Chapter 17 (1/2)

“Blast them in an area with Fire Ball.”

“Against that many? Same thing as pouring water on a hot stone. Don’t recommend it.”

“Block them using Earth Wall.”

“Make a wall large enough to block this entire corridor? I can do it but…against that many it’ll only give us a moment to pull ahead.”

After Loren told them to use their heads, Quartz and Lapis, under Loren’s arms, were discussing ways to try to deal with the goblin horde.

Although it seemed like a discussion, all they were doing was Lapis giving suggestions and Quartz saying it won’t work, and to Loren it didn’t look like they were getting anywhere.

“How about Fire Storm?”

“I can use it, but twice is my limit. Do you think that would do anything?”

“Most likely not.”

Lapis glanced behind her and replied weakly.

There were so many goblins that Loren didn’t even want to try and count them, and even he, who wasn’t an expert in magic, could see that there were too many to get rid of using a spell once or twice.

“Mister Quartz, you must be quite the magician, being able to use Fire Storm.”

“I’m impressed at your deep knowledge in magic as well, Miss Lapis”

Loren, irritated that the two started complementing each other and laughing, looked up at the ceiling.

“I don’t mind you guys being friendly and all. But if we don’t think of something quick, we’re all going to be goblin food.”

“No, I believe Nim and I would become seed beds.”

Although Lapis gave an unexpected return to Loren’s slight joke, Quartz returned an objection to it.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. A woman from the other party most likely was killed and eaten.”

“I don’t like the thought of being the mother of goblins, but being food for them sounds quite annoying as well.”

Loren was slightly confused at her words, which lacked a sense of danger.

It wasn’t like she didn’t care at all for the party, so Loren thought maybe there was a good reason for her not to feel any danger. He was about to interrogate her about it, but Nim’s desperate voice caught his attention.

“This isn’t good. I’m almost…”

Out of the people running on their own legs, Nim, who most likely had the least amount of stamina, started to slow down.

Despite Loren’s stamina and strength, there was no way he could carry another person along with the two under his arms already.

Even though his back was open, anyone could see that if he carried Nim on his back it would just make him tire faster.

“If I carry you on my back, it’ll be less of a problem.”

Unexpectedly, the one who said that was Jack.

Loren was surprised that it wasn’t Ritz, who was stronger that Jack, who said it but instead it was Jack that did. Nim’s reaction to it surprised him even more.

“Sorry…I might have to count on you.”

“Whoa, this is really bad!”

Jack must have sensed something from Nim’s modest response and panicked, but it didn’t help the situation at all.

“It’s not much of a solution, but I do have an idea.”

Loren decided that if no one gave an idea, even a slightly unreasonable one, they would be wiped out soon enough, so he ran up next to Ritz.

Ritz turned his head towards Loren.

“Hey, do you remember the way back?”

“Not me…but Jack should remember.”

Loren turned to Jack for confirmation, and saw Jack nod.

“Then can we go back to the hatch where the goblins came down from?”

“Can’t use the route we came, but we’ve been going through the same corridors for a while now, so it’s possible.”

Loren felt gloomy at the fact that they’ve been going in circles a few times.

It meant that they wasted time and stamina, but he knew it couldn’t be helped because in their current situation, there wasn’t time for them to make calm decisions or track where they were going.

“Then take us back to the hatch.”

“What are you going to do there?”

To Ritz and Jack, that hatch which rained down a lot of goblins was something they wanted to avoid, and couldn’t see at all what Loren was trying to suggest.

“There’s that many goblins that rained down from the upper floor. I’m sure there aren’t any more of them coming down right now.”

“Why does that matter…”

“They were able to come down at once, but they won’t be able to do that climbing up, right?”

Goblins couldn’t fly.

That was something anyone knew, but since they couldn’t, they would have to use the ladder to get back to the upper floor.

When they came down, they could ignore their casualties and come down many at a time, but if they were to climb the ladder that Lapis had put down, only one or two of them could climb it at once.

“This way we wouldn’t get crushed by their numbers.”

“B-but think about it. They aren’t that dumb. They’re not going to wait for us to climb the ladder, right? If they reach us before we’re all out that’s the end.”

Ritz pointed out an obvious problem with the plan.

Loren knew that based on how Ritz wasn’t that good at climbing ladders, they would be swarmed by the goblins before he even had a chance to climb.

“We can buy time with magic. Use Fire Storm to burn the front and Earth Wall to block the ones in the back.”

If they tried to block all of them with a wall, it would break instantly from the goblins’ momentum.

So, Loren thought that they could burn the front and kill their momentum, then stop them with the wall.

He didn’t think that would be enough to stop them, but it would be enough to buy them some time.

“I see. You can count on me to do that.”

After hearing Loren’s plan, Quartz bumped his fist on his chest, telling him that he could do it.

But that wasn’t enough to take Ritz’s anxiousness from his face.

“But that’s not a number that you could just stop at once.”