DID I EVER SAY I WAS GOING TO TAP?!

Everybody was hurting after the tenth wave even though Lil had used all of her cooled skills to weaken the fifty goblins pushing us. We all had plenty of the meat that I had cooked, though, and even I was chewing three pieces at once like a chipmunk. However, I did not swallow the healing food because I was already fully healed.

"Dif one's gonna be big," I warn the others quickly and awkwardly when the ground suddenly shudders under our feet. "Papi, Go, get red to f'ank it 'unce I 'ave its agg'o and swing for knees. Lil, you can still use a shingle-'arget fire attack, wight? Light dif mother's face up and keep it blind! Ivana, juh dont 'top shooting even if you hit me!"

By the time I was done the head and shoulders of the hobgoblin warrior were exposed and my appraisal tag soon appeared, its second recent upgrade allowing it to reveal an opponent's level. The hobgoblin warrior was level twenty-three. This guy was probably just a mini-boss but even at just thirteen my level was nowhere near its match.

Alone. But, I had friends with me this time. "Come on, you big ugly son of a bitch," I call out to the goblin warrior from where I stood fifteen yards away from the tunnel, clanging Blackened Fuller Haunting against the other fuller sword to make even more noise. "Your mother sucks eggs and I showed her how, come and get some!"

There was suddenly an out-of-place burst of coarse laughter from somewhere in the background and I could tell that Sir Beryl was enjoying himself from where he stood beyond the limbs of the Elder Oak. I, on the other hand, was in no mood to crack a smile as the two-plus-meter tall behemoth started picking up speed. As it was stepping out of the tunnel I ran forward, moving as quickly as I could with both sword held back and their points aimed forward.

However, just before reaching the giant club wielding goblin warrior I dropped to my knees to slide through the soft soil and yelled, "Now!" Passing between the goblin's widespread legs while leaning back, I thrust either sword up into the monster's groin region while Papi and Go came out from around the sides of the tunnel.

A sparse stream of small tennis ball sized fireballs were flying through the air only a little slower than arrows as the goblin warrior's club slammed uselessly on the ground with its agonized roar. Moving faster thanks to his higher level, Papi made a pass of his own while slamming the big round face of his pick hammer down into the back of the mini boss's knee. The goblin warrior went down into a kneel just as Go arrived, taking his turn to cleave into the upper shin of goblin warrior's other leg still bearing most of its weight.

Arrows stuck randomly about its body as fireballs splashed about its head and shoulders, dragging out even more roars of fury and pain as it fight to work its legs. The bar that appeared over its head and dropped fifteen percent from my below-the-belt attack was now around halfway empty in just the first set of attacks. However, the arrows and fireballs did not seem to be stopping.

Back on my feet and rushing forward, I jump up at the goblin warrior's back and throw one knee up as hard as I can to slam into the back of their burning head while slumping their body to the ground. Reaching down to grip my swords while planting a foot on their rear, I rip my swords free with the loss of ten more percent of its health in bleeding before Papi and Go each step forward and take a turn pickaxing or chopping into either of the beast's lungs through its back.

Letting the fire and arrows wear the brute down to its last ten percent of health, I walk around to its head where it was moaning deliriously from the pain it was in. For a moment I could only stand there and stare at the poor thing in pity because of what I had done to it. That sort of thing was downright awful but it was every bit as necessary as my reaching out to stab Fuller Haunting into their skull.

[Critical hit: Headshot x2]

[Acquired Skill: Dual Weapons]

[+10XP]

[Dual Weapons Leveled x4]

[+40XP]

"How long does this last for?" Papi asks while he and Go hurry back to their previous positions. "I don't think we can last much longer than the next wave if it's eleven per person."

"It's not," I reply from where I still stood at the mouth of the tunnel, pointing inward as five hobgoblins appear. "The mobs scaled up a rank, its hobs now. I believe in us, we can handle a second set of waves and then tap. Come on, y'all got this shit!"

While I was not entirely wrong, these hobs were no longer armed with simple clubs but naked elder root spears with long tapering whittled heads that looked like they would hurt. As well as the upgrade to their weapons these hobs had an upgraded Artificial Intelligence. Unlike the goblins who just ran up and attacked these guys would work their way up to you with the reach of their spear as well as make feints.

