He continued to observe the adventurers as they made their way to the forest towards the dungeon. They seemed to be engaging in light conversation along the way, as evidenced by the light echoes of laughter that rang out at times, however Vakt was too far away from the group for Elroy to hear anything. They seemed high-spirited and not at all worried.
As they continued to approach the dungeon, the rogue would at times examine part of the ground. This culminated when, in the clearing before the entrance to the dungeon, the rogue once again looked at the ground before quickly calling for the group to stop.
Fortunately for Elroy, they were now close enough to the dungeon for him to overhear their conversation.
"What's going Arthur, you've been acting all weird since we arrived in this forest. Don't tell you're scared of some goblins!" playfully said the warrior to the rogue.
"Sorry for not rushing in blindly like you do, Max, but it's just that I've been seeing some strange tracks around the forest. And here they are once again!"
As he said so, the rogue pointed to what looked like oversized wolf tracks.
"By the Gods, you're right!" gasped the mage, which turned out to be a woman, before turning pale "The Guild didn't mention anything in this forest that could make such tracks."
"Not to mention, but there also a lot of small tracks all around this clearing which seem to come from the dungeon", the rogue continued, pointing at different places in examples "Something very unusual seems to be happening around here, it would be better for us to go back."
"And spend two days total with absolutely nothing to show for it! You know I won't accept that" replied the warrior, "What do you mean by something unusual is happening, why won't you just admit you're just making excuses to chicken out!"
Slightly offended, the rogue raised his voice.
"Damned blockhead, why do you always have to be like this!"
Elroy could only watch speechlessly as the group continued to argue. Although the rogue was making some sensible points, and the mage seemed to agree with him, the latter was simply too submissive to take a stand against the warrior. Finally, after the warrior won over the swordsman by saying he would be able to cut down some goblins, a deranged look appearing in the eyes of the swordsman, the rogue could only relent and agree to come with them if they promised to be extra careful. Of course, the warrior beamed a smile and promised as much.
As they were preparing themselves to dive into the dungeon, Elroy instructed the hobgoblins and Orkan to remain behind as the only the goblins would participate in the encounter to come. He also set some ground rules for the goblins, that they were not allowed to kill the humans, although some wounds would be inevitable in order to make them retreat.
Then the adventurers started to go down the entrance tunnel. Unlike the first two adventurers who had graced the dungeon with their presence, who had gone methodically through the tunnel, these ones seemed almost as if they were on a field trip.
The warrior was boisterously cracking jokes while taking the front, while the rogue was standing a bit crisped behind him. The mage on the other hand was tending towards the opposite, paler by the second, she seemed as though she was about to faint any second now.
'Damn it, this guy gives me the creeps' though Elroy as he eyed the swordsman. This one was having a deranged smile come to his face every few seconds as he lightly waved his sword.
'It's as though he's already fighting with goblins in his head.'
'Why do I feel as if everything that can go wrong will do so…'
Elroy thought it would it would for the best to tentatively send a lone goblin at first, before he opened the floodgates and set loose his twenty goblins.
As the goblin entered the group's view, his hopes were raised a bit more as the adventurers seemed to gather their wits and entered a combat stance. However, his hopes were soon to plummet.
'Ah! Are seriously shooting while closing your eyes!?'
'What's with all the shaking, are you sure you can even aim this fireball!? Quickly, duck!!'
'Can you hold your shield properly; you are barely defending your vitals! Do you even know how to use a sword?!'
'Come on, it's already dead, stop slashing at the poor thing for heaven's sake!!'
If he could, Elroy was sure he'd be profusely sweating at about this time. Although they had managed to vanquish the goblin, these adventurers were absolutely horrendous, simply incomparable to the others he had seen. The warrior apparently didn't know how to use a shield, the rogue was afraid of his bow as well as the sound it made when releasing an arrow, while the mage was scared to death. Last but not least, the swordsman was an absolute psycho as he almost butchered the dead goblin.
'At this rate, I would be surprised if they do not kill each other at the next encounter.'
Assessing that five goblins would likely make them retreat immediately without a fight, Elroy sent forth exactly this amount. Rather than retreating, the adventurers stood their ground, a fact which induced chills throughout Elroy.
