26 When your teammate is not so bright

However, it was too late. The three goblin mages exploded into green dust. Taking a closer look, a red orb had dropped onto the ground.

After completing its mission, the assassin minion 'submerged' into the shadow of a pine tree.

At the same time, as expected, the rest of the goblins broke off from their dense formation. There's still about a dozen of them.

They had nothing to protect now.

Beetle grumbled in frustration as he took a look back at the newbies.

Nevertheless, the battle must go on.

When the goblins were in their road-block formation, they were just sitting targets.

Now that they moved by themselves, it's much harder to land a hit.

In a moment, the goblins all agreed upon a battle plan without any visible communication.

Six of them remained in their close-quarter combat form, still holding daggers and sticks.

The other five changed back into bows and arrows.

In a brief moment, the goblins had surrounded Beetle. Looking from a far, the scene looked like a group of hyenas surrounding a lion.

Beetle charged towards a goblin, but that goblin was too nimble and swift. They were not charging towards Beetle anymore.

With this extra reaction time, that goblin easily dodged the sword strike.

The melee goblins didn't attack though. They just surrounded Beetle.

The ranged goblins kept on firing arrows at Beetle, but the attacks were too weak to accomplish anything.

By the looks of it, this was going to be a battle of endurance.

Without doubt, the goblins had the upper-hand. They could rotate their roles. They could take turns resting.

But Beetle couldn't. If he couldn't maintain his mana armor, he would be in deep trouble.

Seeing this, Jake put the trail mix back into his backpack... and took out a can of chips.

'Maybe I should have brought in some popcorn... But then again, is popcorn overdoing it a little?'

"Let me help!" Reaper seemed to have finally recovered a bit. Or maybe he needed to set up the commands to his assassin minion.

Without further hesitation, he pointed towards the ranged goblins. His face quickly turned pale at this command.

A figure of black smoke emerged from Reaper's shadow. Like an arrow, the assassin minion shot towards the ranged goblins.

Hiding under the shadow of the trees, it did not catch any attention.

Strike! A ranged goblin exploded into green dust. Disappear into the shadows!

The aggro of the goblins returned to Beetle.

Strike again! Disappear again!

Just like this, all six ranged goblins were eliminated one after another.

After completing its mission, the assassin minion dispersed into a cloud of black smoke.

This black cloud quickly expanded in air. In a moment, it was totally gone.

The rest of the six goblins froze for a moment. The next moment, they had all agreed upon a new battle plan. Once again, no forms of communication seen.

'How magical...' Jake bit into another chip.

*Crunch Crunch*

In the end, the remaining six green goblins charged at Beetle. Maybe they thought that Beetle had little mana left?

'Sometimes, the logic behind the monsters is not predictable at all...'

*Crunch Crunch*

Reaper looked at Jake with a displeased look. However, he was too tired to rant about anything.

Mage just leaned against a tree, staring at the ground, trying to recover as fast as he could.

Without any surprises, Beetle swiftly eliminated the rest of the goblins with ease.

One strike one goblin. It's as if he had evolved into a stronger explorer.

But that's not the case. As long as these goblins didn't try their best to dodge, they were rather easy targets.

With the last goblin eliminated, Beetle carefully scanned around, still remaining alerted.

Seeing that Jake was casually crunching on chips, Beetle nodded. His teal-colored mana armor quickly thinned down.

If the detector was relaxed, there should be no dangers around right?

From the last two monster encounter experiences, Beetle was starting to trust Jake a little.

After all, why would Jake stay silent about a danger? Beetle couldn't think of a reason. If all the combatants had fallen, who'd escort Jake out of this realm? Out of consideration for his own safety, Jake needed to keep the combatants safe right?

And so Beetle naively thought.

Looking around, the ground was sprinkled with loot now.

Looking from some distance away, Jake could guess the loots based off their shape and color.

A fire elemental orb dropped from a goblin mage. Its appearance was identical to the orbs on the staffs of these goblin mages.

This was the key ingredient of a wide range of equipment. Costs around $31,000 to $38,000 on the market. Maybe even higher if there's a shortage.

A green-tier monster core. Low Grade. Worth $2,000 at most.

3 small ingots of green-tide metal. $900 total. Can't give more than that.

Then there was some trash drops like teeth and bones.

'Would take me two whole days to make this money. Not bad.' Jake nodded in approval. Looks like the information was true. Realm exploration really was a lucrative business.

The two newbies were clearly still too weak to move around. Jake was not interested in carrying anything.

So Beetle took a moment to put all the loot into his large backpack. With this one battle, his backpack went from half-empty to bulging-full.

"If I didn't attract the aggro of those goblins, all of you will be dead by now." Beetle returned with a grim face.

'I'm not sure if I can agree with that.' Jake drank some water. The chips were a little salty.

"Since I saved your lives, the loot is all my. Any objections?" Beetle looked around. He didn't look like he was open to accept any objections though.

Wearing his usual blank expression, Jake flicked his brows. 'More greedy than I'd expected.'

"Fair enough." Reaper nodded with a displeased look. He seemed to be regretting his mistakes in battle.

Seeing that no one was protesting, Mage forced out a smile and nodded.