Besides that, Lin Yun had also learned from the villagers that another party of Adventurers had arrived—a Steel Rank team. Compared with their own team, made up entirely of Porcelain Rank rookies, the Steel Rank adventurers, who were at the eighth level, were undoubtedly stronger.
According to the villagers, the Steel Rank team was made up entirely of girls: a human Goddess Priestess, an Elf Wizard, a human Paladin, and a Halfling Ranger. It was a fairly well-rounded party, and Lin Yun had also learned from the villagers that the team had made what seemed like thorough preparations for battle.
But...
Lin Yun narrowed his eyes. His memories were a little hazy, but he remembered clearly that the Steel Rank team had failed. By his estimate, they were probably around level four or five. In a way, Porcelain Rank was just a transitional rank.
According to the official account, the Steel Rank team could hold their own against a Silver Rank Adventurer in a group battle—in other words, they had roughly level-ten combat strength. The fact that they had a Paladin was the main reason, but that alone showed how formidable they were.
It was also possible that only the leader was level five and the rest were level four. Otherwise, the original story could've just had them use Fireball to take care of everything. Well, there was also the hostage to consider. Though, that didn't quite add up either, because there seemed to be only one hostage.
As for the outcome in the original story, it was a very bad one.
If Lin Yun remembered correctly, the team had run into so many Elf traps around the fortress that the Halfling Ranger was exhausted. Then, just as they were about to reach the fortress, they saw the hostage lying on the ground and rushed forward without thinking. That set off a trap beneath them, waking the Goblins, who had been asleep. The team was surrounded by a horde of Goblins, and the Paladin, who should've been the toughest of them all, was knocked unconscious by a stone flung from behind with a sling. It might've been a Critical Hit.
The details had never really been made clear in the novel, manga, or anime. Ultimately, the Steel Rank team had only existed to show just how terrifying the Goblin Slayer was.
And truth be told, part of the reason the Goblin Slayer had such an easy time was that the Halfling Ranger had already disarmed most of the traps. Goblin Slayer could disarm traps himself, of course, but it would clearly have taken a lot of time.
This was a Goblin Slayer world without the Goblin Slayer. In other words, he wouldn't come, and this village would...
Lin Yun furrowed his brow and thought it over. In the end, he decided that they had to fight, but he needed to figure out how. First, though, the most important thing to do right now was...
"Infeine. Can you still run? Do you know how to track?" Lin Yun turned and asked the centaur.
"Of course. I can run all day. And I taught that girl how to track." The centaur flexed his muscles and said proudly.
...Lin Yun didn't want to point out that the tracking skills he'd taught her were the reason he'd lost her in the first place.
"Then I'll have to leave this to you. Here are three potions. Heal yourself first, and recover some stamina while you're at it. Then head to the forest and look for those four Adventurers. We'll catch up as quickly as we can. No matter what, having more people is a good thing, right? Bard, do you have Expeditious Retreat? Cast it on him." As he spoke, Lin Yun patted the Bard on the shoulder.
The Bard's spells were a little different from Lin Yun's Priest spells. Priests learned all the Divine Magic of a given level as soon as they reached it. They had someone backing them, after all. But they had to prepare their spells, almost like asking their dad, "Dad, I want this, this, and this."
Bards were different. These versatile performers learned to sing a range of spells, and they didn't need to prepare them. Though most of the time, they could only cast one or two spells. They also had fewer Spell Slots than Wizards and Priests.
The only reason Lin Yun had asked the Bard was simple: he didn't know Expeditious Retreat.
At Lin Yun's words, the Bard's expression darkened. It wasn't that he lacked the spell. In a game, it might not have been all that useful, but in the real world, no experienced player would overlook the difference it made. Expeditious Retreat could nearly double a normal human Adventurer's top speed in an instant.
Generally speaking, a normal human Adventurer could move ten meters in six seconds without running, twenty meters in six seconds while charging, and forty meters in six seconds while running. That might not sound like much, but don't forget that Adventurers normally carried all kinds of heavy gear. That was already a pretty good pace.
Expeditious Retreat doubled those speeds. Put simply, without running at full speed, you could cover twenty meters in six seconds. While charging, you could cover forty meters, and running at full speed would get you eighty. Think about it: Bolt needed nearly ten seconds to run a hundred meters. Even while wearing what was practically a full set of gear, this person could run eighty meters in six seconds. The remaining twenty surely wouldn't take three more seconds.
