He followed the goblins as they traversed the forest, he had to be patient and retain his stealth as the goblins ran around hunting all the small game they came across.
There were moments where a goblin began wandering towards him while hunting, but Merlin understood that goblins kept close proximity to the rest of their hunting group. So if he kept a far enough distance from the group, it wouldn't wander close enough to discover him.
After following the group for a few more minutes they seemed to have finished their hunt and started making their way back to the camp. Merlin found himself walking north-east instead of the north-west he was moving in originally, meaning he would have walked straight past the camp if he continued in the direction he was originally travelling in.
He kept his distance as he followed as half of his focus had to be directed at his feet. He had to make sure he didn't step on any dried leaves or twigs, or even trip over roots. As any noise he made would alert the goblins and he'd lose his guide.
He saw glimpses of structures a little bit away through the treeline, it seemed he had finally found the camp.
Merlin decided that he would deal with the hunting group now, this would allow him to get the jump on the camp and have less goblins to deal with at once. He chanted out the skill name for heavy strike under his breath, and slowly crept up closer to the group.
「Skill ⟪Heavy Strike⟫ Activated, your next attack will do an extra 30% damage, and has a 10% chance to trigger the stagger effect.」
He was eyeing the goblin with the bow, it seemed to be the leader of their expedition and it posed the greatest threat. He snuck up until he was close enough to pounce, before launching himself towards the goblin.
The goblin seemed to notice something was wrong, but it turned around just in time to catch the glint of two daggers plunge into its throat, killing it instantly.
The other three goblins started panicking the second they saw their leader fall, Merlin took the opportunity to cleave through the closest one, causing that one to die as well.
He avoided two spear thrusts while he chanted cleanse, and the filth that covered his weapons suddenly peeled off and vanished without a trace. Merlin slid under another spear thrust as he approached one of the remaining two goblins, he leapt up and finished the goblin with ease before turning to the last one.
Seeing as the goblin was the only one remaining, it made the motion as if it were going to call for help, but before it could start yelling a dagger flew at it and pierced its throat. Merlin charged forth and finished it with the other dagger.
It was rough, and he could have done it faster if he had his old stats, but at his current level he was doing pretty well for himself. The one annoying factor is that his weapons kept caking up with goblin goop, and cleanse had a ten second cooldown so it wasn't a reliable ability to continuously cast in a fight.
Nevertheless, he ran around cutting the ears off the four goblins and threw them in his inventory before casting cleanse on himself to rid him of the filth.
「Goblin Ears Collected: 14/140」
He then looked around for loot, but was once again disappointed. Fortunately he could make do with the temporary items the goblins left behind. He threw the goblin bow and quiver over his shoulder, and grabbed the three spears.
These were actual spears, with metal tips, rather than the pointed sticks the last set of goblins were using. It seemed this camp was richer than expected, which wasn't a good sign.
Merlin snuck up to the treeline and poked his head out from behind a tree to inspect the camp in the clearing. There were plenty of tribal tents, large effigies made from animal bones, camp fires and a large variety of weaponry laying around, most of which were spears.
Most of the weapons, especially the spears, were still in surprisingly good shape for something that had been in the hands of a goblin. This usually meant that the goblins had raided a merchant wagon that was holding a large shipment of weapons.
And as Merlin walked around the treeline while inspecting the village from several angles, he saw the wagons as he suspected. Although they seemed to have been ripped apart and used for firewood, and he didn't even have to think as to where the people and horses went.
After surveying the camp for a few minutes at various angles, he began seeing a few heavily armoured goblins standing around. After further investigation he came to the conclusion that there were about four heavily armoured goblins total. Fortunately for Merlin, they seemed to all be standing guard nearby a certain tent, leading Merlin to assume that was where the leader was.
Other than those four, the rest seemed to just be wearing what Merlin could only assume was a patchy mix of gnoll and horse hide, with most not having anything outside of the regular loincloth.
There were quite a few goblins in total, but they were spread out quite far from each other in their large camp. Merlin figured that his best bet at annihilating the goblins would be to bait small groups of them away from the camp at a time, otherwise he'd risk being swarmed.
Being swarmed was definitely something he wanted to avoid, as even Merlin would struggle against a hoard of goblins at this level. Goblins were rather weak when alone but incredibly dangerous when working together, and the added obstacle of their blood rendering bladed weapons useless made it even more so.
Fortunately, he always had his sneak skill to fall back on if things went wrong. So even if he did attract too many goblins, he could vanish into the treeline to start again, although they would definitely be on guard the next time around.
Alternatively as his last resort if for some reason his stealth trick didn't work, Merlin could just fight the entire camp in the forest using guerilla warfare. He would have a much greater advantage as an individual fighting a group in a forest, where he could use his speed and abilities to his advantage, rather than fight them out in the open where he could get surrounded.
Believing he planned his attack as well as he could, Merlin made the first move. He slowly walked around to a group of five goblins on the far edge of the village, they seemed like the easiest targets and none of them had the patchwork hide armour like the goblins closest to the middle of the camp.
Merlin picked up one of the three spears he had looted and began targeting the goblin closest to him. Unfortunately he couldn't use heavy strike in this circumstance, as he found out when fighting the rose wight, it didn't trigger on thrown weaponry much like other damage boosting skills.
Merlin let the spear fly, but unfortunately, instead of the neck shot he was hoping for, the spear flew short and instead punctured the goblin's stomach. It seemed his lack of power was caused mostly by the awkward movement he was forced to take due to the bow and quiver hanging off that very same shoulder, but he didn't really want to bother about placing it down only to scramble and pick it up when he had to run.
The five goblins, alongside another group of three a little bit away who were also caught in the aggro, made their way to Merlin's position in the forest with their weapons drawn. One was running at him with a spear sticking out of his back. Merlin prepared another spear and threw it, puncturing the shoulder of another goblin.
Merlin ran further into the forest as the goblins breached the treeline. The goblin who entered the forest first, who also happened to be the goblin that caught a spear in its shoulder, was greeted with a spear that penetrated its skull. That goblin was the first to fall, and its death angered the remaining goblins.
Unfortunately for them, the second they caught a glimpse of white flowing hair, two arrows flew out, one piercing an eye, and the other a chest. Merlin continued playing with the goblins, eventually having to enter melee range due to his temporary bow snapping, but he eventually finished them off with ease.
Merlin ran around chopping off the goblins ears, throwing them in his inventory before cleaning himself and his weapons.
「Goblin Ears Collected: 30/140」
He ran around looking for loot, and fortunately this time he found some, although it was just a handful of copper pieces, three to be exact. And alongside the three somewhat bloody spears that seemed to have a use or two left, he had eight more.
Merlin gathered the eleven spears after casting cleanse on the three blood-covered ones, and began lining them up near the treeline where he made his first attack. He took the three spears he used prior, alongside two more, and ran around the camp for more easy targets.
Another spear flew through the air, this time successfully piercing a goblin's throat, two more spears flew out in quick succession, one pierced a goblin's chest, the other its shoulder. And like before, another group was also enraged and began running towards him, there seemed to be about ten total this time.
Merlin let two more spears go before giving the goblins a wave and then disappearing within the treeline. Three spears were thrown at him, one barely lodged itself in the tree Merlin had hidden behind, the others dug into the soft forest dirt.
