Bog Standard Isekai-Chapter 37Book 4.

"Lance, spread out and warn everyone! I want every man, woman, and child gathered outside the public house in ten minutes! Also, someone find me the town's best healer, and your Reeve," said Cid.

"It's the same man, with your forgiveness, sir," said the barkeeper. "We haven't got a Reeve, but the [Cunning Man] speaks for the town. I can take you to him."

"Then lead on," said Cid.

Brin grabbed his arm. "While the villagers take their time to gather up, we should ride out and harry the approaching goblins."

"You're not going anywhere in that condition," said Cid.

"I need to. I have a Skill boosting my stats, and that's the only thing keeping me going right now, but it'll lapse if I leave combat for a half hour. Here." Brin mentally altered [Hide Status] to briefly show his [Battle Fury] Skill.

Cid's eyes widened. "How..? No, explain later. We'll ride out, but not before you see a healer." He looked at the bartender. "You! Lead on!"

Cid left, and Brin took the opportunity to sit down. No one else was sitting; a panic was beginning to grow in the town.

The artist formerly known as Beautifica Delicatessa was still sitting at the table running her hands along her face and arms in growing horror, and Brin realized with a sinking feeling that she probably hadn't been quite this beautiful when she woke up this morning. The [Witch] had probably altered her when she noticed the Lance approaching the town, just to serve as a distraction.

She now showed to [Inspect] as Eneuaw Pairs, and she wasn't even a [Weaver]. She was a level 15 [Shepherd's Apprentice].

Brin couldn't help her now, and he turned attention away from her toward the panicked townsfolk. They ran in every direction, men shouting, children crying, dogs barking, and cats yowling. Cats didn't usually yowl like that. Cats...

"Marksi!" Brin shouted. "Put that down!"

Marksi let go of the poor cat he'd pounced on, and the lightly injured creature sprinted away.

Brin frowned and leaned back into his chair. It felt nice to sit, but he soon started to feel like he'd fall asleep if he relaxed too long. To distract himself, he brought out one of the broken halves of the fire jelly core.

He started pumping in magic, filling it. He pushed it in quickly, until his Mana pool was completely drained. Then he took out the backup Mana potion he kept in his ring and drank it down. With his Mana pool filled again, he started putting Mana in again, but more slowly this time.

Even though he was watching closely this time, he still couldn't tell how close the core was to being full. He hadn't been imagining it; the core didn't give any kind of indication it was near its breaking point, and it wouldn't until it was starting to crack. He sort of wanted to use it as a backup grenade, but was it too dangerous for that.

He set it on the table while he thought. It had to be getting close, and the last thing he wanted was to set it off in here.

Suddenly there was a blur of movement, a flash of rainbow scales, and then his core was gone.

"Marksi, no! Give that back!"

He stood to chase Marksi, but got dizzy when he stood up too quickly. He saw Marksi take his prize and hide behind the bar. "Bad Marksi! Don't eat that!"

By the time Brin got there, the little dragon was already sleeping on a shelf next to the till.

"Unbelievable," said Brin. How many weird, dangerous things could a little dragon eat? People kept telling him that dragons knew what was good for them, but Brin still shuddered to think about all that explosive power resting in Marksi's stomach.

Well, he still had the other half of the core, and once he got it into the right shape again, being half the size wouldn’t actually affect how well it worked as a laser medium, only the amount of magic he could store in it, which he was beginning to realize wasn’t the best idea.

He also felt a guilty twinge of excitement. Did this mean Marksi was going to be able to do something really cool when he woke up? Brin had been worried when Marksi had eaten that Wyrd-enchanted spell focus, but it had given him his shapeshifting power.

"Hey, Cowl, do you mind keeping an eye on him? He's fine sleeping for now, but make sure we don't leave without him," said Brin.

"Yes, sir. But don't you think you should sit down?"

Brin tried to think of something else he could do to prepare. Looking at his stats, he realized he had enough points to bring Mental Control up to the next threshold. He didn't have anything in the sixth threshold yet. He added the points.

Alert! You have upgraded an achievement.

Controlled (Epic)

You have reached 273 Mental Control

+50% -> +60% focus and concentration. +50% -> +60% Mental Control attribute growth

In the past, Brin hadn't felt much of a difference with the attribute Achievements, but now that he had [Multithreading], the effect was a lot more measurable. He portioned off a quarter of his mind to go try to distract the goblins again, and watched the other him work. He could now use six directed threads for the cost of five, and each of them cast their Invisible Eyes and Mirror Images much quicker now. The effect was small for each one, but dramatic when he added it all together.

