Chapter 8:
"And where do you lot think you're going?" Eva's voice cut through the chaos as she flashed the fleeing goblins a wicked grin, her daggers dripping with blood as she stepped into their path.
'Don't even think about running away,' she thought to herself, her eyes gleaming with sadistic pleasure. 'Since I can't hurt that little bitch back there, I guess I'll have to settle for killing you wretches instead.'
Eva activated one of her assassin skills, flash stepping next to a female goblin who had her child clutched tightly in her arms, her dagger already raised for the killing blow.
CLANG!
The sound of metal meeting metal rang out through the burning village, and Eva's expression twisted with fury when she realized what had happened. 'You disgusting worm! How dare you stop me!'
The goblin chief had intercepted her attack, using his own rusted blade to meet her twin daggers, his old arms trembling with the effort but holding firm nonetheless, his beady eyes burning with desperate determination as he protected his fleeing people.
"Kekeke!!" Once more, the chief urged its brethren to flee, not even glancing back to see if they were listening, before quickly focusing on his fight with Eva, because one moment of distraction against an assassin of her caliber would be the last mistake he ever made.
Seeing their chief fighting for his life, his old body straining against a clearly superior opponent, most of the goblins who had been ordered to flee were reluctant to leave him behind, their loyalty warring with their survival instincts.
But under the reassuring cries of those tasked with staying behind, the ones who had accepted their fate and were already turning to face the invaders, eventually began to retreat deeper into the forest, their hearts heavy with grief and gratitude.
Watching this unfold from his position near Madison, Tony's expression turned disgruntled, his jaw clenching with frustration as he saw their payment running away into the trees.
He was deeply unwilling to watch them all flee like that, because every goblin that escaped was a dead goblin that wouldn't be counted toward their reward.
As for the thought of these goblins one day coming back for revenge? It never even crossed his mind, after all, why would it? It was already common for the humans of his kingdom to do such a thing, monster hunting was one of the core tasks of being an adventurer.
Moreover, he couldn't chase after them because he was tasked with protecting Madison, and as a mage, she was vulnerable in close quarters combat, her magical abilities useless if an enemy got within arm's reach.
He couldn't let any one of the remaining goblins get close to her, not a single one, because if they did, she'd die in a matter of seconds, and then he'd have to explain to the Adventurer's Association why he had let their newest recruit get slaughtered on her very first mission.
So Tony stood his ground, broadsword at the ready, and watched the goblins disappear into the forest one by one, counting the coins he was losing with every fleeing back.
"Well what do you know, it actually works." Richard smiled while holding a control pad with a little screen attached to the top, his thumbs resting on the analog sticks as he watched the feed with obvious satisfaction.
The screen was currently displaying the forest outside his yard from a bird's eye view.
Of course, it wasn't an actual bird providing this perspective but a drone he had created using the system, a purchase that had cost him around 2 SP and took no time at all to create.
The system really was incredible wasn't it.
'My points have dropped to 9,' he thought to himself.
'Yet there's nothing to feel bad about because this little gadget changes everything.'
With this drone, he could search ahead and scout his surroundings without having to put his own body in danger, which was a significant upgrade from wandering blindly through a forest full of who-knows-what.
If he could map out the forest this way, find the safe paths and avoid the dangerous ones, then he should be able to locate a settlement or a road or literally anything that might be of use to him.
Richard chuckled happily as he tweaked the controls, getting a feel for how sensitive the drone was to his inputs.
Although he felt that it couldn't go too far right now without losing connection due to how little sp he used to create it.
He believed it could go, maybe a few hundred meters at most.
Nevertheless, he knew that with the system's help, he should be able to fix that problem once he gathered more points in the future, upgrading the drone's range or building an entirely new one with better specifications.
Using his hands, he guided the drone upward and forward, watching the screen intently as the forest rushed past.
*******
Outside the yard, the drone hovered twenty meters in the air, its rotors humming softly as it adjusted to the light breeze drifting through the trees.
All of a sudden, it began moving forward in an upward direction, climbing higher and higher as Richard pushed the left analog stick forward.
The drone flew past the upper branches of the trees, and Richard made sure to carefully avoid the troublesome limbs that stuck out like bony fingers trying to swat his new toy out of the sky.
He weaved between them with growing confidence, tilting the drone one way or the other until he eventually escaped the confines of the tree canopies above and broke out into open air.
"Woah..." Seated comfortably within his log cabin, Richard leaned forward in his chair, his eyes widening at the sight he saw through the drone's camera feed.
The forest below stretched quite far in all directions, revealing a vast sea of green that seemed to go on forever, with no clear end in sight.
It was beautiful in a wild, untamed sort of way, but also slightly terrifying because it meant he was truly alone out here, surrounded by miles and miles of woodland with no guarantee of finding help anytime soon.
' Let's not lose hope yet.' he reassured himself.