Another group of humans appeared before us. They were three of them. Two women and a single man. The man had beads of red hair and an energetic face. He is about seventeen, judging from his youthful appearance and hyperactive character.
While the girl with short, violet hair was also in her teens. She had a poker face and an overbearing demeanor like she was cut above the rest. And based on how her lips and eyelid twitched at the mud and dirt on the ground, checking her boots too often than not, I would judge that she came from a rich family.
The last one was a woman with long straight black hair raised in a tight ponytail who had a no-nonsense face. She looked like a strict secretary, and she was probably the big sister in the group.
"Oh, look! Two goblins! Lucky!" the red hair youth said, and before anyone could react, he engaged the two goblins.
"Hoi! Rofred! Don't just do things without thinking!" the woman with black hair shouted.
While the overbearing girl stayed at the back with her wand in hand.
However, everyone was stunned, including me, when Rofred slashed the two goblins with ease. He also parried the goblin's club with his sword and punched its face.
"Ha! Take that!"
Rofred was immensely enjoying himself, and not before long, he totality massacred the two goblins.
"Hey, you two. These goblins are pretty weak! I only needed to kill three more, and my quest would be complete! I think even Ruka could defeat them with just a whack of her wand."
"AND what do you mean by that? Are you saying that I'm weak?" Ruka asked, annoyed.
"Stop it, you two. These are only two goblins. We need more to complete each of our letter quests and get the hell––ahem, I mean get out of here."
While the three argued, I was looking at the cave without blinking.
. . .
. . .
A minute passed, but nothing came out of the cave like had anticipated.
"Huh?" with the commotion and Rofred's loudmouth, I was so sure that something inside the cave would get attracted by the noise and come out.
Was it my mistake?
I looked over at Luke and Jane when I felt their annoyance radiating out from their piercing glares.
Jane was understandable since I had endangered her life once. But Luke . . . ever since he asked about my [Teleportation] skill and couldn't get anything out from me, he had been turning into another Jane.
"Great. Because of your indecisiveness, those two goblins were stolen right under our noses," Jane said, displeased.
I couldn't say anything to that.
Soarsie took my side, and I appreciated her gesture.
"Relax your tits. Those goblins will respawn in a couple of hours. What are you so edgy about?"
"Wha––!" Jane's face was red in embarrassment. Soarsie could really talk like a hooligan if she wanted to.
Apparently, Soarsie was also getting annoyed.
I was happy that she was angry on my behalf, but I really didn't want her to make an enemy out of Jane. She was our only healer in the group, so her position was important. I would be bothered if Jane wouldn't heal Soarsie because of me.
I was about to stop Soarsie when Luke sighed.
"Enough. Now that we know that those goblins are nothing but weak and Jane can probably kill them with her staff, we should enter that cave now. Least we want the others to steal all the goblins for themselves and wait for hours again for their respawn."
I wanted to stop Luke, but he already stood to his feet while Jane followed right behind him. But not before she batted her eyelid at us.
Those group of three before also went inside the cave, and it was only me and Soarsie left in the bushes.
"What now?" Soarsie asked, worried.
I felt that her mood was plummeting by the second. And even though it wasn't apparent on her face, I knew she was pissed at me too.
I could understand.
Because of my indecisiveness, we lost those two kills. And not only that, because we spent too much time planning, as per my suggestion, the other group took ahead of us, and they probably already cleared the goblins near the entrance. That would leave us to explore deeper into the cave, which compromised our safety.
Adding more salt to the injury, her relationship with Jane also took a hit because of me.
". . ." I sighed to myself. I guess I was more of a piece of baggage to her at this rate. I was like the jinx in the group.
If only I just shut my mouth tight.
Or better yet . . . I wish I didn't go and join them in the first place.
Maybe she was well off without me.
Shut up! Allow me to wallow in self-pity and procrastinate in peace, please.
I shot an apologetic smile at Soarsie. "Let's go."
There was no point in saying sorry. She'd just get more annoyed that I wasted more time and acted less like a man and more of an indecisive wimp.
Soarsie nodded, and we both ran after Luke and Jane. Before I entered, I picked up a thick branch on the side just to make sure that we had some kind of light inside later.
However, my worry wasn't necessary since the cave was illuminated with a line of torches on the wall.
I released an audible breath . . . was I worrying too much?
< . . . >
As we walked inside the cave's straightforward path, I noticed that it was kinda . . . cramp.
Understandable since the goblins were small.
But fighting with a sword in this place would be a challenge. I thought as I stared at Luke's sword in his hand.
I was sure that he noticed that, too, as his face was sweating a little.
There were also parts of stones that decayed and crumbled, leaving fragments scattered on the stone floor. There were also scrabbling noises of something small scurrying into a hole in the wall.
I think I heard the faint sounds of stone tapping on stone and metal clashing against metal and smelled burning flesh.
Was the group before us already engaged the goblins?
"Great. Because of a certain someone, the hordes of goblins that should have been ours were gone," mumbled Jane to the side, making sure that her voice was heard even all to the way back of the cave.
". . ."
I felt the mood was worsening as no goblin was barging our path. Did those groups defeated every last one already?
"Will you please put a rest on it already?" Soarsie sighed in the ceiling. "It's not like those goblins wouldn't respawn. Worse case is that, we'll just wait for hours for their respawn time."
Jane rolled her eyes. "If you want to wait for hours in this murky stinky place, then be my guess."
Soarsie's forehead wrinkled, and Luke had to step in again. He faced the two bickering women and put a stop to their quarreling.
"Concentrate you two and keep your eyes peeled on your surroundings. We don't know when an attack might occur, and we needed all eyes around us."
Luke was lecturing Soarsie and Jane, but my attention was stolen deeper in the cave. About twenty meters from where we stopped, something . . . or someone was crawling out.
"H-help . . ."