Chapter 39: Bulwark (2)
Roots twisted across the ground like knotted veins. Damp leaves clung to Misha’s boots and branches clawed at her cloak whenever she passed too close.
The knight sucked in a ragged breath on Gerbaut’s back. Blood still leaked from the cracks of his armor. He held the compass that was pointing in one direction. "S-straight..."
A faint light glowed from Elyes’ staff as he ran beside them, one hand steadying the sealed letter while the other fed mana into the knight’s injuries through his staff.
He could slow the bleeding, perhaps, but not stop it. Not while Gerbaut kept moving at that speed.
Misha looked between them and almost felt bad.
Elyes moved beside Gerbaut with the same tired face of his, though Misha had started learning that tired did not mean slow. His eyes kept sliding through the trees, catching movement before she saw anything at all.
"Three behind us," he murmured.
Misha twisted around. Sure enough, shapes darted between the trunks, small and quick.
One leaped behind a moss-covered rock with a rusted dagger in hand.
Misha reacted on instinct. She stepped in and drove her rapier straight through its throat.
「 You have killed a Goblin!
EXP +3 」
She yanked her blade free and spun just in time to see another one spring from the left.
A pale flash burst past her shoulder. The goblin flew sideways like a kicked sack and smashed into a tree with a sickening crack.
Misha blinked and looked at Elyes. He had not even slowed down.
Support mage, she reminded herself again.
That title continued to lie.
"Keep moving," he said, as if blasting living things into bark counted as a normal sentence to say while running through a haunted forest.
She rolled her eyes and ran harder anyway.
The knight’s breathing worsened with every step. Even with Elyes trying to stop the bleeding, the wounds kept tearing open from the movement. Blood dripped from the knight’s boots now, dark and steady.
Misha glanced at the letter Elyes was holding.
What in that stupid letter made so many goblins chase a dying knight through the woods?
The question stayed in her head for all of five seconds before the forest answered with another ambush.
Two goblins dropped from the branches ahead. One landed crouched on a rock with a jagged grin and a short spear. The other hit the ground running.
Elyes moved first and blasted the first goblin away.
Then Misha rushed the second and slashed low. The rapier opened its thigh and it hissed and stumbled. She stepped in again and drove the blade beneath its chin.
「 You have killed a Goblin!
EXP +3 」
"Left," Elyes said.
Misha ducked on instinct. As she did, a crude hatchet spun through the air where her head had been a second ago. It struck a tree trunk behind her and stuck there, quivering.
She turned and saw a goblin scout perched on a low branch, another weapon already in hand.
Elyes lifted his staff and mana surged towards the tree. The branch twisted with a crack and snapped under the creature’s weight. The goblin yelped on the way down.
Gerbaut’s spear met it before it hit the ground.
"We won’t make it at this pace," Misha said, breathless.
"We will," Gerbaut replied.
That sounded less like confidence and more like a direct threat against reality.
Elyes exhaled through his nose and slowed for the first time. "He’ll bleed out before the checkpoint if we won’t properly tend to his injuries... I’d rather save my mana for things trying to kill us."
"GROOOHH!!!!"
A howl rolled through the trees.
It was not a goblin. That sounded too deep and too rough.
The knight’s face was drained of color. "No..."
Gerbaut stopped and Misha almost ran into the knight at his back.
"What now?" she asked.
A figure stepped through the mist.
It wore scraps of rusted armor over a body that had swollen into something no human shape should allow. Gray skin stretched tight across thick muscle. One tusk jutted longer than the other. A strip of dark cloth hung from one shoulder like a half-rotted officer’s sash.
Its eyes locked onto the sealed letter in Elyes’ hand. Then it grinned.
「 〔WARNING〕
Elite Class Monster Detected.
Hobgoblin Commander has entered the battlefield.
Threat Level Increased. 」
Misha stared at the hobgoblin commander and tightened her grip on her sword.
The commander shrieked and goblins around it rushed them at once.
Gerbaut shoved the knight toward Elyes. "Take him."
Elyes caught the wounded man with visible annoyance. "He’s leaking on me."
"Live with it."
Gerbaut drove forward before another word could land.
His spear punched through the first goblin’s mouth and burst out the back of its skull. He ripped it free and spun into the next one, crushing its ribs with the shaft. The third tried to slip around him.
Misha intercepted it and cut across its throat.
「 You have killed a Goblin!
EXP +3 」
Another one lunged at her from the right and she parried badly. The impact jarred her wrist hard enough to sting.
Then a bolt of compressed force hit it square in the chest and blasted it backward across the leaves.
Elyes, still holding the knight upright with one arm, looked profoundly unimpressed. "Try not to die while I’m multitasking."
Misha glared. "I’m doing great. Thanks."
The hobgoblin commander charged and Gerbaut met it head-on.
Spear and curved blade crashed together with a sharp metallic crack. The commander moved fast, much faster than the smaller goblins. It slashed twice, low then high, forcing Gerbaut back half a step.
Then Gerbaut ducked the third strike, drove his shoulder into the commander’s chest and rammed it into a tree hard enough to shake the trunk.
The hobgoblin snarled and tore free, then it whistled sharply.
Two goblins broke from the pack and lunged for Elyes and the knight.
Misha stepped in front of them and thrust. Her rapier pierced the first goblin through the eye. She ripped it out, spun, and slashed the second across the stomach. It folded over with a wet shriek.
「 You have killed a Goblin!
EXP +3 」
「 You have killed a Goblin!
EXP +3 」
Her breathing turned ragged and her arms felt heavier. She was tired, not tired enough to stop but tired enough to notice the incoming dagger thrown toward the knight.
Elyes flicked his staff and a translucent barrier flashed into existence just as a thrown dagger struck where the knight’s neck had been.
The blade bounced off and landed on the ground.
Misha’s stomach turned. That had been close. Too close.
The hobgoblin commander saw it too and its grin widened.
It changed direction at once. Not Gerbaut but toward the knight.
"It’s going for him!" Misha shouted.
Gerbaut pivoted but it was too far.
Elyes raised his staff but it was too slow.
The commander lunged straight through the gap.
"AAAAHHH!!!"
Someone slammed into the hobgoblin commander’s side.
