New Quest!

  Under the leadership of the Goblin General (T8), an army of goblins is advancing on Lahmna. Defend the village or halt the army and defeat their leader before they lay waste to it.

  Goals:

  - No more than 20% damage caused to the village.

  - Defeat the Goblin General.

  Rewards:

  2 level-ups.

  Item: Horn of the Goblin General.

  Accept?

  Y/N

  After having made our way to another village and receiving much the same reception as last time, the village chief generated a quest for me. Contrary to the last time we did this, hearing the contents of the quest sent the entire room into a frenzy.

  “We need to prepare our defenses right away!” Hurant, the village chief, shot out of his seat and threw the door of his office wide open. “Prepare for a large-scale assault immediately, and request reinforcements from the city as well. We’re going to need all the help we can get!”

  “Isn’t he overreacting a bit?” I asked my friends as Hurant continued shouting orders at his people. “It’s just a bunch of goblins, right?”

  “Well yes, but actually, no,” Orbos replied, getting up as well and starting to inspect his equipment. “This isn’t the first time an army defense quest has been generated. These types of quests are usually reserved for city-tier quests but can rarely happen at a village level.”

  “If one does generate for a village, it usually contains weaker monsters in the army, albeit a lot more of them,” Nimma jumped in, mirroring the behavior of the others, putting on her equipment after giving it a once-over. “There will probably be around two or three thousand goblins coming for the village.”

  “They’re not all going to be at the seventh or eighth tier… right?” I asked, suddenly also getting a bit worried. I was strong, but could I really contest with a whole army of high-tiered monsters?

  “Unlikely,” Nimma waved away my worries. “The highest tier individual should be the general, with a few other notable leaders at the seventh tier. The main body of the army will most likely be around the fourth tier, with some being stronger, or even going so low as to be tier-two. The main issue is their numbers, since it is unlikely that a single traveler can hold back an army, it is imperative that we get up a good defense before the fighting starts.”

  “Well, knowing Gary, he just might delete the whole army before they even get within range of our defenses,” Andrius cut in with a cocky attitude. “Remember some of those spells he used against the gelatinous cube? Crushing an army of thousands should be easy. In fact, it is another match-up in your favor.”

  “It is best not to underestimate your enemy either way,” Redax said, for once not hiding in the shadows. “The general will probably have abilities to buff his troops while presenting quite a challenge himself.”

  “How much time do you think we have before they start attacking?” I asked, feeling weird being the only one that remained seated. I didn’t really have any equipment that needed checking and was combat-ready at the drop of a hat.

  “About a day, I’d say,” Nimma said, looking out of a nearby window to watch the organized chaos unfold outside. “Redax, would you mind scouting out the location and numbers of the army?”

  “On it,” Redax vanished as soon as he confirmed his orders.

  “As for us, we should see to it that we help with setting up the defenses,” Nimma addressed the remaining Andrius and Orbos. “Report to the guard captain and assist in any way you can. Gary, you… can actually do whatever you want. I’ll have Redax come to you to tell you anything he found, after which you will be free to act however you see fit. To be honest, I’d prefer it if I didn’t see a single goblin until the quest is over if you catch my drift. I trust you to handle this.”

  “Sure… Thanks?” I replied, unsure of how to feel about having people actually relying on me.

  The trio left the office to go help out, leaving me behind, unsure of what to do. I found myself agreeing with Nimma, and my best course of action was probably to bombard the army until none were left standing. I had the MP and the spells to eradicate an army. It was quite literally what my current build was able to do best. While I could definitely hold my own in a one-on-one with other strong monsters, a lot of my spells were so destructive that a tightly packed army wouldn’t be able to do much aside from perish.

  I also had a literal ton of gelatinous acid from the last village quest I did that I could potentially airdrop to disturb the army’s movement. I had done some experimentation with the substance and it was a very thick and incredibly sticky gel that would slowly dissolve anything it came into contact with. It was tempting to throw it at the army, but it also felt like a waste of good material. There might be another quest where I could use the acid in a better way or, if I could hold on to it, I could potentially even sell it to other travelers later on.

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  Speaking of which, I was curious about the reward for this quest. This would be the second time I got an item as a reward, the first time being the deep sea gem. I wondered whether it would also be an equippable item, or if it would be something different. Either way, I was looking forward to getting it. But that was putting the cart before the horse. For now, all I could do was wait for Redax to come back and then take it from there.

  Well, maybe I should actually go help prepare the defenses, even though I wasn’t sure how I could help.

  Turned out that I could indeed help the Asphons with their defensive set-up. They took full advantage of my bottomless inventory skill and had me haul lots of heavy stuff around in record time. I once again had the thought that I should probably do more with the skill, after all, it was supposedly bottomless. I worked for about an hour before Redax had come back with news of the enemy's movement. He estimated the force to be about three thousand strong, consisting entirely of variations of goblins, ranging all the way from tier two to seven, just as Nimma had predicted.

  They had spawned in about half an hour away from the village and were similarly preparing for an assault, building siege weaponry and getting some last-minute training in. Most of them seemed to be warriors wielding different melee weapons, followed by archers, and then mages. As far as he could tell, every platoon leader was special in some way, having deviated from the regular evolution path. At the top of the army were the commanders, and of course the goblin general himself.

