Chapter 13: The Goblin King

Our two days of preparations were over, and all the kids and women were sent to the town hall to take shelter.

It was the biggest building in the village, so it was good enough for all of them to fit in.

I ordered the shadow dogs to protect the town hall at all costs. Their job was to eliminate any goblin that managed to infiltrate the village.

I used earth magic to create iron wires while Vespera made earth spikes, and we rigged the outside of the wall with them.

Thanks to the reconnaissance from the demon spiders, we were able to tell that they had surrounded the village, meaning that the horde would attack from all directions.

During our preparations, I also ended up making some weapons and gear for the adventurers who had been staying in the village for the past few months.

Theirs wasn't bad in any way, but it had seen better days, so I volunteered to fix them up for them.

Aside from that, I also had the demon spiders lay paralyzing traps at some key points.

They would lay a small egg and hide it in a bush. Then when anything walked too close to it, it would secrete a poisonous gas that paralyzed anyone who inhaled it.

I told all of the adventurers to wait for the gas to disappear before they ran in, of course.

Nighttime was starting to set in, and we could hear the wailing and growling of the goblin horde as they approached the village while we all stood outside, waiting in anticipation.

A few moments later, the paralyzing gas began doing its thing, and we could see how the yellowy smoke was taking down dozens of these goblins.

"Wait a bit longer, then run in and execute all the paralyzed goblins!" yelled Jackson as he pumped his spear in the air, and the rest of the adventurers followed with a loud roar.

A few more moments later, they followed through with the plan, running into where all the goblins had been paralyzed on the ground and eliminating them.

Seemed like the paralyzing gas and demon spiders helped us reduce a lot of their numbers, but their big boys were not going down that easily.

I supposed they had resistance to poison, which was kind of annoying since I was counting on poisoning at least the hobgoblins too.

Some of the most experienced adventurers in the group began fighting the hobgoblins who had reached the frontline.

One of them was a blonde woman in full plate armor, probably in her 20s. Her name was Karla, and was supposedly a retired royal knight who turned adventurer.

Now, all I knew about her was that she was friends with Jackson. I didn't know her full story or why she was here, but she was pretty goddamn good with the sword.

A bit later, even more hobgoblins appeared from the darkness of the forest, and Jackson joined Karla in the fight. I got a little worried for them, so I told Yoru to help them out.

He began jumping from shadow to shadow, using his claws to slice the hobgoblins and creating openings for both Karla and Jackson.

Meanwhile, I already had my eyes on the Goblin King, who was hanging out at the very back of his army with both Goblin Champions next to him.

"Vespera… can you take on one of the champions?" I asked.

"Heh, I could take both!"

"Alright then, I'm counting on you!"

"Understood."

Before we rushed to their backlines, I wanted to Inspect the Goblin King. I thought he would hide his information with "Inspect Block," but I supposed he didn't care if anyone saw who he was.

<Goblin King

Rank S

Can cast extremely powerful magic.

Can quickly regenerate from injuries.

Can create goblins from his blood.

His source of power comes from the blood orb inside his body.>

'That last part…' I thought.

"Vespera, what's a blood orb?" I asked my companion.

"A blood orb? Hmmm, I think that's a Devils thing…"

"Inspect says his source of power comes from it and that it's inside his body."

"Hmmm, but which part of the body?" Vespera asked while raising an eyebrow.

'Ah, so that's the catch?'

"Alright, I'm ready." I said confidently, holding my "bo" firmly.

Not a second after, Vespera and I were rushing through the battlefield using air magic.

It took us a little over one minute to reach the backlines, and we managed to get a few dozen goblins on our way there.

The Goblin Champions attacked us first in an effort to defend their king. But just as they raised their flaming weapons, Vespera used air magic and knocked them to the side, giving me ample space to fight the king.

Before I started my attack on the king, I was a little curious as to what Vespera would do, so I looked at her from the side of my eyes.

It seemed like she released four giant spider legs from her back and was using those legs to fight the champions.

She was barely moving the rest of her body, which made it seem like a predator toying with its prey.

All of the Goblin Champion's attacks were deflected by Vespera's spider legs. Then she would stab them, deflect, stab, deflect, stab.

There was no end to it.

'Yeah… She definitely got this…' I thought.

I glanced at the Goblin King and raised my hand, then cast a fireball. Not to my surprise, the fireball was blocked by a barrier that surrounded the king.

'Barrier magic, huh? That's pretty advanced for a goblin… I suppose that's the king's thing…'

The Goblin King laughed. "Puny, stupid human child. Did you really think your weak magic could even make a dent in my barrier? Bleh-he-he-ha" said the Goblin King with a raspy, deep voice and perturbing laugh.

