1.36 The Only Good Goblin...

“So.” Robb walked alongside an archer, Joe, the leader of their expedition. “What’s your specialization?”

The man in question had introduced himself several minutes ago as Joseph Stinger, a U.S. Army veteran and recreational hunter. “My skills are mostly combat focused at the moment.” The man punctuated his sentences by lightly fiddling with the compound bow in his hand. “I don’t really have any tracking or stealth skills, so that stuff will fall to you.”

Unlike Moe, who Robb felt had tried usurping power by any means necessary, Joe by contrast seemed to be a natural born leader. The kind that anyone would default to in a group project or the like.

“Let’s go around, what do you all specialize in?” He gestured to Amanda. “You’re our support, right?”

His friendly tone overshadowed what was essentially a blatant grab at personal information, but the fact seemed to have gone over the blonde bureaucrat’s head. “Oh! I’m a buff and debuff caster. I don’t have very many skills yet, but I can cast the spells [Stalwart] and [Blindness].” She smiled prettily at their party leader.

Ah, only now did Robb notice the chiseled face that the archer hid under a dark green cloak. ‘Huh, can’t tell what the rest of him looks like though.’

The archer nodded. “That’s interesting. It’ll be really useful to be able to blind single targets.” The man turned his head to the right. “What about you? You’re our tank, right?”

As their only frontliner, Donny was decked out in full plate armor, with a large shield and a large mace. “Yup! My name’s Donny, nice to meet you.” He stuck out a gauntleted hand. “I specialize in drawing enemies to me. I got this really cool [Taunt] skill that I wanted to try out.”

“Oh, just the one?” The archer looked vaguely surprised. “Do you have other skills that might be useful? Or is that the only frontlining ability the System gave you?”

‘Oh, I see his angle now,’ Robb thought to himself. The man was trying to learn about Donny’s level by gauging how many skills he had. ‘Maybe my first impression of this guy was wrong. He’s not a natural leader, he’s just good enough to fool my intuition.’

And Donny, reliable though he might be, seemed all too happy to give the archer any information he asked for. “Oh no, I’m level one right now, so I’ll be looking forward to gaining some more specialized skills in the coming fights. Maybe something that’ll make me invincible for a couple seconds or something, that’d be cool.”

Next up was Moe, who responded after a bit of prompting from their leader, who by this point was walking at the center of their little formation. “I’m just a regular mage. I don’t really have a specialization yet? I just have some basic spells like [Mana Bolt] and [Mana Manipulation].”

“Ah, fairly low level then as well.” The archer looked on, as if trying to prompt Moe to continue.

When no answer came, he turned his attention to Robb. “So I guess that leaves you. Have any specialties? Or are you a normal physical combatant with some extra speed?” He seemed a bit more dismissive of Robb’s class choice than he had been with the others.

Robb seized the opportunity. “I specialize in high damage burst attacks, though in longer fights my lack of defense will be a problem.” Now go for the throat. “Speaking of which, do you have anything against rogue types? You seemed kind of put off when I mentioned it before.”

Settling back to watch the man’s reactions, Robb was surprised to find no real change in facial expression. “I just kind of always felt like it was a useless role in fantasy parties. At least, when compared to the other melee fighters, you know?” Robb waited for a pause to interject, but when the archer got talking, he really got talking. “But if you’re specializing in burst, I think that problem is more limited than I originally thought, cause you’ll be able to serve as our physical damage threat.”

Robb found himself unwittingly nodding along. It made sense logically, but the nature of such an earnest seeming answer made him especially wary of anything else that their party leader might say.

Said man cleared his throat. “So once again, our objective is a particularly nasty group of goblins that our scouts have pointed out, who have been stalking the woods in this general area. Recently, we were able to narrow down their home base to a smaller patch of land, just beyond this river.”

The group slowly made their way across said stream, using the small stones embedded within the shallow water as steps to get to the other side.

“Now if the reports were accurate, the cave should be somewhere… there!” Joe brought a finger to his lips, using his other hand to gesture to a small cave opening.

Creeping to the edge of the dark passage, the archer drew his daggers. Two relatively short, steel stabbing knives. “Ranged weapons might not work very well if the tunnels are tiny, so stay on guard. Draw any weapons that you can use in cramped spaces. We’re going down in a moment.”

Robb agreed with the man, though the only truly ‘long’ weapon that their group carried was Donny’s mace, so he supposed it would be up to their tank whether he wanted to switch out the weapon or not.

A horrible smell wafted up from the entrance, forcing Robb to gag uncontrollably. Compared to the relatively clean fort, where most people had been able to wash themselves and their clothes in a nearby river, the scent emanating from the small entryway was absolutely horrific.

