Chapter 24: Goblin's Hideout!

"N〜… that maybe so. I think that the medals should be in a place where it is difficult to find.."

Gram showed his hand, two fingers, "We have few options to engage ourselves, first, is to look for congregations of monsters or possibly dungeons or second, wait for some time to find those players that have gained medals."

Kaede said, "Maybe we should look for a dungeon first? We might even gain more medals at that rate…"

"Nnnn~... Although fighting other players is the best, but currently, the event just started so it's best we look for another way to gain medals." Risa agreed.

With the agreement on their opinions, so for the meantime, they started walking again to look for caves or forests, terrains that seemed different other than grassy plains. Although with their spawn point, seeing other terrains are close to zero, unless they speed up, running to the hue of mountains at the far-farthest distant, they couldn't be even sure if it was a mountain or a forest.

And walking about an hour after that. They spotted a few more [ Goblin Scout ]

"Right, just grasslands! Left, grasslands! Behind, grasslands! In front, grasslands! We should just speed up!" Risa could help but but shout, as wherever she looked, it was all green grass.

Gram had been using [ Perception ] already, with the lush grasses but barren with any interesting site, he couldn't help but agree, "Yeah.. but there should be something here. They won't just put up a large area without nothing right?"

Risa looked around and looked for a clue, "Are you implying there's a dungeon here somewhere? That is reasonable but it can also signify that this place is just a low-leveled grass plains..."

"How do we track that place though?! The area is so big, there is no direction at all~ hah..." It was definitely grasslands up until the horizon, unless they really fast forward.

Kaede thought of an easy scenario, "Right… It's too wide〜… for a while now, only goblins come out… see, they appeared again. Maybe pushing forward for now, we might see a lot more goblins."

[ Goblin Hunter Lv: 21 ]

As Kaede had said, they saw a small goblin at it's back with a dagger at hand and the other, dragging a rabbit it probably caught as prey. It doesn't seem to have noticed them at all, it was laughing happily with an annoying voice, probably due to it's caught game.

While they looked at it, it "walked" into the ground until it disappeared. They got confused,

"... Eh?" Kaede and Risa looked at each other before looking at Gram, they knew he had a skill related to removing illusions of sorts. He looked at the said place, with bluish-lit eyes.

"Ehem.. it's an active dungeon, probably. There's a weird layer of mana around, and there's a hidden passage in the grass layer.." They approached the place where the goblin disappeared.

"Let me do it." Risa quickly understood, and shot the space around there with a [ Wind Cutter ].

The wind blade cuts, an illusion of breaking glass sounded. The scene returns to the normal state and at the ground appears a staircase leading to the underground. A notification pops up telling them that the discovery of a dungeon called [ Goblins Hideout ].

"It's a skill similar to [ Mirage ] huh… It's so sneaky, hiding the entrance like that. Maybe, there's another place like this... This grassland is so wide after all…"

"Then, let's enter it now!" Kaede said energetically. Gram chuckled and extended his hand.

"Let me buff ourselves first."

Kaede immediately came to him, her pettable head readily shown to him. He started massaging her head, while she adorably let out pleasant sound, and somewhat mewling. Risa, unaffected by her friend, magnanimously just ignored it and said.

"Defeating a boss or other special event monster should give us much gold or two." Although Risa didn't ask, she ultimately wasn't unscatted and afterwards, experienced the rubbing on her head in the same manner, which made her beat red as always.

"Yo~sh! I can't wait!"

The three entered the earthy stairs. With Risa in front, she had a faster pace than Kaede and Gram. They left the stairs in a minute, reaching a moderately sized cave, the path upfront was wide enough for all of them to walk side by side, so they could freely swing their weapon..

[ Goblin Miner Lv: 22 ]

As she saw goblin upfront, Risa immediately rushed in and slashed through the goblin's face with her dagger.

The goblins inside weren't especially strong, so she could easily defeat them with normal attacks.