Even worse, where the goblins had around seventy to eighty health it seemed like these guys averaged around one hundred so they required an extra hit or two. As one would expect, they also hit twice as hard for around twenty damage even though the spear I let hit me did not penetrate my outer layer of armor. I was still forced to swallow the stale meat in my mouth, though.

Regardless of how much tougher hobgoblins were than regular goblins at level fifteen with stats not that much lower than mine, the first wave ended easily with only one enemy per person. In the second wave, though, I learned a hard lesson. Things were only as easy as they were for me now because the enemies were meant to be easy.

Facing two hobgoblins at once in a dungeon event setting was nothing like fighting a group of madly rushing goblins. It was a lot more like fighting a never ending stream of ferecats. One hob would lunge in and stab at me followed by the second as they continually hopped around and harassed me. It was not much harder to deal with than facing three goblins at once because of their increased speed but it was something I decided I needed experience in.

If not for the fact that there was still time on our buffs I would have kept dancing with these two hobs for the practice. However, when the others finished theirs I had no choice but to spin around one spear and stab that hob in the throat with a lucky Geist decapitation. The next hob fell shortly after to a pair of heavy chops on its head after smashing through its spear.

Three hobs at once was the point where I started taking hits again even while the movement speed buff was active, forcing me to fight to finish to avoid taking too much damage. There were not yet enough enemies to warrant Lil using her multi-target attacks during these early rounds but she was still forced to use her three large ice spears to support Go in holding off the hobs on their side.

Between the main fighters Go was currently the lowest in level but now that his level had been climbing from the earlier goblins he was actually holding his own with relative ease. At the end of that wave, though, Go quickly retrieved a pair of swords from his inventory to fight with. His clubs were basically ruined as it was and the hobs were too fast for him to contain with a big and slow ax.

Contrary to this situation, Ivana had switched back to the Elder Bokuto to help relieve the pressure on Papi even though he was professionalizing the crippling of his enemies at this point. Even if he could be an ass or even narcissistic at times, it was impossible to deny that he was good. Especially without his assistance systems turned on.

As if to spite everything I thought about him in the third hobgoblin wave, in the fourth hobgoblin wave when twenty mobs were pushing at us Papi was yelling, "The numbers are getting too high! I can't knock them down anymore because there's too many together!"

Considering that Papi had to hold back ten enemies while Ivana tried to lay down suppressive strikes from my Elder Bokuto, I could understand how he was having trouble. I had warned Ivana to get a mixed range class instead of a pure archer, like a ranger or hunter of some sort who also used blades but she did not take me seriously. If she were playing alone with her skills and class, she would have probably died before her fifth goblin wave.

"We need the stronger tank to cover the weaker support," I say bluntly, disregarding how my words might make Ivana feel. "Tell you what, tomorrow after I finish my extended tutorial we'll set the entire day aside for working on our equipment. I'll cover the cost for using someone's leather shop and we'll upgrade all of our armor. Just DO NOT tap out!"

"DID I EVER SAY I WAS GOING TO TAP?!" Papi roars angrily, charging into the remaining hobs where he had more room to make fuller swings away from Ivana. After having steamrolled a couple of hobs to the ground, Papi was back in control of the situation.

Now that he was using a pair of weapons similar to his clubs but with higher damage Go was showing the true value of having a half-orc character early on with the brutal strength of his swings. Eventually he might unlock the orcish race's bloodline skill, Berserk, but for now he could only replicate with his own actions. It was almost beautiful.

Lil, on the other hand, was having the easiest time of all fighting back-to-back with a well armed imp warrior who was roughly equal in size to the hobs with a superior attack speed due to their racial differences. It did not hurt that a druid's familiar received passive buffs from belonging to a druid. Similar to how a summoner's summons are stronger than their wild counterparts.

Fighting five hobs by myself honestly reminded me of fighting ten goblins with their greater speeds and coordinated attacks. Blocking and evading was becoming easier even though the movement speed buff was gone but I still took a hit every time I landed one. It quickly became clear to me that I would need weapons just for situations like this with roughly the same attack as Fuller Haunting but with the same speed as the Elder Bokuto.

