“Gawh!” That ‘thing’ roared, causing the surroundings to shake slightly. The birds running away, the squirrels hopping off their homes just to get away, and even the more ferocious beasts took a step back.

Looking back, Yuu could get a good sense of what he was dealing with. While a goblin would be about half the size of a regular human male, this creature, while not as tall as a mythical dragon, not as overshadowing as a giant, it certainly was over 9 feet tall.

Though despite being tall, if there was a word to describe it, it would be... incomplete. Certain body parts were slightly larger than others, with the right arm lagging behind its body due to its size and muscles. It actually had a third eye next to its left cheek, being completely different from the two eyes that were in the right position.

Even though it was boney, it didn’t act like a twig. On its left arm, the more ‘normal’ arm, it held a large pointed metal rod, about twice the size and girth of a spear. And despite it limping due to its oversized arm, it moved its leg perfectly fine. This thing didn’t even care for the trees it stumbled against. While fine, the trees certainly took a hit as tons of leaves were falling down, with a few weaker trees slanting ever so slightly.

With their strength, he and the other two certainly could not take that thing down. At most they could try to distract it long enough for help, but it was simply too monstrous that he couldn’t determine whether they could even defend against it.

“Yuu! What should we do!” Jqonle yelled at him in a rushed voice, clearly frightened by such a sight. Despite his age, he had never seen anything so bizarre. He had always heard of giant creatures, even seen a corpse of one near the city gates as it was being transported, but this thing clearly wasn’t birthed by nature.

Trying his best to look past the millions of leaves that were blurring his sight, he gave the two orders after being able to barely see the top of a tower in the far distance to the right, “Head slightly left! We need to get on the main road! The town is to the right, we can’t let it head over there no matter what! We have to head to the city and pray for help!

As the three ran through the foliage, Leah nudged his arm that was gripping her, wanting to tell him something despite the situation they were in.

“What is it Leah?” he said, trying his best not to run out of air as he had never needed to sprint this much before.

Opening his palm to provide her a bit more space, he found a bottle suddenly appearing on his palm. She had taken out something he patched up in case he ever needed it, a bottle with alcohol! Of course, this wasn’t for drinking, instead, if he ever needed to make a large fire for whatever reason, he had this to use.

Waiting a bit until they finally got into a more open field with fewer bushes and trees, he yelled towards Jacky, “Jacky! Use illusion magic, I have a plan, we need to make it stop for a moment!”

While their relationship was of strangers, only knowing each other for a bit, she decided to place a bit of trust and circulated the mana in the air before shooting out a dark cloud towards that deformed goblin, causing it to shriek before seeing a whole new scene.

To its eyes, they suddenly stopped and raised their weapons. Seeing this, it roared once more before thrusting the pointed metal rod towards them. Even though it didn’t seem like it did much as it made little sound, the rod, twice as long as an average spear, about 75% of it pierced into the ground!

If this wasn’t an illusion, if they didn’t manage to successfully dodge, they certainly would be dead!

Though In its eyes, it did pierce one of them, however, it shook its head as the vision between illusion and reality started to blur. While illusion magic was deadly, it only lasted for a short amount of time, while also becoming less effective if the being had confirmation that it was an illusion.

Seeing Yuu standing there, it grabbed the rod from the ground and prepared to swing its deformed arm towards him. But before it could do it, it saw a bottle flying towards it with flames coming out the tip.

As it got closer, the goblin creature managed to pierce it with the rod, but the bottle was already close to its face. “Gawh!” it screeched with an annoyingly loud deep voice.

Before it could even get its senses together, it felt another bottle hit its face, spreading more flames onto it. It placed its hand against its two eyes and the one eye on its cheeks, as it could feel pain flaring from there before stomping the ground in rage.

Feeling the atmosphere around him change, Yuu immediately started to run, not even looking back. While he used up all the molotovs, only making two as he really didn’t think he would need more, he could tell having any more would be useless.

The reason as to why was that water started to accumulate around the creature. While goblins could use magic, wild goblins would almost never have the chance to learn it, nevertheless, a monstrous beast like this that hardly resembled one.

Yet, even so, it was clear that the creature could use magic! Though it seemed like it used it like a wild monster, using it as a survival instinct, not using it strategically as a magician would.

“Y-Yuu, what’s next?” Jacky quickly spoke after seeing him come towards them.

“We need to keep going. That goblin creature knows how to use magic so our chances of winning are dim. Did Jqonle go on ahead?”

Starting to run instead of waiting for the creature to recover and chase after them again, she told the situation, “Yes, I told him to go ahead to the main road and try to find any adventurers or guards. I-I stayed behind in case I could distract it again.”

Just as Yuu was about to say his thanks, the creature roared once more. Looking back, its eyes were slightly burnt, red beyond belief, yet that didn’t stop it from spotting them. Even though they were already running through the foliage, charging past the tall trees, it still caught onto their whereabouts.

Luckily, it was not faster than them at all. It was just as fast as the both of them running for their lives, but it didn’t seem to get tired. Instead, the two of them were the ones who started to get tired, feeling their legs throb in pain.

For another ten minutes, they persisted, wondering if Jqonle was safe and if he had managed to find anyone.

They had already passed the lake, and other noticeable things, but he still hadn't seen any traces of the road, making this feel like an eternity. For Yuu, this experience felt like a long car ride. When he would stare out the window as a kid, passing by landmarks that led home. Waiting for what feels like an eternity for the car to get even close to his childhood house.

“Y-Yuu, we made it! We made it!” Jacky screamed. Even though she was quiet and timid, for the first time during their quest, she finally spoke loudly with emotions.

Looking ahead, he saw four people. One of them was Jqonle who had his two hands on his knees, breathing like he ran a marathon while having a gun pointed at his head. Of the three left, he actually recognized two.

The two ladies he had seen at the village from his first quest were standing there. If he can recall, they were E-ranked adventurers which were extremely helpful for a situation like this, where newbies like him couldn’t fight the creature at all.

Next to them stood a lofty man. While he had blonde hair going down his cape, he looked like a major playboy who was trying to impress the two adventurers by acting mighty.

Though he left his overconfident posture before yelping, “Huh!? What the hell is that!?” He immediately took out the spear on his back before muttering to himself, causing a layer of fire to appear on the tip of the spear.

Even the two females who had a relaxed and bored face started to prepare to attack the creature.

As Yuu and Jacky got out of the forest and onto the road, the two of them immediately collapsed onto the ground. They weren’t unconscious, but they had to let their legs rest as soon as possible.

“Kid we can talk later, but right now, hurry up and rest. We aren’t even sure if we can take this thing on.” The woman who he had spoken to back then didn’t even look towards him, instead, she looked towards the goblin while wielding a two-handed axe almost the size of her height. Showing how strong she was to even just hold it.

“Jehbon, Jane, go on. I’ll support you from behind, we don’t have time for buffs!” the other female adventurer spoke in a loud authoritative voice.

“Yes!” The both of them spoke, charging in.