Chapter 40: Hobgoblin(3)

“Wouldn’t that mean it would become invincible if it continues to do that?” Leah asked with a horrified look. I also agreed with her. She was right about it. It was also one of the worries I had after hearing about the racial specialty. If I guess correctly, the passives mentioned in my system screen should be the so-called racial specialty.

I got two of those. Both were strong in their own right.

“Indeed, it would be a nightmare if it keeps happening. But, adventurers aren’t fools. Do you think they would allow them to survive long enough to get durable? Moreover, this durability was only temporary.” Cathie calmly explained to Leah.

Discreetly, I heaved a sigh of relief. If what she said was true, we still have hope to win this fight. Nodding to myself, I shouted at Logier, who was standing not far from me. “Big friend, change of plans. Tell the orcs in front to not let it wound them. Just focus on defending. Also, ask them to keep it in place.”

“Okay.” Logier nodded and went to carry out my order. I looked at Cathie’s free-flowing skill handling and sighed in envy. Compared to her, I use it the way it was. Rigid and unflowing. Maybe it was due to the fact that I do not have any background knowledge in magic handling, which made my skill handling less efficient to her. After observing for a while, I saw the way Cathie was using her ability in detail.

Every time she waves her wand, a fireball as big as a basketball, would come into existence. And that’s when everything changes. With my improved Infrared Vision, I kept track of everything. It wasn’t that hard for the current me. Sometimes, she would add more magic into the ball, although the size wouldn’t change, its explosiveness would increase by several folds. Then, sometime she would increase the size of the ball without adding any extra from her body. Although it decreased the overall power of the ball, it served well as a decoy. Sometimes she would use this kind of fireballs to push the hobgoblin to a specific place.

Other times, she would decrease the size of the ball. Not only it increased the power of the explosion and heat of the fire, but it was also faster than a normal fireball she hurls. In other words, the base skill was the same, The Fireball. But how she uses it makes all the differences.

If it was not for my improved Infrared Vision, I might have thought she was using many different skills of the same element. Although I knew I learned something important, for the time being, I would be unable to digest it. Throwing it to the back of my head to ponder it later, I concentrated on the enemy before us.

The hobgoblin was still alive and kicking as it stood straight while facing the army of orcs. However, it was gradually becoming sluggish due to eating way too many fireballs from Cathie.

Name:?? (Race: Hobgoblin, Special)

HP: 2000/5000

Since Cathie was the only one who could hurt it, all this time, we were only able to sap away half of its HP. It was too arduous of a battle. I could just imagine the intensity of pressure on Cathie. However, it’s a problem we couldn’t solve for the time being. I was keenly observing Cathie’s magic casting. The moment I see her conjuring a ball, I would immediately use my skill on the monster. It would then become immobile for six seconds, which was more than enough time for Cathie’s fireball to land on its face.

[Kill!!]

The hobgoblin roared again, throwing a punch towards the wall of orcs standing on its way to Cathie. However, this time the fist was a little different than the previous ones. It had a swirling air current around it. As soon as its fist connected with the front line defending orcs, a tornado generated, throwing everyone around him. In the eye of this massive storm was the hobgoblin who was running towards Cathie. After suffering so many fireballs, it had already realized who was the danger.

Leah jumped to the front to block it’s advance. Meanwhile, Cathie stepped back and shuffled herself among the orcs.

[Kill. Move!]

The hobgoblin was enraged to see its prey disappearing and vented everything on Leah with a punch. But Leah was no ordinary girl. She was able to block that punch, which was able to throw around orcs like discarded rags, with only her two hands and the back of her sword. Her strength astounded me. I couldn’t believe that thin arms of her could contend equally against the strong hobgoblin.

“Take this!” Leah cursed loudly and kicked the torso of the monster. However, instead of the hobgoblin, it was she who got propelled back. Probably that was what she intended, she twisted in mid-air and landed gracefully on the ground. Suddenly, her figure blurred. I had a hallucination of seeing three Leahs at the same time.

[Kii!!]

Hearing a painful moan from the hobgoblin, when I looked at it, I saw Leah was half squatting in front of it. The butt her sword was digging into the hobgoblin’s stomach. Stepping back half a step, she rotated the sword in her hand and gave an uppercut with the same butt of the sword. Then using the sword as a pivot, she backflipped while giving the hobgoblin a devastating kick to its torso.

Boom!!

Before the hobgoblin could react, a fireball landed on its face and exploded upon contact.

1.5 seconds, that’s how long Cathie needed to cast a fireball. Later, it takes less than a second to reach the target. Rounding off everything, in every two seconds, a fireball would land on the hobgoblin’s face. When I use Cast Illusion, due to the suppression effect, I could only make it immobile for six seconds. But in those six seconds, Cathie would be able to attack it for more than three times.

If possible, I could have kept it under my Illusion spell indefinitely until she kills it. But I faced a problem. After it was affected by my illusion once, I couldn’t use the same skill on it for a few seconds. It would resist otherwise. Once in ten seconds, I could make it immobile for six seconds. I tried to use Nightmare Manifest on it, but due to the nature of the skill, it was useless on it. I realized that this skill could only affect someone who had some level of intelligence and self-awareness.

It was an important discovery.

This cooldown of ten seconds wasn’t there in the system's skill description. I guessed it was something to do with the resistance or tolerance of the target itself. If I use it without stopping, the target would just keep resisting it. Only after the cooldown time passes would I be able to use it again. However, this time could reset if I use something else.

If I use Nightmare Manifest while Cast Illusion was on the cooldown, even though the former couldn’t affect the target, Cast Illusion will succeed when it’s used immediately after. After observing Cathie for a while, I concluded that this effect was unqiue to only me. Or to be more accurate, it was unique to the illusion based abilities.

Everything was normal until Cathie’s fireballs stopped attacking the hobgoblin. Getting confused when I turned around, I was a bit surprised to see her panting while leaning on Leah for support. She looked like a dehydrated person on a hot summer day and ready to faint anytime. I was very familiar with this look as it happened a lot of times with me.

MP exhaustion!

Pulling out the system, I saw the hobgoblin had only 200 HP remaining. It was close, just a few more fireballs could have killed it. Although it was a bit of shame, we need to retreat. Physical attacks held no meaning against this thing, as we were not strong enough to bypass its boosted defense.

“Logier, retreat!” I shouted and moved forward, blocking the monster’s line of sight from the two girls. Although we entered the boss’s chamber and started fighting it, the door at the back didn’t lock itself. Neither were we trapped inside. We could freely move out if the monster proved to be too much to handle.

The downside was that this door couldn’t be opened again for a few days.

“What happened, little friend? It looked half-dead already. I think it will die if we hit a little harder.” Logier didn’t immediately call for a retreat. Instead, it questioned me first. As a response, I pointed my finegr towards the two girls who were steadily walking outside. “Without her, we couldn’t kill it. Let’s just retreat.”

After the war, Logier and the other orcs had a newfound trust in my ability to lead. They wouldn’t find it strange even if I suddenly order them to moonwalk while claiming that it could defeat the enemy. After nodding to me, he gave a loud pig-like squeal.

Every orc responded to it by a squeal of their own. It made me recall the pig firm I worked on for a few months after graduation and before getting the job. My mood dampened instantly. The hobgoblin followed us while roaring ‘kill’ loudly when it saw we were leaving the room. But once we were out, it didn’t come out.

Until the door closed automatically, it was screaming at the top of its lungs. But once the metallic door was fully closed, not long after this, it became eerily quiet.