Chapter 114: 114
Battle with the Goblins
Carefully, but quickly, we made our way through the ruins .
Grulf took the rear .
While he was a pup, Grulf wouldn’t allow the goblins to surprise him .
I kept looking back to make sure that Nia and Grulf were still behind me .
Nia was following silently and with a serious expression .
It would have been nice to turn this expedition into a lesson .
I could ask her to inspect the footprints to guess the number of goblins .
Tell her what you could learn from the leftover food .
Which rooms were likely to have goblins .
However, this was a time when it was most important to stay alert .
Normally, you wouldn’t be able to talk to each other like that once you enter the goblin cave .
It was possible to communicate through Telepathy, but I decided against it .
We just used hand signals as we made our way forward .
Several goblins attacked us on the way, but we killed them without much effort .
Nia had trained every day, and so she had skills that were shocking for her age .
I inspected the tracks and continued on .
It seemed that there weren’t any human captives after all . All the better .
This mission would be able to end without incident .
It was just as I started to have such hopes .
I found a strange footprint .
It was bigger than a goblin’s . Maybe four or five times as large .
I looked at Nia . She had noticed it too .
She pointed at it and looked at me . Like she was waiting for instruction .
It was good that she hadn’t panicked .
It could be a Goblin Lord .
I had encountered a Goblin Lord the first time I met Shia .
Shia was a B-rank Adventurer and struggled in that fight . That was how strong Goblin Lords were .
Still, Nia would be fine as long as I was here . Especially if we could ambush it .
However, it was strange that the footprints seemed to appear out of nowhere .
Goblin Lords couldn’t fly . So it must have walked in from the entrance .
And yet the footprints seemed to start here .
(Was there a different entrance?)
There could be, if this was a cave .
But this was a dragon ruin .
A dragon ruin that Kathe had cast magic on to protect .
I think Kathe would have told me about any other exits .
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But then again, this was Kathe . Forgetfulness wasn’t entirely out of the question .
I decided to use Telepathy .
And with that, I connected to Nia and Grulf through magic .
And then I talked to them slowly so they wouldn’t be alarmed .
‘This is Telepathy . Be calm and listen . ’
Nia and Grulf looked shocked for an instant, but then nodded in unison .
While surprised, Nia hadn’t made a sound .
But even I was surprised that Grulf was smart enough to also stay silent .
‘I don’t have time to teach you how to do it . So just be quiet and listen for now . ’
‘There is likely a Goblin Lord up ahead . But there was no trace of it coming in here . And so there must be a teleportation circle . ’
Nia and Grulf were alarmed by this again, but kept quiet and listened .
‘In other words, there could be an even stronger enemy than a Goblin Lord . We will have to retreat for now . ’
The dark ones often used teleportation circles .
So my guess was that it was a Vampire Lord .
‘Grulf . Return to the entrance as quietly as you can . Nia, you follow after him . I’ll take the rear . ’
Grulf obeyed quietly and began to walk .
Nia and I followed .
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I recalled the Goblin Lord that Shia and I had first encountered .
That Goblin Lord was the underling of a Vampire Lord .
Not that much time had passed since then, and yet it was almost nostalgic .
Just as I had taken my third step back to the entrance, I felt something move right behind me .
A sharp slash of a blade . I quickly block it with the Devil King Sword .
The blades clashed and sparks flew .
The person who had attacked was a handsome man . He appeared to have fangs .
“Are you a vampire?”
“No human should be able to stop my attacks . ”
He said with an amused laugh . A Lord, no, a High Lord?
I glanced back at Nia . Nia and Grulf were both slowly backing away from us . Nia had her sword up and Grulf crouching, as if getting ready to jump .
That was good . But a vampire was too much for Nia to handle .
And so I needed to insure that the vampire looked only at me .
“Not sure if I should be flattered by that . Blocking a lesser vampire’s attempt at a surprise attack isn’t exactly difficult . ”
The vampire’s eyebrows narrowed .
As of now, every single vampire I’ve met has been susceptible to taunts .
And so I wasn’t going to abandon this tactic just yet .
“You scum!”
Enraged, the vampire swung at me with all of his might .
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This wasn’t a time for playing around . It wasn’t a time for testing one’s skill .
I had to kill him as quickly as possible .
I dodge the vampire’s sword by a hair’s breadth .
He must have been very confident that he would hit me . Because his sword went straight into the ground, splitting the floor open .
That caused him to lose his balance .
My sword swung horizontally .
His right arm, ribs, breastbone, lungs and heart, and his left arm . I cut through them one by one .
“Gaaahhhh!!!”
The vampire’s terrible cry rang loudly .
“Ahh! Come! Quickly!”
The vampire shouted . And then the goblin lord appeared from the back room .
“So you caught an overgrown goblin, did you? It must be hard being a lesser vampire with no real servants . ”
“Hey! Kill this man!”
The vampire screamed . He was just a head and shoulders now .
“GAAAAA!!”
The goblin lord roared and swung his club made of stone .
This was annoying . I would not give him enough time to strike at me even once .
And so I rushed forward in an instant and took off his head with a quick swing .