Chapter 148: Red Goblin
I decided to accept the fireballs coming toward me with open arms. Literally.
I opened my arms, closed my eyes, and let the enemy mage’s attack come straight at me.
"Rick!!" Diane shouted as the heat of the flames washed over my body.
The flames were intense and voracious, revealing their caster’s intent to take my life.
’That green beast really wants to kill me. Too bad he’s so weak,’ I said, looking at my HP.
[
Name: Richard Forster
Class: Valkyrie Tamer
Level: 25
Valkyries: 6/6
Health: 270/290 points
Mana: 140 points
Strength: 35 points
Defense: 20 points
Magic: 35 points
Agility: 30 points
Status Points: 0 points
]
’Only 10 HP is the most he can take from me,’ I thought, letting myself be burned by the flames without moving an inch inside the Fireball. That was my enemy’s limit. ’So I only took 5 HP of damage from each Fireball... How disappointing.’
This fight was a test for beginner Valkyries, but I ended up getting bored, so I decided to test how much damage a Goblin could deal to me. I didn’t let the spear hit me, so I lost the chance to find out what would have happened. Whether it would have pierced straight through me or just left a scratch on my chest.
Even so, there was still the Fireball, which could be a good way to measure how I compared to the rest of the world.
’Apparently, I’m on a completely different level from these weaklings,’ I thought as the flames could barely burn my clothes. How was this possible? I honestly couldn’t say.
"Rick!!" Diane shouted worriedly.
’Better end this. This little game has gone on long enough,’ I told myself, and with one of my arms, I waved the flames away.
"Rick." In front of the flames, my Shadow Assassin stood there, dumbfounded, and my demon girl had both hands covering her face.
A bit further ahead, the two goblins who had cast magic at me looked at me in fear as I emerged from the flames. I had to hold back my laughter at that moment.
’You seem to be enjoying yourself,’ Brandish told me.
’Of course I’m enjoying myself. I look like an overpowered villain about to crush these Goblins. This is cool as hell!’
Too bad my Valkyries weren’t having as much fun as I was. Camula was the first to charge at our enemies again.
"You worms!!" she roared furiously. "How dare you lay a hand on the great Master Rick? Your deaths won’t be enough to atone for your sins!"
"Unforgivable," Diane said coldly, her death stare fixed on the monsters in front of her.
"Eh, girls? You don’t need to get so irritated. See, I’m fine." But it didn’t matter what I said. I was powerless to stop them.
My beloved Valkyries rushed at the Goblins, mercilessly attacking the monsters in their sights. I was dumbfounded as I watched Diane, Erina, and Camula throw this monster village into havoc.
"Well, looks like there’s nothing for me to do anyway..." I said so no one could hear.
While my wives attacked the tribe and the Goblins fell like flies, I decided to head over to where the captives were. In the wall surrounding the depression where the Goblin village lay, there was a hole large enough to fit a few humans.
Some wooden bars blocked access, forming a rudimentary prison where the monsters kept the girls locked up. When I approached, the girls quickly moved closer to the bars.
"Someone!" one of the girls said when she saw me.
Their empty expressions changed the moment they saw me approaching. Their eyes began to shine with hope of escaping that cruel fate.
"Thank the gods. Thank you for coming to rescue us." a dark-haired girl said to me, placing her hands through the bars.
"Are you alright? Did they hurt you?" I asked them.
The girl standing in front of me shook her head no. "They dragged us here. Some of them even tried, but they were punished before they could."
"I hate this place! I want to go home." one of the girls said, covering her face and starting to cry. She had braided hair, but some strands looked like they had been torn out.
"My friend was attacked last night, some Goblins tried to get on top of her. If it weren’t for the mages, she would have been..." The girl stopped halfway through her sentence.
The girls’ clothes were dirty, but it didn’t seem like they had been imprisoned for long. Fortunately, we found this place before they could be forced to make goblin babies. Even so, I could see that they were still very frightened. The best thing to do right now was to try to calm them down.
"It must have been hard, but don’t worry. I’ll get you out of here. You have my word," I said to them firmly.
They weren’t empty words. Now that I had gotten myself into this situation, I would make sure to take them to safety. As soon as I said that, the girls’ expressions improved, and they nodded at me.
"Sir, please be careful," the black-haired girl said.
She didn’t seem much older than me despite calling me "sir." Maybe it was because of my stature.
"Don’t worry. These Goblins are no problem for me," I said playfully, but her face didn’t become any less serious.
"I’m not talking about the smaller Goblins. I’m talking about their leader," she said to me.
At that moment, I could see the girls’ expressions grow heavier.
"Did you manage to see him?" I asked them.
"Yes, all of us were taken in front of him. He said he wouldn’t do anything to us yesterday because he was tired. And that..." She hesitated for a moment, but continued speaking nervously, "that he would deal with all of us at once."
"He spoke to you? Is he a Goblin too, or another type of creature?"
"He looks quite similar to the Goblins, but he’s different from them," she said to me. I’ll give her some leeway because of the psychological pressure, since there are few ways to be more imprecise.
"Could you be more specific?" I asked her.
"His body looks like a Goblin’s, but he’s much bigger than all of them. His skin color is different too. Instead of being green, he’s red."
"Ah, I see." Now, with this better explanation from the young woman, I could get a clearer idea of what kind of creature I was facing.
In SCRL, Leo and the others hadn’t found this place before, so everything here was new to me. But from the information I was given, I could determine the enemy monster.
It was then that a woman’s shout echoed through the area.
I recognized the voice instantly. "Diane."
I wanted to ask the girls more questions, but for Diane to shout like that, the situation was more serious than I thought. Maybe she had even come face to face with the leader of that tribe.
"I’ll be right back," I said to the captives.
I didn’t want to leave them there, but once they were out of the cell, they could end up getting involved in the fight. As soon as I dealt with the problem, I would get them out of there.
"Be careful," the black-haired girl said hesitantly.
Without looking back, I ran toward Diane’s voice. Everywhere I passed, more Goblin bodies appeared, as if Diane had left a trail of corpses along the way.
When I approached the source of the screams, I confirmed my suspicions. The monster in question was a little over 2 meters tall (approximately 6’7’’). A rough cloth covered its waist, and its skin was red like blood, with two bull-like horns emerging from its forehead. In one of its hands, there was a club that looked hard enough to crush the trunk of a tree.
Camula stood there with her exhausted body bent forward, as if trying to catch her breath. Her heavy breathing made it clear she was losing the fight against the creature. Even so, she was in a better situation than Diane.
The Hobgoblin was holding my Valkyrie by the neck, while she screamed in pain, a trail of blood running from her mouth.
"Take your hands off her," I said the moment I saw the scene.
"Master..." Camula said upon seeing my face.
"This woman not only invaded, but also killed several of my servants," he said in his deep voice, not taking his eyes off Diane. "I will have to punish her accordingly for that. Fortunately, she is a woman, so she can pay with her body."
"I think you didn’t hear me," I said, now my body close to his. With my Agility points, crossing that short distance in a second was nothing.
I grabbed him by the wrist of the hand he was using to hold my Valkyrie.
"I told you to take your filthy hands off her, you oversized goblin."