Chapter 40: Discovery

Rosario took half an hour to completely clear the outer area on his side of the camp. He had killed around 20 goblins including the first 8 from the barracks. Currently he was crouched in some bushes waiting for any signal that the other teams had completed their missions.

After 5 more minutes of stressful waiting Rosario finally saw a flicker of a reflection coming from the side of a building across the forum from him, in answer another flicker of a reflection came from inside the mouth of the mine entrance. Rosario himself used a crystal to direct a beam at the two spots to confirm with his team he was ready.

Another 5 mins went by before a 4th light was seen much closer to the gates of the small encampment. After they each shined in reply, Rosario charged out at the manager's office. This was the spot most heavily guarded by the goblins, they had already prearranged that Bolog, and his team would join Rosario in the forum to wreak havoc in the open as Rosario would hunt down the manager. The team by the gate would clear the gate and then two would join Bologs group while the other two would hide outside the gate waiting for any goblins running away to get help. They also served as scouts in case goblin reinforcements they didn't know about ended up showing up. Ivana's team would stay in the depths of the cave mouth to catch anyone trying to run into the mine or come out.

Rosarios had raised his shield in front of himself as he had charged into the crowd of goblins, he ran them over not even bothering to stab at them. Taking advantage of the chaos caused by an over 7-foot giant steamrolling the goblins Bolog and his team efficiently hit the goblins amidst the turmoil. Archers specifically targeted the goblins Rosario had knocked down, hitting any exposed skin they made sure the goblins never got back up. Bolog for his part shook the goblins to the core just as much as Rosario had, possibly even more.

His battle axe, which he preferred to use when not fighting in a formation, glistened in the sun as he spun it around himself as if it was light as a feather. Every swing would dissect a goblin with none being able to put up a resistance. A few goblins tried making a run for the gates and even the mine, but they were cut down as soon as their feet crossed the thresholds of both.

As Bolog took over the carnage started by Rosario, Rosario had used his shield to slam through the door into the manager's office. The door was flung off its hinges and Rosario ended up slamming the door and his shield into a wall. Instead of hearing wood on wood he heard a cracking sound, his brain had to take a second to process the noise, but he realized there must have been a goblin on the other side of the door, and he had just pancaked it.

Looking to his left where the room opened up Rosario saw three yellow skinned hobgoblins. The two that stood in front of the third looked to be some type of bodyguards for the other. The third hobgoblin was massive, and not a wow he looks strong, but more like how is he even walking, can the floor really hold that much weight. It must be a mythical floor or something.

Rosario almost let his guard down as genuine curiosity of how the big hobgoblin even got around played around in his head. His curiosity was placed on hold as the two hobgoblins came rushing at him.

Both wielded battle axes and being in an enclosed space gave Rosario a much bigger advantage to be using a sword for the fight. The uncoordinated swings of the two came at him simultaneously, one had swung vertically from over its head down while the other had swung horizontally.

Taking a step back Rosario was able to evade both axes while he watched as the vertical slash embedded the axe a foot deep in the floorboards. So much for mythical flooring. And the horizontal slasher ended up smashing his arms and hilt into the vertical slasher's face.

As the hobgoblin who just got a nose job dropped on his ass covering his nose Rosario took the opportunity to step forward and cleanly slide his sword at a vertical angle under the ribs of the horizontal slasher.

Dropping its body to the floor he only took two steps before decapitating the second hobgoblin who had realized its mistake and was lunging back towards its weapon. Unfortunately for it, Rosario had already reached where its weapon was and had made short work of it with a casual backhand swing. Its headless body thudding to the ground marked the beginning of an oppressive silence between Rosario and the bigger hobgoblin.

As the hobgoblin eyeballed Rosario, Rosario was looking at his own sword, then at the goblin, then back at his sword. He did it a few times before audibly sighing and storing his sword and shield away before retrieving his spear.

Seeing the hobgoblin's face Rosario shrugged his shoulders.

"My sword probably wouldn't reach past your fat."

Its face contorted with anger as it produced a massive maul almost as big as Rosario was tall, roaring at Rosario in step towards him.

----

Rosario stepped out of the manager's office and looked over the battled field that the open area had become. At this point there were no goblins left alive anywhere but in the mines.

Stepping down the couple steps from the office Rosario saw his people just staring at him.

"What?"

Seeing them all glancing behind him and then back at him he looked over his shoulder to see what they were looking at. All that was left of the manager's office after Rosarios fight with the Hobgoblin was the doorway leading outside, all of the walls had collapsed, and the rest of the building was rubble.

Looking back at his subordinates he said.

"He was definitely past the first evolution."

Walking towards the mines after his statement Rosario's mind went to worrying about what they would find down there.

Meeting up with Ivana's team Rosario left 5 more to guard the encampment along with he two scouts outside the gates. Him and the other 4 began making their way down into the mine's depths.

They easily figured out that this was a silver mine, the ore carts right inside the first part of the mine were filled heaping with raw ore. Moving further in it took almost 15 minutes of walking till they heard the first sounds of others.

After finding the humans and goblin overseers it was just a matter of waiting till the right opportunity presented itself to remove the overseers one by one till none remained. After killing the last overseer Rosario address the humans who had been tirelessly working in the mine.

"Hello everyone, I know this might be a little jarring, but my people and I have cleared the goblins fully out of this encampment. If any of you want to find a better life you are welcome to come with us back to our city where you will have a house, a safe place to sleep at night, and the opportunity to grow stronger."

Rosario stared into the eyes of the crowed he was speaking to, the majority of them were men but there were a couple women sporadically throughout the crowd.

"What about our families?"

Rosario couldn't pinpoint where the question came from, but it really didn't matter he answered truthfully.

"I don't know who your family members are, but I do know there is a settlement associated with the owners of this mine. I plan on heading over to the settlement soon and giving them a thorough scrubbing of all the goblin scum that has now populated the place. We will do our best to then convince the current residents to join us at our small city. If you don't want to join us the cave entrance is that way and you are welcome to get some weapons and food before you leave."

"Wont more goblins just show up from this mine?"

What do you mean wont more goblins show up, they would need to come here from the main city if more came.

"No, every morning before they move us from our cages around 10-15 new goblins walk out of this cave, we are not sure what is really going on, but the goblins definitely originate from here."