Chapter 7.
Entrusting his body to instinct, Suchan swung the blood-stained hand axe, severing goblin necks and smashing skulls, while Turf advanced by tearing out goblin throats.
Under their relentless assault, the number of goblins finally began to dwindle. At some point, no more reinforcements emerged.
‘The reinforcements have stopped. There are no more!’
“Keep pushing! Turf! Just a little more and we’re done!”
“Keruk!”
“Grrraaa!”
Despite taking more wounds and breathing harder, Suchan and Turf pressed the attack. The goblin numbers visibly decreased. Their blood mixed with goblin blood, soaking the floor completely. By the time the passage in front of the portal was piled high with corpses, the battle finally ended.
“Ha… ha… We… we survived.”
“Huff… huff… huff!”
Suchan panted atop the pile of over thirty goblin corpses.
Turf, equally covered in blood, caught his breath beside him.
Both of them were in complete disarray.
“We’re both a mess. Fighting any more like this is impossible. Let’s head back for today and rest. We need to apply medicine too.”
“Kyauuu.”
Suchan comforted the exhausted Turf and pulled the hand axe free from a goblin corpse. Then he searched for the spear he had lost earlier.
“There it is.”
He picked up the spear lying in front of the portal and stood, turning around.
At that exact moment—
A massive black shadow fell over him as an urt high goblin—a gorilla-like goblin—emerged from the portal.
“Damn it…”
Feeling the chill of the shadow enveloping him, Suchan quickly spun around.
A muscular goblin was glaring at him.
The moment their eyes met, Suchan’s face twisted as if he had bitten into something sour.
Not only was this one huge—it was wearing armor. And in its hand, it held a quite sturdy-looking shield.
“KUAAAK!”
“Son of a—!”
As the creature roared, Suchan grimaced and thrust his spear toward its stomach.
The short spear aimed for the belly, but the goblin—whose vision had already recovered—blocked it with the large wooden shield.
Clang!
“Damn!”
“Grrraaa!”
“Kraaak!”
The goblin shoved Suchan’s spear away.
Overpowered, Suchan was pushed backward along with the spear and rolled over the pile of goblin corpses.
“Damn it! Built like a tank and stupidly strong too!”
Suchan kicked a corpse away and rolled backward.
Thud! Crunch!
He barely managed a back roll just as the goblin—gripping the shield with both hands—slammed it down where he had been standing. He dodged the shield, but the goblin corpse beneath it was crushed to pulp, bones and all.
“Sh-shit!”
Seeing the mangled ordinary goblin corpse, Suchan swallowed a mix of blood and saliva, legs trembling.
The overwhelming power made the hazy fear of death suddenly crystal clear.
‘M-my legs! Damn it. Focus. Focus!’
Suchan looked at the goblin raising its shield again and forced strength into his shaking legs.
But his terrified legs refused to obey.
‘Please!’
He desperately willed strength into them.
Right then—
[The trait ‘Resolve (????)’ is activated.] [Resisting fear.] [Regaining control of the body.]
Another message appeared before Suchan.
The trait had triggered.
The instant the message appeared, the trembling in his legs and hands stopped, and the terror and fear in his heart noticeably subsided.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
‘So that’s what “resistance to mental shrinkage” means.’
“Grrraaa!”
The goblin lifted the shield it had embedded in the floor and swung it at Suchan again.
This time Suchan calmly kicked off the ground and dodged.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The shield struck the floor and walls in succession.
Once he stopped panicking and focused, the attacks were avoidable.
And he wasn’t alone.
“Turf! Zap it!”
At Suchan’s command, Turf closed the distance to the goblin’s feet.
While the monster was focused on Suchan, Turf had sneaked in.
Reaching right in front of the giant goblin, Turf bristled its fur at Suchan’s order and unleashed lightning.
Crackle—!
“GRRRAAAAA!”
The bolt struck the massive goblin square on, making it scream and collapse.
The lightning had hit properly. But one skill wasn’t enough to kill it.
Turf immediately lunged and aimed for the stunned goblin’s thick neck.
Crunch!
“Grrraaa!”
Turf’s teeth sank into the goblin’s neck. The goblin let out a monstrous scream and swatted Turf away with its huge hand.
Struck by the blow, Turf crashed into the wall and fell.
“Turf! Be careful!”
“Kyau?”
At the same time as Suchan’s warning, the goblin swung its shield.
Without even bothering to wipe the blood from its wounds, it immediately counterattacked Turf.
Perhaps because it used a skill, the shield glowed with a red aura.
A fatal attack—if it connected, death was certain.
Knowing this, Turf quickly leaped aside to dodge.
BOOM!
As expected, the skill-enhanced shield slammed into the wall with an explosive sound. Bricks shattered and the narrow passage shook violently.
An absolutely tremendous attack.
But the goblin wasn’t finished.
“GRRRAAAA!”
“Turf, watch out!”
The goblin swung a fist at the airborne Turf.
Turf saw the punch, but mid-air, there was no way to dodge properly.
Thud!
“Kyaeng!”
The upward punch struck Turf square in the stomach, sending it flying into the ceiling before it fell again. The goblin didn’t stop at the punch—it assumed a rugby tackle stance and, timing Turf’s fall perfectly, charged with its armored shoulder.
Thwack!
“Gah!”
The shoulder charge hit dead-on. Turf vomited blood, flew over Suchan’s head, and collapsed in the passage.
“Turf!”
Suchan called out.
Turf lay motionless, blood pouring from its mouth and nose, breathing raggedly.
