The goblin legion rushed at their fullest capabilities. Iac following along with the southern positioned goblins, yelled his heart out and charged. The driver got out of the truck and retreated to the back of the truck to face the oncoming hoard. 5 slayers leaped from the truck and surrounded the back with the driver. The slayers had fierce expressions as they readied their weapons. The goblin legion had no intention of stopping and so they pushed forward without any fear. Out of the slayers that appeared 3 wielded staffs 1 wielded a sword and shield and the final person held a spear. It looked a bit uneven as a team composition to Alan. Normally you try your hardest to have a balanced team with an even amount of tanks as you do spell casters. It's unknown to Alan right away what almost all of their jobs are. But by one of the spell casters clothing he could tell they were a healer. It was essential to have them in a party so their existence didn't come to a surprise to Alan. What did surprise Alan was the tank's actions at the start of the battle. The tank raised his sword to the sky and roared.
"OOORRRAAAAAAAHHHHH!!"
An aura shot out from him and consumed the goblin legion.... but nothing happened. None of the goblins looked hurt in any way. Alan was confused, he assumed that the tank was trying to buff his party members. But the aura traveled to the goblins instead. The tank moved himself to the front of the group and then held his shield forward. The tank then chanted another skill. "Guardian shield!" A large, golden, luminescent shield appeared in front of him. Hundreds of goblins charged at him. They threw themselves against his shield. The legion looked like mindless zombies hellbent on destroying him. It seems the tank used an aggro skill. Its a mainstay skill for almost all tank jobs so there shouldn't be anything strange there. But the skill used afterwards 'Guardian shield' caught Alan off guard. That was only a skill that the paladin job could use. Iac was in trouble if that was the case. Paladins were known for being the ultimate solo tank for high damage dealing parties.
As soon as Iac ran at the shield in anger due to the aggro. Alan tried his hardest to tell him to fall back. It felt like Alan was talking to a brick wall. Nothing he said or did could change the direction in which Iac was running. The spear wielder took a wide swing and cut through 30 goblins, turning them to dust. Then swinging his spear into a downward slash mowing down another 10. This was nuts! Goblin after goblin death after death. Iac kept pushing forward into the meat grinder that was that party. The spell casters started to use large area of effect spells wiping almost half of the group. The goblin legion never stood a chance against these slayers. Alan considered the thought if this was how his life in the tower would end. By the hands of a slayer. Something that Alan despised with all his heart.
'I'm not going down here! Wake up you stupid goblin we need to escape!' Alan yelled at Iac with all his heart.
[Your synchronization rate has increased by 5.7%]
A message appeared but Alan didn't have time to pay attention to it. Iac was was right in front of the guardian shield. The spear wielder activated a skill called lightning thrust and got into a charged position. Within 2 seconds that Alan had before Iac's body would be obliterated, Alan in a panic ordered Iac to move. 'Jump! escape! dodge! leap! Just don't die please!' Iac's face twitched in irritation. Then... he jumped. Just barely dodging the attack, Iac flew backwards from the force of the thrust. The spear tip created a sonic boom that made surrounding goblins get blasted back. Landing on his face Iac looked around confused. He swore he heard a voice echoing through his head just a second ago.
One of the magicians cast a fire vortex spell wiping out even more goblins. The guardian shield had worn off and left the tank vulnerable. It was the perfect time for Iac to strike when the spear wielded was distracted by the rest of the goblin legion. He felt something pulling him though. A desire of some kind other than greed. It was strong and kept his greedy nature in check. Iac didn't understand what had just happened to him because it happened inside head. But he knew something was wrong with him, he just didn't know it yet. Inside Iac's head at this very moment Alan was telling him to run. To escape the inevitable death in front of him. To find peace in anything other than thievery. Alan was scared. He had forgotten the true power that lies behind a slayer. His distrust and disdain of them lead to looking down on their power. He had forgotten truly what it meant to be a slayer.
'First the Hobgoblin king and now low level slayers. How many more times am I going to look down on someone before thinking of what their true power really was?' Alan thought out loud. Iac started to feel a sense of regret in his soul. Like he shouldn't have been here in the first place. 'But doesn't everyone go if there is a raid?' Iac thought. But the more and more he thought about it he realized how little the amount of hobgoblins there were on the raid. It was like the normal goblins had a purpose in the raid and the hobgoblins used them. He felt wrong like his instincts were lying to him about what was actually true. Iac looked between his fellow family members being slaughtered and felt weak. He wanted to help them but felt something holding him back.
