Chapter 126: In the meantime

In the meantime, when my eyes went to watch how the damage dealer was faring, I cocked my head to the side. Was that part of the adventurer's plan, too? Laughing like a crazy, mad person, the damage dealer didn't quite run back to the team, but rather met his goblins head-on, hysterically laughing and frowning. The long black sword he held kept hacking away at the two goblins as if he tried to cut himself a path through them. "Heh-heh-heh!" he went on laughing nervously. "You... goblins! Take this! Ha! How's that?! <Double Ripper>!"

He seemed to be having fun, at the very least. And, don't get me wrong, there was nothing wrong with his behavior from my perspective. It was great he could enjoy himself, too, as he played around with his targets. Nothing wrong with that by me... but the party's opinion must have been different. Very different.

The guy was messing around, and it could be dangerous. Surely, swinging his sword so erratically at the goblins wasn't what he was supposed to do. His solo attack was kind of pathetic, too, in the sense that the goblins still avoided all the blows coming their way.

The damage dealer was slow, like every member of his team. The other party members were seeing he was messing up with the monsters, but they didn't bat an eye. That must have been happening more than once in the past, I guess. In any case, even his they had some of their attention to spare for the damage dealer, they wouldn't look his way for more than a split second. Things weren't exactly all carefree on their front, either.

The priestess slid me behind her and stepped in front of me. The girl was serious about me not fighting even when she knew I was stronger, way stronger, just because of the Guild's regulations. She liked the rules, and that showed in the way she fought—cautiously and attentively, just like the whole of their team, leaving aside the other dumb guy.

"<Iron Skin>!" That was the tank. Seeing him on the frontline, you wouldn't think he was so shy. "...Plus, <Provoke>!"

His low, groaning voice spoke up some skills, behold the man, his skin turned darker, and slamming his bastard sword on the ground, he did more than simply raise a faint cloud of dust. With that skill, he had all the goblins' attention.

"Good going!" cried the leader. "Damage dealer over there, c'mere!"

"Aye!"

The two goblins focused their might on the tank, trying to take him down. The rusty daggers they held were rotten and barely cut through the tank's heavy leg armor.

Like dominos following one after the other in their fall, everyone followed in the fighting. The priestess summoned "Mana Shield" thingies. The sorceress also threw in some bits of supportive magic here and there in order to help with the fight, mostly debuffing the goblins with dark mana. The tank groaned his thanks to all the teammates, having nothing to fear, and so they fought.

The damage dealer ran up to us with his two goblins, still occasionally turning to them and swinging his long sword their way, and, together with the leader, they participated in the assault.

"<Triple Slash>!"

"<Double Ripper>, <Double Ripper>, <Double Ripper>!"

Goblins were surprisingly supple and agile. You could see their short stature and weak appearance and think those were simple little rats not worth anyone's time, but hey, the little monsters were quite skillful themselves. Now, I didn't know who to cheer for! Monster-friends or humans?

The tank took two goblins down with difficulty. As I had guessed, the quest I received from the System was shared between my party: when the second goblin was taken down with a shoulder charge, the quest indicator went up to 2 goblins dealt with out of 10.

The two creatures fell down, lifeless. Finished here, the tank joined the leader and damage dealer so they could deal with all the enemies. On their side, the goblins still were jumping around and avoided all incoming attacks. The leader could thrust his knight's sword up and down but could only graze them, slowly bringing them down.

Against the weakest party, even the weakest monsters could be somewhat tough opponents. It impressed me—how weak could they all be? The foes were just goblins. Had I taken them on, the fight would be over already. As I thought that, the priestess babe turned to me with a smile, fixing her blond hair a little. "And this is how you deal with goblins, Aoi!"

She said that like she believed I tagged along with her party in order to learn from them. I would show her, one day, how you "deal" with the enemy.

"You look closely and observe," she went on, eyeing the party. "As for the strength, I know you already have it... but see this? You said you didn't know a thing about teamwork, true?" Teamwork was important, I was taught, and it was stronger than strength itself. Going back to supporting the party, she summoned a mana shield and healed a teammate after she stopped talking.

Without the tank, I wondered what would happen to the party. The ritual was the same—Iron Skin and Provoke. With loud stomping steps, the savior tank took hold of the enemies onto himself again. The sorceress threw in a negative status effect at the monsters, and then, the goblins were overwhelmed.

"Yah-hah-hah-hah!" the excited one shouted. "<Double Ripper>, <Double Ripper>... <Double Rippaaah>!"

"<Blade Energy>!"

Flesh was torn and blood spilled. One goblin fell under the damage dealer's excited fury of blows. The other, seriously wounded by the leader, was demolished by the tank's sturdy bastard sword.

Seized by great panic as it understood too well, despite its intellectual inferiority, that it was going to die under today's sun and shades of the forest, the goblin fell to the ground as he was blasted off toward me, then landed no farther than three feet away from me, turned towards me who was a monster-type, too, stretched a trembling hand to my face as if it tried to ask for mercy.

Peering at that sight, I tilted my head to the side in confusion. Huh, I thought, whatever are you asking for? Mercy? You want to be saved? The weak aren't to be saved.

And then, it occurred to me. Did the goblin maybe think because I was a monster-type I might be part of its team, somehow? If that was the case, well, it should know that, if I was going to be a monster, then I would be a monster even with monsters. Slightly pissed off, I sneakily activated the Intimidation skill I had, looked well into the dying green thing's putrid eyes, and displayed a show of utter disgust on my features. My dark, omnipotent mana bore into the dying creature, shaking it senseless. When the goblin passed, it was dark with fear and terrorized. I wasn't just a monster. I was THE monster.

My little private reunion with the goblin was then abruptly interrupted. The damage dealer came running my way, jumped like an acrobat, and pierced the dead mob's body with his longsword despite the fact it was already dead.

"So much of these gobs' stinky blood! Got 'im anyway! This my kill! Hah!"

Everyone was slightly out of breath, but everyone could speak. "...Phew... We've done it, guys."

"Stupid damage dealer! Did you kill it, or was it my brave tank's kill, though, hm? ...Of course it was."

"Nonsense! I finished it just now!"

"Th-Thank you..." the tank thanked the priestess. "B-But... um, it was all thanks to our leader... w-wearing it off like this... W-Without him, I..."

"Scoundrels! I killed it, the kill was mine... Yah-hah-hah! I'll be getting the loot, then!"

Liveliness. A trivial discussion was had and after foolishly debating while having fun, the party members had come to a consensus: it was both the leader and the tank's kill. When the damage dealer kept calling the whole team "scoundrels," the leader snuck up behind him and whacked some sense into the man's head.

"O-Ouch!"

"Awake yet?"

"Are you perhaps a scoundrel, too?! Damn you all!"

"Let's stop fooling around, now." A brief scolding was given to the damage dealer for his reckless behavior before the fight began. The leader's argument was that, while it was okay for the damage dealer to be this reckless when they patrolled their usual hunting grounds, he couldn't pull that today.

"Understood? ...Yes you do."

The priestess came up to the leader in order to heal him, but she was denied. "No, you don't need to heal me."

"What are you saying? Of course I do, it's my job. Kindly don't fight it, my healing magic shall leave you unscathed!"

Again, the leader insisted that he be not healed. But there was a reason for this. "All of you guys, hear me out. Oh, you hear me out, too, little man." When everyone gathered up, the leader spoke. "Okay, so that's what we're doing—"