Water hammered against the rocky ground, soaked through the bushes, and ran down the cave’s uneven entrance. The flames beneath the burning Asambula sputtered violently. Their orange glow flickered beneath the falling rain, fighting desperately against the water.
Aksibilian looked toward the fire.
"Wait, what?"
The remaining flames shrank, hissed, and finally disappeared beneath the rain. The smoke thinned rapidly. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then a terrible chorus of shrieks erupted from inside the cave.
Macarius froze.
The sounds echoed through the mountainside, loud enough to drown out the pattering rain. There were angry cries, frantic screeches, and the unmistakable sound of numerous feet scraping against stone.
His stomach tightened.
’Don’t tell me...’
Five goblins burst out of the cave at once.
Unlike the creatures they had been fighting moments earlier, these five were moving with considerably more purpose. Their eyes were still bloodshot, their faces just as repulsive, and their green skin was covered in grime. However, the effects of the Asambula were clearly beginning to fade.
Three of them carried rusted iron swords. The other two gripped thick wooden clubs with both hands, their knuckles dark and filthy around the crude weapons.
The goblins spread out as they emerged, their attention immediately locking onto Macarius and Aksibilian. One of the sword-wielding goblins released a shrill cry and charged.
Aksibilian’s expression sharpened.
He stepped forward to meet it, shifting his body just as the rusted blade came swinging toward his neck. The attack passed harmlessly through the space where his head had been a moment earlier.
Aksibilian’s short sword flashed.
The goblin stumbled forward, its attack interrupted. Before it could recover, Aksibilian pivoted and struck again, sending it crashing onto the wet ground.
The second goblin rushed toward him with its club raised overhead.
Aksibilian ducked beneath the swing. The wooden weapon struck the ground hard enough to scatter muddy water across his boots. Taking advantage of the opening, he drove his blade into the goblin’s exposed side and immediately withdrew.
The creature collapsed with a strangled cry. Meanwhile, Macarius was facing the remaining three.
The first goblin approached him with its rusted sword held awkwardly in front of its body. Its posture was crude, and its grip looked barely secure, but the weapon was still sharp enough to kill him.
Macarius raised his Beginner’s Sword. The goblin swung.
He stepped aside, letting the blade pass close to his shoulder, and retaliated with a hurried slash. His sword struck the creature, forcing it backward.
Before Macarius could follow up, another goblin rushed at him from the side. He barely managed to turn in time.
The wooden club slammed against his sword, sending a jolt through his arms. His grip nearly broke, and he stumbled backward across the slippery ground.
’Damn it!’
Macarius forced himself to keep his balance.
The goblin raised its club again, but this time Macarius moved before it could strike. He stepped inside the creature’s reach and slashed across its body. The goblin staggered, allowing him to finish the fight with another swing.
The last one was already approaching.
Macarius could feel his arms growing heavy. Rain ran down his forehead and into his eyes, making it difficult to see clearly. His clothes clung to his skin, and the ground beneath his feet had become a treacherous mixture of mud and loose gravel.
Still, he had no choice but to keep fighting.
He blocked the goblin’s first attack, narrowly deflected the second, and finally managed to strike it down after forcing it off balance. By the time he turned around, Aksibilian had finished the fifth goblin.
For a brief moment, the two stood amid the bodies, their weapons dripping with rainwater.
Then another shriek came from the cave. Aksibilian turned toward the entrance. His expression changed.
"Wait..."
More silhouettes appeared in the darkness.
At first, Macarius thought there were only a few. Then the creatures began pouring out, one after another, until he could no longer count them at a glance.
More than ten goblins emerged together. Every single one carried a weapon.
Some held rusted iron swords, their blades jagged and discolored. Others carried thick wooden clubs, some so large that the goblins had to drag their ends across the ground. Two more stumbled out near the back, each struggling to hold a crude bow that looked almost too large for their thin arms.
Macarius stared at them in disbelief.
’Where the hell did all of them come from?’
The goblins spread across the cave entrance, their numbers quickly filling the space around it. Their cries overlapped, growing louder as they spotted the two humans standing among the corpses of their companions.
Then they charged. Aksibilian’s eyes widened.
"Are you kidding me?!"
He immediately moved to intercept the first goblin, cutting it down before it could reach them. Another swung a club at his head, forcing him to duck and counterattack. He struck quickly, but the number of enemies made it impossible to deal with them all at once.