Lil started the sixth hobgoblin wave with a team healing and a hail storm of stones flying out of the ground and into the hobs as they pushed out of the tunnel. Instead of letting them divide between our three positions I rushed in while they were pelted by stones to try and keep them together. Two hobs died before the stones stopped and the rest converged on me.

Over twenty percent of my health dropped in an instant to three elder root spears that could not even pierce my armor. However, the others were following my example and moving in to launch large sweeping attacks that dragged damage across multiple targets. For Lil this was not as effective for her spear but she also had a familiar to clean up after her.

My health dropped below fifty percent for the second time that night before the fight ended and I was not the only one at such a low level. "First-Aid," I say quickly, reaching out to grab Go's shoulder and give him back fifteen percent of his health. Then, I decided it was time for a pep talk while slowly backing away.

"Eat! This one might really be it, guys, but we killed almost three hundred goblins between us and about a hundred hobs. In one event! How many players can lay claim to our achievements tonight? How many people can say they faced down hundreds before level twenty? How many players can say they stood before the gates of the goblin kingdom of hell and stood their ground?! THERE'S ONLY FIVE THAT I KNOW OF!"

"I'm not clipping that," Papi mutters as the hobs begin appearing in the tunnel and I could hear Sir Beryl once again laughing from the meadow. "If you want to embarrass yourself in front of the entire world, do it yourself so the rest of us won't look bad!"

I would have argued but I was busily chewing several sticks of meat while leaping into the goblins with a spinning slash of both outstretched swords. A pair of spears rammed into me from the side but I just let them push me into another spin as almost thirty HP drained from my bar. Luckily, these spinning attacks had a decent crowd control capability in landing blows across multiple targets.

[Congratulations, Life Hack, you have killed over a hundred enemies with spinning attacks]

[Acquired Title: Tasmanian]

[Acquired Skill: 360 Edge]

[Tasmanian: Generations ago there once existed a devastating mythical creature who could spin once and destroy a room. Now your spinning attacks replicate the devil's destruction with a passive +10% overall efficiency in spinning attacks]

"360 Edge!" I call out proudly, feeling the skill activate into a low crouching spin that whipped either sword out and around for a full circle without stopping no matter what was struck. Dark hobgoblin fluids splashed high into the air as I stood up, spinning back the other way by my own control to finish off two of the five goblins still smothering me.

My health was steadily dwindling down to thirty percent and there were still half of the enemies left but I had finally gotten my first attack skill and it came with a buffing title. Luckily I still had the other half of my last mouthful to eat and raise my health by a little more than twenty points. Sadly, even though Lil managed to get off a healing spell at the end of the wave we were all pretty banged up and worn out.

I decided to take responsibility and shouted out, "Sir Beryl!"

Suddenly, there was a hulking body wearing heavy plated mail armor standing in front of the entrance with a giant sword planted in the ground in front of him. "I'm here, Hack, you can rest easy."

[Elder Oak Passage: Cleared]

[Elder Oak Passage Clear Rating: C]

[Elder Oak Passage Clear Reward: +100XP]

[Elder Oak Passage Rating Reward: Recipe: Goblin Jerkin]

[+1500XP]

[Leveled Up]

[All stats raised by 1]

[Reclaimed Dusk Hunter's Arrow x5]

[Acquired Goblin Skin x18]

[Acquired Hobgoblin Skin x11]

[Acquired Goblin Ear x32]

[Acquired Hobgoblin Ear x17]

[Acquired Goblin Fang x42]

[Acquired Hobgoblin Fang x23]

[Acquired Goblin Claw x29]

[Acquired Hobgoblin Claw x21]

[Acquired Goblin Tendon x38]

[Acquired Hobgoblin Tendon x13]

[Acquired Goblin Core x9]

[Acquired Hobgoblin Core x5]

[Acquired Hobgoblin Warrior Ear x1]

[Acquired Hobgoblin Warrior Claw x3]

[Acquired Hobgoblin Warrior Tendon x1]

[Acquired Elder Root Club x2]

[Acquired Elder Root Spear x2]

[Acquired Gold x378]

[Awarded: Elder Warrior's Club]

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