It’s a Goblin!」
The lookout raised a shout.
Using the materials we brought, we should have been in the middle of building a rudimentary base in front of the dungeon right now.
However, from the entrance of the dungeon a Goblin seemed to appear. We had taken out the Goblin patrols in the vicinity to prevent a sudden rush, but it seems we fell behind schedule because of it.
「Teacher, there.」
『Oi, construction of the base isn’t even finished yet. Ah… It’s turned into a complete melee, huh…』
The Adventures and Hobgoblins were fighting all jumbled together. In such a state, throwing large area fire spells into the mix was out of the question. The Adventurers on the other side seemed to be fighting with Donna as their center.
「I’m going.」
『Ok. But before storming the dungeon, we should thin out the ones outside. If the Adventures got annihilated I wouldn’t be able to sleep easy.』
「Teacher doesn’t sleep.」
『It’s a metaphor, a metaphor!』
Fran unsheathed me and started running. First, she headed to the ones fallen into crisis: the novices. Without stopping her run, she mowed down her opponents happily. As for surprise attacks from the rear, they only numbered 1.
「Weak.」
『Even if it’s a Hobgoblin, by itself, it isn’t that strong.』
For now, the status of the specimens that we defeated were like this:
Race : Hobgoblin Swordsman : Evil Beast : Demonic Beast Lv.8
HP: 69 MP: 38 STR: 34 END: 33 AGI: 25 DEX: 23 INT: 19 WIS: 19
Skills:
Coercion :Lv1, Evasion :Lv1, Sword Techniques :Lv1, Sword Arts :Lv3, Leadership :Lv1, Instantaneous Movement :Lv2, Cooperation :Lv2, Vigor Manipulation
They’re almost the same as a Goblin King, but with a slightly weaker status. As for skills, the experience-rich Kings have more versatile ones, but these Hobgoblins have the Cooperation skill. Fighting a large group would be troublesome indeed.
The rubbish mercenaries that picked a quarrel with Fran before the departure were already lying dead on the ground as proof of this. Being eager for achievements, they seem have gone too far ahead, granting themselves wounds that cover their entire bodies. Even at a glance, it’s obvious that they can’t be saved. Against foes with Cooperation, even if they’re small fry, plunging into them head-first would obviously end like that.
Fran doesn’t seem to have noticed, or, if they were truly unfortunate, she may have simply forgotten about them already.
「Haー!」
『It’s an all you can eat!』
While Fran swung me, I fired invisible attacks like Aura・Blade into the surroundings, cutting down Hobgoblins while trying not to attract attention to myself.
「T-Thank you!」
「Seriously, this cute little girl is ――」
「Eh? Who ――」
「No way ――!」
Oh, the lad from before is still here. Without overdoing it, he’s been fighting steadily. Now, while being too surprised at Fran’s figure, he fell for a moment and got himself into a pinch. He was saved by a senior, though.
The other C and D rank Adventurers are frantically holding the entrance of the cave, so Adventurers with insufficient strength are closer to the base. Therefore, the Hobgoblins attention was naturally directed at the peerless being: Fran.
「Big catch.」
『They keep on coming from the sides, huh. It’s good that we’re alleviating the strain on the other Adventurers, but…』
As for myself, I have to restrain from absorbing magic stones here. If it becomes known that the magic stones from the Hobgoblins that Fran defeated are all missing, various troubles might occur.
Therefore, I’m verifying their Skills one by one with Appraisal, and only absorbing the magic stones from Hobgoblins that have Skills I absolutely want.
『Now it should be fine, right? Quickly, let’s break into the dungeon.』
「Nn.」
If it’s inside the dungeon, then I can absorb magic stones without minding the people around us; I can just hide the evidence by stowing away the enemies’ corpses.
Fran moves towards the dungeon. At the entrance, people and Goblins are fighting, all tightly packed together.
「According to reports: Cave Type.」
Dungeons have various categories, including Labyrinth Type, Cave Type and Nature Type. Cave Type is often seen in recently-created dungeons. Traps are almost nonexistent, but in exchange there seem to be many that have complex structures — almost resembling an ant nest.
According to the Conjurers who used disposable Familiars to scout, there were nothing resembling traps on the inside. For the large amounts of goblins coming and going traps would be a hindrance after all.
There was no talk about any kind of special rooms, either. About these ‘special rooms’, they’re essentially areas with peculiar effects such as sealing Transfer, sealing Recovery, or absorbing Magical Power. If they’re entered without noticing the difference between them an normal rooms, there’s a high risk of total annihilation. The ones that seemed to have ways to detect the difference concluded that there weren’t any such places here.
For us, this was good news. Without having to mind t