Macarius found himself facing three goblins almost immediately. One rushed him with a sword while another approached from the opposite side with a club. The third hung back, apparently waiting for an opening.
Macarius gritted his teeth and blocked the first attack. The impact jolted his arms.
He pushed the goblin’s sword aside and slashed at its exposed body, but the second creature was already swinging its club toward his ribs. Macarius twisted away, feeling the weapon graze his side before crashing into the ground.
He retaliated with a desperate strike. The goblin fell. But the first one had recovered, and the third was moving closer.
Macarius’s breathing grew ragged.
He couldn’t keep this up indefinitely. Even if his body could endure more punishment than an ordinary person’s, his strength and stamina still had limits. His swordsmanship was nowhere near Aksibilian’s level, and every additional enemy made it harder to defend himself.
Then he heard Aksibilian shouting.
"More are coming!"
Macarius glanced toward the cave. He wished he hadn’t. Another wave of goblins was emerging from the darkness.
Then another.
They were no longer coming out in pairs or groups of five. They were spilling from the cave in a steady stream, their cries echoing across the mountainside. The rusted swords and wooden clubs filled the entrance with a chaotic forest of crude weapons.
Even worse, the two goblins carrying bows had managed to position themselves behind the others. Their movements were clumsy, but they were unmistakably trying to raise their weapons toward the humans.
Aksibilian’s face had lost its usual carefree expression.
"What the hell is going on?!"
He struck down a goblin that had rushed too close, then retreated a step as two more took its place.
"I don’t believe this! There shouldn’t be this many goblins coming out at once!"
His voice carried genuine disbelief.
The goblins on the first floor were dangerous when they gathered in large numbers, but this was ridiculous. Their group had expected a hunting ground with enough monsters to provide decent experience. They hadn’t expected an entire army to pour out of a single cave.
And the weapons made the situation even worse.
"Since when did they evolve to this stage?! And why have so many of them learned to use weapons?!"
Aksibilian’s eyes darted between the advancing creatures and the cave entrance. His expression was no longer merely surprised. He looked as though he was desperately trying to reconcile what he was seeing with everything he knew about the first floor.
The goblins kept coming.
Some wielded rusted swords with surprisingly firm grips. Others swung their clubs wildly, relying on their numbers to overwhelm anything in their path. Even the bow-wielding goblins were beginning to find their footing, fumbling with their weapons while the others pressed forward.
Macarius barely had time to process Aksibilian’s words before a goblin lunged at him.
He blocked its sword, shoved it away, and struck back. The creature collapsed, but another immediately took its place.
There was no time to breathe. No time to recover. No time to think. The enemy numbers were growing faster than they could kill them.
"Aksibilian!" Macarius shouted, his voice strained. "There are too many!"
"No kidding!"
Aksibilian parried a wild swing and kicked the goblin backward, creating just enough space to retreat. He glanced toward the rocky path they had taken to reach the cave, then looked back at the approaching horde.
His expression hardened.
"We’re leaving! Now!"
He didn’t wait for Macarius to answer.
Aksibilian turned and sprinted away from the cave, his boots splashing through the muddy ground. Macarius immediately followed, abandoning any thought of fighting his way through the remaining goblins.
Behind them, the horde surged forward.
The sound of countless feet striking the wet earth followed them down the mountainside. Goblin shrieks echoed between the rocks, growing louder as the creatures poured out of their cave and pursued the fleeing humans.
Macarius ran as fast as he could.
His sword bounced in his grip, rainwater blurred his vision, and his lungs burned with every breath. He had barely survived fighting a few goblins at a time. Facing dozens of them together would have been suicide.
Beside him, Aksibilian continued running while looking back over his shoulder.
"I still can’t believe this! How can there be so many?!"
He dodged around a protruding rock and nearly slipped on the wet ground before regaining his balance.
"And those weapons! Goblins on the first floor shouldn’t be this organized! Something is seriously wrong!"
Macarius had no intention of arguing. He was too busy trying not to fall.
The two raced away from the cave as the rain continued pouring over the mountains, washing away the last traces of their hunting preparations.
Their plan had been simple. Lure the goblins out, kill them, collect the rewards, and grow stronger.
Instead, they had awakened something inside that cave, and now an entire horde was chasing them. Macarius tightened his grip on his sword and forced his exhausted legs to keep moving.
’I knew I was going to regret this.’