First Battle

The values on his retina flickered wildly.

Very quickly.

The environmental stability fell below the fifty percent mark, and the once-vivid green numbers instantly turned into glaring crimson.

Amid the tall, densely packed trees around him, hurried, heavy breathing could faintly be heard.

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There were also shrill, grating cries, like fingernails scraping across a blackboard.

The commotion was not particularly loud, yet it made his scalp tingle.

Hearing that sound, Lance instead breathed a sigh of relief.

It was the distinctive means of communication used by Goblins.

According to the bestiary, these creatures possessed an exceptionally keen sense of smell and an almost pathological obsession with the scents of blood and decay.

It seemed the smell he had picked up while collecting sap or moss had exposed his trail.

Now that he was on guard, Lance's Perception stat of 5 immediately came into play.

His gaze swept across the surroundings like that of a hawk, and he quickly spotted something unusual in a nearby thicket.

Several dark green shadows lurked there, starkly out of place against the fresh, emerald grass.

There were two immediate priorities.

Determine their numbers.

And choose the most advantageous battlefield.

Chapter Three of the New Adventurer's Guide clearly stated: if a lone adventurer encountered a small group of Goblins, they had to seek favorable terrain immediately. Under no circumstances should they allow themselves to be surrounded in open ground, where the enemy could exploit its numerical advantage.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lance spotted a concave section of rock wall not far behind him.

Without hesitation, he raised his round shield and steadily backed toward it.

The Goblins hiding in the shadows seemed to have sensed their prey's intentions.

They stopped concealing themselves and rushed out of the grass in a frenzy, shrieking harshly.

This was the Goblins' usual hunting tactic: use noise to create panic and make their prey expose an opening in fear.

By the sunlight spilling through gaps in the canopy, Lance finally saw these legendary monsters clearly for the first time.

They only came up to an adult's waist. Their sickly dark green skin was covered in wrinkles and pustules.

Their long, pointed ears drooped from either side of their bald heads. Their eyes were cloudy and yellow, and their mouths were full of crooked yellow teeth.

Fortunately.

This Goblin squad only had four members, and they wielded nothing more than sharpened wooden sticks and crude bone clubs.

The tension in Lance's chest eased by half.

These were cannon fodder among cannon fodder, the absolute bottom rung of Goblin society.

Seeing that Lance was still retreating in a defensive stance, the four Goblins stopped, grabbed stones from the ground, and hurled them at him viciously.

Smack! Smack!

Several fist-sized stones whistled toward him through the air.

Lance's Perception was enough for him to track these not-so-fast projectiles.

He merely shifted slightly or adjusted the angle of his round shield.

The stones struck the wooden shield covered in thick cowhide with dull thuds, leaving Lance's arm faintly numb from the impact.

These little creatures were far stronger than their gaunt bodies suggested.

It was then that Lance discovered a fatal weakness in his equipment.

He lacked a ranged weapon.

His inexperience had made him careless. If he had a hand crossbow or even a few throwing knives right now, he could have counterattacked during the gaps between their throws and ended the fight sooner.

He would definitely make up for that next time.

While reviewing his mistakes in his mind, Lance continued retreating in an orderly fashion.

Originally, he had wanted to lure them into charging the rock wall and fighting him at close quarters.

But he realized he had still underestimated the cunning of these monsters.

They were stupid, but they were not mindless beasts.

These Goblins seemed to have noticed that Lance's equipment hampered his movements. They actually intended to wear him down by pelting him with stones until his stamina was exhausted.

Unfortunately.

This time, they had run into someone with a cheat.

Lance blocked and retreated while adjusting his breathing rhythm.

With every breath, the tiny amount of stamina he had expended instantly refilled.

Until Lance had completely withdrawn before the solid rock wall.

After throwing stones for so long without even scratching Lance's skin, the Goblins had tired themselves out instead. They bent over and gasped heavily, their tongues nearly hanging out.

As they stared at the fully armored adventurer before them, whose face was hidden behind a visor and whose breathing had not even become irregular—

The walnut-sized brains of the Goblins filled with the fury of being toyed with.

In their eyes, this human was like an iron-clad turtle hiding in its shell.

Walaa!!

The leading Goblin let out a piercing shriek.

They raised their crude weapons high, howling to bolster their courage as they charged.

They normally preferred to spread out, surround, and ambush their prey, but Lance now had his back to the rock wall, with scattered boulders blocking both sides.

They had no choice but to launch the stupidest possible frontal assault.

They were close.

Five meters. Three.

Lance, who had remained on the defensive the entire time, suddenly turned cold-eyed.

Faced with the wooden spear thrust at him from the front, he did not choose to block passively.

Instead, he suddenly stepped forward, using his momentum to slam his round shield out like an iron wall.

Bang!

The tremendous impact directly threw the first two charging Goblins off balance, sending them tumbling to the ground like rolling gourds.

In that instant.

The fine steel shortsword in Lance's right hand, which had long been poised to strike, shot out like a venomous snake.

The essence of Castro Swordsmanship was precisely this kind of vicious thrusting in close-quarters combat amid muddy trenches.

At LV3 proficiency, this strike was as swift as lightning.

The sword tip accurately pierced the nearest Goblin's face.

Squelch.

Foul dark green blood sprayed out instantly.

The Goblin died on the spot before it could even scream.

Expressionless, Lance drove a heavy kick into the corpse's chest and used the force to pull out his shortsword.

He then immediately withdrew his shield and retreated, once again assuming an impeccable defensive stance.

He was outrageously steady.

The other Goblin that had fallen beside it scrambled to its feet in panic. The hand gripping its bone club trembled, and it no longer dared make those arrogant howls.

They were vicious creatures, but even they were intimidated by such a clean, decisive instant kill.

If they did not run now, when would they?

But Lance knew very well that if he allowed these cowardly creatures to escape, they would hide in the shadows like flies, constantly harassing and disgusting him.

Thus, adventurers had only one principle when dealing with Goblins: leave no roots behind.

Just as the remaining three Goblins hesitated between advancing and retreating.

Lance moved.

He no longer defended. Instead, shield raised, he launched a short, ferocious charge.

The edge of his shield violently knocked aside the obstructing wooden stick in front of him.

Then came another standard military thrust.

The second one.

Next came a powerful horizontal slash, followed by a downward stab to finish it off.

The third one.

Lance quickly caught up to the Goblin that had already fled and drove his shortsword into its back.

In less than ten seconds.

The once-noisy forest clearing was left with only the dying wail of the final Goblin.