Dorne easily split open the goblin’s chest with his powerful strength and the keenly honed edge of his dagger.
“Anyone have a spare pouch for the magic stones? Mine’s got money in it right now.”
After rummaging through his bag for a moment, Raon held out an empty pouch, spreading it open.
“Five goblins should be about 2 silver and 50 copper.”
Liria, who knew the market price, sounded indifferent, and Raon nodded.
Raon memorized the five goblins by converting them into two bowls of stew.
Trying to calculate his own share with a head that had only ever been used for farming back home made Raon’s brain heat up.
“Goblin traps are usually before or after a corner. They scatter them around and wait for explorers to step on them. This time they were right there as soon as we turned the corner, so we had to rush into battle, but sometimes they’re far enough away that you have plenty of time to prepare.”
Dorne wiped the blood from his dagger, sheathed it in its leather scabbard, and put it in his bag. Raon and Liria, having gathered their things and taken up the lanterns, approached while watching their footing.
Dorne shouldered his bag and picked up the shield that had been leaning against his leg with his left hand.
“Let’s turn one more corner and rest for a bit. That was your first fight in the labyrinth, and you did well.”
With Dorne in the lead, the three of them turned the corner.
The trap smeared with goblin feces had been before the corner, but even after turning it, they checked carefully.
Dorne’s party gathered their bags together and sat leaning against the wall.
Raon and Liria sat side by side to Dorne’s right.
“How was your first fight? Liria, you first.”
“Me? Well. I was in the back, and I’ve seen goblins plenty of times.”
Liria had experience traveling with her father, a merchant company head, on trade journeys, so encountering monsters was nothing new to her.
Raon hugged his knees and hesitated for a moment before opening his mouth.
“It wasn’t my first time either, but… it wasn’t as easy as I thought.”
Dorne swept his gaze over the lanterns placed to either side, lighting the labyrinth passage, and found the situation absurd.
To think he had become the leader of a party and was guiding two novice explorers….
Was it simply because he had entered a few days earlier? The difference of one useful ability? Or was it because, counting his previous life, he was far older than them?
Right now, their relationship was one-sided, but once they descended to the second floor, the third floor, he believed they would become comrades he could entrust his back to.
When the heart was troubled, exhausting the body helped.
They would catch their breath for a moment, then go in search of the next battle.
◆ ◆ ◆
After a few more fights, Raon’s face looked a little more at ease.
It seemed he had gained confidence, or perhaps had grown used to killing, and he had in fact become better at fighting.
Now he could take down a single goblin on his own in no time.
At this rate, Dorne’s party would be able to handle groups of goblins on the first floor without variables.
Even Dorne, after gaining [Iron Muscle], would have had to fight five goblins by moving backward as before and staying alert so he wouldn’t get surrounded. As expected, having more people was good.
(There was a saying that no one could stand against a gang beating.)
Even if they simply held the goblins down, there was no room for defeat.
“By feel, I’d say it’s probably late evening outside. Shall we fight one more time and then sleep?”
“I’m fine with that.”
“So am I.”
When his party members agreed, Dorne shone the lantern down a three-way intersection.
—Kereuk!
—Kereuk, kereuk!
Goblins barked from both left and right.
Looking by the lantern light shining into the distance, there seemed to be about ten goblins.
“Run back! Ten or more goblins!”
Raon and Liria grabbed the luggage and ran in a fluster.
Dorne caught up before they knew it and spoke.
“In, in, let’s retreat as far as we can and fight. Hoo. In, in, we have to sleep nearby. Hoo. In, in, far enough that the smell of blood won’t reach us. Hoo….”
The goblins turned the corner and gave chase, and Dorne’s group ran at a moderate speed.
They were moving in order to fight in the first place, so it would be troublesome if they ran fast enough to shake them off.
“In, now we fight!”
Confirming that the goblins had closed to a suitable distance, Dorne gave instructions to his party members.
