Reincarnation of the Sword Master - Chapter 33

Chapter 33 – Goblins (3)

* * *

“Keurk Keuk!”

“Kaaaaaaa!”

“Hiiieeeek!”

The goblins howled. As they got closer to the territory, the little amounts of intelligence they had, gradually disappeared and only their instincts remained. Some of the goblins could not hold back their excitement and beat their own people barbarically. It resulted in small riots and skirmishes and sometimes a goblin ended up dead. In such a peculiar instance, there was something similar happening to the pack of goblins at that very moment, where another goblin was beating on a younger one.

“Kekekeke!”

Cwooong!

With the sound of a spear slamming into the earth and instantly gathering the goblin’s attention, the goblins stopped what they were doing and looked in the direction of the noise. They may have had their intelligence become degraded, but the goblin in front of them had imprinted fear into their minds and a submissive nature into them.

If a human saw this in the warring eras of the past, they would be shocked. Goblins were known to not organize themselves or have any kind of class system. Yet, right now with this pack, there was a leader.

“kuuuk…”

However, the target of the sudden attention had a grim face and clicked its tongue.

Why were his people so stupid? He had worked hard to gain intelligence for himself and was even trying to incorporate intelligence into them, yet in the end they reverted back to their barbaric and idiotic instincts.

His people were utterly hopeless idiots. They did nothing with their lives and unconditionally relied upon him.

He felt truly hopeless. He wanted to put everything down and leave. But he couldn’t. No matter how stupid and disgusting his kind was, he was of the same race as them. His sense of responsibility was tying him down.

“Kkkkkaruk.”

He looked up and looked at the human territory in the distance. As he looked at the territory in the distance, the dark and screaming voices inside his head resurfaced.

[Kill him…]

He had gained intelligence as a Goblin only thanks to those voices. What was the point of learning to speak and learn martial arts, if in the end, he was nothing but a puppet?

“Kkkkkaruk.”

The Head Goblin grabbed the spear.

No, even as a puppet, he had found something worthwhile. That human, the one who also used the spear and the sword.

“Keruk!”

The commands he was receiving inside of his head, did in fact find him something interesting finally. It was a command worthwhile.

“Let’s go, my soldiers!”

“Keraaak!!”

“Kaaaaaaaaahhk!”

“Keke!”

The Goblins marched forth.

***

“Here they come!”

The guard shouted with a pale and frightened expression. The warriors of the territory grabbed their weapons tightly with conviction and a bit of anxiety present in their facial expressions.

“Everyone, raise your weapons! This is our land! Will you let those green creatures violate our territory and plunder us?”

“NO!”

“For hundreds of years, this land has belonged to us humans and has been passed down from our ancestors all the way down to our current generation! We must tear the heads off of those filthy mongrels who dare to invade us!”

“YES!”

After Lord Halvark’s words, the group cry rang out in unison.

Immediately after that, the warriors stuck to the wall. The goblins who were in their line of sight, clung to the gates of the territory and tried to climb up the wall. The gate to the territory was pounding with a tremor.

“Keyaaaahhhh!”

“Erghhh!”

The goblins climbing the wall were stabbed by a series of spears. But the goblins did not care for death and just stepped on the corpses of their dead comrades to continue climbing higher.

Asher calmly watched the raid starting from afar.

‘We can’t be pushed back here.’

The geographical advantage lied with the humans. In addition, the warrior’s faces displayed a fierce fighting spirit, rather than fearful ones. Looking closely at it, Asher saw Charon taking care of some of the Goblins who managed to climb up to the top.

The same thing was happening with Reika. She let the sword dance with minimal movement even though her body condition was not normal yet, and each time her blade danced, goblins collapsed one by one. She was making significant progress by pushing herself even further

Asher looked at the horde of goblins approaching. There was one specific goblin that was missing right now in Asher’s eyes.

‘I’ll wait then.’

There was no reason for Asher to intervene right now. The Head Goblin had not appeared yet. The rest were just small problems that they had to solve. He couldn’t help me one by one.

He had his own problem to take care of. Asher thought so, as he moved towards the manor of the territory.

***

“Ugh….”

Luke was shivering underneath his covers. The more the outside shouts and echoes rung out, the more his body shrank down in fear.

Suddenly a different noise rang out. It was a ‘click’ noise and it came from inside his room.

Luke flinched at the sound of the door opening. Luke shuddered and held his mouth with his hand to cover his breath. Trembling, Luke heard the footsteps approach the bed. Eventually the hands of the unknown reached their hands out and grabbed the blanket.

“Hik-Hik-Hik-Hik-Hik-Hik!

Luke started to hyperventilate in fright. He threw the blanket off his body and shot for the ground grabbing the pillow as his cover.

“Wake up.”

There was a human figure that could be seen over the flowy quilts and blankets that lay on the floor. Luke murmured.

“Asher…?”

Luke struggled, but Asher came over to him, picked Luke up by his collar and opened the window to the terrace. Walking next to the open window, Asher moved the struggling Luke over and out the open window, while holding onto him.

“Ah, ah, ah, ah!”

Luke writhed around in fear from the absence of a floor. Asher quietly tightened his hand.

“Look at the battlefield.”

There were shouts, smoke, fire, battle cries and blood. The warriors were fighting to protect their territory.

“And look around the houses.”

Numerous buildings and houses were right behind the battlefield, untouched, but right behind the line of defense. For decades or even hundreds of years, the people who lived here had regarded this territory as their land and had passed their lineage down to live there.

“And the manor.”

The manor of the Lord. The place where all of the guards and the sole knight, Charon, lived.

