The monstrosity fixated its small black eyes on Elo's group.
When their eyes met, Elo subconsciously took a step back. Its eyes expressed pure hatred.
He knew that he was no match for this colossal gnome. Its body consisted only of muscles and fat, and it was one head taller than even Gorden, who was the tallest in their group.
As Elo took another step back to not get in the way, his comrades both bashed forwards to get to the gnome as fast as possible.
When the gnome realized what its enemies were doing, it raised both fists over its head and let them crash down on its opponents. Luckily the gnome was very slow. Otherwise, it would have killed them both on the spot.
As the gnome realized that it hadn't been able to kill the annoying humans, it concentrated on the one that looked stronger, which was, of course, Gorden.
When the gnome tried to hit Gorden with its big fists, Lara struck it from behind with a big club that had appeared out of thin air.
As it's balance was disturbed, Gorden had no problem dodging. He struck her arm with his stone knife and jumped back just in time to prevent being hit by the gnomes next punch.
While the gnome was focusing on Gorden, Lara kept hitting its neck and head from behind with her club.
Everything seemed to go well until suddenly, the gnome turned around.
Lara was so shocked that she could not even move an inch. She had no fighting experience, so when the gnome struck at her, she did nothing to stop the blow.
She flew about 2m (6' 7") until she hit the ground. It seemed like she was unconscious or worse because she had stopped moving instantaneously.
The gnome turned around once more to devote himself to Gorden. He had started cutting deep wounds in the monster's back, the moment it turned away from him.
But because of that, Gorden now was too close to dodge the goblin's next attack. He protected his stomach and face with his arms just before the attack could hit him, but that wasn't enough.
He moaned as he landed near Elo.
-"God dammed, I can't fight this thing all on my own. I don't like it, but I think I will have to leave my companions to their fate."-
When Elo was about to run away, a stranger suddenly appeared on the edge of the clearing.
As the petite woman sprinted towards the gnome, a big club suddenly appeared in her hands.
When she was near the gnome, she jumped and hit it from above with a savage swing.
The gnome still looked at Elo when he fell on his knees.
Elo already thought it was over when the gnome slowly got up again. But the woman just stood there and let it happen. Even though her face was filled with surprise and fear, she did not even move an inch.
In a panic, Elo grabbed Gorden's knife, but he was too far away. The monstrosity reached out with its fist and Elo could already see the stranger's broken body in his head, when the girl was pushed away by someone in the last second.
The young woman was not hit, but her rescuer was. The gnome's fist struck his head; you could hear a loud crash. The blow had broken his neck, and when he hit the ground, he was already dead.
When Elo reached the gnome, it was still facing the newcomers. Therefore it was easy for him to get close enough to the beast to slit it's back with the knife.
"High Forest Gnome (hard) has been defeated.
The resources are transferred to the leader of the team."
"You resaved:
- big gnome bone (rare)
-1 soul gem (rare)
From the inventory:
-3 soul stones (rare)
-3 sheep meat"
The moment Elo got the notification, the girl started moving again. She ran straight to her rescuer, but there was nothing she could do.
She sat in front of him and started crying silently.
-"If she wants to speak to me, she will come. I have to take care of my companions first. I hope nobody has died yet."-
He ran over to Lara first, because she seemed to be injured the most.
He kneeled in front of her and gently touched her belly. Suddenly a screen popped out in front of him.
"Laura (teammate) is badly injured. Do you want to heal her? It will take 10 minutes."
-"Will she be all right again after I heal her? Well I don't know, and I don't have the time to ask somebody, she could most likely die any minute from now. Yes, I want to heal her."-
"Lara will be healed by you. This could take a couple of minutes; please wait.
Elo's hand radiated a faint green light.
-"I hope Gorden will be ok until I am can help him."-
**
Once Lara was healed, the system told Elo that she had to sleep for 24 hours to replenish her energies. As soon as Elo was done with her, he ran over to Gorden to heal him too.
Thankfully it wasn't too late. Elo would have hated to lose one of his followers already.
Gorden only needed 6 minutes of treatment and didn't need to sleep at all. As soon as he was healed, he jumped up and looked for the gnome.
He only calmed down when Elo told him that the gnome was dead, and Lara still alive.
-"I thought he didn't care about her during the fight, but it seems like he was just setting priorities."-
"We will need a small hut or something similar for Lara to sleep in. Do you know…"
"Small forest hut:
A small hut to keep everybody warm, dry, and happy.
Resources needed:
-300 sticks
-10 small tree trunks
0/100 (every assigned worker will add one point to the structure every minute, max. 5 workers)"
"Wow, this is crazy; it seems like this system can almost do anything."
Gorden looked at Elo with a big grin.
"Yes, it's pretty great, but that's not that imported right now. We have to go and collect sticks."
Elo was a little amused by his teammate's childish joy.
That was when they suddenly heard a weak voice.
"Can I help?"
The woman seemed to be quite depressed.
"And who exactly are you?"
When the girl didn't say anything, Elo felt the urge to help her.
"She is our rescuer; without her, we all would have died."
Now that Elo was able to take a proper look at her, he realized that she was quite cute. Her brown, round face accentuated her big green eyes, and she even had a relatively good figure.
"You can come with me, we'll be searching for sticks. But bevor we do that, we'll need to sleep."