It was worth mentioning that a centaur's base speed wasn't the same as a human's ten meters in six seconds. A centaur could move thirteen meters in six seconds. And since centaurs were barbarians, making them even stronger than others of their kind, he could move sixteen meters in six seconds. Expeditious Retreat added ten meters every six seconds on top of that, bringing him to twenty-six meters. Then it quadrupled his speed, which meant a full-speed sprint of 104 meters in six seconds. That was like a car going over sixty kilometers per hour. Well, it still didn't sound like much.
Even so, in this era, that was already incredibly fast.
In short, the reason the Bard looked so unhappy was that he was only level two. He had just two first-level Spell Slots. Unlike Lin Yun and the Female Mage, the Bard couldn't store spells in a magical focus or gain extra Spell Slots through exceptional abilities. He had exactly two first-level Spell Slots, and no more.
If he used one of them for Expeditious Retreat, he'd have only one left. For a Bard, that was a little too risky.
Lin Yun said nothing in response and simply nodded to the centaur.
The centaur had no idea what Expeditious Retreat did. All he needed to know was that it concerned his sister's life—and perhaps something even more important.
Just as the centaur turned to run, the Bard raised a hand. "Wait. I'll cast Expeditious Retreat on you now." He waved his hand and uttered a strange sound—at least, it sounded strange to Lin Yun, who couldn't understand it. A faint glow appeared around the centaur.
"Oh, I feel a lot lighter. It's much easier to run now." The centaur shook his hooves without thinking, as if he'd just gotten an incredibly satisfying foot massage.
"Remember, once you find them, don't do anything rash. There may be more Goblins than they expect. Tell them to wait for us." Lin Yun's expression was stern, but... since he was wearing a full-face helmet, no one could see it.
"Understood." The centaur pawed at the ground impatiently, then charged off in the direction the villagers had indicated. It seemed he was running so fast that dust kicked up from his hooves flew straight into Lin Yun's face. Luckily, there was no mud in it. Otherwise, Lin Yun might've gotten a faceful of muck. He might even have needed to make a Dexterity save, if it came to that...
"All right, let's get going too," Lin Yun said to the others.
"Yes, sir," the young warrior and the others answered in unison, leaving the Bard feeling a little out of place. Though... well, he'd been out of place from the start. He'd let his guard down a little around the young warrior, but he'd stayed wary of everyone else. After all... he was an experienced player.
Just as Lin Yun had stayed wary of him.
In a way, in most Dungeons & Dragons games, matching wits with NPCs was the bare minimum. The real essence of Dungeons & Dragons was matching wits with PCs—that is, the other players... probably.
It was mainly because the players and their characters didn't have the same information. The players knew things their characters might not, and their guidance could lead to all kinds of trouble. Then there were the players' alignments. A Chaotic Evil character would undoubtedly be annoyed by a good-aligned character, though the good-aligned character didn't necessarily feel the same way about someone evil. They might just pity them or dislike them. And Chaotic characters were such weirdos that they could make for endless fun—well, more often than not, endless trouble. Usually, the players who caused a party to get wiped out were the Chaotic Evil weirdos.
That was also why many DMs didn't like allowing the Chaotic Evil Alignment. For one thing, it could ruin the group's atmosphere and easily steer the campaign in the wrong direction. More than that, most players didn't like playing with Chaotic Evil characters. Though... playing one really was fun. Ahem, ahem.
In any case, the first thing any experienced player, no matter their alignment, needed to do was figure out whether the players around them were Chaotic Evil. Of course, it wasn't unheard of for two Chaotic Evil players to sing and dance together, but more often, they'd stab each other in the back as a show of respect.
After all, people pretending to be loyal while plotting against you were everywhere. Without spoilers, who would've guessed that a certain Father Matou was such a pervert? Without spoilers, who would've guessed that a certain bespectacled Honest Man would take off his glasses, slick back his hair, and turn out to be a chuuni? You just never knew. Better to play it safe—this was a matter of life and death.
(I almost forgot to mention it: we're finally getting into the real story. I wonder if anyone noticed. Behold, my godlike talent! Hahahaha! There should be a Gyoza image here.)
Before you continue