After a few minutes of walking Diedrich finally arrived at the place he had last seen humans, when he came there, an immediate thick stench of blood assaulted his nose, and what he saw in front of him horrified him even more, on the ground he saw around 50 people dead in a circle.
From the looks of it, they tried to defend themselves when the goblins suddenly appeared and had grouped up, however, they failed. The people who didn't have any weapons were mercilessly slaughtered with stab wounds and smashed body parts. Even dead they all had a looks of terror and horror on their now pale faces.
Diedrich felt nauseous, even though he had just seen a dead human, he felt like the situation in front of him was much worse, Diedrich didn't want to look at them and quickly walked past, deeper into the forest.
Nevertheless, the deeper he went into the forest the sicker he felt, everywhere he looked he saw dead bodies, occasionally he would see a dead goblin but that was rare while the number of human corpses had already surpassed at least a few hundred.
Diedrich didn't understand how this could have happened, goblins were not that strong a human could with little effort deal with a regular goblin so how had so many people died?
What Diedrich didn't know was that when people heard the notification of the trial most people didn't understand what kind of situation they were in and didn't arm themself, many people were also scared when they saw the ferocious-looking goblins coming their way and simply ran leaving them wide open to be easily killed.
What Diedrich also failed to realise was that the spear goblins which he had previously easily killed due to a sneak attack was actually a true monster, although they had about the same amount of strength as the warrior goblin they were much more agile running twice as fast making them easily sweep through crowds of people, stabbing them in their abdomens, and then going after the next prey.
Diedrich threw up, there was a disfigured body in front of him, all of the person's limbs were cut off and his or her face and body was so mutilated, with organs spilling out you couldn't tell whether it was male or female.
Diedrich leaned against a tree, staring blankly at the now star-filled sky
"I'm really lucky aren't I", He thought to himself out loud as he got up again, he was about to leave when he faintly heard some whispering
"hey do you think that's a human"
"Shut up bro, he might have heard you" another retorted quickly
Diedrich heard the whispers from the tree he was under and looked up, making out the vague shadows of two people. he hadn't noticed earlier due to the darkness and death around him.
Diedrich quickly yelled to them " Bro you can come down now the goblins went back to their lair"
The people in the tree exhaled in relief, it was a human, they thought he might have been a goblin due to the spear attached to his back, but now they were pretty sure that it was a human.
Diedrich waited for a while and heard someone coming down, the trees were pretty big, and looking at his position it would take a while. After the person came down, apparently a courageous-looking youth with brown hair, and saw Diedrich he revealed a smile and yelled: "Guy's it's safe to come down".
There was a bit of clamor in the trees, Diedrich heard a lot of rustling and he was surprised to know that there were more than two people in the tree, more like five, he was even more shocked to find out that there was also a lot of rustling in other trees.
The youth who came down first walked to Diedrich and said a bit apologetic, " Sorry bro we thought you might be a monster". Diedrich understood, everyone had been brought into this strange place with monsters and no one knew if there were monsters that could speak the human language.
Diedrich nodded in understanding, and soon 25 or so youths surrounded him and more were still coming. The people who came down the trees were all excited to be able to finally come down after an hour of sitting on branches. But when they reached the ground and saw all the death around them they all became quiet and some in the crowd started sobbing.
There came a depressive mood in the air and Diedrich knew how they felt. Diedrich asked the guy who looked brave before but was now dejected," Were their many goblins here".
The youth looked at Diedrich and thought that he was probably somewhere else when it all happened and didn't know the situation and responded, saying "A 100 or so Goblins suddenly attacked us we didn't know what the message about the trail meant, even though some people warned us we didn't take it seriously as we still didn't believe such things as monsters existed, and we were more preoccupied with finding out where we were. So when the goblins came it was a bloodbath".
Diedrich already thought something like that had happened and breathed out a long sigh.
Someone in the crowd noticed that the spear on Diedrich's back looked exactly like the goblins' spear and exclaimed "Did you kill a spear goblin!"