  The goblin leading the army apparently only tangentially resembled a goblin, looking more like a hulking mass of green muscle. He was giving out commands consistently and all of his underlings went about realizing his commands with an almost scary efficiency. Most likely some sort of subordination skill. Hearing about the imposing general made me think about my own status as a royal. I’d gotten the passive skill “Royal Court” which would allow me to enlist my own entourage. Would they also follow me blindly like this?

  I abandoned the thought pretty quickly as the image of a voidling didn’t align with that mindset at all.

  I was thinking these useless thoughts as I jumped across the roofs of the broken city landscape, approaching the army’s location while hiding myself with the void cloak spell. I’d set out almost as soon as Redax had concluded his report, not wanting to give the army any more time to prepare than they’d already gotten. The elusive archer was somewhere around me as well, having received the job of reporting back the results should things go sideways. Hopefully, his services wouldn’t be needed today.

  As I got closer to my destination, I could hear the din of the army getting louder. The clashing of swords, the occasional explosion, thousands of high-pitched voices shouting and laughing. Then, I alighted on the roof of a skyscraper and got my first glimpse of the army. Partially hidden behind some of the buildings, a sea of green hues spread out, the goblins looking like busy ants from on high. And, for the first time, I realized just what it meant to face down an army.

  There were so, so many of them.

  I had fought bigger, scarier monsters before. Held my own against groups of them. But this? This was an entirely different situation. Sure, in my head I knew that I could take out this entire army. I knew my strength, and aside from the goblin general, there should be no monsters here that even had an inkling of a chance against me. I knew all that, but once I laid eyes on the literal thousands of goblins, I still froze.

  While I wanted to get this quest done as soon as possible, the rational part of my brain had trouble processing the situation. Killing had once been something that I could not comprehend. Now, it had become normal. And here I was, about to decimate three thousand living beings. For what? An item that may or may not be good and getting the number of completed quests to go up by one.

  My mind was idly swirling these thoughts around in my head, one moment feeling justified to kill them because they would attack the village soon, the other moment feeling horrified about the slaughter I would commit. Switching between salivating at the mouth imagining how many attribute points I could get by eating three thousand monsters and being revolted by the fact that I was actually looking forward to consuming thousands of lives. I wondered whether these… things were actually alive. The system had just spawned them in somehow.

  What even were monsters? Why could the system spawn them? Did it spawn them? Or did it simply take them from somewhere else and put them here? Did it mind-control these goblins to do its bidding so that I could have a quest to complete? Were they soulless projections of the system? What the fuck was the system, actually?

  I simply sat there for a while, letting the thoughts drift through my head one by one, watching the goblins go about their business from on high. I wasn’t entirely sure what brought on this moment of contemplation, but I felt like I had to let it run its course. I was fine with killing monsters, had been for a while. I’d already killed hundreds. I would kill hundreds more. That was the path I was on.

  Why should I care about a few thousand more?

  I shuddered when that particular thought entered my head. Yes, deep down I knew that I did not care anymore about extinguishing a life. Well, I’d probably be against killing innocents. But monsters? I felt no regret when killing them. I felt joy, even. Killing monsters made me stronger, and stronger is what I wanted to be. Yes, I wanted to become stronger. And, before me was an extraordinary opportunity.

  Not only would I complete the quest and get rewarded, thanks to gluttony I would get a sizable attribute bonus as well. Granted, almost all of them were many tiers below me which would make it less likely for me to absorb an attribute point, but there were just so many. Deciding that I was done contemplating, I felt the conflicted feelings fade away and, before I knew it, I had already jumped off the roof.

  It was time.

  I opened the hostilities by casting void rend. Not once, not twice, but three times. I could feel the complicated spell straining against my concentration, but all of them were completed perfectly. Three times reality was cut apart. Three times destruction followed. Three times hundreds of lives were lost. The tier four foot soldiers and below had no idea what happened to them as my superior spells ripped through their ranks.

  It took the rest of the army a second to process what had just happened, but before they could react, more explosions rang out as a rain of void javelins rained down on them, a void laser dragging a long crater through their camp. It was literally raining death and destruction, and I watched it all happen in slow motion. It didn’t even take a minute for most of the camp and its previously lively denizens to become rubble. I shook myself out of my trance when I saw panicked goblins run every which way to get away from the violence.

  A brief feeling of horror flashed by before I reminded myself that I wouldn’t be able to eat if I disintegrated my targets. The army had been considerably thinned already and they had lost their will to fight. Or, that’s what I thought when I saw the goblin general step out of his tent. He glanced around before letting out a roar I couldn’t hear since I’d sealed my ears shut. The scattered army stopped running immediately, looking back toward their leader. A violent surge of magic announced the spell before I even saw the spell matrix form in front of the general.

  Upon the spell's completion, a red shockwave traveled through the camp, imbuing the soldiers with… something. Whatever it was, it made them lose their fear as hundreds of eyes turned on me. Fiercer, and stronger than before. The general pointed at me, currently gliding above their camp and all hell broke loose. I saw the general's determination, saw his soldiers' dedication, but whatever they did, it wouldn’t be enough. I used a void jump to go even higher than before, easily reappearing out of range.

  And continued to rain death upon them.