Goblin War Chief

"Say that again?!"

Lance seized the adventurer before him by the collar, his voice filled with disbelief.

The first piece of news the adventurer had delivered had already shocked him.

Startled by Lance's sudden movement, the adventurer's body swayed uncontrollably twice, and he nearly fell over.

Only then, through the dappled sunlight filtering through gaps in the canopy, did Lance clearly see the man's miserable condition.

This man's equipment was clearly far superior to Lance's patchwork gear. The finely made iron-ringed chainmail on his chest had been smashed inward by some enormous blunt weapon, leaving a deep dent. Several iron rings had snapped and embedded themselves deep in his flesh.

Although the wound had received simple bandaging, the blood still seeping from it had dyed half his body red. With his ragged breathing, the stench of blood was overwhelming.

Lance's shout made the man's unfocused pupils regain a little clarity.

"You... you're the senior who was with Damian this morning?"

The adventurer recognized Lance.

"I mean, something went wrong... everything's a mess."

"The intelligence was wrong! That wasn't an ordinary Goblin nest at all!"

As he said this, the brawny man's voice was filled with regret and self-reproach.

"It was a trap! We were surrounded the moment we entered the valley. Leading them was a mutated Goblin War Chief! That monster actually understood tactics!"

"The team was scattered, and the captain was injured... That idiot Damian and the captain split up and acted as bait in two different directions to draw off the pursuers. They ran toward the stream!"

His distress was not merely over the mission's disastrous failure, but also over the shame of being unable to save his companions and only managing to flee in disgrace.

Lance did not interrupt him. Instead, he calmly asked several more crucial questions about the enemies' numbers and composition.

After receiving the man's fragmented answers, Lance released his grip on his shoulder.

He clenched his fist tightly enough that his knuckles cracked.

Then he raised a hand and pointed in the direction he had come from that morning.

"Follow this road. This area is safe for now. You should be able to make it out alive."

The words stunned the wounded adventurer.

He lifted his head and looked blankly at Lance, then at the direction Lance had indicated, before his gaze returned to Lance.

"You... you're not retreating with me?"

The man looked Lance over, taking in his light leather armor and the gathering pack on his back.

"You're just a gathering adventurer, aren't you? The depths of the forest are complete chaos now. Even we couldn't handle it. Going there would be suicide!"

Lance did not answer.

His hand instinctively moved to his waist, his fingertips touching the ugly, twisted amulet woven from thick blue hemp cord.

The rough texture beneath his fingers strangely calmed his restless heart.

"Which direction is Damian?"

The wounded adventurer opened his mouth. Looking at the hooded man before him, he finally raised his hand and pointed toward the depths of the dense bushes to the southeast.

"Over there... downstream along the creek."

Lance nodded, tightened the short bow on his back, and without a moment's hesitation turned toward that direction.

Watching that resolute figure head against the flow, the wounded adventurer felt his throat go dry.

An inexplicable emotion struck him, making him unable to stop himself from shouting.

"You'll die!"

Lance did not turn around. He merely raised a hand high and waved it behind him.

"Then don't die. Enough people have died today."

Before his words had even faded, his figure vanished into the shadows of the trees.

Even as he ran, Lance maintained a steady rhythm of breathing.

He was not rushing off to die on a whim.

The moment he heard the term "Goblin War Chief" from that routed adventurer, the relevant knowledge from the Monster Compendium had automatically surfaced in his mind.

They were exceedingly rare mutated individuals. Though only a little more robust than ordinary Goblins, their intelligence was frighteningly high.

Not only did they know how to enslave their own kind, but they had even learned to use tactics and traps to hunt humans.

Damian's team had clearly been fooled by the seemingly lax defenses of the Outer Region and plunged headlong into a carefully designed ambush.

That idiot.

As Lance darted rapidly through the jungle, he could not help grumbling inwardly.

He had clearly told him to survive like a cockroach, yet the kid had turned around and gone off to play the hero.

But his pace only grew faster.

With [Hvergelmir's Boiling Surge], he had no need to conserve his stamina and could maintain his top sprinting speed the entire way.

Don't you dare die.

Deep within Copper Creek Forest, beside an unnamed stream.

The air over an open pebble shoal was thick with the suffocating stench of blood.

"Clang!"

A sharp ring of metal striking metal echoed out.

Gritting his teeth, Damian barely managed to block a spiked club swinging straight at him with his two-handed longsword.

The tremendous impact numbed the web of his hand, and his legs involuntarily sank into the loose sand and gravel.

The ones attacking him were not the frail ordinary Goblins, but four or five muscular Goblin Brutes.

These were units specially trained by the War Chief and capable of basic tactical coordination.

They held thick round wooden shields in their left hands and heavy, iron-studded clubs in their right, covering one another as they advanced and retreated in orderly formation.

Whenever Damian tried to strike back at one of them, the two beside it immediately raised their shields and squeezed in, limiting his room to move and forcing him to pull back his sword to defend.

Even worse, three sinister Goblin Spearthrowers lurked behind the Brutes.

"Whoosh—"

The sound of something cutting through the air rang out again.

Damian rolled aside in a sorry state, barely dodging a short spear that skimmed past his scalp.

His situation was terrible.

Seven or eight Goblin corpses lay scattered across the shoal. They were the result of his desperate counterattack.

The group pursuing him had originally consisted of only twelve or thirteen Goblins.

But after he had fought and retreated until he was forced into this dead end, Goblin Scouts assigned to search the area had arrived one after another upon hearing the commotion and joined the hunt.

The number of enemies surrounding him had not decreased. Instead, it was even greater than before.

Besides the four or five Goblin Brutes leading the assault, more than ten Goblin Scouts were closing in to form an encirclement.

"Huff... huff..."

Damian's chest heaved violently. Every breath felt like he was working a broken bellows, and his throat was full of the taste of blood.

To break out of the initial encirclement, he had forcibly activated the Breath Combat Technique, which he had not yet fully mastered.

Though this explosive technique had greatly increased his combat power for a short time, it had drained every last bit of his stamina.

Now, the backlash had arrived.