A Tamer’s Adventure

Maplewood Village

Three-metre-tall marble stone walls and an open, thick wooden gate. Centred between the mountains and a medium-sized forest. They were in a prime location for supplying resources to other villages and cities through access to mines and great farmlands. Which made sense as large caravans passed by them as they arrived at the gates.

Martyn researched the village; it was documented for its mines and farm, but more so for one aspect.

“Is that a giant sword in the mountain?” Amber asked with disbelief in her voice.

On the horizon, beyond the village on the nearest mountain, was a massive sword implanted near the summit.

“Yep.” Martyn chuckled, glancing at her first reaction to the sight.

“How? Why is no one going after it?”

“What for?”

“I don’t know if it could be a tourist sight.”

“It’d be dangerous to make that area a tourist spot,” Martyn said as they neared the village.

Sensing Amber’s confusion, he grinned and went to explain.

“Consensus is that every giant weapon seen is from the extinct giants. All around the world, you’ll find giant weapons, skulls, or even full skeletons still intact. Stories say they got into a war with dragons that shaped the land and, as a result, went extinct, leaving dragons as the superior race.

Their weapons and bodies can’t be melted down unless it’s with a dragon's breath, so they’ve just been staying there since the war, and they are ancient too, releasing a lot of mana that attracts monsters—strong monsters. So up there are things we can’t face, and down here are the fodder beasts. And the mana is also why this village is thriving.”

Amber looked at the sword in wonder, and curiously, she asked.

“How many of these are out there?”

“Too many to count; there’s even a few cities built around their corpses—not only giants but some dragons too.”

"Wait, if they attract monsters, then cities are built around them?”

"Well, what monster would come to a den of adventurers, to the living place of an S-rank party, or the dwelling place of royal knights? We also exude an aura that lets monsters know whether they're facing a predator or prey, and to that end, they keep away. I’ll take you to the royal capital someday. The city is built upon the full skeletal frame of a dragon. It’s pretty awesome.”

Amber’s eyes brightened, her tail wagging excitedly. Martyn would bring her there only once they become B-ranked or if they’re capable C-ranked adventurers.

Amber looked around the area as Martyn walked up to a guard, conversing with him and showing his quest sheet. With their kind help, they directed him to the farm, which was a bit outside the village.

“This place feels nice and cosy,” Amber said while they walked through the village.

Martyn smiled as they left the village heading to the nearest mountain. Upon getting closer, they saw a herd of cows and horned rabbits frolicking behind the closed fence.

It wasn’t long before a man stepped out of the farmhouse, waving his hands.

“Well, you don’t seem like the regular mining crew; just who do I have the pleasure of meeting?”

The man walking up to them was a regular human, with dark hair and brown eyes. He wore what you’d expect from a farmer.

“Are you Mr. Noah? We’re here for the goblin quest you posted,” Martyn presented the quest sheet.

The man who saw it smiled. “Finally, you know, I was planning on just going to kill those little pests myself with Randol’s help if no one came; Randol’s my pet iron fang wolf.”

"Well, it’s a good thing we’re here then, so where are these goblins coming from?” Amber asked, looking over at the fields.

Noah led them, scratching the back of his neck. “That’s the thing I’ve had Randol scout; now usually they’d come from the forest, but these are coming from an old mine we don’t use anymore. It’s not that far from here, just a couple minutes walk.”

He pointed in the direction where they could see the entrance to a mine with a closed-off sign. Martyn asked why the mines were closed and got a simple answer from Noah, stating they depleted their resources.

“There’s nothing in that mine anymore; I got a map of it for you too, so here.” Noah handed them an extensive map of the mines, with all routes and dangerous hazards.

“Alright, and what about the goblins? Is there anything odd about their behaviour?" Martyn asked.

Noah hummed in thought while Amber read the map. He shrugged.

“Just basic goblin behaviour; they ran when they saw me; I killed a few that tried to come close, and that’s about it; I've never seen more than three.”

Getting all the insights from Noah, Martyn and Amber headed up to the mines, and as they got closer and away from other farmers’s visions, they pulled out their weapons from their inventory.

