They began running in the opposite direction of the goblins as fast as they could. Well, Lukart was running at his top speed but Winsor was moving a bit slower so that he doesn't leave him behind.
He also took this time to inspect the amulet that Miss Aiko had given him. The small necklace had a carved green gemstone in surrounded by metal pieces that held it in place.
There were small orange crystal shards in some places of the metal which Winsor guessed was the source of mana for the amulet. He didn't know how to activate it so he simply injected a miniscule amount of mana into the amulet as he run.
A soft green glow surrounded him for a moment before it focused on the wound on his left arm. The wound began rapidly closing and soon he felt no pain coming from it what so ever.
It was around this point that they noticed that a small group of goblins had began chasing them so they couldn't stop for any breaks. They tried taking different turns and meandering paths but they always found a goblin waiting in ambush or a simple dead end.
They kept on the original path they were running on as they hoped to outrun the goblins. The goblins that were chasing them were panting and sweating even though the forest dark forest air was cool from the night and mist.
They run for what felt like forever until they came upon another clearing in the forest. This was good for them since they would be able to fully swing their weapons when they weren't surrounded by trees.
As they broke through the tree line, a terrible stench of rot assaulted their noses. They skidded to a halt only to realize that they were completely surrounded.
'4, 6, 10, 17! … dang it! Why are they so many!' Winsor thought as he mind began racing on what to do.
Rooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrr
A guttural roar came from just beyond the trees in the direction they were facing. A large figure emerged from the behind the night covered forest.
It looked like a larger and stronger version of the ugly goblins that surrounded them. It had a rusted long sword in its arm and wore a piece of old cloth over its body. It was as tall as a fully grown man so it was absolutely enormous to the two you boys.
"A hobgoblin? We're dead, we're dead, we're dea-"
"Calm down! we still have weapons, s-so we should at least try to fight," Winsor quickly said as he too began to panic. He didn't know much about monsters in this world but he remembered the hobgoblins in the video games he played.
They were often the next step in evolution for ordinary goblins and were leaps and bounds ahead of them in strength and power. Only players that could easily take on groups of goblins would be able to fight toe to toe with a hobgoblin.
"Ok I'll take as many as I can, you take on the rest!" Winsor said suddenly before rushing towards a random direction. Lukart took a deep breath and charged in an opposite direction.
The hobgoblin stood in the rear watching the two boys panic after hearing its roar. It usually roared to make the prey freeze in fear and make them an easy target for the archers.
"Greak ack garuk" It said as it pointed to Winsor. The goblins that were around it all made grunting noises and run towards Winsor who had suddenly dashed of towards the edge of the clearing.
The hobgoblin then turned and began watching the ones that were now approaching Lukart who had also started to run in the opposite direction.
There were about 6 goblins chasing Winsor and 4 blocking his path meaning he had to take on 10 of 17 goblins.
Winsor of course noticed the goblins that were now running towards him from the back and silently cursed under his breath. He knew he couldn't take on 10 goblins so he began thinking of how to get out of this death sentence.
It didn't take Winsor long to reach the goblins that were blocking his path with his high agility stat and he suddenly pulled back his spear. Even though the idea he thought of could very easily back fire and lead him to dying faster, he carried it out anyway.
Winsor spun his spear in a wide arc at the goblins that were blocking his way once he got into range. Three of them managed to back up in time and luckily dodged the spear blade that came speeding at them in time. The fourth one wasn't as lucky as it got a deep cut on its chest and nearly died on the spot.
Since he had made such a big attack, it took him a few moments to recover his stance and the three goblins didn't miss this chance. All of them had stone swords so one immediately tried to slash at the vulnerable Winsor.
Winsor saw this attack coming and jumped backwards in reflex. He had not forgotten about the six goblins that were now almost upon him so he jumped backwards toward a tree. He hit himself pretty hard but it was better than being slashed by the dirty jagged stone blade the goblin swung.
The other two goblins took this chance to come at him from both sides thinking that they had trapped Winsor. He was now with his back to a tree and three goblins surrounding him.
He could chose to block any one of the two attacks coming from the sides but that meant that he would have to take the one he didn't block to his back.
Winsor took a deep breath to steel his resolve and instead of attacking one of the two goblins that were coming from the side, he thrust forward at the first one. The goblin didn't expect this and the spear blade run through its chest destroying its little heart in the process.