After eight more goblins on their road, they also saw branching paths, and they had to make a decision.

As he had said, this cave had quite a lot of branching roads. As they walked forward it seems that the cave had a lot of paths that could be taken. Like an ant's lair, and there were also a lot of dead ends and small rooms. So they had to change routes after reaching a blockage.

"Another branching path huh.." Kaede whispered under her breath. There were three pathways at front, each of them had a slightly different magnitude of darkery lit area.

"Which way should we go… Knox, what do you think?" Risa asked. Gram couldn't answer as even with his skill, the three pathways were normal to his eyes. At that moment, Kaede spoke big-eyed towards the pathways, seemingly thinking hard.

"Just choose a path, there's no disti-"

"...Umm.. we should go to the right! It is going down to the right, so I think that if there was a boss it would be in a deeper place!" Kaede said with her cute voice.

"Okay〜, then right it is."

They move ahead the chosen path. Before then, they had entered a wider cave area.

At that time. A roar echoes upfront, the ground trembles, and small rocks start falling in different places. Given that scenario, he could only think of one thing.

Instinctively thinking that this should be a boss's roar. And with that, many footsteps and metal sounds approached the two. And with it, started roaring different unpleasant cries. How unlucky for them to quickly meet a horde, as they haven't even experienced much fighting earlier. Given that the monsters were all lower-leveled, he could assume that the dungeon is just this quick and small.

It might be that as soon as they finished this wave of monsters, they would have to fight the boss itself.

"The boss might've commanded something, there are three pathways at the back, other goblins should be heading here! I can feel it! Many coming footsteps, hundreds of them!" Risa said by noticing it with her tingling sensory and skills, Gram agreed, as he can also see auras of monsters approaching the place.

"What should we do?" To Kaede's question, Risa answered while making a quick stance with her daggers.

"This room is only connected to three pathways, one for us each, I'll take the left!"

"Okay〜! I'll take the right one! Knox in the middle, so he could easily support us!" Kaede didn't seem to have the notion of exchanging her large shield. She was thinking of saving it for the boss, so with that, she equipped her [ New Moon ].

The boss seems to be persistent in calling it's fellow goblin monsters, in its case it's dominion.

It was the start of the fight. When the goblins started appearing in the paths , in that moment, Kaede immediately used her skill. It was also at that time Risa had started her massacre with the use of [ Ocean ], dodging slowed monsters, defeating the hurrying goblins. Gram used an amplified [ Gravity Downforce ], since he could see that all of them are lower-level than him, it didn't matter if they had a better STR or AGI, since his INT and level overwhelmed them. He initiated the casting of [ Flame Pillar ], while he looked at the non-moving goblins on the floor whenever they reached the spell's area of effect.

"[ Hydra ](Poison Breath)!"

Kaede attacked with full force at the start. Because she didn't have any temporary MP thereby, can only choose using her normal skills or her [ Hydra ], she thought of using it quickly so she won't have to lose a lot of other skills. If it was possible, she wanted to clean it up with one shot, without getting her MP from depleting at all.

The [ Hydra ] that shot towards the rushing goblins inside the room, and spitted out a poisonous gas around the pathway, it was stopped in a moment by a shining barrier in front of the goblins. As at the back of the passage, she spotted a different type of goblin.

[ Goblin Shaman Lv: 25 ]

There were three goblins robe in tattered clothes, and had a staff on their hands while murmuring something like a spell casting. They were using magic.

But, it seems like that was their trump card, the three were breathing hard given that a looming green aura around them. Regardless of that, the damage dealt by the [ Hydra ] was not only that. Even if her attack got blocked, the lingering poison itself scattered around and wouldn't disappear. The goblins that touched the poison agonized, paralyzed, collapsed, became light in a moment and disappeared, leaving a puddle of poison. The goblin shaman got damaged, it got them paralyzed, unable to focus using magic spells against her.