Many people scoffed at the person's words as they had seen the spear goblins up close and knew how monstrous they were and that no normal human could deal with them, nonetheless when they started looking at the spear on Diedrich's back, and perceived that it looked exactly the same they shut their mouth.
People also began inspecting Diedrich, and a commotion broke out in the crowd, as Diedrich looked pretty savage, in the dim moonlight with the blood of goblins covering his body, the spear attached to the back of his body by a beast skin, and 5 daggers he kept from the goblins he killed around on his waist in another beast skin.
Diedrich felt a bit embarrassed but still confirmed that he had killed the spear goblin. Even more of a commotion was made in the crowd as people started discussing it among themselves.
Diedrich thought it was quite funny how people could go from being in a depressed mood to a lively one, it was probably because they were all young, and were able to accept their situation and bounce back quicker from heavy situations, unlike adults.
The people in the crowd all looked at Diedrich with a bit of awe and respect. More and more people were gathering and the number soon reached more than a hundred and Diedrich thought it was a lot.
Although Diedrich didn't particularly want to help he felt that he should, so even though he found it slightly agonizing he firmed his resolve and said loudly, "People I know a place where you'll be safe or at least safer".
Diedrich then began explaining to the crowd that at the border of the forest, there were less goblins according to what he saw and said that he could bring people there, naturally everyone wanted to go.
Diedrich also shared with them the point system although they probably already knew that however what they didn't know was that if you got 10 points your body would be strengthened and he punched a nearby tree (hurting his hand again) to prove it to everyone.
The many men and women in the crowd went into an uproar at seeing the power Diedrich displayed, they had all played video games and reveled at the idea of becoming stronger like in games.
Diedrich also told them about the regular, and goblin warriors' weak spots, hoping that it would help them with defeating goblins. He told them things like how the regular goblins could be easily defeated with a good hit to the head by a firm branch, and that they were weaker than humans, about the warrior goblin he shared that it was very powerful, and that a direct hit could cause bones to be instantly broken but that they were slow.
A girl asked Diedrich about the spear goblin, however, Diedrich didn't know what its weak spot was and told them that he had only been able to kill it in a sneak attack.
Diedrich wanted to leave and bring the group to the border however he suspected that there were most likely still people in trees around the forest and asked " Could a group of 40 or so people stay here and look around for other people in this vicinity, after I have brought this group I will come back and bring you guys".
The group stayed quiet and an awkward atmosphere arose, although they mostly believed what Diedrich said was true, that all the goblins had retreated to their lair, they were however not certain, and why would they risk their life if they could follow someone to a safe place.
After a few seconds of silence, someone stepped forward, it was the brave-looking youth who Diedrich had seen first climbing down from the tree.
"My but hurts from sitting up there for an hour, what would happen if they sit there for the entire night, they'll probably get a rectal disorder, can't let that happen to pretty ladies" he said laughingly while walking out of the group, the entire group chuckled a bit at his horrendous joke and eventually 39 more people also volunteered to look for other people.
Diedrich felt relieved, walked over to the group of volunteers and distributed 3 of his 5 daggers to them, and asked the brave looking youth for his name, he said his name was George. Diedrich then told them that they should remember to take the daggers of the dead goblin's bodies they met underway and he sent the volunteer group on their way.
Diedrich then looked at the group he was going to lead first to the border and was surprised to find that there were still about 150 people, Diedrich then walked in the direction of the border and said "Let's go".
It took them about an hour to get there, Diedrich would have been able to go there faster on his own, however, there was a large group following him so he had to slow down considerably.
Along the way, nothing eventful happened and they just passed through woods, they did manage to pick up 5 extra goblin daggers from dead goblins they saw on the ground, the rule was finders keepers so whoever got it first got to keep it, no one had a problem with it.
When they arrived, Diedrich had already told them the intricacies of how the dome/barrier worked, however, some people still tried to walk to the open plains outside of the forest and were bounced back, which made for quite a funny show.
Diedrich then told them that he would go back and bring the other group, and ran to where he left the volunteer group.