Chapter 23 - Fealty

Kiaaak! Kiaaak!

In a gloomy and narrow underground, goblins' scream echoes as they turn into cinders. Their last expression was filled with disbelief, couldn't be comprehended why another goblin wants to kill them now. That goblin act of slaughter at this moment can ruin the ritual.

On the contrary of those goblins expression of incredulity, their attacker is gazing at this blazing scenery without any fluctuation of emotions. He flails his wands while mumbles some incantation, which makes other goblins notice their clatter. However, he didn't even bother to stop his chant and also burn those goblins who just arrived.

Although he kills many of his species, there no feeling of remorse or ecstatic in his mind. It seems he views himself different with other goblins like a human which only kill some vermin who disturb his comfort.

Even so, that is the truth. He's different with those wild goblins, which love to follow their brutal instinct — murdering, pillaging, or ravishing, there nothing stop them as long as they got what they want, except the threat of death. This goblin — the Goblin Shaman — however, summoned by Elias — a dungeon master — and view him as his master.

For him, Elias commands are his top priority and above everything. Even if Elias command him to do suicide, he'll do it without any hesitation.

If even taking his own life is an acceptable order, there no way he'll hesitate about slaughtering a random tribe, which he doesn't even know.

The goblin tries to walks stealthily, following the path which is given by Elias. Elias also instructed him to search any living humans, but there no survivors between corpses he passes, most of them already long become corpses while the freshest one is dead at the afternoon as those goblins feast.

Sometimes, he met with other goblins who patrolled around this place but with his ability as goblin shaman there no way ordinary goblins can match him and also the fact that other goblins don't expect his hostility, assist his surprise attack.

The truth is he can even go near to the cage without even any goblin notices that something odd, but it's better to kill them now rather than let them live, but then they become obstacle while he tries to escape later. After all, he can't outrun this many goblins while watching a child on his back.

As he already knows, those goblins fortify their defense at this moment, and that'll make it hard to run while bringing their sacrifice.

However, although goblins fortify their defense when it's time for the ritual, they actually focus their wariness toward other species, which very likely to disturb their ritual. Usually, they'll let other goblins to see their tribe ritual without any stringent requirements, after all, this ritual is sacred for all goblins, there no precedence that a goblin dare to disturb this sacrifice even though it's their sworn enemy's ritual.

Those mindsets that make them less wary towards another goblin which of course, also known by Elias.

Knowing this piece of information, Elias bought a goblin shaman with the points he got after farming at noon earlier. This goblin shaman can kill many ordinary goblins if those goblins caught off guard like in this situation. The only problem is their fighter veteran, which can sense something wrong and can ruin his plans.

Therefore, he needs to create big enough distraction to make those experienced goblins rush and looks towards another direction — distancing them from their lair — while leaving the ordinary goblins to guarding there. With no experienced fighter around, the goblin shaman can kill those creatures without much difficulty.

At first, Elias only wants to kill other goblins himself to collect some runes, and then run after he distracts them enough. However, something goes wrong when he wants to run and attracting the goblin champion instead, even though he only planned to fight against the goblin champion at the later day.

He still doesn't understand where his plan goes awry, but nevertheless, this is still a big distraction that makes most of the goblins rushes outside of their lair. With this, the goblin shaman can save the boy without getting any significant interruption.

After searching for a while, the goblin shaman finally arrives in the front of the boy's cage. Although this cage locked, with slight of incantation from his mouth, the lock immediately burned and become ashes.

The boy seems afraid and confused after seeing his appearance, but those fickle emotions aren't his concern. He can't communicate and try to persuade the boy with his words to follow him, but fortunately, he already got instruction from his master to give a letter which written by Nanako. The boy seems hesitant at first to get that letter, but after reading it, he nods to show his agreement to follow this letter even though he still has a doubt — but is there any other choice for him?

The goblin shamans bring him on his back and rush to the outside without any interruption as he already killed those patrolled goblin earlier. After a while, he finally reaches a relatively safe place and meets Nanako who's already waiting there.

He doesn't show signs of hostility towards Nanako because he already knows who she is. He's looking at the boy who still closes his eyes while shaking his shoulder as though telling him that they need to separate from this point on.

The boy opens his eyes, understands the goblin intent. After looking in front of him, the boy realizes that his sister already waits here and then run towards her.

Nanako's looking at the goblin shaman with a complicated expression for a while, but then she bows down to show her gratefulness. She then brings his brother to a safer place as instructed by Elias, left from this damned place.

While looking at those two people back which become smaller over time, the goblin shaman sighs and goes towards the lair once again.

To resume the plan.

***

Elias's looking at the goblin champion carefully, waiting for any slight change in his enemy movement.

On the other side, the goblin champion looking at Elias with a disbelieving face. After all, the human in front of him healed in a matter of second after got severely injured earlier. He never saw anything like this before, which makes him bewildered. However, he still experienced fighter and soon calm himself, knowing this type of miraculous thing must have costs like those shamans and their mana, which mean it can't be infinite.

There must be a limit for his enemy regeneration, as long as he attacks the human in front of him, sooner or later, his enemy will become dead meat.

KROAAAAA!

The goblin champion roars while facing the sky and then rushes towards Elias while wielding his two axes — ready to slay Elias. He immediately uses his full speed and swings his axes towards Elias body, but outside his expectations, Elias can dodge it — his quickest attack — barely and only inflict a minor wound. Nevertheless, someone who much weaker and slower can avoid this attack still unforeseen.

On the contrary with the stupefied goblin champion, Elias let out a slight smile while avoiding the goblin champion's attack.

"Nice."