Prey (Part Two)

"Romon! Romon! Wake up! Romon!" Romon felt his face wet in his sleep, and someone was pushing his body. He opened his eyes and gasped, "Ah!" He leaped up instantly, a huge black dog's face right before his eyes.

"Romon, you're awake." Speaking not far away was a middle-aged man wearing a cloak made of emerald-green leaves. Beside this middle-aged man, apart from the black dog named Little Black, there was also a large white dog.

"Teacher? Is that you, Teacher?" Romon felt he recognized who the other person was. "Is it Teacher Jefa?"

Druid Jefa had come to settle in this place a year ago, right in a forest outside the town. Romon had been learning druidcraft from him; of course, apart from trading goods, he generally didn't come in.

"I am naturally a druid, Jefa North." The middle-aged man said indifferently, "But I am not your teacher."

Romon instantly felt struck by lightning. Beneath his clothes, his body trembled faintly. Could the secret of his soul have been discovered? No, absolutely not; even in the goddess's temple, he had clearly not been questioned.

"My only apprentice is Wei Wan Mo Qiurui." Behind the middle-aged man, a beautiful young girl poked her head out and peered at Romon. Druid Jefa gently stroked her hair.

"Then... what business does Master Jefa have here?" Although the current Romon was not the original one, being told that by the other party still put him in a very foul mood.

"I saw firelight here. Fearing it might cause a forest fire, I hurried over!" Jefa said.

"Firelight? Is it the campfire lit by me and two companions while camping in the wild?" Romon's mind was a blur as he looked at the druid. "There is no help for it, I had to light a campfire to drive away beasts..."

He waved his arms, explaining to the master druid, his voice growing increasingly agitated. Inside him, the protection of nature and the use of nature were intertwined, these two thoughts tangling into a chaotic mess.

"Besides, my companions are by my side!" Romon explained. "They are watching the campfire, and they won't let it burn down the forest."

He was just about to say this when the latter part became choked in his throat.

Romon felt that before his eyes, Druid Jefa's face gradually blurred, finally turning into the weathered and resolute visage of Mr. Richard.

"Right, your companions are by your side." Mr. Richard pressed the hilt of the longsword hanging at his waist.

Romon looked around, and not only had Druid Jefa turned into the warrior Richard, but the surroundings had instantly changed from the wild woods into the training ground in town.

The young girl who had just poked her head out from behind the druid was also gone, and Richard only had his longsword at his waist.

"Our companions are right beside us!" Richard slowly drew his longsword from his waist, holding it horizontally to point at Romon. "What else could be more reliable than it?"

"Companions?" Romon also drew his sword, staring at his short sword. "This is a companion I can rely on." Then, he suddenly felt that the current situation was very strange, and his emotions surged high. "But my companions are not just my sword, they are also Fafier and Nick!"

"Your companion Nick is heavily injured, and he might die any second now," Richard said slowly. "You'll have one die on your very first adventure with them." Richard hesitated slightly. "Well, maybe he won't die completely, but he'll lose the ability to care for himself."

He shook his head slowly. "But what difference does it make?"

He gazed into Romon's eyes. "Tell me, will anyone still be willing to follow you on adventures in the wild, or even your companion Fafier, will he still stay with you? Even if he does stay, when will he die?"

"Respected Mr. Richard!" Hearing this, Romon felt his heart surge. "You are an outstanding warrior, do you not trust the people who fight side by side with you?"

"I trust them, but they are all dead," Richard said indifferently. "In thirty-five years of combat, far too many of my brothers have died!"

He rarely revealed a sorrowful expression. "The only things that have accompanied me all this way are my longsword."

Romon was in a daze after all, and failed to notice the absurdity in it. Of course, had he noticed the absurdity, it wouldn't have appeared in his dream.

"No, I wouldn't be like that!" Romon roared. "I am the one who persuaded them to come out, so I will also use my sword to help them."

"Really?" Richard casually slashed with his sword, and his seasoned swordsmanship quickly thrust Romon down to the ground.

Richard's cold gaze looked down at Romon sprawled on the ground, and he said, "Get up!"

Romon climbed up, only to be stabbed down again; climbed up, stabbed down; climbed up, stabbed down. It repeated like this countless times.

"Get up!" Romon heard those words once more, but his body seemed completely disconnected from his soul. He struggled several times, yet could only twitch his body slightly, as if pinned down by a thousand-pound hammer.

"Get up! Enemy attack!!!" Romon jolted awake.

So it was a dream. Romon felt his head somewhat dizzy and heavy. Just as he wanted to catch his breath, his eyes suddenly snapped wide open. Greeting his sight was a throwing spear.

The throwing spear had punctured the trio's tent and embedded itself in the mud! The faint light of night illuminated the surroundings.

"Someone is launching a sneak attack!" Romon's heart tightened, and he hurriedly reached for the sword by his side.

Romon propped himself up with a hand and leaped, his agile body darting out of the tent in a flash, then rolling on the spot before springing back to his feet.

"So many goblins!" Under the illumination of the campfire, Romon couldn't even be bothered to dust off his clothes. He narrowed his eyes, trying his best to see clearly in the dark, and swept his gaze rapidly to the left and right.