Cid soon returned with the village leader. The [Cunning Man] was bald and wrinkled, and wore a black robe, and was covered with talismans of every sort. Animal skulls and diadems with mystical symbols hung from necklaces and from string around his wrists, as well as from the top of his crooked walking stick. He gestured vaguely at Brin. "Armor off."

"We don't have time," said Brin.

"For anyone else, maybe, but it doesn't take you long, does it?" said Cid.

Brin scowled and used his Iron Man program to fly his armor off in glass magic, then stripped down to his undershorts. His pants and shirt were wet with blood, and the skin underneath was sporting a bunch of interesting new patterns. The seeping wounds were circular with jagged cracks running through them, like police sketches of broken dinner plates.

The [Cunning Man], who identified as Omhar, narrowed his eyes at Brin's older scars. "Some of these look... recreational. Did you do this one yourself?" He tapped the spiral shaped scar around Brin's forearm with his staff.

"Nope. Tortured by a [Witch's] familiar," said Brin.

"So this type of thing happens to you a lot, does it?" said Omhar. He pulled an amulet, a copper-gilded owl skull, off from around his neck and started muttering to it. The skull began to emit a blue smoke from its mouth. Omhar waved the smoke near Brin's wounds and blew softly into it. The smoke followed his breath and landed on Brin, sticking to him. It quickly hardened all the blood it landed on, effectively sealing his wounds.

There was also a strong Wyrd element to it, though nothing that suggested Omhar was a [Witch]. Instead, Brin could feel Omhar's magic persuade the magic of [Scarred, but Healing] in a surprisingly deft way. I'm helping you heal, so don't resist my magic. Work on the blood vessels first, yes, that's the way. Without [Know What’s Wyrd], this could only be the result of years of practice and training.

"So? Not your first time?" Omar asked.

Brin needed a moment to remember what Omhar was talking about. "First time facing a [Witch]? No. They seem to be drawn to me, for some reason."

"Or you're drawn to them," said Omhar.

"I don't think that's it."

"Good man, I'll not have you impugn my Second as overly reckless. He advised caution when we noticed the [Witch] in your town, and only approached her on my orders," said Cid.

"Of course, sirs, I apologize."

"We should discuss the evacuation of the town," said Cid.

"I can give you thirty strong men to aid in the defense. The rest of us can hole up in the public house," said Omhar.

"How many goblins will we face, Brin. A thousand?" asked Cid.

Brin didn't miss that Cid was assuming he would have an up-to-date estimate. He no doubt already suspected. Well, that didn't matter as long as they got through this.

"About that many, but it separates groups. The fifty between us and the Order of the Broken Stone have taken on another twenty, but we can assume the Order will take care of them. There's a hundred to the south that will reach us first. Then another 700, but there's a chance that this group will split apart again. If so, we'll face the 200 first, then the rest."

Brin had a quarter of his mind working to make sure that group split apart by showing them enemies in two directions. He didn't think he could turn the goblins away completely, but making sure they didn't all get here at once could give the Lance a chance.

Stolen story; please report.

Cid looked at Omhar. "You'll need to evacuate. If--"

"Sir, if we mean to harry the first group from horseback before they get here, we'll need to go now."

Cid saw some of the urgency in Brin's eyes and said, "Then go. Take the men. I'll stay and coordinate the evacuation."

Omhar sighed. "There can be no evacuation..."

Brin didn't wait to listen to the rest of the conversation. He hurried to don his still-bloody clothes and then used Iron Man to put his armor back on. Then he dashed outside, shouting to rally the men.

Moments later he and his Lance were on horseback, leaving the town behind. Behind them, Cid worked with Omhar to answer the age-old question: fight or flee. Cid wanted Omhar to leave. Then the Lance could stay in Dustrim and fight without needing to worry about protecting civilians, and it would also give them the freedom to flee themselves if they were about to get overwhelmed.

Omhar insisted that there were too many sick people. The public house was solid stone with wooden slats for windows. They could shore up the windows and use their strongest healthy people to make a worthwhile defense. If the Lance were fighting out in the open, they'd be able to hold out indefinitely.

In the end, Omhar won out even though his idea put the Lance in more danger, but only because he convinced Cid that there was no chance of evacuation that didn't leave half of the sick behind.

Brin was more interested in the goblin band ahead of him and his rapidly dwindling [Battle Fury] timer. He had twelve minutes left, and riding at a full gallop, they'd only barely reach the goblins in time.

Once they were in sight, Brin started shouting orders at the men, using illusion magic to make sure they heard him. [Battle Sense] gave him the ideal formation, but really it was just standard cavalry tactics. Meredydd would lead with his lance and Rhun would protect him. Hedrek would follow behind, sewing chaos, with the rest of the men in a single file line behind, with Anwir hanging off to the side loosing arrows.

