"Well, if none of you has anything more they'd like to do or say, I think we should go out there and start fighting. Catch them off guard before they even know we're here," Kim said.
"Wait!" Elmo said. "Shouldn't we decide if we should try to reason with the lizardmen or not?"
"The kid has a good point," Jonas remarked. "We may get the upper hand at first with catching them off guard, but I don't think that we'll be able to maintain that advantage if we can't kill them right away."
"How strong can they be? I mean, we saw how fast those kobolds went down, right?" Kim said, sounding rather irritated.
"That's because the kobolds are weak. The lizardmen are a lot stronger. For one thing, they have a good amount more HP. If there's three of them, like Jonas said, then I really don't think you'll e able to take all three down that quickly," Elmo said. "If you do manage that, then you'llprobably go through all of your stamina and MP, so you could be vulnerable for a while after that."
"I don't have any MP," Kim replied, looking like she'd just tasted something rather bitter. "But I understand what you mean. I can't say I'd be able to take down a lizardman that fast either, but what should we do otherwise?"
"Well, Kobolds will attack us on sight, unless there's a kobold hero or something present. At which point they'll look to the hero for guidance. I don't know if the lizardmen will fill that same role or not, but if we go around the corner, I would say we do so fully armed, but we should only fight in a defensive manner. If they attack us. If they don't, we can try to communicate with them and see if we can avoid a fight. Even if we don't understand them, they might be able to understand us."
"Shouldn't we be trying to level up?" Jonas asked. "I mean, we were told that we need to defeat a boss around here. In order to do that, we probably need to be leveling up as often as we can."
"What good is leveling up going to be if you kill yourself in the process?" Elmo retorted. "Yes, leveling up would help us a lot, but at the same time, we probably should pick our battles carefully. If we don't then, we're likely going to be overwhelmed before we know it." Elmo paused as something occurred to him. "Maybe that's what happened to the one who died. He might have thought he'd be able to defeat that minotaur and found himself outmatched. Or maybe he just fought until he wore himself out. Regardless, dead is still dead, no matter what you did to get to that state."
"What are you suggesting then?" Elin asked.
"Let's go around the corner, kill the kobolds if they attack us, and deal with the Lizardmen only if they look to be hostile. If they're not, then we don't fight them. If needed, I can use some other magic on them to help in battle, while Elin keeps Kim as full of HP as possible," Elmo said.
"Alright, we'll try it this way," Jonas said. "However, if this turns out badly and we all survive, keep in mind that we'll have to take that into consideration in the future with any other suggestions you give."
Elmo sighed. Of course he knew that, just as he knew that his position in the group hadn't yet been determined. Kim was at least their frontline fighter, Jonas was their scout, and Elin was their healer. So far all he'd done was get information on enemies and the guy with the Politician system. He at least wanted to be more than that and the best way to get out of that position was to take calculated risks to show he had more use.
"I accept," Elmo said, hoping that this wouldn't go south. If it did, then he probably would be under Elin in regards to the group hierarchy. Or even anyone else who might join their group in the future.
So, with Kim in front, they walked back and turned the corner. The lizardmen were surprised to see them, which made the Kobolds turn and see them. Which of course caused the kobolds to attack immediately.
Kim looked like she was caught off guard as she tried to attack them, only to have other kobolds attack her. These also had better weapons, so when Kim's strike came down on her first target, it was able to deflect the blow with its spear enough that it didn't get hit by the sword, although it fell down from the force of the impact.
Then before Kim could react, a kobold jabbed a spear towards her stomach, with it looking like it was a clear path to her belly, but when it was half an inch away, it bounced off of something, letting a ringing sound erupt.
Kim growled and swung her sword at the kobold that had dared attack her while it stood there with a confused expression on its face. Only to have a surprised expression as Kim's sword sliced into its chest and through its head.
Jonas lunged in with two daggers in his hands, and stabbed the kobolds in the heads before they had time to react. Although, as they fell, Jonas couldn't keep hold of his daggers.
Elmo saw a kobold ready an attack on Jonas as Kim faced the other remaining kobold. He didn't hesitate for a moment. As soon as he saw the kobold take aim at Jonas, he called out, "Water Shot!"
