The circle had a radius of almost 30 meters and the supplies in the middle were stacked on top of each other reaching a height of almost two meters.
Even with the abundance of supplies in front of them, nobody dared to approach them for fear that it was a trap and that they would become the second Peter.
After a while, Connor began to slowly walk forwards toward the circle in the center. The ambush that everyone expected did not happen and Connor was standing there completely fine.
Connor took then a quick look back at the group before picking up a cooking utensil from the lump of supplies. He inspected it for a moment before throwing it in the direction of the group.
As the cooking utensil passed by the white line marking the outer reaches of the circle, it suddenly disappeared and appeared again on the top of the supplies.
After looking around the circle for a moment Connor said "We will set up camp here". He then proceeded to point at Alan and James and said "Help me set up the tents".
Alan felt a little wrong as it seemed like a hierarchy had been built and he felt that Connor was not someone who should be in charge, but he did not voice his concerns and followed his orders.
After that, Connor looked at the remaining people in the group and called out "Barry, Tom, Jhon, Lucas Elise, come help us set up the rest of the camp".
Alan knew that the people that Connor called now were people that he had known for a long time and trusted, making Alan feel a little nervous.
Now it was only five people left in the group outside of the circle.
Seeing the remaining group Connor seemed to have fallen into deep thought for a moment before deciding. He then simply stated, "You will watch over the entrances".
When Alan heard this he immediately tightened his fist and showed clear displeasure, but he didn't act upon it as he did not know of the dangers that lurked in the dark, and group discord would only amplify these dangers.
Connor had sent the five people to the entrances to act as an "alarm system". In the case of more of those creatures coming out of one of those entrances then they would alert the rest of the group to kill those creatures.
The problem was that the five people were spread over fifteen entrances. What was most likely to happen was that one person would have a creature kill them from behind which would send out a system notification that would alert the rest of the group which was most likely the reason Connor had come to this decision.
The group immediately understood Connor's plan, but they did not voice their concerns. Connor right now has eight people on his side and they were only five. They would have a bigger chance of surviving if they acted like the "alarm system" as only one of them would die.
Seeing that no one refused his orders a smile crept up on Connor's face as he silently stared at the group of five who went to the edges of the hall.
"Let's begin then" Connor said as he picked the tents out of the mountain of supplies. He gave one to Alan and one to James who each began setting up their tent.
The tents were large, each one seemed to be able to fit at least five people.
The group then began with the task that they were assigned for a while.
When Alan was almost finished setting up his tent he suddenly got a notification.
[Number of participants: 12]
Seeing the notification he quickly picked up his spear and looked around him. He saw that in one of the corners, someone was laying on the ground face first with a growing puddle of blood under him.
Behind the corpse stood four of the small green figures, all of which wielded a sharp stone dagger and had the same small stature as the former creatures.
Alan was not the only one who saw this as Connor, James, and the five others quickly began approaching the creatures.
The first one to act was Connor who began by leaping toward the goblin that was the closest to the corpse slashing in a downward direction in an attempt to cut off the creature's arm but failed and instead got his sword stuck in the middle of its shoulder.
Seeing this Alan also went forward and thrust his spear into the stomach of the nearest goblin. Then he used a quick backward thrust to get the spear out of the goblin leaving a hole behind in its former position.
He then proceeded with swinging his spear in the direction of one of the other goblins, getting his spear stuck in its throat in the process, killing it.
While Alan was preoccupied with this goblin another one leaped toward him but was intercepted by James who swung his morning and into its face.
The goblin was swung back like a ragdoll landing hard with his back on the stone floor. Seeing this Tom quickly approached the wounded goblin and used a short sword to slit its throat, killing it.
Alan then looked around to see Connor in the middle of killing the last goblin. Connor slashed his sword horizontally into the stomach of the goblin, killing it.
Just after all the goblins were killed the translucent window popped up for everyone again.
[Congratulations on surviving 1/3 waves:
Rewards: Physical strengthening proportionate to contribution]
As Alan read the notification he began feeling an incredible itch over his entire body which slowly evolved into a pain. It felt as if thousands of ants were biting every inch of skin leaving nothing untouched.
After almost a minute of excruciating pain, it began to slowly fade away leaving him filled with energy. As he stood up it felt as if his body had as light as a feather.