Dorne’s party each took off their bags and set the lanterns on the floor, aiming them in the proper directions.
Lastly, Liria set down her lantern and joined them, raising her spear.
“Focus on shoving them away. Raon! Liria, when we can’t push them back, thrust with your spear!”
“Yes!”
“Yes!”
Ten goblins crashed into Dorne, who had thrust out his shield.
The two in front were shoved back by Dorne’s shield and toppled over, and the two behind them got their feet tangled and fell in a heap on top of them.
As Dorne, having lost his balance from using great force, put a hand down and corrected his stance, two goblins that had slipped past him from the side headed toward Raon.
Raon shoved one goblin with the shield he gripped firmly, and instead of swinging his one-handed sword, merely aimed it at the other goblin.
The goblin shoved by the shield withstood the force of its charge and did not fall, while the other goblin, wary of the sword tip, stopped at a distance.
At that moment, Liria’s spearhead, pressed tight along the shield where the goblin’s vision was blocked, stabbed deeply through its abdomen.
Raon finished off the goblin that had collapsed with its entrails pierced by stabbing its neck with his one-handed sword, while keeping his shield extended toward the goblin one step behind it.
Dorne, who had recovered his stance before anyone noticed, struck down and killed the two goblins in the second rank that had fallen in a pile.
As Raon threatened and pushed back a goblin with the tip of his sword, Dorne, now with some leeway, finished off the goblins trapped beneath the dead ones.
—Thwack! Thwack!
Now five goblins remained.
They just had to fight like they had in the first battle.
A short while later.
The remaining five goblins also met their predetermined end.
Raon and Liria, who had bladed weapons, stabbed the fallen goblins in the neck to make sure they were dead.
Liria looked down at the goblin Dorne had dealt with.
‘Even so, its head is cracked open and its brain is spilling out, so there’s no need to go out of my way to confirm the kill, right?’
After putting away his club and shield, Dorne took the dagger out of his bag and began cutting open the chests of the goblins that had already been confirmed dead.
Dorne’s breathing had not fully recovered yet.
—Hoo… hoo….
Raon and Liria also wiped the blood carefully from their blades and moved.
Raon took out the magic-stone pouch, and Liria picked up one lantern and shone it on the goblins’ chests.
Trying to butcher ten goblins at once made the dagger’s edge dull, so he had to keep wiping off fat and blood as he split their chests open.
Ten goblin magic stones went into the pouch Raon held, and Raon converted them into four bowls of stew and filed it away in his mind.
“You all worked hard today. Since there are several of us, let’s sleep while taking turns keeping watch.”
After saying that, they turned a corner and tried to sleep on a clean patch of floor, but suddenly there was no plan for how to manage the watch time.
“Mm…. Does anyone have a clock?”
The three of them, eyes wide, looked at one another and shook their heads.
“Hmm…. Can’t be helped. I’ll take the first watch and roughly gauge the time. When about three hours have passed, I’ll wake the next person, so the second watch can go back to sleep when the third watch wakes up. We’ll rest for a total of nine hours. How’s that?”
If they had a clock, he would have made a tight plan, but since they did not, he roughly arranged things so that his two companions, both new to the labyrinth, could sleep as much as possible.
His party members innocently nodded.
“I’m fine with that.”
“That works for me too.”
Dorne, who had cunningly secured the first watch, felt satisfied as he took out his blanket.
The lanterns were placed a little away from the three huddled people, facing outward.
One forward, and one behind.
The remaining lantern, turned off, was placed beside the watchman.
They layered their blankets on the floor and leaned against the wall.
As Dorne gently moved and loosened his body, stiff from several battles, he spoke to the second watchman.
“So you just have to wake me at the right time, Raon.”
Raon, who had lost at rock-paper-scissors and become the second watchman, nodded.
“Yes. Thank you for today. Please wake me.”
It was gratitude filled with a farmer’s sincerity.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Brother Dorne! Brother Dorne! Wake up! Liria, wake up!”