Elmo felt energy build up inside of him, moving around like an electron around an atom for an instant, before it traveled down his left arm, forcing him to raise his arm towards the kobold. Then as the energy reached his hand, a sphere of water, about as big as his thumbnail appeared for an instant before it shot into the kobold.
The kobold was thrown back as the water hit it, creating a spray that dampened the area around it like a mist, and at first Jonas thought he'd killed it, but then the kobold started to move. It was still helpless, but also very much still alive. Though, Elmo didn't see the need to kill it at the moment, given it still was clearly out of the fight anyway.
As Elmo returned his attention towards Kim, he saw that Kim had already dealt with the other kobold and had turned her attention towards the lizardmen, but hadn't made a move towards them.
"So, now what?" Jonas asked, as he was carefully removing his daggers from the skulls of the two kobolds he'd killed.
"No, we put our weapons away," Elmo replied, seeing the lizardmen looking at them carefully, their intelligent eyes evaluating those who were in front of them.
One of the lizardmen made a noise that confused Elmo. However, when the noise occurred again, Elmo realized the lizardmen were trying to communicate with them.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Jonas finally remove the second dagger from the kobold before he started cleaning them on the dirty cloth that the kobolds had been wearing.
"I'm sorry, I don't understand," Elmo said. "What are you trying to tell us?"
The lizardmen looked at each other a moment before they moved to the side of the hallway, opening a path in front of them.
"Should we take it and trust they won't attack us, or do we fight them?" Jonas asked.
"I think we should go," Kim replied. "If they do try to do anything, we can still fight. But looking at them, I'm not sure I would be able to do that."
"Okay, then let's go," Jonas said, as he sheathed his daggers.
Kim and Elin were the first to start to walk by the lizardmen then Jonas, leaving Elmo to bring up the back of the group. The lizard men remained impassive as they walked by them. Then as their group were fully past them and at least twenty feet away, the lizardmen picked up the surviving kobold and started walking in the direction Elmo and his group had just come from.
Shortly after, Elmo breathed out a sigh of relief. While he had been confident in his assessment, it was completely another thing to have to actually deal with it, especially since he had no idea if he might actually have gotten the wrong idea from what he'd read in the stats of the lizardman.
"I really thought that spear was going to hit you," Elin said, sounding like she'd been scared it would have happened, but relieved that it hadn't.
"I thought it would too," Kim admitted. "Not sure what the reason is, but I think it somehow hit the armor that should otherwise be there."
"May I take a look?" Elin asked.
"Sure," Kim replied, a peculiar look in her eyes revealed to Elmo that letting Elin touch her there was more about Elin examining her there than anything else. Elmo felt almost embarrassed by the realization.
Maybe it was because he hadn't been around many people that he hadn't realized that Kim was interested in Elin. Kim would probably let Elin touch her anywhere she wanted without reservation, aside from him or Jonas being present to see.
Elin slid her hand over Kim's belly. "Still feels the same," Elin commented, her mind clearly somewhere other than where Kim's was.
"At least we know that whatever is making your armor look like that, it's still as protective as it should be," Jonas commented, either deliberately ignoring what was going on with Kim or completely oblivious to it. "Let's keep moving. We have no idea what's ahead, how long we have until it's 'night' or even if there'll be any significant changes then."
"Why should we worry about it being night here?" Elin asked, as she removed her hand from Kim.
"The announcer did say that we should try to stay alive at night, but made it clear that we could still die then," Jonas answered. "But even aside from that, we'll need to sleep ourselves, and there's no telling what might occur then."
"You think we should sleep in shifts?" Kim asked.
"Yeah, but we also should find a place that we can defend easily if we get attacked during that time," Jonas said.
Even though parts of their situation had started to sink in for Elmo, he was starting to realize that it extended much farther than he'd initially thought. This whole situation was a big grenade in his hand with the pin pulled. He just had no idea what kind of grenade he was holding. Or even how long it had been since the pin had been pulled.
Was he in danger now or would it stay away from him as it had so far? He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer right now.