While Moros was busy trying to hit a target, the peasants themselves were fighting for their lives. And many of them had already lost.
It had started as just another day, but then the goblins attacked. At first, they came for the hunter, then they came for the field workers, it was only after a farmer escaped that the town noticed that the goblins were killing indiscriminately.
For the first time, the goblins had left the depths of the Evergreen Forest and sought out humans directly. They could not fathom why the goblins would leave their forest to fight humans.
They normally were just monsters that had their territory and would attack all beings that entered there. Yet, this time they came out of their home with the intent to kill.
Men and women and children had taken up every weapon they could muster. Pitchforks, short knives, sharpened wooden sticks and thick wooden clubs.
They had lived all their life in this small village, a place that no one knew on the map or in the kingdom, but it was their place and they would die fighting for it.
Instead of waiting for the tragedy to strike first the man went out and intercepted the first wave of goblins in the forest. Blood was shed as humans and monsters alike killed each other like swine.
Behind every lost life the woman wallowed in regret and cried as their husbands disappeared from Avarosia forever.
However, the man had failed in their ambush, they all had succumbed to the sheer masses of goblins that came out of the forest to murder every human they came across.
It was as if they did not fear death. Rather it seemed like they carried such hatred that even death was a price they were willing to pay. If you stabbed them in the stomach, they would still lift their arm to cut you.
The peasants and the townsfolk inhabiting this village were left helpless as none of them had ever taken up a sword before. They never were trained, nor did they possess any knowledge about monster subjugation.
Today was the very first time they fought with monsters and for many already it had been their last.
Now, all that was left were women, their sons and the old ones who were too weak to participate in the first skirmish.
They all lifted all the weapons that they could and tried to keep the goblins at a safe distance. Everyone left knew that a direct confrontation would not be something they would be able to survive.
It was then that they noticed the goblins growing uneasy. There was something, which caused the goblins to not fight as hard as before. From time to time a few of them glanced behind, only to have shocked expressions on their faces.
For some reason, some of the monsters on the frontline fell back and disappeared somewhere in the forest behind them.
They appeared more than mad, mad enough to ignore the humans before them.
The surviving humans felt the pressure ease on them as they needed to defend against less and less goblins as time kept on passing by.
As their numbers dwindled the peasants saw a figure appearing in the distance…was that a human?
The human threw weapons into the crowd and every hit monster instinctively changed their target and followed him. Was that madman luring them away, so that they may run to safety?
Was he seriously willing to sacrifice himself for them, the poor peasants and ignorant townsfolk?
The humans felt their hearts touched. Nobody would care about people like them. They existed all too much, they were a dime and the dozen. Yet, there was a human willing to risk it all for a few peasants?
For the time being, they played along and just kept the goblins at a safe distance, so that the human could lure them away.
The heroic youth ran into the forest and 20-30 goblins followed him, burning with rage and ready to stab their hero over and over again
They were thankful, this way a few of them at least could buy time so that others could run away, to the nearest town and get people to help.
Yet, 3 minutes later, the human came back again, this time he threw another wave of knives into the goblin crowd, gathering all the attention on him again.
But why did the youth seem to wait for the goblins to come closer?
They all collectively held their breath as the youth just armed with a pitchfork began to face them.
First there was a heavy thrust forwards, impaling the first goblin that rushed at him. Its corpse was smashed heavily on the ground as he removed the weapon from its body.
The next goblin closed in, aiming for his torso, but with a sidestep, the goblin just cut the air. The hero swung the pitchfork around and hit the goblin's leg with a brutal might.
With a cry, the goblin saw its legs swept away and its body fell onto the ground, where it found itself impaled by the pitchfork yet again. Removing the weapon again, the hero saw that he was now surrounded by the other goblins.
Calm and collected he eyed them, it was as if he knew what was going to happen next.
Not waiting for the hero to catch their breath, the group hurried forward. Yet, the hero jumped on the corpse of the goblin before him and used it as a springboard to hop over the encirclement of the goblins.
Caught by surprise, the hero grabbed a knife from his strange bottom garment and stabbed the goblin into its throat.
Its body fell to the floor before the other goblins could follow up.
Afterwards, he threw the knife into the crowd yet again, and ran away to draw even more attention from them.
Daughters swooned at the hero and the mothers contemplated that their daughters needed a new dad, since the old ones were gone.
With teamwork, the whole village managed to push the goblins back, further and further as the headcount of the goblins dwindled.
There were still victims however, even a hero out of a fairytale would not be able to save every single one of them. But those that perished now, did so with a smile.
They saw a light at the end of the tunnel and that light was a hero, who could not aim to save his life. When, at last only a hundred goblins were left, the armoured goblin acting as their commander had to make a choice.
Right now, they were just picked apart by the human that flanked them from the back. This threat needed to be eliminated, otherwise they would never be able to kill every villager.
Yet, not one of the goblins was fast enough to catch up to the human and if it were to pull away too many the villagers would overwhelm its subordinates at the frontline.
It came to the conclusion that the current situation could not be solved and that this battle was lost. To save the last remnants of its troupes it blew into its whistle twice, so that the lower-class goblins retreated and regathered.
As for the pesky human that had interfered in their plans, he would tell the chief all about it.
They needed to develop countermeasures or set up traps, to prevent any such interference from their desire to get revenge.
The entire Evergreen Forest was to be dyed red in the blood of those who killed the only son of the goblin chief, the warlord of the entire goblin population living in the forest.
100.000 goblins had mourned for 3 days…and now they would slaughter every human.
As the goblins retreated, all peasants fell to their knees from sheer exhaustion. They survived the onslaught of the goblins!!!
Yet, they did not expect their hero to come running from the depths and jump onto one goblin that was running away.
After landing on it, he stomped on its face…till it was just a puddle of mush.
The display of violence did not disturb the people in the slightest, they thought he was venting their frustrations and all their grief on the one goblin before them.
No, it was just Moros cursing at the goblin since so many of them had gotten away without him being able to kill them. All he got was one more, the rest had already disappeared into the forest itself.
After Moros had finished venting his frustrations, he did not dare to turn around to look at the peasants, they must hate him for killing one of them
Some day people would bow to him and see him as a hero, not the mass murderer of goblins he was at the moment.
Some day the people on Elysium would see in him the hero he truly was. And give him all the money he would ever need.
[Quest progress 1000/20000 herbs have been collected]
Moros cursed and ran deep into the forest again, right after the goblins. He needed
To kill more monsters before the troublesome kids would have collected the herbs.
Why could they just not focus on killing goblins? Was it too much to ask them to be normal for once?
And so the killing of goblins continued.