Lowering my expectations to their level, I reckoned this had been well-fought. They seriously were growing stronger, I'll give them that. Still, that was if I lowered my expectations to their level, yup.
After that, we departed. It took more than a minute for the Party to be placed right back on track. First off, there was the looting, as usual. I was getting good at this, I think.
And secondly, there were some wounds to take care of, after the clash. The human priestess had to take the healing of everyone upon herself. That was her job. Parallelly anyway, everyone did need some resting. The time for the lungs not to be exhausted anymore and for the shoulders not to be heaving, either.
After the party leader was healed (he wasn't so much wounded, but the priestess really couldn't let him off without the applying of her skills; he gave in) he came to me first.
I was only on the side of this whole scene.
"H-Hey, little man?"
"Hm?" Did he need something?
"…Nah," and he avoided my eyes. "Just wanted to thank you again. For both the carrying of our stuff … and everything, you know."
"Uh?"
"… Well, I was gonna say 'properly thank you,' but yeah; shouldn't be that simple, should it?" he smiled at me, still looking away.
Unwilling to pressure him or anything, I avoided his eyes too, then. "… Like I said: no need to." I also told him I wasn't helping them for free anyway. They allowed me to tag along with them. I knew I could just go out on my own and be perfectly okay, but since I was with them, that was that.
This was a slow kind of conversation. "…Guess so," he wryly scoffed. "And still, thank you. I mean, in the first place, it's not like you couldn't just be going out by yourself… right?"
"...I refuse it." I looked the man right in the eye like I seized him with my eyes, held his gaze coldly like this for a moment, and left it at that.
Even if I was willing to accept the boy's thanks, I couldn't accept anything. Now like before, the man's thanks, as well as his smile, wasn't here. Like it's hidden behind a layer of growing bitterness and hypocrisy.
That was that.
The man scowled at me, intensely. Very soon, he caught himself and turned around, hiding away from me. Really, the monster didn't mind.
Going on: I was left with nothing else to do. And so was every member of the Party. We departed toward the deeper end of the woodland.
The sun had climbed up higher and higher in the sky with the time running. We'd worked swiftly and promptly, today.
In terms of timing, we were good. Really, it was even better than that. Maybe luck was to thank for this–providing us with the right paths and spots–but importantly, we'd also played a role in that matter. Today, we were quick.
And going along with that great start of ours–we'd be going forward even quicker, now.
Naturally then, very soon, "it" happened.
I wouldn't mention the fight with yellow slimes we met again. They were slain quickly. After a while of treading through the dangerous woods again, at last:
"Ah, finally," the leader whispered. "Goblins. There they are."
Still cutting through the many branches of the so-much-thick forest that started to grow annoying on everyone there, at some point, we'd found some ominous (the priestess said it was ominous), and weird little forming paths, digging a way through the woods.
The paths weren't so fresh either. It seemed to have been cut by the passing of a bunch of little green creatures but wasn't so well entertained. In fact, it wasn't cared for at all.
Whoever dug this must have grown tired of the path.
Whoever dug this must have only been going one way throughout the forest, like it was some sort of playground, as casually as possible, before totally abandoning the path.
What mattered even more than this sight: The sluggish tank crouched down like the big ball he was and seemed to be fiddling around the slightly dampened earth with his fat, sausage-like fingers.
Well. Even if they hadn't done that, it was very clear they came here to be hostile. From the alarming, and piercing usual screeching sounds the little dark-greenish creatures emitted, angrily twitching and jumping about, it was very clear the atmosphere was hostile, already.
They were twenty. So the humans were screwed. They weren't endowed with the [Mana Perception] Passive Skill, after all.
And hell, even if that wasn't enough, what do you think the monster-hunters say about the goblins and their peers? "A tinygob's a tinygob, an' a hobgoblin's worth ten of the lil' bastards!"
A hobgoblin ain't just one goblin. It's ten of them.
That skill really was too much OP when I think about it. I mean, I understood why people got bitter about it. Couldn't people really see what was up behind the setting of their world? Guess I have to be grateful, then.
Spreading my presence around and seeing with my Eye, I counted 6 hobgoblins and 14 regular little ones. That made for 74 foes. I was excited. Today, I'd have my share for sure. Teach my human pets a lesson while I'm at it. Aye.
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