Lord: Starting from a Goblin Nest

”Watch it!” Polly turned and snapped at the two Redcaps. ”These are our guests and employers!”

”After losing your Night Howling Hounds, you’re using these things to help you out?” Silvia twirled her Walking Stick, eyeing the two small Spirit Types with interest.

They looked like shriveled, short, hunched, muscular Dwarves, wearing pointed red leather caps, pants of a similar material, and a pair of heavy iron boots.

This was a type of Spirit Type whose thirst for blood was rooted in its very instinct for survival. At least once every three days, they had to dip their hats in the blood of a victim, or they would vanish from the world as if they had never existed.

”As you can see,” Polly said, looking at the Vampire Descendant with disgust, ”they’re not as useful as the hounds, but they’re the only help I could find right now.”

”I’m just a reclusive old hag. Without help, I can barely protect myself. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of prey in the wilderness. I won’t attack you just to feed them.”

”I hope so,” Ron said, glancing at the Redcaps. The two wicked Spirit Types, common villains in the stories of this world, immediately raised their giant scythes, brandishing them menacingly at Ron and making strange HISSing sounds.

”We should get a move on,” Sera said, narrowing her eyes as she stared at the two Redcaps. ”Just like these two, I’m itching to kill something.”

”If we don’t run into any Owl Bears or Warg Mounts, I’m afraid I’ll have to settle for these two runts to whet my appetite!”

”You just try it! I’ll drown you in your own pool of blood!” the Redcaps shot back at Sera, not to be outdone. If Ron and Polly hadn’t pulled them apart in time, the three of them would have probably started a bloodbath right then and there.

But in the end, the incident was prevented by the intervention of a few ”good monsters.” As Ron and the others ventured deeper, the sky began to darken. Pairs of eyes—some yellow, some green, some red, some blue—began to light up in the deep forest, illuminated by the ever-burning torches and reflecting a strange glow.

”Wolves,” Delaford said, taking down his bow and arrow. His eyes could also see clearly in the darkness. ”And quite a variety, too. Everything from common gray wolves to large Warg Mounts.”

”There are even a few Desperado Hounds. Looks like they’ve all got their eyes on this juicy piece of meat.”

”Desperado Hounds? Where?” Ron and Sera looked around in confusion. Without Dark Vision, they couldn’t tell which pairs of eyes belonged to which creature in the distance.

”There. See those two pairs of eyes that are very close together?” A faint, twilight-colored halo covered Victoria’s eyes as she pointed in one direction. ”Those are vicious, two-headed hounds that lie in wait to ambush passing travelers and Adventurers for a fresh meal. Their saliva carries vile bacteria; a wound from their bite will gradually become infected and rot.”

”It’s a little strange, though. Why would these creatures be in the Delusional Land? This shouldn’t be their natural habitat.”

”Nothing strange about it,” the Ghost Witch cackled, her voice hoarse. ”Some of them were brought to this land by its former rulers. Time passed, their masters vanished into dust, but these creatures adapted to the environment, thrived, and survived to this day.”

”Looks like they see us as a meal.”

”What a coincidence. I was planning to make a meal out of them!” Sera snorted heavily. ”Ron, let’s just charge right in!”

”Once these beasts feel some pain and realize we’re not to be trifled with, they’ll back off!”

”If they were ordinary beasts, I’d agree with you,” the Goblin Hunter said in a high-pitched voice. ”But haven’t you seen the Warg Mounts? With so many of them gathered together, there must be a leader giving orders from the rear!”

”If we can’t find that leader, it’ll likely find a weakness in our formation.”

The goblin discreetly waved a hand behind his back, and several rats scattered under the cover of night and foliage. Their task wasn’t to attack the pack, but to act as Scouts and find the hidden Warg Mount leader.

”That’s too much trouble,” Silvia scoffed, pursing her lips. The tip of her Walking Stick began to pulse with a scorching, brilliant light. ”Let’s just burn it out!”

”Fireball Magic!”

As the massive Fireball illuminated the entire area, the wolf pack seemed completely caught off guard by their prey’s preemptive strike. The weaker beasts, like the gray wolves, were thrown into chaos—some dying instantly, others scattering in every direction.

But the stronger monsters, like the Warg Mounts and Desperado Hounds, did the exact opposite. After a brief moment of confusion, they quickly rallied and charged toward Ron and his group from all sides!

’This must be what they call a ’stampede’,’ Ron thought. He took out his Flame Gemstone. Using the light from the vegetation set ablaze by the Fireball, he precisely fired a dozen Scorching Beams that slammed into the monsters, causing them to howl in pain one after another.

”WAAAGH!” The Redcaps and Sera let out excited battle cries almost simultaneously, recklessly charging into the oncoming horde of beasts. The only difference was that the Redcaps either didn’t know how or simply refused to coordinate with Ron’s team, fighting purely on instinct. Sera, however, even in her frenzy, remembered to fight around Aive and the others, using her offense to create a defensive perimeter.

”Connie!” As a huge Warg Mount slammed into Aive’s tower shield, the Warrior took half a step back, bracing and absorbing the full force of the impact. At her shout, Constance spun out from behind her, her sword precisely severing the blood vessels beneath the Warg Mount’s fur in a weak spot.

A cunning Desperado Hound tried to ambush her from behind, but a Kite Shield shot out from the side, its edge jamming into the mouth of one of its heads.

BAM! A Hard Head Hammer came crashing down from above. Amidst the hound’s pained howls, three to five of its fangs were sent flying, while countless others were loosened or shattered.

”Thorns!” Under siege, the Goblin Ranger hastily grabbed an arrow with his teeth and rolled away from a Warg Mount’s gaping maw. Several hard thorns shot up from the ground, trapping the Warg Mount in a cage. Ron closed the distance in two steps, pressed his Flame Gemstone almost directly against the Warg Mount’s head, and fired three Scorching Beams, blowing the massive wolf head into a spectacular shower of blood.

Soon, the monsters realized this juicy morsel had bones. Being clever creatures, they weren’t willing to continue a head-on clash with Ron’s team. Instead, they prepared to ambush the one who looked like the weakest member: the old woman.

’If we can’t swallow them in one bite, we should at least tear off a piece or two, right?’

However, they would soon discover that this bite was going to break their teeth.