Fafier held a soup-boiling pot lid in one hand as a shield, while his other hand made a casual grab, pulling a throwing spear from the ground. He held it in his grip with the spearhead pointing downward. "We've been targeted!" he said, briefly inspecting the throwing spear in his hand. "Huh? The spearhead isn't even damaged?" He had originally intended to use this as a wooden club.

The throwing spears brought by the goblins were clearly not fine workmanship.

Generally speaking, to prevent enemies from hurling the throwing spears back, the joint between the metal spearhead and the wooden shaft of a throwing spear should use a section of soft wood.

In this way, after taking the impact of a throw, the throwing spear could no longer be used directly. If it weren't designed like this, wouldn't they just be gifting weapons to the enemy?

"One, two, three..." Relying on the campfire and the light of the celestial bodies, Romon quickly counted the enemy's numbers.

Before he could finish counting, however, Romon's ears twitched.

"Romon! This way! Back to back," he heard Nick's voice coming from behind. He hurriedly stepped back a few paces, then collided backs with the other two.

Romon felt a chill wash over his entire body. His mind, not fully awake from being startled out of his nightmare, also grew clear, and the faint drowsiness was immediately banished from his mind.

Once surrounded by the enemy, one must respond calmly. If one fails to adopt the correct strategy, it is very easy to suffer all-around attacks from all directions, whereas an ordinary human can only fend off attacks from one direction at any given moment.

As for battle-hardened masters, they could expend a massive amount of physical stamina to achieve extremely high movement speeds in order to seek a chance to break through the encirclement.

Just as the newly awakened Romon was sizing up the situation, Fafier extended the tail end of his throwing spear diagonally into the campfire, flicking it outward with force. Several burning pieces of wood were instantly sent flying out toward his front.

"Break through from here!" Fafier roared, then exerted force with his feet and took the lead in charging out.

Immediately afterward, Romon and Nick instantly felt that a person was missing behind them. The two hesitated slightly, awkwardly taking steps to close in toward Fafier's direction.

Right after that, several more throwing spears heavily pierced the spot where the three had just been standing.

Many creatures feared fire, and goblins were clearly no exception. The goblins in that direction panicked in chaos upon seeing the flying firewood.

Both Romon and Nick casually grabbed a goblin to use as a meat shield.

Fighting and retreating, the three of them broke through the defensive circle before long. Instead of thinking about launching an immediate counterattack, they fled in a fluster for some distance before finally stopping.

"Rubiji! Rubiji!" The goblins behind the three pursued for a while, and after having a few more of their number killed, they gave up on chasing. They merely shouted words of unknown meaning, seemingly celebrating victory.

"What do we do next?" Nick tossed the nearly dead goblin onto the ground, leaning against a nearby tree to pant. The single-layer clothes on his body were slashed with a few tears, bearing several scratches. "Just keep running forward all the way back to town?"

Romon casually thrust his sword in, causing the goblin to emit a sharp scream, then held his sword horizontally to slit the throat of the one in his hand as well. He looked up at the position of the stars. "Wrong!" he said, pointing toward the direction they came from. "That way is the road back to town."

"Ah cough~ Then why did we walk this way?" Nick coughed, turning his head to look at Fafier with some puzzlement.

"Who had time to care about that just now! We couldn't just stay in place and keep taking hits." Fafier spread his hands. "At worst, we'll just make a detour."

"What a detour. We might as well just turn back and slaughter them." Romon chuckled. "We were just asleep earlier and didn't have much preparation, which is why we got caught off guard."

"Exactly, both Romon and I were asleep." Remembering the tactical retreat from moments ago, Nick grew somewhat irritated. "Why should we be afraid of them?" He grew even more exasperated. "Those goblins aren't even as tall as a fifteen-year-old boy."

"My short bow got left there too. Someone gave it to me, and it's very important to me, so I have to get it back." Fafier flashed the small shield on his left hand; this wooden shield had originally been used as a pot lid. "The enemy has weapons too, so each of us needs to have a shield."

Romon reached into his bosom, took some hemp rope from his spatial pocket, and deftly bound the goblin corpse to his arm, making a literal meat shield. He weighed it and smiled, "It'll do to make do."

"Not bad, good idea!" Nick took a length of rope, tied it the same way, and shook his arm. However, he felt that the drooping head and four little arms and legs of the goblin corpse were somewhat cumbersome, so he intended to use his sword to slice them off, leaving only the torso as a shield.

Romon hesitated slightly, but upon second thought, anyway, all three of them had blood stains on them to varying degrees, so they didn't fear adding a bit more of this bloody scent and attracting attacks from carnivorous beasts.

Romon also modified his meat shield following Nick's example, while asking Fafier, "Just how many of them are there in total?" After chatting idly for quite a while, naturally the three of them also knew that Fafier was the one on watch earlier.

Fafier felt that using a meat shield like this looked a bit terrifying, but he didn't say anything about it.

"Well, at least ten or more, twenty isn't out of the question." Fafier thought for a moment, looking somewhat uncertain as he spread his hands to indicate he wasn't quite clear. "We were fighting blindly in the dark just now, who had the time to count their exact numbers?"

!!