<- Go back to Fiction WorksGoblins approached the village at terminal velocity, taking kids before parents could say “run”. And so they ran with their feet in the air, attempting to escape the grasp of the goblins. The first challenger for the town’s peace was Hihi Grabskin. He could handle a rhino by himself with only a mat to lie down on whenever he got bored. He slayed the beast, equipping his teeth and nails.
Hihi Grabskin hurled himself at a masked goblin with a long spear. Most of the goblins preferred the sword, but the masked goblin believed that frontal attacks like Hihi’s won’t work against a weapon longer than Hihi’s weapons, especially when those weapons are teeth and nails.
The spear stabbed Hihi’s chest, killing him instantly; the masked goblin’s face skewed to one of disappointment, giving the body a thumbs down. The masked goblin raised his hand and whizzed it back and forth, rallying his goblin subordinates.
He left one spot for a golem by his side, removing any and all debris where he might pass.
“Goblins are dumb,” said a running traveler who witnessed the beginning of the attack. “They’re usually like this.”
The person by the traveler who spoke last was a traveler as well. He tapped his temples and said, “Just give me the call.”
The two were on the way to the town; they used [Clairvoyance] to see their chances of survival if they stuck to the famous road.
They reached the town two minutes later. The only clue they had of the goblins’ activities were the blood on the ground and the gore they left behind. They left behind unfinished flesh on bones as they traveled down the road. The village looked empty, but human faces popped out from behind the trees a mile away from the village and walked back. With faces of sorrow, they carried themselves to their houses, cleaned up, and sat down to rest. Any individual’s face reflected many others.
The two travelers caught up to the goblins a minute later; the reason the villagers were confident that the goblins wouldn’t return was the saying “more flesh with one bite than the last”.
The two travelers observed the mundane activites of the goblins, namely hunting predatory animals and raiding outposts and villages. Goblins had strength similar to a human’s, but their weak endurance allowed them little. After forty minutes, they had to return to their walled caves.
The two travelers watched the goblins walk back to the only village they attacked and ignore the villagers, reserving energy only to protect themselves against a dozen of vengeful villagers. The villagers ignored them as well because this the forth time this has happened. The village lasted this long because there was once a outpost closer to the masked goblin’s walled cave. They attacked that outpost and never attacked the village despite knowing its existence. After eradicating the outpost because of a few unmanaged goblins, they vowed not to destroy the village, their only source of goods. They attacked once a week; some stopped asking why.
One of the two travelers stared at Hihi Grabskin’s body, which hasn’t been moved for sixteen hours now after the attack ended. The traveler laughed but kept it to soft and sorrowful because he respected people who fought even without a excellent plan.
Adventurers were like gold around these villages because of the fact that the villages were so far from each other and even farther from the adventurer’s guild. Secondly, most enjoyed a life inside a house away from the unprotected wild. Thirdly, the chances of dying as an adventurer on your first mission was 60%: good level ups only happen when you encounter and defeat monsters like goblins.
After striking the last villager, the two travelers left the village to join other travelers like them. They met them at the adventurer’s guild where a goblin shapeshifting as a human was. The goblin’s name was Mike Avoidrun. He was level nine, his stats ßwere low, and he had utility spells [Ignite], [Clarity], [Exhaust].