Alan wanted to run. The tower was always his biggest fear. But the very people that were set out to fight against the tower were now trying to kill him ruthlessly. He couldn't bear the thought pf fighting them. He needed to be stronger, to save both himself and his brother. What would be the point in dying pointlessly when Finn was still here in the tower. Iac responded to Alan's emotions and slowly backed away from the battle. A hand landed on Iac's shoulder, a hobgoblin that was also not taking part in the battle. He looked at Iac with confusion and asked why he wasn't fighting for gold and glory. But Iac responded with shaking his head and taking another step back. The hobgoblin couldn't believe his eyes. He thought he was looking at a different monster right now. Walking over to he hobgoblin warrior that leaded the goblin legion he whispered something into his ear. The leader nodded and started to leave with the rest of the hobgoblins, leaving the goblin legion to perish. Iac considered the thought to join them. But the feeling in his heart to run away never disappeared.
So Iac made the decision to escape on his own. Running towards the forest, abandoning the goblin legion and the hobgoblin troops. He looked back in regret as he went deeper into the forest. But all he saw was the corpses of his family. It pained his heart to keep moving forward but there was no choice. With the hobgoblin's retreat Iac had no way to survive an encounter with those slayers. Fading into the depths of the forest, Iac promised to return with strength.
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"Hey Vance, were gonna wrap up the magic cores do you mind helping us over here?" A petite girl in priestly clothes spoke to Vance their front line damage dealer. Vance was resting on a rock and cleaning blood of his spear while the rest of the party was removing the magic stones from the goblin corpses. His disinterest showed when he turned away from Edyrem when she asked for his help. They had all been party members for the past 2 years and were all well aware of how arrogant Vance was. He was the most effective party member, dealing with monsters like it was no ones business. But it still didn't change how annoying it was to have him around after the fight. His laziness showed only when they had a menial task to complete. It was all about fighting and enjoying the thrill of battle for Vance.
"Can't you do that stuff yourself? I'm currently cleaning my weapon right now. If you're having trouble completing a task like that then just ask the driver to give you a hand." Vance looked back just for a moment to respond to Edyrem. Kale their paladin, realized that they weren't going to get anywhere talking to Vance like this so he decided to change the subject. He picked up another magic stone and then walked over to Vance and put his hand on his shoulder.
"There sure was a lot of goblins in that battle we just faced. I think it was an entire camp that just tried to raid us there... What do you think Vance?" Kale looked down to Vance to listen for his response. Vance stood up and took a look around the area at the amount of copses on the ground.
He pondered something for a few seconds before responding to Kale. "The amount of goblins here exceeds the amount that's normally in a camp. It might have been a legion that just attacked us." Kale was surprised "A legion? That puny group? That was mostly just filled with goblins. Don't all goblin legion's have at least 5 or more hobgoblins that lead the rest of the group?"
Kale wasn't sure why Vance would even think this group could be something as absurd as a goblin legion. When a legion appears it causes chaos among merchants and low level slayers. It forces the higher up officials in the tower to commit themselves to send a team of high level slayers down to the lowest floors for extermination. Goblins form an army around the size of a legion around every 3 years. Overtime as slayers got more used to the cycle they would send a party down, kill the legion and collect the magic stones, equipment, and any leftover treasures the goblins may have had. Then they return it to the slayers association at the 79th floor in the tower.
"The hobgoblins retreated when we had already gathered the enemy's aggro. It seems like they planned this beforehand or just did it on pure instinct. You just didn't notice their retreat because you were too busy with hundreds of goblins trying to kill you." Vance said cynically. Kale knew where this would go if he tired retorting so he just agreed with Vance. "But even if this group was a goblin legion you would have no problem defeating them right?" Edyrem asked.
Vance looked down. "Well... I noticed something strange about this group."
"...Strange?" Both Kale and Edyrem asked.
"Hey Kale, your lion's roar skill doesn't end early unless they are a floor boss right?" Vance turned his head towards Kale. "Well no it doesn't. At least it's never happened before." Kale answered honestly.
"A goblin... just one of them. It lost it's aggro, jumping over my lighting thrust... and unlike every other goblin that we killed today... I'm pretty sure it ran away." Vance gripped his spear tightly. The rest of the party was shocked to hear this. When an aggro was activated it meant that the monsters must always attack whichever person activated the aggro. There only limiting factor on an aggro was its decreased effective time and range on floor bosses.
"I think we may have an elite monster on our hands here." Kale added. Everyone started to sweat at the thought of an elite monster appearing. The driver walked over and asked Kale "What's so dangerous about an elite monster?" Vance looked over to the driver and laughed "Huh you don't know? Hahaha, well to keep it simple... it's an extremely strong monster with an ego that outshines other monsters. That in itself isn't the real issue though. The main issue with elites is that when they appear they could become as strong or even stronger than a floor boss. But unlike a world boss that is limited by the boss room its locked away in. An elite can travel through floors of the tower like it was a slayer."
"That does sound terrifying. H-how are they normally... defeated?" The driver asked shaking. Vance replied determined. "Like all monster anomalies, slayed by the best of the best." Vance then got up and wrapped his spear back up in leather. "Lets go we don't have a lot of time before that goblin gains a ego. We have to go warn the guild on the 8th floor about what we've found down here."
"Right!" Everyone says.