Chapter 17: Goblin Sl*yer
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One by one, the number of goblins grew. Some appearing from the trees while others jumped out of leaf piles with their blunt and broken weapons. Each goblin was about half my size, about 90 centimeters, with long green pimple-covered noses and ugly faces filled with mischief and sinister smiles. Loincloth covered their tiny green bodies while some wore an additional layer of armor. Goblins were crafty creatures despite their small size. They were also very dexterous and could take anything out of a pocket without anyone realizing it till it's too late. These crafty creatures have caused the downfall of numerous Adventurers.   

Back to back with Ray, I grit my teeth hard. This was not going to be easy but that didn't mean it was going to be impossible to get out of this situation.

"Ray," I spoke in a low voice, "if you use mana on your arrows, how many goblins can you pierce per arrow?"

"Huh," she spun, "on average two using mana. My best is around four. "

"Good." I nod.

"Don't tell me..." she gasped.

"Yeah," I tilted my head slightly, "it's a reckless plan but it should work."

"Like we have a choice here? I guess we're going to have to brute force our way out." She sighs in annoyance while drawing her arrow back. 

Shaking my head I brandish my spear.

"Yup. Back me up will you?" I shouted as a charge towards the encirclement of goblins.

From my approximation, there are close to a hundred goblins if not more. If Ray continues to shot her arrows at a constant rate, she could take out sixty easily. On the other hand, I'm a bit rusty with my spearmanship skills so I'm not too sure if I'll be able to eliminate the remaining forty, maybe fifty. Plus, my stamina is only about half of Ray's. Scanning the encirclement, I find a slightly bigger goblin with a red bandanna holding a club in its hand. It was a goblin commander!

"Ray, can you pierce the goblin in the red bandanna over there?" I shouted as I skewered two goblins through the head. Their blood splattering all over [Ghostwood]. 

"I can but you would have to create an opening!" She shouted back shooting two consecutive arrows.

Understanding her, I thrust my spear at a frail goblin holding a broken shield. With three times as much speed and power, piercing this goblin was as easy as cutting pie, but frozen pie, as there was a bit of resistance its crimson blood dripping down onto the spear handle as its body hung limp on the silver tip.

[Notice: You've killed a Goblin]

[You have leveled up!]

[All stats increase by 1]

[Basic Spearmanship is now Level 2]

[You have gained Subskill: [Straight Line Pierce]]

[Description: By thrusting a weapon, the user can skewer multiple enemies at once. The number of enemies skewered will vary depending on the weapon used]

Ignoring the notifications, my body moved as if I were in a trance. My spear was spinning like a turbine, goblin blood splattered all over my windbreaker, heads flying into the air. Weapons shattered with every thrust. Sweat moving down my face. The sound of my breathing getting heavier with every swing. Notifications, that I hade no time to look at, ringing in my head.

Meanwhile, Ray, who was behind me, was starting to get exhausted. Her arrows were a lot slower and had less power behind them. Now that she was slower, the goblins could easily read her movements. I could sense her mana being consumed at an astonishing rate. Her arms were red swollen from straining her muscles too much. Sweat trickled down the split ends of her short purple hair and her calves began to contract. Quickly, I turn back around, injecting mana I switch my spear to staff in a flash.

[You have leveled up]

[All stats increase by 1]

[Basic Spearmanship is now Level 5]

.

.

.

[Basic Spearmanship is now Level 9]

"Heal!" I called out raising my staff.

A bright green light emitted from the staff. The light particles flew over to Ray instantly healing her. The swollen spots on her arm reduced back to their original size and her fatigue seemed to disappear as well. The sweat that fell down her face evaporated and the redness from her body faded away. Immediately standing back up, she draws an arrow and releases it. It hits a goblin, piercing it cleanly through the head as well as two others behind it.

"Thank!" She smiled.

"No problem!" I reply while focusing on the goblins in front of me.

"I want to test something?" Ray calls behind me.

"What is it?" I ask as I pierce two goblins with my spear then quickly healing myself. 

[Notice: [Basic Spearmanship] has upgraded to [Intermediate Spearmanship]]

[You can now use the Subskill: [Spinning Pierce]]

[Description: By adding a spin to the [Straight Line Pierce] Subskill, the power of the weapon doubles]

Alright!

"Can you use [Spinning Pierce] skill?" she asked.

Now I can. I thought.

"Yeah, what for?"

"Can you do that? Then I'll catch the spear while it's still spinning, using its momentum, and I'll shot it at the goblin general." She yelled.

"You're as suicidal as my twin brother you know that! It's too risky! You might rip out your arm." I retorted twirling my spear at my side, flicking the blood off its tip. 

"Live a little dangerously for once. Do you want to get out or not?" 

"Fine!" I complained tossing her the spear using [Spinning Pierce].

