"Ch-Chief, bad news! I-It's the goblins again! They're coming in hordes from the forests!"

The flaps of the tent were shoved open by a frail-looking man, with a small and squeletal frame, with signs of malnourishment, and tanned skin from constant exposure to the sun. It was clear he hadn't had it easy recently.

He was a scout, who was delivering the urgent news to the chief of their strange town, which was only made up of people and tents, along with some basic wooden structures, on a concrete surface.

Jonathan, the "Chief", as the rest of the people had started calling him recently, slumped on his wooden chair.

His face was dark. They were already facing enough problems without the goblins' 'help'. Lack of food, housing, sanitation, and infrastructure, magical diseases, and the mountains of half-decomposed bodies in need of burning were only some of the main ones.

"This is their third attack already. Dammit! If only they'd arrived a couple of days later, we would have had time to finish the walls. How many of them?"

The frail man's gaze fell and bore into the ground, as he replied fearfully,

"Th-the scouts counted a-at least a hundred, sir, along with around twenty of the big ones-"

Jonathan's complexion darkened once again.

"Hobgoblins. Tough bastards. We barely managed to take down the five from last time, and only six more people have gotten a class since then... How long until contact?

"A-around... Two minutes."

Jonathan really wanted to slam his fist down onto his desk, but he sighed and forcibly calmed his heart down. He was the leader of the people in this community, no matter how unorthodoxly he had been placed in that position by them, so he had to be a figure for everyone to look up to.

He put on a confident look, his recent increase in Charm helping out quite a bit, and walked out of the command tent, practically his home in these past months of chaos, with a steady, confident gait.

He stopped to face the masses in front of him, all waiting to receive his orders. Thousands of people, all that remained of the tens of thousands they used to have. Most left, following what remained of the road in search for ever-elusive safety, thinking the government or military would be better off than them. But Jonathan had been into the forests, and seen the monsters lurking deep inside.

Those people were most likely all gone already.

Apart from those who left, some had starved to death, several hundred ventured into the forests to level up but never came back, and thousands were killed in the two instances the goblins attacked.

The first time, there were only about a hundred, and quite low-levelled, only about as strong as normal adults, if quite a lot faster, but they attacked at night, easily taking care of the few guards on duty, since most of them were sleeping in the job due to thinking the plains around the settlement would be safe from beasts, due to their low ambient mana.

When they attacked the second time, they brought over twice the numbers, and even hobgoblins. But the people were more prepared, and the casualties less, even if they were still devastating.

After that, the people had dug a trench all around the settlement, and almost finished building a wall of logs all around the base. But with a distinct lack of archers and an even bigger lack of magicians, the tall wall unfortunately blocked the people from attacking the goblins as much as it did the opposite, except for the small holes made for spears to be thrust through.

Snapping out of his thoughts, Jonathan once again drew his attention towards the thousands of expectant gazes directed at him.

Then, he activated his first and, for now, only Class Skill, [Warcry]. His [Warlord] class was a Rare one, meaning the Skill was better than most. It greatly improved the morale of every ally who heard it, along with some small bonuses to Strength and Agility, also applied the Fear effect to some weaker enemies. The Skill's effect scaled up with Jonathan's Charm and Willpower, his highest stats, along with the quality and emotion of the words he said as he used the Skill.

"[EVERYONE!! The goblins are back, and they are going all out this time! Their numbers are four times as many as last time, but I am not scared!! And neither should all of you be! Why!? Because we, are STRONG!! And we, are UNITED!! And if we work together, no ragtag bunch of green shits can defeat us!! You hear me!? Brothers, sisters, let us go to the walls! Let us show them who the bosses of these plains are!! Together, let us wipe their dirty existence off the face of this world!! TO THE WAAAALLLLSSSS!!!]"

"WAAAHHHHH!!!!"

The crowd exploded in cheers, and Jonathan wiped the sweat of his forehead. Half of what he said, he had made it up. He didn't know if they were really going all out, or if this was just an advance party. He had no clue if they could defeat them even if this was all they had. But he knew damn well that their only chance of winning was by going all out. If they were stronger than what he preach about, they were all dead anyways, with the enemy coming from all sides at them.

Jonathan jumped down, and joined the mad rush for the walls. There were small, intentional gaps in them, meant for people to thrust the basic wooden spears they had produced en masse through them. But Jonathan didn't stay inside the walls. No, he went outside, along with the few others who had already gotten their classes, to kill the enemies who bared the most risk of breaching the walls, more specifically the Hobgoblins.

He had nowhere near as high physical stats as the other people with Classes, as they were mostly [Warrior]s, [Rouge]s or [Swordsmen], but he had the highest level overall, sitting at 22, along with having more points per level due to his Rare Class, which meant his contribution would also be pivotal for this battle.