Raon, the second watchman, shook Dorne awake from where he had dozed off.
Dorne raised his upper body, blinking his swollen, half-lidded eyes.
“What is it? What’s going on?”
Liria’s head also shot up, her expression blank as if she had been struck by lightning.
“Brother. Here are your shield and club. Someone is running this way. I think he’s being chased by goblins!”
Raon shone the lantern over Dorne’s party’s bedding so Dorne and Liria could get ready, then urged Dorne to give orders.
“One person. Quite a lot of goblins! What do we do? Hurry!”
When he turned his head in the direction Raon pointed, he saw a man fleeing while gasping for breath, and a swarm of goblins chasing after him.
In the time it took him to think, the goblin horde had drawn closer, and just the ones he could see seemed to number more than twenty.
In that instant, all sorts of assumptions flashed through Dorne’s mind.
First, they could not win in perfect condition. The fleeing man was carrying nothing but a one-handed sword. If they could not fight and win anyway, there would be no way to live except the lucky discovery of an escape portal, and even that would be out of reach if that lightly equipped man used it alone.
Dorne hurriedly gave orders to his two party members.
“Stand with your backs to the wall! Shine the lanterns in every direction, and Liria, step up on one of the bags and stab with your spear! Aim for the neck! Protect Liria’s bag with the potions at all costs, and have that man use my bag as a shield substitute! Move!”
Raon and Liria, as if fire had fallen on their feet, moved in a fluster.
Liria propped Raon’s bag against the wall to make it easy to step on, while Raon gathered the lanterns and set them around the bag leaning against the wall.
Dorne picked up his own bag and shouted to the man.
“Hey! Stop running and fight with us! If we can’t win, we die either way!”
The man tried to shove Dorne aside, but Dorne grabbed him by the collar with a rough hand and set him in front of Liria, who stood on the bag, beside Raon.
“What the hell are you doing! Let go!”
“Liria! Grab him so he can’t run! If we’re surrounded by goblins, we’ll have to fight anyway! I’ll plunge into the goblins and cut down their numbers!”
The man tried to resist fiercely, but it was no use.
One of them possessed [Iron Muscle], and the other was a bear beastkin.
When they matched strength with him, it seemed he did not have any strength-related ability.
After making the man take position and hold his bag, Dorne moved a short distance away from the group.
As expected, when the front of the goblin horde headed toward Raon and Liria, who were pressed against the wall and tense, Dorne led with his shield and cut into the waist of the goblin wave.
If no one cut through their middle, even if every party member firmly blocked the front, goblins might drop down from above their heads like bodies climbing over a castle wall.
While allowing attacks he had never permitted until now, Dorne plowed through the wave made of goblins.
In exchange for shouldering danger, he slaughtered goblins faster, more often, and more surely.
The club raised above his head left afterimages as it beat goblins down, and instead of blocking with the broad face of his shield, he turned the rim outward and swung it hard horizontally.
The goblins spread out on all sides wildly clawed at Dorne’s quilted armor and trousers.
In the midst of swinging his weapons frantically, Dorne’s eyes caught sight of a one-handed sword that seemed to have belonged to a sacrificed explorer.
A goblin a little distance away was holding the one-handed sword, stabbing wildly toward the sky in a fit of rage.
Dorne’s eyes rolled with fury as he swept aside the goblins in his way with his shield and beat down the goblin holding the sword as well.
He let go with his left hand that held the shield and gripped the one-handed sword.
—Hoo! Hoo! Hup! Hoo!
Dorne gasped for breath as he swung the club and one-handed sword.
At first, he tried to swing horizontally and cut down two or three goblins at once, but he could not use an unfamiliar weapon that way.
Because the direction he swung and the angle of the blade were subtly misaligned, he failed to cleanly cut down even a single goblin. After that, he simply stabbed wildly near the goblins’ heads and bodies.
Around Dorne, whose quilted armor and trousers were being shredded by goblin claws, goblin blood overflowed and ran.