[Critical hit]
Winsor ignored the system message and flung the body of the now dead goblin at one of the two goblins with all his strength. The goblins with their low intelligence didn't expect him to attack the first one so when the dead body hit one of them, it got stunned for a moment.
This moment was all Winsor needed to turn and run. Usually, a person would press their advantage but Winsor had noticed the six other goblins had caught up. He didn't want to fight all 9 of them at once so he chose to run and tire them out.
He run towards the one he had slashed ealier. It was still recovering from the terrible wound as it picked its weapon up again. It didn't notice Winsor who was running at full speed and throwing a slash at the crouched goblin's neck.
His high speed coupled with the blade's sharpness beheaded the goblin in one motion even though it wasn't really smooth. Winsor spun the spear from the upward arc it was traveling and brought it down and backwards to face the goblins that were chasing him.
None of the goblins thought that he would stop so early so they couldn't stop immediately. The lead goblin decided that the best option was to turn the forward momentum into a jump and stab Winsor.
The second it was midair, Winsor thrust his spear straight at the airborne goblin spotting an opening. It was common knowledge back on earth to gamers that unless you had some flight ability, you were completely defenseless in the air.
The goblin basically impaled itself of the spear, broke its ribs and got stuck on the spear. This was bad for Winsor since he now had to remove the goblins dead body off of the spear before the other goblins arrived.
He tried kicking it off but he wasn't very successful so he decided to grab the stone sword that belonged to the barely alive goblin on his spear. He tightened his grip around the small roughly made handle and swung at the goblin on his spear.
It took him a few more hacks until he finally got the goblin of his spear. It wasn't pretty or pleasant to look at but it got the job done. The poor goblin died on the second swing, having to endure the torture of being slashed at and impaled at the same time.
The other 8 goblins that were chasing Winsor had caught up by this point, heavily panting and grunting angrily. Winsor again, begun running away, this time not as fast as before.
If anyone saw what he was doing, they would have realized he was kiting the goblins. Kiting was when players would run just out of the reach of monsters and attack the ones that got separated from the herd.
Winsor kept on stopping and striking the lead goblins with slashes and thrusts then continuing on with a short sprint. He did this several times till he had killed most of the goblins.
He stopped for the last time and turned around to look at the final two goblins. They had run after Winsor and had tired themselves out trying to catch him. Winsor, too was sweaty and was beginning to feel tired.
'Lets finish this' Winsor thought as he thrust the blade towards one of the last two battered goblins. They had cuts and wounds all over around their bodies from all the times Winsor had stopped suddenly and attacked them. They could barely react to when Winsor suddenly thrust at them.
The spear stabbed one of the goblins but it didn't kill it as it landed close to the leg. Winsor recovered the spear and tried to thrust again at the now crippled goblin. The other one decided to slash at him with his sword.
Winsor used his spear to block the attack instead of attacking the crippled goblin again in the middle of the attack. There wasn't much strength to the hit so Winsor was able to push the goblin back.
He spun the spear and thrust towards the first goblin again, this time killing it with a blow to the head.
[Critical hit]
The final goblin stood up and thrust its blade at Winsor. Winsor had again done a large strike so it took him a while to recover his spear as he was also becoming exhausted from the fight. He saw the attack a bit late due to this and chose to dodge instead.
He managed to avoid a fatal hit but the stone blade hit his side and cut through the leather armor he was wearing. It left a shallow cut which immediately began to bleed.
Despite the pain, Winsor spun his spear again and swing it downwards towards the head of the goblin. The attack landed on its head, crushing it and killing it with a disgusting squelch.
He was sweating and out of breath but he was happy that he somehow managed to kill 10 goblins. He was covered in blood and dirt, most of it being from the goblins but it was a much better outcome than he thought would happen if he pulled off his plan.
'Woah, I just killed 10 of them,' Winsor thought as he finally realized what he had just achieved. He cought his breath and placed his hand on the amulet that Miss Aiko had given him and injected a bit of mana into it again. A green glow had once again covered him and he could feel himself heal and ease from the tension and wounds.
He was celebrating internally as he looked at all final goblins he had killed when a pained scream awoke him from his fatigue. it sounded like a terrified wounded animal had let out its final scream just before being killed.
"Ahhhhhhhhh," it belonged to Lukart.
"No!" Winsor screamed before he started running back to where he left Lukart.