At the beginning of the fight, everything was at least manageable. Sure, the goblins came in hordes, but most fell in the waterless moat, either dying from the fall or getting squashed to death when others fell on top of them.

It was a waste of Experience, but now was not the time to care.

But eventually the corpses piled up enough to allow goblins to cross through in certain areas, and the fuckers stopped jumping to their deaths and instead crossed through those 'bridges'. Their intelligence was fairly low, but they still valued their lives enough to know not to jump into a pit when other alternatives were available.

The advance group quickly moved to take care of them, but they were just too damn many. Injuries piled up, and many were forced to retreat behind the walls, to get treated by the many doctors and the one [Medic] in their ranks.

That's when the people behind the walls came in, spearing through any goblin that got too close, and making the situation take a turn for the better.

But Jonathan, who had just gotten to level 23 and dumped all his free points into Endurance to have a better shot at survival, couldn't relax. Why? Because fifteen Hobgoblins suddenly came out of the dense woods, toppling over the trees in front of them to make way for a giant, green hulking creature that only slightly resembled its goblin brethren.

"Wha- N-no way... What the hell's that!!??"

Jonathan fell on his butt, but he quickly regained a shred of composure and cast [Inspect] on the monstruous Goblin.

Goblin Lord—?? Rank—Level ??

Goblins were 8th Rank creatures, fearsome little shits that usually only got a bit stronger and tougher than normal men when they reached high levels, but whose superhuman Agility made them fearsome opponents.

Hobgoblins, on the other hand, were 7th Rank, vastly slower than their smaller peers but with easily enough Strength to punch through a tree or crush a man with a single hand, and enough Endurance to shrug off being stabbed by wooden pikes, with even steel weapons barely making shallow cuts.

But this? If Jonathan couldn't even determine its Rank, it had to be at least 6th. That was as strong as a level 50 person, according to that damned tutorial. And looking at its build, with a height easily reaching 15 feet, five more than the already huge Hobgoblins, and enough mass to still look bulky as hell, the monstruosity could probably destroy their settlement singlehandedly.

But Jonathan didn't run.

It was the duty of a ruler to protect his people, and if he was going to die anyway, he might as well go out with a bang. Who knows, he might even be able to cripple the Goblin Lord's eye if he was lucky.

He gathered his wits and stood up, picking a more or less intact pike off the floor, and rushed straight into the enemy lines, stepping over the pile of bodies that used to be a pit, while shouting with all he had.

And as he did that, his Skill, which had just come off cooldown, activated on it's own.

"[AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!]"

Suddenly, every man and woman that was desperately fighting for their lives at the walls felt their blood boil, their movements get quicker and their pain from their accumulated wounds fade to the back of their minds as they desperately and fiercely ground down the wave of goblins that were flooding in from the various breaches in the walls.

The settlers had already killed far more than the thousand goblins the scouts had predicted were coming, but scouts weren't always right, especially without proper surveillance Skills.

But Jonathan knew none of those things. His vision narrowed as he approached the Goblin Lord—

And one of the Hobgoblins protecting him stepped up and punched Jonathan in the gut, crushing his insides and sending him flying away and crashing into a nearby tree, breaking almost all of his ribs in one go along with the trunk.

'Shit, even with 70 Endurance, I still can't withstand a single blow, huh...'

But, as his vision started dimming, and he started losing all hope of survival for both him and the settlement he had worked so hard to raise...

...he suddenly saw the Goblin Lord's head explode, painting the surroundings a dirty red with scattered blood and brain matter.

The Hobgoblins immediately panicked as they looked around for the attacker, but then their heads also started exploding one by one. They tried to run away, but it made no difference as they eventually lost their lives in the exact same manner.

Jonathan was stupefied. He had even forgot to faint from the immense pain in his chest as he stared in disbelief at the scene, not having the slightest clue as to what attack had killed the evolved Goblins.

But he had no time to ponder, as the same thing soon started to happen to all the other Goblins too. They exploded one my one in a straight line, as if someone was going down popping them open like popcorn.

Very gross popcorn.

But to the settlers, that disgusting spectacle brought them infinitely more joy than any gorgeous fireworks ever had.

And, after five minutes, every single goblin was either dead or had escaped into the forest, running for dear life.

But Jonathan was already passed out by that point, a small smile of relief painted on his face.

I had gone back to the place where I first tried to get my class after failing to possess that Ice Dragon to see if something changed and I could use the Class Crystal, but of course, it was still the same.

I did kill a few Goblins, at least. There were a few that were bigger than the rest, probably a variant or something, but I didn't bother [Inspect]ing them. They were all equally weak, anyways. After all, their souls barely lasted a single second under my barrage.

I suppose I'll keep traveling, maybe try to find another dragon. I've kind of lost all hope at this point.