Chapter 10.
Madison stuck close to Tony, her staff held at the ready but not yet raised for combat, her expression troubled as she looked at the terrified goblin families huddled together against the stranger's fence.
"Should I help?" She offered, her voice uncertain, clearly, she was still having a hard time stomaching all this bloodshed.
"Just stand back and watch," Eva scoffed at Madison, not even bothering to hide her disdain. "I don't need your help to deal with these disgusting things. In fact, I'd prefer if you didn't touch any of them, I wouldn't want you to take credit for my kills."
It was obvious to anyone watching that Eva wanted nothing to do with the young mage, the girl she believed was trying to hog Tony for herself.
The mother goblins clutched their children tightly, their small bodies trembling with fear as they pressed against the wooden fence, they wanted to run but were simply too exhausted to do after having forced their little forms to come so far.
Meanwhile, the male goblins who had survived the retreat stood at the forefront, forming a protective line between their families and the adventurers, even as exhaustion pressed down on them.
Because they knew that a fight was unavoidable at this point, so rather than offering up their necks to Eva and the rest like docile livestock, they wanted to at least put up a fight and make their deaths mean something.
"I think that's about enough out of you three."
Just as the tension was about to peak, a loud voice drew everyone's attention toward the wooden fence that none of them had really paid much attention to until now, its front gate now standing open with a figure framed in the doorway.
"And who are you supposed to be?" Eva frowned at Richard, who stepped out of his home, her gaze neither friendly nor hostile, since she had no idea what this intruders aim was.
The goblins all became guarded at the presence of this new human, their eyes darting between Richard and the adventurers, unsure whether this stranger was another enemy or something else entirely.
Even Tony and Madison were suddenly cautious, because on arriving here, they had already seen the fence and wondered whether someone actually lived this far into the woods, so far from any settlement or road, and now that they were seeing Richard with their own eyes, their suspicions about the cabin being occupied were finally cleared.
[Total system points: 9]
Richard glanced at his remaining points, the blue panel appearing briefly in his peripheral vision before he dismissed it with a thought.
His mind was calm on the surface, but beneath that calm, he was already thinking of ways to use those points to deal with the three adventurers before him if things turned ugly, because nine points wasn't much, but it might be enough for something clever if he chose wisely.
"There's no use telling you who I am," Richard replied to Eva's earlier remark, his voice flat and unbothered by her appearance, "since it wouldn't benefit you in the slightest."
Eva's expression darkened at his response, her grip on her daggers tightening as she glared at him.
'This cocky bastard,' she thought to herself, her pride stinging from being dismissed so casually. 'He thinks we're too weak to threaten him? Does he have any idea who we are?'
But in truth, Richard wasn't trying to be cocky or dismissive, he was merely telling her the truth, because telling them how he had gotten to this world, would only confuse them rather than provide any useful information, and he had no desire to explain anything to these murderous strangers.
"Might I ask instead," Richard continued, his gaze sweeping across the scene before settling on Eva's scowling face, "why you and your comrades are so hell bent on taking the lives of these pitiful creatures? What harm have they done to you to receive such hostility?"
While he knew how goblins were usually portrayed in the stories he had consumed back on Earth, savage and cruel and deserving of slaughter, Richard had never heard of goblins like the ones he was seeing right now.
Creatures so determined to protect one another, so willing to sacrifice themselves for their families, even caring for their young with such obvious tenderness and desperation.
It wasn't an overstatement to say that he was genuinely intrigued by what he was witnessing, which was the real reason why he had decided to intervene rather than staying hidden in his cabin and letting nature take its course.
"I see, Well, I'm sorry to say that they haven't done anything exactly, but that doesn't mean they won't." Tony said.
"We were given strict instructions to exterminate them before they—" Eva continued, her voice sharp and defensive, but Richard cut her off before she could finish whatever justification she was reaching for.
"So you're saying you're simply harming them because you can?" At this point, Richard's expression turned displeased, his earlier calm giving way to something colder underneath.
'The heck is wrong with this bastard,' Eva thought to herself, her jaw tightening as she glared at the man standing in the doorway of his strange cabin.
'Is he really that determined to ruin our mission over some filthy goblins?'
It wasn't uncommon for adventurers to interfere with each other's quests, rivalries and disputes happened all the time in the guild, but she didn't recall Tony and herself ever doing anything to make someone else their enemy, at least not intentionally.
Eva said all this in her head as she studied Richard with growing suspicion, clearly unhappy with this man but due to the nature of his existence, the fact that he was living alone in a monster infested forest, she was still cautious of him.
It wasn't every day you found someone brave enough or perhaps crazy enough to build a home this deep in the wilderness, surrounded by creatures that would happily eat a human given half a chance.
Anyone capable of doing such a thing must be extremely formidable, she thought, because only a fool or a monster would choose to live out here by choice.