Moments later, a small, childlike figure emerged from the entryway.

Robb’s mind immediately stood at the ready. ‘Green? Green.’ His knife flashed forwards, and the soon to be dead goblin felt a jolting pain through its skull for a brief moment. Then it fell, lifeless to the floor.

Jess, who clearly had not been expecting anything, much less combat, began to violently vomit her guts onto the ground outside the entrance. Shakily wiping at her face, she gave Robb an indignant look. “Why’d you do that! We could’ve taken it hostage and made it talk. Not stab it immediately like some brutes!”

Robb offered her a shrug. Goblins, he noted, were almost never a good thing in those fantasy stories he had so liked. He touched a finger to their lips. ‘No way that was the only one.’

Given his admittedly limited knowledge on goblins, mostly stemming from his adoration of Goblin Slayer, it wasn’t really a shock that neither Robb, nor any member of his team made any move to enter the little cave.

“Do we have to, ah.” Robb gestured towards the corpse. “You know.”

He made a show of rubbing his hands up and down his body. Wasn’t that one of Goblin Slayer’s principle strategies? Rub the scent all over you, lest the goblins find your scent.

To everyone’s relief, including Robb’s own, it was their leader, Joseph, that spoke up next. “I really hope not. The smell is really pungent from that doorway anyway, we’ll probably be fine.” The archer paused to drag the by now rotting corpse from in front of the entrance. “Robb, as our only close-range fighter with short weapons, you’ll be going in first.”

“Now hey hey, hold on just a second.” Donny interjected. “I’m the tank, so I should go in first. My armor will be able to tank much more punishment than Robb’s stuff.” He flexed his muscles while speaking, raring to go.

The man being questioned sighed. “A vote then, all in favor of Donny going in first.”

Donny, Moe, and Jess raised their hand, voting for the tank’s entrance first, while both Robb and Joseph kept their hands down. “Donny it is, then.” Their expedition leader looked unhappy with the result, but seemed unwilling to contest the majority.

The tank pumped his fist into the air. “Let’s GO-” His victory cry cut short as multiple hands promptly slapped onto his mouth.

Robb was the owner of one of said hands, and he gestured quietly to the entrance with his dagger. There would be no room for error here.

The organization of the rest of their party took less than thirty seconds, and consisted of Joseph simply indicating who would go in order.

First was Donny, the man fully decked out in plate armor gave them a large smile, and took his place at the front of their little column. Joseph would be second. “I can try to navigate our way through, even if we don’t have any navigation or tracking skills between the five of us.”

Jess was third, the support mage looked about ready to throw up once more, though with the volume of vomit she had just ejected, Robb wasn’t sure if that was even remotely possible. “You’ll bring up the middle, ready to buff us at a moment’s notice. Our job will be to protect you, alright?” Their leader’s unwavering voice was really holding this group together.

Fourth was their mage, Moe. The beautiful office worker turned adventurer had schooled his face with the experience of a thousand meetings. He would be supporting from the rear, should anything too large for Donny to fight came out.

And finally would be Robb. “Don’t worry.” The grizzled archer patted him on his back. “Your role will be just as important as everyone else’s. Keeping our backline alive in that cave system won’t be easy. You’ll have to be careful of every possible avenue of attack.”

The man was right in thinking that Robb would be upset at his assignment. He had voted to be first into the breach, after all. Though he was wrong about the reason. ‘All that beautiful experience, gone to our bullheaded tank.’ The opportunity to continue levelling was escaping his grasp.

#####

The tunnel systems were simultaneously better and worse than Robb had hoped.

The group lit two torches, Moe and Joseph taking possession of the light sources as the group made its way forward. The tunnel itself was fairly wide once they had gotten past the initial entryway, and Robb mutely wondered if the goblins had come up with that particular ploy.

They could walk two abreast in the widest parts of the passage, save for Donny and his armor, which made him considerably taller and larger than any other member of their team. Robb kept a careful eye on either wall, watching to make sure no goblins slipped by them to attack from the rear.

Joseph called a halt to their advance. “There’s something up ahead, looks like some sort of… totem.” The tunnel abruptly began to descend, a change from the fairly consistent ground they had been walking on thus far.

Now that piqued Robb’s interest. But rather than the totem, his eyes drifted to the far walls of the tunnel. The totem had reminded him of something, and if his memory was accurate… Ah. He spotted a branching tunnel, dark and small, barely half his height.

It seemed designed in such a way as to make it unlikely to be spotted, even with torches and other sources of light.

“Guys.” It had been the first time in this world where Robb had truly felt trepidation. Fear? Sure. But to feel nervous? That was new. “I think we should head back out and plan."