Already exhausted and injured from fighting the regular goblins, two direct hits from this monstrously strong one had knocked it unconscious.
“You damn monster!”
Furious, Suchan thrust his spear. The goblin once again enveloped its shield in red aura and parried.
BOOM! Crunch!
With a deafening noise, the painstakingly made spear crumpled.
It bent like a crushed rusty can and flew backward.
“Ugh! My… my hand…”
The hand gripping the spear was torn open by the shattered fragments.
Suchan grimaced at the gash across his palm, barely managing to pick up the hand axe with his other hand. But his right hand—the one holding the axe—had almost no strength left.
The cut was too deep.
“Damn it…”
Forcing strength into his trembling grip, Suchan glared at the goblin.
The goblin wasn’t in good shape either.
Blood gushed from its neck where the artery had been properly severed.
‘Heavy bleeding. If I just stall, it might bleed out on its own.’
Suchan glanced briefly at Turf.
The best way to buy time was to run. But with Turf unconscious, he couldn’t abandon it. The moment he fled, the goblin would target Turf instead.
‘I can’t abandon family and run!’
Suchan bit down on the right side of his jacket with his teeth, yanked with his left hand, and tore off the right sleeve in one motion. He wrapped the torn fabric around his right hand like a bandage to stop the bleeding, then gripped the hand axe again.
Meanwhile, realizing how severe its bleeding was, the goblin pressed its shield-holding left hand against the neck wound to stem the flow, breathing heavily.
It was trying to stop the bleeding.
Thanks to that, its movements slowed noticeably, and its left hand was effectively neutralized.
‘There’s a chance!’
Suchan took a short, deep breath while gripping the axe, then charged at the goblin with everything he had left.
Rushing toward the goblin more than 1.3 times his size, he stepped on the pile of smaller goblin corpses he had killed earlier and leaped.
“I’ll take your head!”
With a powerful jump, Suchan swung the hand axe toward the right side of the goblin’s neck.
But the goblin had anticipated it.
“KRAAAA!”
In that split second—
The goblin’s right hand glowed red once more, and it swung a fist at the charging Suchan.
Its third skill already.
‘Skill!? It can use it again!?’
Seeing the skill, Suchan panicked.
The creature had already used two skills, and now a third.
An unexpected attack.
The red fist moved faster than Suchan’s descending axe and aimed straight for his face.
He had no way to counter a skill.
If this hit, his skull would surely be crushed by the goblin’s brutal fist.
‘Damn it! Is this the end?’
Suchan squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for death.
That was the only thing he could do now.
However, the very moment he accepted his fate—
A miracle happened.
From Suchan’s back, a being emerged.
It was the ancient spirit Alter Twig, in the form of the wooden squirrel.
Leaping from Suchan’s shoulder, Alter Twig flashed its glowing green eyes and extended its short arms forward.
Instantly, a green barrier appeared in front of Suchan.
It was Alter Twig’s defensive skill.
BOOM!
“GRRAAAA!?”
The vivid green barrier not only blocked the goblin’s fist aimed at Suchan—it repelled it with such force that the goblin’s fingers all snapped backward.
“GRRRRAAAAA!!”
With every finger on its right hand broken, the goblin leaned against the wall and wailed.
A huge creature crying pathetically, tears streaming, drooling uncontrollably.
The shock had left it completely defenseless.
‘Now!’
Suchan didn’t miss the opening.
Squeezing out the last of his strength, he charged again and brought the hand axe down with all his might onto the wide-open, crying goblin’s head.
Thwack!
With the sound of something bursting, the hand axe buried itself deep between the goblin’s eyes.
At the same time, the axe handle snapped, and fresh blood poured from Suchan’s palm wound.
Excruciating pain assaulted his mind, but he had landed a fatal blow.
“Grrraaa…”
Thud!
The urt high goblin’s eyes rolled back, and it collapsed.
From the fallen body, light emerged along with a soul stone.
The surroundings were filled with the bright glow of the soul stone.
“I survived… I survived.”
Suchan let the broken axe handle fall and sank to the ground.
He, too, was covered in wounds.
Having lost so much blood, his mind was growing hazy.
“Damn… no strength left in my body. Is it because the tension finally broke?”
Suchan collapsed.
“Human-nim? Human-nim!”
The startled squirrel called out to him.
Shaking its hair-like pinwheel mushroom frantically as if trying to wake him, it desperately tried to rouse him. But Suchan—completely drained—had already forgotten the squirrel’s cries and lay face-down, breathing shallowly.
With his stamina depleted and severe bleeding, he was slowly slipping into a near-death state.
“Wait! Wake up! Please wake up!”
Panicking at the sight of Suchan dying, the squirrel darted around in alarm.
In his blurring consciousness, Suchan vaguely saw the squirrel running wildly.
It rushed to the largest soul stone among those left by the goblins and Suchan and Turf, hesitated for a moment, then hurriedly stuffed it into its mouth and began swallowing.
It was absorbing the soul stone.
Since it wasn’t a real squirrel, it had no trouble engulfing a soul stone larger than its own body. The moment it fully absorbed the largest soul stone—
Light burst from the small squirrel’s body, and its form slowly began to change.
Gradually taking on a more human shape.
By the time the transformation finished, just as Suchan’s eyes closed—
“I’ll heal you right now! Please hold on just a little longer!”
The urgent voice of Alter Twig—once the squirrel—rang out, and Suchan’s consciousness finally cut off.
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