The goblins saw them coming and clearly assumed that their greater numbers would give them an advantage, because they ran towards the knights, shouting energetic war cries.

They were the perfect target. An armed cavalry might struggle against a tightly packed formation of foot soldiers, but the goblins couldn't have been less organized. Some of them clumped together in a mass, but others formed smaller bands and edged off towards the sides.

Brin saw that his countdown would run out before they reached them, so he summoned a javelin of glass. He didn't want to use one of the nice ones that Kartof had given them here, not if he didn't know if he'd be able to retrieve it. Then he threw it high and long like artillery. It landed in the mass of goblins, and though he didn't see any of them go down, it must've hit something because his timer reset. He had [Battle Fury] for another half hour.

Now he could relax and kill some goblins.

Meredydd chose a spot between a group of ten and the rest of the mass and charged. He rammed the biggest, baddest-looking goblin with his lance straight through, then let it drop. Rhun beside him didn't have to do a single thing with his shield; the goblins weren't ready for the speed of the horses.

Hedrek behind them chose the smaller group and cut through another goblin on that side, but didn't slow to hit any more. Brin got another with his spear, and the men behind him took down one or two more. Then they were through. The goblins behind them roared in a confused mass as they tried to counter attack, but the Lance was already out of range.

They circled back around and struck again, this time Hedrek leading with Rhun. The goblins were more ready this time, but they still left a huge gap in their formation to exploit. Rhun batted away several clubs and spears, while Hedrek laid into them with wild abandon, taking down another three before he was passed. The rest of them men followed, each scoring a hit or two as they passed through.

On the third circle, Brin saw the goblins were starting to rally by the time the last member of the Lance was heading through, so it should be Rhun there. He ordered Rhun to the rear and had Brych head the charge with Hedrek.

If there was any cowardice in Brych when facing a [Witch], he displayed none of it against goblins. Leading the charge, he took a goblin’s head off as he swept past, despite the fact that his shorter messer wasn't as optimized for horseback combat as Hedrek's weapon.

When they circled back around again, [Battle Sense] told Brin it was time for a shift in tactics. The goblins were shaky and scared; they'd seen a dozen of their number go down, and not a single knight. One big push, and he could send them running.

Brin ordered the Lance to form one single line, with all of them running side-by-side. They charged, and Brin yelled a battle cry which the other men took up. He amplified it with sound magic, making the sound truly terrifying.

The smaller goblins broke first, with the ones in the front scrambling over themselves to get away from the front. Larger goblins and leaders stood their ground, snapping and swatting at the cowards, until the cowards were all gone and they saw themselves standing alone. Then they turned and fled as well. When Brin's group rode into the mass of goblins, all they had to do was stab at unprotected, fleeing backs. They rode straight through, and the goblins, now seeing their enemy in front of them, broke and fled in every direction.

Brin called the men back. There was no point in chasing down every single goblin, and they needed to get to the town before the second group arrived. They retrieved Meredydd's lance, and he also had each of the men who didn't have a weapon with a good range for horseback pick up one of the goblins spears. Despite being made of stone and wood bound with animal hide, they were surprisingly good quality, and reach was most important here.

They rode back to town, and when they got there found the place completely transformed. Many of the smaller homes had been torn down, the stones used to reinforce the public house which now looked like a small fort. The wooden slat windows had been filled in with stone, leaving only small slits for murder holes. They'd dug a pit in front of the front door with some planks to serve as a bridge, and even had battlements along the roof. They must've had several people with stone building Classes to get all of this done so fast.

Cid came out to meet them with Omhar, who quickly worked with Cowl to patch up the scratches and scrapes the horses had received.

Meredydd demanded everyone hand over their weapons and then squatted down in the shade of a half-torn down house to put a better edge on the stone spears. Several of the men with nothing better to do went over to assist them.

Brin kept his eyes to the west, where the group of two hundred was quickly approaching. This group moved in a chaotic mass just like the others, but there were a few small differences that made Brin nervous. One was that this group was led by a very strange goblin. He was completely covered in white mud and held a staff decorated by several sharpened bones jutting from the side. It wasn't a club, though; something about the way he carried it made Brin sure it was a staff.

Goblin Chieftain

Level: 35

There was an unmistakable intelligence in the way the [Chieftain] carried himself and the way he watched the more animalistic goblins surrounding him. This was a threat.

His Invisible Eyes also got glimpses of something dark and flickering moving among the remnants of the group they'd destroyed. It moved too quickly and wildly for Brin to get an [Inspect] on it; he'd call it a shadow if he'd only spotted it once.