She twists her body out of the spear's trajectory, as it skims her leather armor, and instantly appears behind it. Grabbing the spear with her bare hand, she draws the 2-meter long spear-like an arrow and releases it from her bow, the drawstring still vibrating. The spear, with four times the amount of power, pierces ten goblins through the eyes. The ringleader, on the other hand, attempted to run but it was futile, his face full of fear. The spear that pierced through the ten goblins did not seem to be slowing down any time. Turning around, it saw its life flash before its eyes feeling the spear pierce straight through its skull with the spear stabbed partway into a tree behind it. Blood trickled from the hole in its head before it collapsed, its life escaping from its body, face down, into a pile of oak leaves forty meters away from us.

Seeing their leader fallen, the remaining thirty or so goblins dropped their weapons and retreated off into the depths of the forest.

"Huff, Huff." We both panted falling onto our bottoms.

"Whew," Ray stretched in relief with her bow on the ground, "that was fun! Are you up for round two."

"I swear, I'm never going hunting with you again!" I cursed under my breath.

"Hahaha! I told you we should live a little dangerously!" She laughs.

"We almost died thanks to your reckless move! I'm surprised that you didn't have your arm ripped off due to the momentum." I scolded.

She hops back onto her feet almost immediately, massaging her arm, and walks over to the tree that my spear pierced. Yanking the spear out of the tree, she tosses it back to me casually.

"Thanks," I say catching the spear with one hand.

Placing her hand on her hips, Ray scanned the forest floor looking at all the weapons one by one.

"We should collect goblins weapons. Do you need any? " She asks examining a broadsword.

Pushing myself up with my spear, I cough out a dry cough before speaking.

"Yes. One of my quests requires me to collect twenty of the goblins weapons."

Her face lights up.

"Let's split them. I'll take fifty percent and you can take the other fifty percent!"

No longer caring about the loot distribution I shrug, "Sounds good to me."

Ray nods and claps her hand. The weapons lying on the ground fly towards each other. Besides me, a pile of weapons begins to form. The pile continues to build until it reached my hips. Releasing her hands, the weapons stop moving.

This was one of Ray's skills from her family, Collector. As an archer, arrows are expensive. To preserve them, archers would learn this skill, Collector, in order to gather up their arrows once they are used. This skill also applied to all other weapons and is quite useful.

I take out a large wooden crate from my storage space and place approximately half the weapons into it leaving Ray with the other half of the weapons. Now, you might be wondering why people would pay for broken goblin weapons. It is rather simple as a matter of fact. Blacksmithing is a craft profession like Alchemy in which both require spending a huge amount of money on resources. Usually, the market price for these materials and resources are rather costly so many in these professions would send out a request to Adventures to go obtain them for them. As a result, they can control the amount they spend on the resources even more flexible than they could with market prices thus paying less for the same resources. Goblin weapons are resmelted by a blacksmith into new weapons, most of the time better quality and rank than the original weapons. It is just a matter of creating, recycling, repeating.

Placing the lid on top of the crate, I open my storage space, pretending to struggle a bit, and toss the crate inside. Thanks to my strength tripling, the originally heavy crate was now as light as a feather but if I reveal my true strength now, Ray would notice for sure and that would not be good.

"You know," Ray begins looking down at the ground ashamed, "you should change to the Spearman position while still working as a Healer. I don't know why we even made you a porter, to begin with. I'm sorry."

"Why are you apologizing?"

"When you entered the team, I secretly judged you as weak but after the incident and this, you're a lot tougher than you look. It's my fault. Plus, you're a good guy." She cried.

"It's fine," I waved my hands panicking a bit, "for a newbie like me who entered this profession only a few months ago, it wouldn't be wrong of you to assume that. Rather, it's quite normal but demoralizing."

"I won't deny that point but I've always wondered why Eren recruited you, besides being her classmate. Now, I know why."

Looking at her, I smile a bit then spun around on the ball of my hiking boots. I scan the goblin corpses one by one then turn my head back at Ray.

"I think these goblins have something else," I tell her.

"That's right! There're pouches they have on their sides!" Ray remarked.

Making a second round, I take out a sharp dagger from my sheath attached to my waist belt and cut the leather drawstring pouches off the goblin waists until I had fifty of them. Ray followed in kind until all the leather pouches were cut off. Additionally, I removed the little armor some of the goblins were wearing and place them into another crate. After all, blacksmiths would pay a high price for goblin armor. 

Turning my head, I wipe the sweat off my forehead. 

"I guess we're done for the day. You were pretty good!" Ray gleamed holding out her hand. 

 "Thanks, it's been a while and it seems as though my skills are a bit rusty." I shook her hand.

Placing her hands on her hips she stands tall. 

"Shall we head back?"  

I nodded. "Sure." 

And so, we did. We left the area as fast as we could. Yet, I wondered, monster hordes seemed to be appearing closer to the cities, why? Shorelock was on the other end of the Eastern Continent. Has the Central Continent decided to attack the Eastern Continent? At the time, I did not realize that a war was coming and that was only the beginning.  

Updates are slow. Quality isn't good. No time to edit. I'm dead. Real-life is killing me. Lots of work to do. Little time to write. Stay safe.

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