The paralyze goblins stepped on their collapsed ally's puddles as they disappeared, leaving more puddles of poison that damaged even more of their spawning, appearing allies.

It was a tragic site.

The goblin on the other pathways had quickly met their demise, more horrible than what Kaede did. After finishing the cast, Gram with a flick of his hand, appeared a fiery magic circle below, then it incinerated all stuck goblins and other goblins at the back, his attack was just overkill since given the pathway and it had a wide radius that affected the goblin shaman at the back, their shields did nothing to it. He did it a few times, using several spells at once.

Risa on the other hand, had zigzagged across her pathway, immediately directing her attacks towards the back. When the last scout goblin sank the last time. She noticed the different goblin shamans, so she started to attack them with full magic.

" [ Fireball ]! [ Thunderball ] And, [ Wind Cutter ]!" It looks like it didn't have any defense, the goblin shamans were defeated easily. Or it seems to be, because of her speed, they weren't able to even cast their powerful magical barrier.

The goblins couldn't go against the command of their leader, even if they made a reluctant face, there won't be any pity coming from these three players, the goblins were just moving towards them wanting to attack. Goblin archers appeared at the back, but they still quickly died due to the barrage of attacks, even those that happened to reach, it was futile. Like what was happening to Kaede's side.

"[ Shield Attack ]!"

Kaede's attack could damage the goblins and would heavily push them towards the puddle of poison, to the area where the gas still heavily lingered, which effectively defeated more.

She repeated that, there were originally many support goblins at the back, but they had already vanished. "[ Shield Attack ] ! It's the end, with this!! [ Shield Attack ]!"

With the last [ Fire Flare ], Gram finished his job and walked towards Kaede's path. At the center path, leaving behind fire scorch marks and lingering small fire's, players could easily imagine what happened here, a mass destruction.

"Good work, you two!" Gram praised the two, while Kaede quickly earned her humble petting reward from him. Risa didn't seem to want any comfy skinship with him or due to her heightened, vigorousness after defeating that much goblin made her slightly battle hungry and serious.

"You well, it's a given. Maple, that being said, she really did it flashily〜" Risa looked at the sea of poison with surprise and slight astonishment. She doesn't need to compare Gram's doings as she's already begun to get used to his quirk.

While making a shy laugh, "Ehehe… rather than that, you two also did very well!"

"If we don't then we don't qualify as your companion.. Right?" Gram agreed in an instant, and getting shy about the topic, Kaede wanting waved her hand flusteredly.

"Let's go! There is surely a boss there!!"

"Ahh!! Let's go! … Yo!!" Risa jumped over the goblin puddle of poison, she didn't want any of it.

Kaede and Gram of course, walked over it. Their poison resistance was perfect.

"Kuh! If I touch that, I'm out with one shot." Risa sweated when she looked at the puddles around.

Gram laughed and said, "You could just ask us to bring you up; you didn't have to be that cautious.

"But, it's embarrassing. Hey I'm already here.. So there's no need." She wouldn't receive damage from friendly fire magic, but the effects that it does in nature were different.

It means that if a branch burned by an ally by [ Fireball ] got touched, there would be damage.

"I'll be careful, okay." Risa lightly blushed but it wasn't noticed by the other two.

"Please do!" They went deeper and deeper to the cave. The final battle got near.

"A boss-like room, it should be this! Let's take a breather first.." In front of them was a wooden door, they haven't seen until now.

After relaxing for some minutes, they stood up. They opened the large wooden door which was about five meters in height, they entered. Inside was wide, and dim, just like the cave they walked, there still primitive torches in the walls, to be able to see around.

It was about ten meters to the ceiling, and looking around, the width of the area is much larger. And the depth, probably the center, a huge wooden throne was placed in the deepest. And, on it, a giant goblin was sitting with a rather hideous and enrage expression.

[ Goblin Commander Lv: 28 ]