“All of this is yours.”

Reika was a woman after all. She couldn’t be a Lord and she had no intention of doing so either.

“Whether you wish to be the Lord or not, you are their master.”

“I don’t want it anymore.”

“I don’t care if you don’t like it or want it. It’s your destiny.”

Asher pulled his hand back in, bringing Luke back into the room. When he let go of his grip, Luke collapsed on the floor without giving weight to his legs.

“In the end, you hold the fate of this estate in your hands.”

Luke’s eyes shook.

“You’re going to let your people who don’t have anything much left, fall apart? Or are you going to force me to do a population cull?”

“I, I….”

“If you really want to go to hell so early, then you’re welcome to do so.”

“I….”

Luke murmured to himself quietly. Asher walked back to the door. From here on out, Luke was the one to make his choices alone. He could either rise to become a Lord, or fall into ruin, dragging his people along with him.

“…what are you going to do, then?”

Luke asked Asher in a hoarse voice. Asher tapped his wrist brace.

“I’m doing my job.”

***

Spears and knives moved among the numerous bodies on the battlefield. Green and red blood trickled on the floor creating pools of blood, creating a new color. Amidst the bloody battlefield, Reika threw out a knife at a goblin nearby.

“Kie-kie-kie-kie-kie-kie!”

Thawuck!

The Goblin’s body fell with a scream and his feet spasming. Avoiding an attack from the front, Reika let her sword dance wildly. The approaching goblins fell as a line slashed through the air and their heads rolled right off of their necks..

“There’s no end to them…”

“Young Miss!”

As Charon finished slaying one of the goblins near him and caught his breath, he rushed over to Reika. He cut off the goblins in the way of his path and blocked their path towards Reika.

“Are you all right?”

“I’ll live. I’m not feeling well, but it’s nothing.”

“Kie-kie-kie-kie-kie-kie!”

Reika grabbed a goblin’s spear and put a knife in its neck. Her arms were numb and her breathing short, but she was still able to hold out. It wasn’t really time for her to reach her limit yet.

“…why don’t you leave? If you have a re-opened wound on your body….”

“It’s okay…. I’m okay.”

Reika waved her hand lightly. She grabbed a spear on the floor and threw it. The spear flew through the air and nailed a goblin right in the skull, exploding it open like a watermelon.

“I’m the one who’s got to keep the morale up. I can’t step down now.”

The daughter of the Lord was fighting in the middle of the frontline herself. In addition, she was killing several goblins with her flamboyant skills. Such a sight was giving several warriors a vigorous fighting spirit to continue. Stepping down here, would result in a downhill battle from here on out.

“I’m fine, so hurry up and go continue fighting them off. You are the only knight of the estate so you must not stop fighting, Charon.”

“…I hope you stay careful Young Miss.”

Charon uttered his parting words and rushed to the endless waves of goblins who were climbing up on the wall. The goblins messily waved their weapons in front of him as he cut them down easily.

“Hmm.”

Reika watched Charon’s movements with her sunken eyes. He was avoiding the attacks with minimal movement, and using the goblins’ actions to make them hit each other.

Charon was strong and skilled. Even though he lost to Reika, that was a one-on-one duel. In terms of fighting experience, he was leagues above her, and in overall contribution, he was much more needed for this miniature war.

‘But it’s… still different.’

Reika thought to herself as she cut an incoming goblin’s neck with ease. Charon’s swordsmanship, like her own, was something different from Asher’s.

Her swordsmanship and Charon’s swordsmanship were styles of swordsmanship that the great heroes used in the past and had handed down. Asher was a swordsman who only used imperial swordsmanship, so it was natural that his  swordsmanship was different. However, Reika felt there was something that both her and Charon were missing in her swordsmanship, and that ‘thing’ was something only Asher had.

‘Where’s that goblin?’

She violently stabbed a goblin in the heart as she thought back to the goblin that had originally put her in this state. His own kind continued to die, but Reika could not see that unique and variant goblin.

The situation on the battlefield was tilting in favor of the humans. Most of the deaths there were goblins. The human warriors were not weak enough to die to creatures that had lost all reason and intelligence.

Above all, Asher’s preemptive attack on the goblin attack helped a lot as well as his ‘mentality training’ for the warriors. On the battlefield, the warriors were moving coolly, maintaining their reason with a subdued rage, as much as possible. The difference in their once nervous faces, were becoming different as they started to see hope of winning.

***

“Kakkak, you stupid bastards. You’re making a very stupid and ignorant charge just because you’re told to ‘charge’.”

Then there was the sound of human words from the rear of the horde of Goblins. The Goblins began to roar in unison once more.

“Kie-kie-kie-kie-kie-kie!”

“Kaaaaaaaaahhh!”

“Go, what’s up with all of these idiots all of a sudden!”

The Head Goblin started to emerge from the back of the goblin horde, as the goblins parted, creating a pathway. In the sudden and unusual path created by the goblins, the warriors gulped down their saliva as a sole Goblin emerged.

“Here we are.”

Reika gulped down nervously. An unknown anxiety spread throughout the hearts of the warriors on the battlefield. The Head Goblin, seeing this, spoke up in a condescending tone.

“What are you looking at? Hold your heads down, human vermin.”

“A Go-… Goblin is talking?”

“No way!”

There were shouts of shock and surprise everywhere. The Head Goblin smiled, seeing that his presence alone was having its intended effect, opened his mouth as he slammed his spear down onto the earth gathering the warriors’ attention once more.

“I, the Great Leader of the Goblins, have come for your lives, humans.”

Chapter 33 – Fin