Chapter 20: Taming the goblins
"Sigh, it's sad that the only option was that we had to kill them, though they caused it for themselves," Aric said. His memories of how humans hurt him in this world refused to allow him to hold any pity for them—he couldn't at all.
"Think goblins will soon return as well. What do we do then?" Ariel asked.
"Simple, I'll tame those I want to tame and then go ahead to kill the rest and search for that human they captured," Aric said.
Just as she had said, the goblins started charging out. Ariel took the lead, firing arrows at them, killing them in one shot easily.
When she ran out of arrows, she immediately carried the sword that the party leader had used and then charged in.
She was fast and swift, killing over five in an instant. This caused the goblins to retreat in fear. Back when they had been fighting the party, their instincts told them if they kept pushing, they had a chance, but against Ariel, they felt fear and ran back.
"You are really a terror," Aric said with a laugh and walked up to her with his sword.
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"System, how many taming slots do I have?" Aric asked the system.
[36 slots]
The system replied, and Aric smiled at that number. The description did say he got three slots for every level-up, and so far, he was at level twelve.
He knew that the goblins were definitely not going to come with him peacefully, so he would have to use force taming, and for that, he needed to seriously beat them down to their weakest.
"Ariel, I need to tame the goblins. Can you make sure to beat them close to death but not really kill any?" Aric asked her. She raised a brow but then nodded.
"I'll use the broad side of the blade then," she responded.
"What did we do?" Suddenly, the spirits that had not said anything for a while started talking.
"We helped take one down before," another one spoke.
"Yeah, about that, I'm shocked you guys could do that. Thanks a lot, but for this particular thing I am about to do, you don't have to do much.
Maybe you guys can watch my back and make sure that no goblins sneak up on me," Aric said. He expected another banter, but no, they agreed easily.
When they were all ready, Ariel led the way and walked into the tree home. Immediately as she stepped in, her ears picked up movement. As an elf, her hearing was without a doubt very good.
Aric also had that type of hearing, so just like her, he picked up the movements in an instant. The goblins were trying to sneak up and nullify the threat through the darkness of the tree routes that they had created already.
This tree was very massive, and so the goblins had managed to create several smaller openings compared to the first entry point.
All of a sudden, one goblin leaped out with a mace, but Ariel had already heard and anticipated that attack. She swung the broad side of her sword and slammed the goblin right on the head. The impact from the attack sent it straight to the ground, barely conscious.
Aric walked to the goblin. He checked on it, and it was still alive. "Alright, now to test this taming stuff out," he said. He placed his hand on the goblin and simply thought about using the forced taming, and it worked.
A light shined from his palm, and a small cross-pipe mark appeared on the head of the goblin before vanishing.
While he was busy doing that, two goblins tried to attack him, but Ariel shut them down before they got the chance to. She used the same force she used for the first goblin and brought them down.
After Aric finished with the first goblin, the goblin started healing up. It woke up and was able to stand. Immediately as it got up, it was like a force made it bend a knee to Aric.
Aric could hear the thoughts of the goblin outright. "I am ready to serve you, master." Those were the thoughts the goblin had.
Aric was pleased with the results. He didn't care if this goblin hated him—it was now bound by the taming bond and belonged to him.
Since he was done with the first one, he turned to the next two and did the same thing, turning both of them into his tamed beasts.
The other goblins in the tree didn't want to attack anymore after this. They could see that Aric was somehow turning the other goblins to their side. Even with their low intelligence, they were a tricky race, and so they knew danger when they spotted it.
"Take us to where you kept the human," Aric said to the three goblins, and immediately they started leading them into the depths of the tree.
The path started sloping down, like they had dug downward to create more space. When they got to this point, the goblins could no longer allow them to travel deeper than that.
Regardless of the dangers and whatnot, they all jumped out—more than twenty of them. Aric nodded at Ariel, and the both of them moved at the same time. With the broad side of their swords, they started knocking out goblins one by one.
[Sword Master level up, Lv1 → Lv2]
Just whacking a ton of goblins with a sword had made his sword mastery level up. His movement with the sword instantly became more refined and quick. He was easily able to make up for the lesser stats he had.
By the time they were done, goblins lay on the ground, not dead but unable to move at all. Aric took his time, one by one, and started taming each of them. He kept going until he got all, making him have a total of twenty-five goblins.
But their job was not done. He could still hear movement inside the place. There was still a goblin, and this one might be the leader of the nest.