The smell of blood lingered in the air, after the death of 2 goblins…Moros loved it. Killing Ballas could never be this satisfying, this was what life truly should be about.
Grabbing the corpses of the two goblins he quickly threw them in the grass and marched onwards. This time, however, he had learned his lesson. After taking the cheap knives they were armed with he climbed onto a tree and scouted the area.
It did not take long before the next group of goblins came closer. Alarmed by the smell of blood, they approached Moros' position slowly and carefully.
However, they did not expect that the danger would soon come to them. Falling down from the trees just as the second goblin had taught him, he made quick work of an unfortunate goblin that had to experience what gravity does to a knife when it is launched up from the sky.
Its head was split open and brain tissue spread over the ground.
Just as the other goblins were about to scream, Moros flung the crude knife at one of them, in shock the goblin barely managed to dodge, the blade impaling a nearby tree.
Yet its right arm was captured by the human.
Without any compromise, it was violently spun around and its body roasted to face the dagger. With another hand holding onto its hair, its head was threshed into the hilt of the dagger over and over again until its left eye socket pierced the blade.
Its lifeless body held in position, blood trickling down its mouth.
The other goblin had not been idle in the time when Moros had been killing its colleague…no, it ran off to gather reinforcements to kill this dirty human.
With its friends, they would surely be able to avenge everyone. The human would not know what hit him.
Moros, however, had long since run to catch up to it. He liked the sensation of them fleeing. He liked that they thought they were able to get away safely. He loved to crush that hope once they saw that there was no escape from here.
After he caught up to it, he quickly threw himself onto the body of the goblin, as it cried for its colleagues to hear, Moros quickly removed the knife from its hands by breaking its arm.
"Come on, I gave you a head start, you can not complain about what is happening to you."
Without a care in the world, Moros sat on its body and watched it with great amusement. Troubled breathing, a crushed rib cage and they had only just begun.
"I just don't get you creatures, why are you trying your hardest to irritate me?"
Moros' hand slid across its face, before his fingers began to take place in front of its eyeballs.
"You are only making it harder for yourself," he spoke nonchalantly, as if he wanted to genuinely know why the monsters did not speak to him.
His fingers dug in, gouging at its eyes. Pushing deeper and deeper.
Arms flailed widely, unfathomable screams escaped its lips. A suffering pain, it had never known and the wide grin it saw on the human male, was the last thing its bleeding eyes would ever see.
[Goblin killed +1xp]
After the notification flashed across his visor, he carefully stood up and threw the corpse of the goblin to the side. Moros thanked Malissa from the bottom of his heart, he should have taken on a mission much sooner.
He was learning so much in this environment, normal people really were the best. They were doing such a thing on a daily basis.
From the corner of his eyes, he saw the next customer arrive. It was another goblin that did not know that its life permit had just ended. Moros stood up and tried to introduce his right fist.
The new goblin, the coward he was carefully dodged his attempt at a forceful greeting and quickly grabbed a small little bow.
In one swift motion, it shot an arrow at Moros, who did not know that a goblin could have such a weapon. As the arrow lodged itself into Moros' right arm, a victorious smile flashed across its face.
The arrow was laced with strong poison, sadly it did not know that the burger he had this morning was 100 times more deadly than it, and Moros ate two of those for breakfast.
As the seconds passed, the smile of the goblin faded more and more.
Casually, Moros grabbed the arrow stuck in his arm and ripped it out forcefully. Judging by the expression on his face, he was more than willing to return the item to its sender.
"You know friend, this was not very nice of you! You really hurt my feelings!"
Moros tried to speak in a calm and sensible manner to the frightened Goblin, who stood there with its legs shaking.
Manners were important and even if he was about to kill him with his own arrow, he wanted to ensure that the goblin knew what it had done wrong.
The goblin fell to its knees, speaking to Moros in a language he did not know. He pleaded, he was begging, he was crying. It lay there on the ground, unmoving, it simply prayed.
Moros felt his heart touch. Would he truly kill such a beautiful creature begging for its life, deathly afraid and at the end of its rope?
[Archer-Goblin killed +1 XP]
Yes, he would.
Why would he not? These were juicy piles of XP and one could never say no to that.
One could clearly see that it was an accident. The goblin stumbled and fell into his own arrow more than thirty times. It was truly an unlucky event, an ill stroke of fate.
Moros looked around and wondered when exactly the next goblin would come around the corner. This was his all-he-can-eat buffet, and he felt hungry for the next dish.
Next on the menu was a troupe of 10 goblins dressed in armour that saw the scene of carnage around them.
Moros saw them, he grinned. They saw Moros, they grinned. Moros sprinted, they sprinted. Moros ran away, they ran after him.
This tactile retreat was, in fact, a brilliant strategy to not get killed. Due to the heavy armour the goblins wore, Moros was able to easily run away, but it did not sit right with him.
Would a hero run away here? He always needed a battle, and now when he got one he just ran away?
Yeah, Moros shook his head. As the Clerk said, he should prepare for death and running away like a coward was not the way he wanted to go out.
So, he simply waited for the 10 goblins to catch up.
And he did not have to wait long, the group of monsters arrived shortly after. Seeing that their prey had stopped running, they looked at him with a belittling expression.
The human did not know its place and was also stupid.
They could not complain, the human invader made their job a whole lot easier. Circling around the human, they ensured that he could never run away again.
Seeing the human not react to their encirclement, their grin grew wider. Truly, it was a foolish human─but if it was death that he wanted, they would bring it to him.
Moros on the other hand calmly analysed the goblins that stood before him.
10 goblins dressed in simple, crude leather armour stood before him. Each bore a knife of much better quality than the ones he had taken care of prior. 5 of them wore a bow, the other 5 were given a small leather shield.
Potions, traps and ropes were also placed on their body, similar tools could be found on all of them.
For the moment, the group appeared quite happy with just surrounding him, since in their eyes he was no threat. To cut away his retreat route, they made sure to stand around him in wait, weapons drawn.
The first one approached Moros, clearly its guard was down as it taunted him and played around with its knife.
Whether or not it intended to intimidate Moros, was not something he concerned himself with.
Coming closer and closer Moros took a few steps backwards, trying to see how it would react to his change in body language. In response, the goblin at the forefront, produced a cackling laugh and jumped forward to strike at the prey full of fear.
Moros, yet decided to place a punch on its throat, taking away its ability to breathe. To dispatch it quickly, his other arm moved to its knife-wielding hand and broke its middle finger.
A bone cracked, a knife fell. The other gnomes started to react. Moros' hand shot to the ground, picking up the knife. His other hand grabbed the goblin before him, using it as a shield to the arrows that came from the front.
Next, he threw the body towards one of the archers to blind its vision and grabbed the shield of the goblin.
A volley of arrows launched from the back, 3 struck it. He shot out a pained breath, yet sprinted further to another goblin.
It extended its hand, a slash forward, upper right half of the body covered by its shield. The attack accepted by Moros, a long drawn gash across his abdomen, in return the shield raised by the left arm bashed the goblin's head and the knife to the right struck its throat and slashed to the side.
[Armor-Goblin killed 2xp]
1 down 9 to go.