It was a slight darkness on the ground, a flickering wing in the sky, a soft touch on a fleeing goblin's neck, and every goblin it touched changed its course slightly, and eased its fear. Slowly, delicately, whatever it was herded the disparate goblins back towards the town and the Lance.

"Shall we ride out and harry the next group?" Brin asked Cid.

"The Order didn't really give us these horses to charge into battle. I'm really only supposed to use them to carry us from place to place. Otherwise, they'd have armor and we'd all have lances," said Cid.

"They're a key advantage," said Brin.

"Of course, you're right. As soon as Cowl and Omhar are done, then," said Cid.

Omhar worked quickly, and it was honestly the fastest healing Brin had ever seen. If anyone ever wondered why a town in martial-minded Prinnash would ever have a non-combatant as a leader, watching Omhar work would definitely persuade them.

They finished the work quickly, and then the entire Lance was riding out again. Cid rode in the lead, holding the goblin spear they'd fetched for him with visible disgust.

Ahead of them, the goblins approached, eager and hungry. They were already working themselves up into a fighting frenzy, but instead of charging ahead, they stopped. The [Chieftain] shouted and slapped the other leaders nearby him, and they called their goblins back, until they were one tight mass.

Brin couldn't operate the same as last time. There were no small groups to pick off, and trying to charge all the way through would be suicide.

"Two lines of five! Harrying action. Hit them quick, then get out!"

Brin and Cid led one line, leaving Meredydd and Hedrek for the other. The two groups would separate, kill as many goblins as they could near the edges of the mob, and then retreat.

The horde shouted the four words they knew over and over as the Lance rode down on them, but still none of them broke discipline to either run ahead or retreat. Anwir shot from horseback as soon as he was in range, taking down one then another, but still the goblins didn't budge.

Now that they were closer, Brin was struck with the incredible variety of these creatures. Most were furry, tan-colored, and ape-like, resembling the small groups the Lance had faced before now, but he saw a few that were dark red, and much taller and thinner, as well as five or six that were hairless and a pale blue. Different species, all banded together?

Even within the Plains Goblins they were all different sizes. Some were barely more than two and a half feet, and one awful creature was approaching nine feet.

They drew close, and the Lance lowered their weapons. All at once, the goblins let loose with a volley of stones. From his Invisible Eye, he saw Meredydd veer wildly to avoid a particularly large boulder aimed at his head. The smaller stones bounced harmlessly off all of their armor, but there was nothing they could do to protect the horses. Still, it was too late to pull off the attack. They could do nothing but commit. He winced every time a stone struck Nobility beneath him, but he needed to focus on the attack.

Brin and Cid slammed into the goblins in their path, each of them striking goblins down with their spears. They kept stabbing, quick as prison shivs, and then pulled out again, leaving the men behind them to deepen the wound.

On the other side, Meredydd was still wobbly from dodging the boulder and his lance was pointed a bit too far down when he hit the goblin line. A large goblin pushed it into the ground. That pushed Meredydd back in his saddle, nearly unseating him, and his horse ran further into the horde and then reared up and did the one thing a cavalry knight absolutely should never do: it stopped moving.

Hedreck turned his mount on a dime and rode straight in after Meredydd. In a stunning display of athleticism, he danced his horse around the goblins in his path, while using both arms to keep his longsword spinning, striking down every monster within reach.

He reached Meredydd, calmed his horse, and guided him out of danger. The men behind them opened a path, and then all five of them were out, riding away from the horde.

None of the horses were doing well, and Meredydd's horse especially was bleeding from several weeping wounds. Still, they couldn't stop here. Stones were already pelting their backs, and Nobility didn't need any encouragement to leave the scene as fast as he could gallop.

When they were out of range, Brin didn't consider turning around again for another pass. This wasn't a group they could wear down with hit and run tactics, not with that [Chieftain] guiding them. They had no choice but to return to town and make a stand there.

With his Invisible Eye, Brin saw that flickering black shadow. He saw the [Chieftain] stop shouting at the goblins and start speaking in a way that sounded way too much like chanting. There was a rhythmic quality to his words now, almost a song. His staff started to vibrate, the sharpened bones bobbing up and down to the beat.

He lifted it in the air, and the bones split; they weren't bones at all, they were beaks. They opened their mouths and screamed.

Caro!

The goblins picked up the word, screaming it all together. The strange black shadow flick between groups, spreading and magnifying the power.

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They charged. Thrumming with the power of the [Chieftain's] spell, they ran like an angry mob. Brin saw some of the little goblins near the front trip only to be trampled by the horde behind them.

Propelled by the power of the spell, they gained speed. The Lance wouldn't have much time in town to prepare if they could keep up this pace.

Worse, the goblins were still accelerating. They ran faster. Too fast. Insanely fast. The goblins were going to catch up.