For a while everything was going as fine as it could. The adventurers were having a tough time contending with the goblins and it looked as if the warrior was about to give up and call for a retreat. A few arrows were at times flying by the warrior's head, and fireballs were impacting about everywhere besides the targets as the mage was still shaking. However, Elroy was glad that nobody had died in spite of it!
Things took a change as a goblin managed to land a hit on the swordsman's arm. Seeing the blood seeping out, he let out an inhuman screech.
"Blood! Blood! I'm bleeding, I'm going to die!"
It seemed the psycho that he was, was overly scared of his own death despite his excitement over killing a goblin earlier. He then proceeded to drop his bastard sword and start to run back to the entrance of the dungeon. As he was passing by, he pushed the rogue out of his way, knocking him down. The rogue fell flat on his bow, snapping it under his weight.
"Retreat!" exclaimed the warrior as he received a wound from a goblin to his left leg, affecting his movements. Eying the mage, still paralyzed at the sudden turn of events, a ruthless look made it to his eyes. The rogue nodded, before shaking the mage to get her to start moving.
As the three started to run, the goblins chasing closely after them, snarling all the while. To the rogue's horror the warrior tripped the mage, letting her fall to the ground before running as fast as he could despite his wound. In despair, he could only watch her fall as he continued to run while the goblins stopped over her.
The goblins did not need to do anything, for the poor mage fainted all on her own after screaming in fright, seemingly having had enough.
As soon as they emerged from the dungeon, Arthur grabbed the warrior's collar as he got into his face.
"God damn it, what did you do Maxwell!"
"You know perfectly what I did, Arthur. You only need to run faster than the slowest of your group after-all" he replied, smirking before shoving the rogue back. "If you're so capable, why don't you go in and save her by yourself!"
He started to walk off.
"I won't let you get away with this, everyone will know what you did!"
"Sure, do whatever you want. It's not as if there is nowhere else to go besides Heimdell" – Maxwell laughed a bit before continuing – "You should hurry up and get help before she dies or something even worse happens to her."
At this statement, Elroy felt as though his eyes widened. He sent out a command to the nearby Vakt, who had been watching over the two from within the woods.
'Vakt. I want you to nail the coward, make him suffer.'
Arthur continued to curse all the gods that came to his mind, before finally leaving, running to town to get the help he was unable to provide.
"Please hold on Irene, I'll be back with help. Please hold on…" he said, eyes becoming cloudy.
[…]
Maxwell was walking calmly through the forest, softly whistling a tune at times. He had no remorse. Was it an unpleasant thing to do? Of course. Did he want to live? Much more. The decision didn't even require contemplation.
'Where should I go next, Heimdell is obviously-'
His train of thought was cut short by a soft whistle, not unlike what he was previously doing. It was immediately followed by a great pain in his leg as he could now see an arrow vibrating not far in front. Evidently, it had gone straight through him.
Almost falling to the ground, he could barely get himself to cover behind a tree. From how the arrow was planted into the ground, he had deduced the probable position of the shooter. A bead of sweat rolling down his forehead, he tentatively peeked beyond the tree. To his dismay, he couldn't see anyone.
"Arthur, is that you? Shouldn't you be getting help for the poor Irene?"
He winced at the pain.
'No that's not quite right, his bow broke', he thought, getting back behind the tree.
He soon saw a figure rapidly make its way to the front of his field of vision before stopping. Chills made their way through his spine as he could see a green figure holding a longbow atop what resembled a giant wolf.
The devil notched another arrow, letting it soon fly on its merciless path. Although Maxwell pathetically attempted to dodge, it was to no use as he was nailed in place to the tree. Even before the red fletching had stopped to vibrate, the creature had dismounted and taken a few steps forwards, notching another arrow. It let it fly, this one burrowing its nail into his shoulder.
As he was pinned to the tree, the creature shot an arrow every few steps. Soon, it stood a few meters away and Maxwell resembled the back of a porcupine. Remarkably, or rather unfortunately, he was still barely alive, the nail-like arrows having not caused much internal bleeding. As he was choking on his blood in despair, the devil notched one last arrow, its three blades gleaming in the setting sun.
Seemingly acknowledging orders from an unseen being, it shot this last arrow straight through his throat before watching him bleed out.
As the adventurer faded into oblivion, a large burst of Essence enveloped the being, baptizing it with greater strength. This amount of Essence, was almost comparable to the mysterious bear.