Chapter 59 (1/2)

Ch. 59: Considering During Battle

Loren and his group finally ran into monsters after they climbed down to the second floor.

In the end, they found the stairs to the second floor before they encountered any monsters, but they ran into four goblins in a small room that they stepped in a short distance from the stairs.

Ain and his party immediately prepared to fight them.

Their speed was one of those who had trained quite a bit, and Loren, who didn’t expect much of them, thought it would be okay to give them a pa.s.sing grade.

He then looked towards the goblins in front of them.

They were monsters that had given him a hard time in an ancient ruin that sp.a.w.ned them endlessly, but if they didn’t have the numbers, they were normal and weak in general.

But Loren’s brows furrowed at the goblins that they encountered since seemed even weaker than the ones he imagined were weak.

If he didn’t learn that the strength of the monsters depended on things like the scale of the dungeon, he would’ve thought that the goblins were struck with some illness, since their hands were trembling, trying to hold up their shabby daggers and shields.

As Loren decided that it wouldn’t even be a match against these monsters, Ain and Cloud, who were the frontline, raised their weapons and yelled.

But there was one that attacked before they even moved.

It was the magician, Feim.

Of course, Loren would’ve felt disgusted if she used the one spell she could use in this situation, but Feim didn’t use a spell neither the staff in her left hand. But instead she hung the lantern on her staff and pulled out a dart from her robe pocket with her right hand.

The dart that shot out from her hand sunk itself into the shoulders of one of the goblins.

But the dart’s needle wasn’t that long.

A goblin’s skin was quite thick and had the defensive capabilities of leather armor, so Loren didn’t think that a dart that barely penetrated it would even make it flinch.

But in contrary to his expectation, the goblin that got hit by the dart dropped its weapons and started rolling on the floor, clutching the area where the dart hit it.

‘Yes! It’s working!”

“That’s pretty nasty. The needle was dipped in poison.”

Lapis watched Feim, who raised her fist, with half opened eyes.

Loren wondered whose thoughts were more nasty. Feim’s, who had thought of using poison, or Lapis, who immediately saw through the poison, but his thoughts were blown away by the sound of sword hitting against sword.

When he looked over, he saw that Ain and Cloud had started fighting the goblins, and Ain had taken on two of them since he had a shield, and Cloud was handling the last one.

Ain’s fighting style was very pa.s.sive.

He used both this sword and his shield defensively, and didn’t seem like he was trying to deal damage to his opponents.

But from the perspective of keeping the aggro of the two goblins, he was doing his job as the front line.

Cloud was using his speed to apply blow after blow.

Estocs specialized in thrusting and stabbing, so they weren’t meant for swinging and clashing with other weapons.

That was why you would try to get under your opponent’s guard and be constantly attacking, but in this case, the goblin was so weak it could not keep up with Cloud’s movements.

But even so, it tried to block Cloud’s attacks with its shield and dagger, then put in a counter, but Cloud didn’t go far in, but instead attacked then retreated immediately so the goblin’s attacks couldn’t reach him.

But to Loren, Cloud’s way of fighting, continually dealing small cuts to a weakened goblin, just looked like he was playing with it, and wasn’t the most pleasant thing to watch.

“Al! Now’s your chance! I’ll hold it down so hit it!”

“Ehhhh! It’s still moving though!”

“That’s why you have to make sure it doesn’t move anymore!”

Holding his mace with both hands, Al slowly walked closer to the goblin that Feim had immobilized, while Feim put her foot on the goblin’s back to keep it from moving.

“Hurry up! The poison isn’t that strong!”

“Ugh…Okay…”

Al swung the mace in his hands with tears in his eyes.

The goblin that Feim was pinning down squirmed and struggled to escape, but Feim stomped down with more force, not letting it go.

“Take this!”

With a yell that sounded a bit disheartened, the mace was swung down, aimed at the goblin’s head, but it missed and hit its back around the scapula with a blunt sound, and the goblin cried out in pain.

“Haaa!”

The next blow hit the goblin’s arm that it raised to cover its head and it bent in a weird direction.

As the goblin’s cries got even louder, Al wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked at his mace, confused.

“Why isn’t it hitting?”

“Well, of course it wouldn’t hit since you’re closing your eyes as you swing it down…”

Loren unthinkingly said so out loud.

As a proctor, he wasn’t supposed to help them unless they asked for it, but he felt that Al might hit Feim this kept going on. Even if it didn’t happen, he felt sorry for the goblin, not being able to be released from its misery.

“But if I swing down with my eyes open, I’ll see things that I don’t want to when it hits…”

“Then don’t. Why did you even become an adventurer? Honestly…”

As Loren started yelling, Lapis wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging him from behind so he couldn’t grab Al.

Al, who was looking at Loren in confusion, remembered that the goblin was still alive, and swung his mace down again.

“Lapis, why’d you stop me?”

“I understand how you feel, but you’ve got to keep it in. It’s beyond the job of a proctor, and this exam is most likely meant to teach them these things.”