Chapter 7.
'Alright Madison, you can do this,' the young mage told herself, her knuckles white as she gripped her staff with both hands.
'It's just one spell, just one little spell and then it's over.'
Madison took deep breaths, trying to steady her racing heart as she stared at the goblin settlement spread out before them, the straw roofs and crude wooden fences looking far more intimidating up close than they had from the hill.
Right now, their group was positioned at the periphery of the goblin settlement, close enough that Madison could hear the inhuman chattering of the creatures going about their daily lives, completely unaware that death was lurking just beyond their line of sight.
As for the guards at the gate, they had already been dealt with by Eva and Tony, their bodies crumpled on the floor with no fanfare or warning, just two goblins who had been doing their jobs one moment only to become corpses the next.
Nevertheless, the group needed to act quickly before the other goblins noticed anything strange about the missing guards or the scent of blood that was probably starting to drift through the air.
While goblins were considered weak monsters by adventurer standards, the kind that rookie parties cut their teeth on for their first few missions, they were still troublesome to deal with due to their numbers and their surprisingly agile bodies, and a single mistake could turn an easy quest into a desperate fight for survival.
Madison closed her eyes for a moment, centering herself and then began chanting her spell, she kept her voice low and steady as the magical energy began to gather above her head.
A crimson magic circle emerged, roughly one meter in diameter, glowing with an inner fire that cast strange shadows across her determined face.
The chanting continued for several more seconds, the magic circle pulsing with each word until Madison could feel the spell straining against her control, begging to be released.
"...Fire arrows," Madison declared at the end of her chant, her voice firm despite the tremor in her hands.
Right after she spoke, several flaming arrows shot out from the magic circle and into the sky, trailing smoke and embers as they arced upward, reaching the peak of their trajectory before turning and falling back down toward the village below like a rain of fiery death descending from the heavens.
"Ke?" Some of the goblins below were quick enough to notice a strange glimmer of light in the sky, their beady eyes tracking the falling projectiles with confusion, but they had no idea what they were looking at until it was far too late.
Only after the fire arrows fell, killing several of the creatures outright and causing flames to begin spreading rapidly after landing onto their highly flammable straw homes, did the goblins finally realize what was happening, and by then, panic had already begun to set in.
"Don't let a single one of them escape!" Tony barked out his orders, his broadsword already in hand as he positioned himself between Madison and the village.
"Eva, you chase after the fleeing ones, I'll stay close to Madison and make sure nothing gets near her while she recovers her mana!"
Eva's expression flickered for just a moment, and anyone paying close attention would have seen her jaw tightened and her eyes narrowed with barely concealed displeasure.
She secretly hated the idea of leaving Tony alone with the mage, the thought of the two of them standing there together while she did most of the dirty work made her blood boil, but she still complied nonetheless.
And so, the goblin village was thrown into chaos, facing the sudden intruders who had burst into their home without warning, slaughtering their brethren with a complete lack of mercy, the goblins were terrified.
Mothers grabbed their children and fled toward the tree line, their primitive instincts screaming at them to run, hide, and protect their young at all costs.
Some goblins, the braver ones or perhaps just the more foolish ones, picked up whatever weapons they could find, rusted blades, wooden clubs, sharpened sticks, and tried to face off against the invaders, yet it was but a futile attempt against trained adventurers who had been doing this kind of work for long.
Eva, who was in fact an assassin by class, moved through the throng of goblins like a shadow given form, her twin daggers flashing in the firelight as she slayed them at a rapid pace, each strike precisely aimed at vitals.
She wasted nothing in her efforts, delivering death again and again with cold precision.
Meanwhile, Tony easily cleaned through several of them with a single sweep of his broadsword, his strong frame and heavier weapon allowing him to cut down multiple enemies at once, sending goblin bodies flying through the air like ragdolls as he carved a path through the settlement. Of course he didn't stray too far from Madison.
Eventually, one goblin who looked older and larger than the rest, with greyish skin and a crude crown of bones and feathers adorning its head, saw that their situation was beginning to look bleak and decided to act before it was too late for any of them to escape.
"Kekeke!" The goblin, who was in fact the goblin chief, commanded its brethren to retreat into the forests with a series of sharp, urgent cries, and requested for some of the stronger fighters to join him in facilitating their escape by holding off the invaders for as long as possible.
The female goblins looked heartbroken at the order, clutching their children tighter as tears streamed down their green faces, while some of the males who hadn't been called upon to stay behind looked unwilling to abandon their chief and their comrades to certain death.
But under their chief's constant, commanding words, they reluctantly agreed, because they took could understand their leaders thinking.
Staying back would only have death waiting for them, and they didn't want that, no matter how heartbreaking it was to leave their loved ones and flee.