Feeling better he looked up and saw the remains of the battle and what the others were doing. Tom was going around stabbing all of the corpses with a short sword to make sure they were dead so that it would not be another Peter situation while Elise was tending to a wound that Lucas had gotten during the fight.
Then he turned to see Connor who seemed to have gone through a similar situation to his own and seemed to have a better understanding of the effects. He then sat still for a moment debating something before standing up and approaching the group of four that he had been chosen to be "alarms".
"From this point on you are not allowed to kill any goblins, if you kill one I will make sure you end up dead myself," Connor said coldly to the group of four.
This completely infuriated Alan he now understood Connor's view on human life and he knew why he did so. Connor wanted to stop them from becoming stronger so that he could continue using them as an "alarm system" without them being able to get stronger and have the ability to threaten him.
This time Alan decided to act upon this anger and he slowly began approaching Connor. Alan stopped just two meters away from Connor staring him coldly in the eyes and said "Have you lost any regard for human life".
Connor seemed unfazed by this statement and signaled for Barry, Tom, Jhon, Lucas, and Elise to gather behind him and show their support.
Seeing that he was completely outnumbered on this matter Alan decided to temporarily step down.
A smile slowly crept up Connor's face when he saw this and said "Let's all go back to our posts now and do our jobs" as he slowly began walking back to camp.
Alan looked one last time at the group of four before proceeding to slowly follow Connor into the camp and begin to work on the tent.
It took longer than expected to set up the tent as the fatigue from all the former events and the lack of sleep were beginning to affect him.
Seeing that everyone was beginning to get tired and the tents were set up with all of the supplies organized Connor came forward and decided to create a sleep schedule where two people would stay awake outside the tents and wake everyone up when they got a notification.
Alan reacted strongly to this, but he had no choice but to oblige as could not go against the majority of the group alone.
***
Alan was abruptly awoken in the middle of his sleep by Barry who was shaking him in an attempt to wake him up. "Someone has died" Was the only thing Barry said before he got ready to leave the tent.
Seeing Barry leaving Alan quickly woke up and grabbed his spear and left the tent to catch up with the rest of the group.
When they left the tent he saw that the others had also left their tents and everyone looked in the same direction.
In front of one entrance was the corpse of a human and standing behind the corpse were ten goblins. Alan froze at the sight of the goblins doubting that they would be able to win this without any losses.
The first one to step forward was Connor who began sprinting towards the goblins which was shortly followed by Alan and then the rest of the group.
The "alarms" were standing back, because of Connor's earlier warning they did not dare to get involved in the fight.
Connor was the first person to reach the goblins. He slashed horizontally at the stomach of the goblin. Alan expected that it would only create a deep wound as it had the last time, but instead, it completely separated the goblin's upper body from the lower body.
Alan was shocked for a second before realizing that it was most likely from the contribution strengthening and that Connor would only continue to grow stronger if he was allowed to continue to kill the goblins.
Feeling threatened by the thought Alan picked up his pace and sprinted toward a group of goblins thrusting his spear into the head of one and proceeding with swinging the spear to the right cutting another goblin's throat while leaving a portion of the former goblin's head missing from its head.
Alan then leaped forward again and thrust his spear into the stomach of one goblin that was standing in the back. While he did so a goblin flanked his left and leaped forward headed straight for his neck.
Seeing this Alan quickly stepped backward while using his spear to block the stone knife. The knife created a cut in the spear and the goblin lacked the strength required to pull it out again.
Alan used this opportunity to kick the goblin in the stomach making fall on its back and then proceeded with thrusting his spear into its throat.
Alan stood there for a second realizing how close he was to death.
After having gathered his thoughts again he looked up to see that all the goblins had been taken care of.
[Congratulations on surviving 2/3 waves:
Rewards:
Physical strengthening proportionate with the contribution
Item upgrades proportionate with the contribution]
As Alan saw the translucent window appear once more the feeling of thousands of ants retuned. This time the feeling was even more intense causing Alan to almost scream out in pain.
It took a minute for the effects to pass leaving Alan on all four breathing heavily.
While Alan was recovering from the former pain, light began being emitted by his spear. Norse runes of different shapes began climbing up the shaft of the spear landing on the metal tip.
As he inspected the changes in the spear a sudden notification appeared in front of him.
[Number of participants: 10]