I wanted to do it with you.”
Looking at Jaimie’s cute puppy eyes, Lorenz gulped before shaking his head, “No! It doesn’t matter what you say, I will not do it.”
Looking at the two bantering with each other, Roy let out a chuckle. “Alright, keep an eye out, we have some company.”
Jaimie and Lorenz turned serious at Roy’s reminder. In front of them was a pack of ten goblins, one of them being a blue archer.
“Oh, we don’t see that one often,” Roy commented with an intrigued expression. “Keep an eye out for it, don’t get hit.”
“Very useful advice,” Lorenz gritted his teeth marching toward the goblins with his sword. Even though he was overly careful, he was still an awakened with a Sentinel-level strength.
On the other hand, Jaimie dashed off to the side before blending with the shadows. Even Lorenz was surprised at the speed of the young boy’s disappearance. However, he could not be distracted for too long, as the blue archer nocked an arrow and launched it with a swoosh.
Lorenz dodged the incoming projectile before dashing toward the first of the tall goblins. He quickly thrust his sword through the goblin’s stomach before having to dodge another arrow.
“Tch, annoying,” Lorenz had to constantly keep an eye out for the blue archer, lest he would quickly transform into a porcupine. He ran toward another goblin with the intent to kill before a swooshing sound stopped him dead in his tracks. An arrow struck the ground directly in front of him.
This game of cat and mouse continued for a few more rounds, with Lorenz trying to kill a goblin before being stopped by the archer. As the pack of goblins started surrounding him, the pressure quickly mounted up.
“Jaimie, what the hell are you doing? Help me!”
Just as Lorenz shouted for help, the young boy dashed out of the shadows and slashed the blue archer’s throat. With the main threat now neutralized, Lorenz let out a wide smile.
He madly dashed toward the goblins that were trying to surround him before slashing and thrusting at them. Limbs and flesh flew up in the sky as the young blacksmith’s bloody dance continued.
Seeing the carnage Lorenz was causing, Roy grinned, “The little boy finally got used to it. Look at him.”
Robb chuckled and nodded, “Truly… You need to become a madman to fit in with this apocalypse.”
“Yeah, I have seen more blood this past two hours than I have seen my whole life before the apocalypse. And the more blood we see, the stronger we get.” Roy took a deep breath and looked at the crescent moon. It was beautiful; untainted by the ugliness of the hell that was earth.
Feeling himself getting melancholic, Roy shook his head. There was no time to dally on his emotions, he needed to grow stronger to carry on his responsibilities.
“Grab all of their weapons and let’s get going. We can melt them later.”
Lorenz nodded at Roy’s words before looting the goblins’ corpses along with Jaimie. The group of four then went on to continue their hunt. With their newfound strength, they were able to easily kill large packs of goblins and loot their swords. As hours passed by, the amount of weapons that they had to hold onto has become comical. Each of the four grabbed a stack that was twice their height.
As they saw an ogre standing amongst a horde of fifty goblins, what escaped their mouth was a collective sigh of relief. All four let go of their weapons at the same time creating an ungodly screech of clacking steel.
“Dammit, my ears are gonna burst,” Lorenz complained but he too was relieved not to carry the pile of swords—even if momentarily. Just the stress of having one of them fall and piercing his throat was enough to keep him on constant edge.
“Well, I don’t think you guys can deal with that yet,” Roy commented as he looked at the raging horde of monsters.
Even though Lorenz was tired from carrying his weight in steel for hours, he didn’t miss an opportunity to give out a snarky response, “Yeah, no shit. So, we’re gonna ignore that stupid idea now?”
Roy looked at Lorenz for a second before ignoring him and turning toward Robb. “I’ll blast them off with a fireball, you take care of the rest. Just leave them the ogre as we said.”
Robb tilted his head before nodding, “Sure, sounds like a plan.”
“No, no, no! That does not sound like a plan, it doesn’t sound like anything!”
Roy ignored Lorenz’s complaint and conjured a medium-sized fireball atop his palm. He waited for the horde to be around forty meters away from them before throwing his spell at them with a spin.
The fiery explosion illuminated the night sky, and the screams and shrieks of the goblins rose into a crescendo of pain and suffering. Their skin and flesh melted along with the iron of their sword and the leather of their clothes. However, the ogre was relatively unscathed, with only a few burns on his skin from the raging flames.
With the job almost done, Robb flew in to kill any goblin stragglers. It took him but half a minute to decapitate the dozen or so of them that were left.
As Robb came back to his previous spot, Roy grabbed Lorenz by the back of his shirt.
“No, what the hell are you doing?!” Even as the young boy struggled, he could not escape Roy’s grasp. With a quick flick of his arm, he sent Lorenz flying toward the ogre.
The young boy fell on his ass before looking back at Roy with a face full of grief, “Ouch, you insane maniac! Do you wanna kill me?!”
Roy took one of the swords that they had accumulated and threw it at the young blacksmith.
“Good luck.”
