Several goblins scattered throughout the forest, any who got close to where Merlin was hiding were quickly disposed of. Once a goblin was killed, their spear and any spear sticking out of them were quickly used against its allies.
Merlin dodged a few more spears thrown at him, those that slid across the floor and were easy to pick up were quickly thrown back, often times hitting the goblin who threw it in the first place. But Merlin remained mobile, not stopping in one place for too long to minimise the chances that he would be hit by a spear.
The goblins that tried closing in on his position found that he vanished without a trace the second he stepped out of vision, only for him to show up behind them, or drop down from a tree and kill them in melee range.
The process repeated itself until all ten goblins were dead, and once again he ran around cutting goblin ears off, throwing them into his inventory the second they were registered as items by the system.
「Goblin Ears Collected: 50/140」
"Forty-five goblins to go." Merlin huffed while wiping sweat from his brow.
He went around collecting as many spears as he could that retained their good quality before casting cleanse on himself and the weapons.
He made his way back to the treeline, but it seemed the camp was on high alert now. Which was understandable, as eighteen goblins had just suddenly vanished.
And it looked like the leader had started making his move, as he saw a much larger goblin step out of his tent. It was roughly the height of a human with larger muscles than the regular goblins around it, it was a hobgoblin.
Although his eyes glanced over the hobgoblin, Merlin's interest was quickly taken by the creature that followed it out of the tent. He was surprised to see a goblin adorned with small bones and more ritualistic body paint than the regular tribal markings the other goblins had. The most concerning fact about this goblin was that its weapon of choice was a large wooden staff, meaning the goblin would be some kind of spellcaster.
"Oh, that's not fun." Merlin muttered under his breath as he inspected the goblin further.
He wasn't sure what kind of spellcaster the goblin was, and since he wasn't close enough to it, he wasn't shown the name hovering above its head to confirm it either. Merlin began rethinking his plan, he had to play around the goblin spellcaster, as it was currently a wildcard.
His actions in regards to the spellcaster would differ depending on what type it was. If its spell list consisted of raw evocation spells, such as fireballs or throwing lightning, then he would just have to avoid the spells, or he could use them to deal with other goblins.
But if the goblin just so happened to be the type of spellcaster that used hexes or binding skills, then he'd be in trouble. He couldn't risk losing his mobility against such a large group, even so much as a reduction of strength in his arms, or having one of his senses obstructed, could pose a grave threat.
It seemed that quite a few goblins were now keeping watch along the perimeter, some of which were utilising bows. Merlin watched as one of the goblins noticed movement somewhere within the treeline and without a moment of hesitation, let an arrow fly.
The arrow flew into a bush, and Merlin heard a pained cry from a woodland critter, so it seemed as though the goblin hit something, but not the target it wanted. Merlin decided that he was going to have to avoid the mage, and take down the goblin archers as quickly as he could.
While stealthily spreading a few groups of spears out along the treeline, he started throwing a few in quick succession. The spears were aimed solely at the archers, and once he ran out of spears in one location he quickly dipped behind cover and ran towards another pile of spears, repeating the same process with another archer.
He killed three archers with this method, and grievously injured two more. But the best result of this tactic was that instead of the camp running towards the one spot, they formed groups and split up between all the locations the spears were coming from.
Some of these groups, or in this case search parties, were better armed than usual. Amongst the few spears were goblins wielding swords and bows, and there was even a couple shields scattered around the groups. But none of the four armoured goblins moved away from defending the hobgoblin.
Merlin hid within the forest, although he was still technically unseen for now, he made sure to break line of sight before scrambling up a tree. He perched himself on a large tree branch while hiding his presence, he had his blades drawn and he could feel his heart beating.
A large group of goblins closed in on the position where he had thrown his spear, and once they entered the forest, they quickly split up into groups of three or four. Several groups walked near Merlin, and even directly under him, but he had his eyes locked on a specific goblin who was slowly inching his way towards him.
This goblin had a long one-handed sword and a round shield that covered most of his torso, it was also wearing the mixed hide armour. Merlin believed that it would be the most annoying goblin to deal with, so while he had the element of surprise, he wanted to take it down first.
"Heavy strike." Merlin quietly chanted under his breath, and he received the activation notification which disappeared a few seconds after.
「Skill ⟪Heavy Strike⟫ Activated, your next attack will do an extra 30% damage, and has a 10% chance to trigger the stagger effect.」
Merlin held his breath as the goblin walked underneath him, and once he believed it to be the most opportune time, Merlin simply dropped off the tree branch and plunged his daggers into the goblin's neck.
As the goblin's body went limp, a glowing wispy green ball of light flew out of its body and hovered in the air, it was a monster soul.
The goblins around him heard the goblin fall, and they all turned around and noticed Merlin, so he didn't have much time to be surprised about the appearance of a goblin soul, he reflexively reached out and grabbed the light, causing a notification to appear before him.
「You have no empty soul slots, would you like to store the soul in your inventory?」
Merlin responded with "yes", which caused the soul to vanish.
「"Race Soul: Goblin (Level 1)" has been stored in your inventory.」
With that out of the way, Merlin quickly ducked under an incoming spear and grabbed the shield of the goblin he just killed. He quickly raised the shield, which blocked an incoming arrow aimed at his head.
The goblins didn't have him completely surrounded, and he found a gap in their attempt at an encirclement which he made a dash for.
Two more arrows flew at him, which were easily blocked by the shield, but it seemed to be running low on durability. Merlin charged at one of the archers that was shooting arrows at him, after two more shots the shield split in half.
More goblins were closing in on his position, and several spears were getting ready to be thrown. Merlin quickly disposed of one of the archers, but the other had shot an arrow at him, forcing Merlin to awkwardly throw the goblin's corpse in the way of the arrow before dashing behind a tree.
Three spears were thrown in his path, one barely missing his legs. And before he realised it, a couple more groups started running over due to the noise the goblins were making.
Realising he was probably in trouble, he quickly assessed his surroundings while dodging another arrow. There were three goblins without a weapon near him, the ones who had just thrown their spears. There was the archer who was surprisingly accurate with a bow, and next to him was a goblin with a sword.
Coming up behind him was another group, fortunately no shield but there were two spear wielders and another archer.
Merlin sheathed his daggers before grabbing one of the spears on the ground. He dashed towards the three unarmed goblins, dodging yet another arrow aimed at his head.
The unarmed goblins quickly scattered as Merlin approached and began scrounging around for a weapon. Merlin's focus snapped to the sword wielder instead, who stepped in front of the archer. Even a dim-witted creature like a goblin had enough sense to realise that the archers were giving Merlin the most trouble.
But unfortunately for the goblin, the archer wasn't his target. Merlin threw the spear at the goblin's chest and unsheathed his daggers as he approached. The archer goblin stepped out from behind the goblin with its bow loaded, but Merlin threw one of his daggers at it before sidestepping a vertical slash from the sword goblin.
The dagger sliced through the goblin's bowstring, rendering it useless, and barely punctured its chest. It didn't do much damage, but it served as enough of a distraction for Merlin to execute the sword goblin. Merlin lunged at the archer, killing it before retrieving his other dagger.
Merlin cast cleanse on himself and ran around picking off the other three spear goblins, two of which had a weapon while the other was still searching.
Beads of sweat were pouring off Merlin's forehead, and he was beginning to pant quite heavily. Even if he was more skilled, without his stats he was barely hanging on. If he continued at this pace, eventually his body would slow down and he'd be at risk of dying.