Amber walked a few steps ahead, shielding up, and Martyn behind her expanded the range of his spatial awareness to the limit. Nothing could sneak up on them.

They entered the mines with no lanterns, as they both had night vision. The scurrying of rats and crawling insects drew their attention, but only momentarily.

A faint cry came from the left as they reached a fork in the path; the minecart tracks also went to the left, and the right was a dead end.

So they went to the right and waited. As the cries grew louder, two goblins came into view; they looked skinny and had lean muscles, not bloated with big noses.

A second before attacking, they calmed themselves, calming their overwhelmed senses by the horrid stench, before charging to attack.

The two goblins were slow to respond as Amber thrust her spear through one’s chest and Martyn beheaded the other. Cutting off their ears, they headed down the left path.

Neither communicated as more horrid smells hit their noses, so they conjured a magic barrier mask around it and went further.

Goblin chatter reached their ears as they neared a campfire.

A group of three goblins were chatting, idly cooking meat skewers. They laughed, and then the centre goblin's head exploded, after colliding with a magic bullet.

The other two were about to jump in shock when a spear hurled through one’s head, and the other’s throat was gripped by an invisible force.

It struggled to breathe when, out of the shadows, came Amber and Martyn. Amber pulled her spear out of the goblin’s head, and Martyn snapped the last one's neck.

“Is it me, or were these goblins taking shifts?” Amber asked, looking at the dead group, recalling how they sat around a fire with stone weapons at their sides.

And more alarming was that they wore leather armour made from wolf pelts, according to Martyn’s appraisal.

“Yeah, they might have a leader; from the goblin slayer’s handbook, at least a mage; they’re hunting wolves instead of taming them, so it’s not a beast master.”

The goblin slayer handbook was recommended to them by the guild receptionist. Written by a warrior who did nothing but goblin quests and wrote down his experience, it became a small cornerstone of the adventurer business about not taking joke monsters lightly.

“This means there’s a goblin den up ahead, fifteen or more,” Amber said.

Martyn frowned at the thought; this meant some difficulty would come up. But he had an idea to resolve it.

He warned Amber to stay on guard, and together they marched up ahead. With his spatial awareness, he was able to detect traps and disable them, the majority being pitfalls and dart traps.

Soon enough, a goblin’s cry filled the tunnels. “Fuck,” Martyn cursed as he saw a group of four in the distance: two archers, one scout, and a big hobgoblin.

The scout goblin ran back in to warn the others. “Amber?”

“I’ll take the hobgoblin; go.” She said, walking up to the hulking goblin, it had a wooden club in its hands and roared, swinging it down. Amber took the hit with her shield, not moving from her spot.

Martyn had appraised them, and though they seemed strong it was only in appearance.

The goblins fired their arrows, and he dodged them. He tried to run past Amber and the Hobgoblin tank until it swung down to where he was.

“Seriously?” Martyn scoffed. In a moment, he blinked past the brute as Amber swung at it, appearing next to the two archers. He beheaded one as the other jumped back in shock, falling on its ass.

Martyn brought his sword down to its head, splitting it in two. A thick thud followed as the hobgoblin fell to the ground with various spear wounds across its body.

“Weren't hobgoblins supposed to be human-sized?”

“Evolutions tend to skew towards one’s intention; it was most likely trying to become an ogre.”

Together they marched deeper through the lit torches passages, ‘They’ve been living down here for some time.’ Martyn thought.

They braced themselves as they arrived at the main mining area. From the map, they remember it being a dome-like cavern.

Goblin cries and clanging metal echoed as they entered the space. Both froze at the sight of a small goblin army, thirty or so of them with stone and iron weapons at hand, donning leather armour.

At the far back, a goblin in leather robes and a metal staff screeched a dark plume of mana gathered and blasted towards them.

“I got it!” Amber said

Quickly moving forward, mana covering the shield, the dark blast slammed into it, and she held her ground and, angling her shield, pushed the blast to the side. It went on carving into the stone walls before exploding.

“Are you good?” Martyn asked.