'Pfftt, how ironic… A goblin calling me stupid… The fireball was only a test to see if he had a barrier, but I guess he is too dumb to see that.'

"Let me show you, human… Real magic!" said the king as he raised his palm up in the air.

Fire began forming in a ball as big as his head before yelling, "Fire Strike!" and the ball of fire came flying straight at me.

However, the fire projectile completely dissipated before it could reach me.

"Huh?" said the Goblin King, looking genuinely confused.

I had used a pretty tricky spell that I hadn't had time to practice much. It was air magic, and what I did was remove the oxygen from the air around me for a moment, making it impossible for fire to go through.

It took a lot of MP, so it wasn't a trick I could do that often. Of course, to the Goblin King, it looked like I had just erased his spell.

Now that the Goblin King understood that he wasn't fighting a random kid, our fight only heated up more.

Both he and I were casting spells at each other with no breaks. Fireballs, earth strikes, lightning bolts, air slices, anything I could think of, I would cast.

His barrier slowly started to whittle down. Not only from my attacks, but the amount of MP he was using was not letting him keep his barrier for much longer.

As soon as the barrier went down, I began my barrage of physical attacks with my "bo."

*BOOM* "There goes one tooth..."

*BAP* "There goes another one..."

*BAM* "That broke some ribs..."

I wasn't stopping. My barrage of attacks had the king completely immobilized as every attack managed to break a bone.

His regeneration was truly incredible because he kept healing even after breaking the same bones multiple times.

I did realize that having a blunt weapon like my "bo" was keeping me from finding the blood orb that was giving the king power. For all I knew, it could have been the heart.

In the middle of my flurry of attacks, the Goblin King cast an air magic breeze that just so slightly messed up my footing for a second, but that window was all he needed to hit me with his staff.

Luckily, I blocked my face with my "bo," but I was still sent flying backward into a tree and demolished it. I stood up and felt a small drop of blood dripping from the side of my face.

"Ichiro!" I could hear Jackson calling me.

"Stay back!" I yelled at him.

I jumped a few meters back, aimed my palm at the sky, and focused a lot of magical power on it.

'Hopefully this destroys him…' I thought as lightning began crackling in my hands, and dark clouds formed in a spiral on top of him.

"Thunder!" I yelled, and a giant bolt of lightning came from the sky, hitting the king right in the head and burning up his body.

I kneeled down for a moment to rest since my MP was low, and I was feeling dizzy.

I took an "MP Potion(+)" from my "Void Pocket" and drank it quickly. I could feel the Goblin King regenerating.

"It's not over…" I muttered.

He stood up once again and let out a roar that was heard all throughout the village.

"You… a human child… you would dare defy me!? I am the Goblin King, servant of Armaros! I will not be killed by puny little creatures like you! We will take this village, we will take the women and the children, and turn them into cattle. Our goblin supremacy begins here!"

"Shut up…" I muttered from the very depths of my being.

"You still defy me!?" yelled the monster once again.

"I said… Shut the hell up, you trash." My voice rang deeper and indifferent as I raised my palm, pointed it towards the Goblin King, and began casting my most powerful and intricate spell that I had come up with.

"Gravity, crush him!" I uttered.

"Mnng-aaaarrghh…" Cried out the Goblin King as he slowly kneeled to the ground, not being able to hold the weight of his own body.

"W-what is this?" he muttered in his struggle.

"What? Are you stupid?" I said as I kept the spell going.

"I suppose this theory is too advanced for trash like you, just shut up and get crushed by your own body."

"Aaaarrrghh" He cried again as his bones began to crack.

"I need more power…" I thought as I increased the amount of MP I was using, making a little drop of blood drip from my nose.

The goblin king was now fully face down on the ground, not being able to move a muscle while the cracking sounds of all his bones and organs crushing filled the air.

His eyes, ears, nose, and mouth were spilling blood by the litter, but I wasn't done until I knew that the blood orb was destroyed. So I increased the power even more.

"Now, Goblin King, perish like the trash you are!" With that final push, I heard the sound of glass breaking, and the cries of the Goblin King finally ceased.

I couldn't feel it regenerating anymore.

'It's over…' I thought as I lost all my strength and collapsed. But just before I hit the ground, Jackson caught me and gave me a lift back to the village.

"Hey, Ichiro. What was that magic you used at the end there?" he said while carrying me back to the village.

"It's… gravity… magic…" I responded while barely conscious.

"Gravity magic?"

"What?... do you guys… not know… what gravity is?..." I said before falling asleep. Somehow, I still heard Jackson laughing after that.