[Your strength has increased by 1 point!]

She nodded ignoring her status page, pulling out a mana potion from the inventory. Martyn appraised them all; they were all between levels one and two, none above, except for the leader sitting at level three.

“The mage has a lot of mana.” Amber frowned.

Martyn nodded, appraising the goblin leader’s status, and its arcana was outrageously high for someone’s level. Then again, he didn’t know how long they’d been there.

Martyn raised his palm as the small army got ready to fight. The most important thing noted in the Goblin Slayers handbook is to make use of the environment.

He summoned up all his mana, conjuring a massive magic bolt. The leader shrieked, and with the leader barking out orders, they raised their shields, and he conjured a barrier.

“Fools,” Martyn said as he raised his palm upwards to the ceiling.

They were in a cave and in a mine shaft no longer being used, and with the weak foundations keeping the ceiling from collapsing, it was a simple action.

The goblin leader's face paled as he went to jump back while Maryn unleashed his magic bolt. The blast shot forward, rushing through the air. It collided with the ceiling above the small army, and the entire cavernous dome shook as the supports above broke apart.

Rubble fell to the ground hard, bone-snaped, flesh squished, and horrific screeches filled the cavern as goblins died. Martyn and Amber, having formed a party, shared the experience of the mass slaughter.

“Idiots,” Martyn said, drinking two mana potions and a recovery potion to offset the backlash.

“I did not think of that,” Amber muttered.

Martyn simply shrugged. “Easier to wipe them out this way.”

“That’s true.” Amber nodded

Suddenly the settling dust picked up as the wind gathered swirling around the chieftain.

Tendrils of shadow erupted from the rubble; blood burst forth before rotting black; it all gathered, forming a claw. Martyn and Amber launched magic projectiles at the chanting goblin mage, but its barrier cracked before repairing itself.

“What is he doing?” Martyn said, launching a magic bolt at the chanting leader.

It slammed against its barrier, only for the damage to repair itself.

He shouted, and from the small dens, more goblins came out—only seventeen, and some of them looked young.

Another ghastly dark claw emerged from the rubble; the ground shook, and from the rubble burst forth a black, scaly shadowy mass. The amalgamation roared, its form solidifying.

“What the fuck?” Amber stepped back. Martyn frowned, appraising the monster.

The monster was conjured from the corpses of the dead goblins, its purple eyes glaring at them.

“Martyn?” Amber said as she was preparing herself.

“It’s losing mana as we speak to keep its form; in ten minutes, the more we damage it, the more mana it’ll take to regenerate, and the shorter it’ll last.”

"Okay, I’ll take the drake; you take the chieftain; it should be weak from using all that mana.”

Martyn also agreed to take on the remaining goblins, and together they charged. Martyn blinked towards the nearest goblin, surprising it and those around him before stabbing it through the heart and one through the head.

He moved past them, avoiding arrows and a dark bolt from the chieftain.

As he was about to kill another goblin, the drake lunged at him with its jaws, only to be hit from the side by a powerful water spear, causing it to fall over.

Amber hissed while drinking a mana potion, and the drake regenerating its wound turned its attention towards her.

‘I need to be quick,’ Martyn flickered right next to the chieftain and swung his mana-coated scimitar at the shocked goblin.

The barrier cracked, and the chieftain stumbled back with weakened knees.

‘What?’ Martyn paused, jumping back to avoid an arrow from an archer. The barrier suffered damage and repaired itself, again, but none of the chieftain’s mana was used to do so.

“An artefact?” Martyn said as his fist collided with another goblin, bashing its face in.

Amber took a claw swipe from the drake, only sending her a few steps back. She moved to the side, launching water arrows at the construct and avoiding its mighty jaws, stabbing it in the eye.

It hissed and swung at her with its tail. The blow went through Amber as she turned her body to water, countering with a water bolt to the face.

Martyn blinked back and forth; with his control and spatial awareness, he slowly killed the remaining goblin warriors.

“Now then,” he said, turning to the chieftain after making sure Amber was doing alright, “how are you maintaining this barrier?”

 

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