By the time they arrived at the battlefield, even Dominic was feeling protective of the Princess.
Despite her attempts to be a strong and serious Paladin and the fact that Dominic knew she was a capable fighter, Princess Elanor was a very sweet young girl under her facade.
She didn't get to do things with friends very much, and the Palace servants wouldn't dare to be so familiar with her. So the chance to bring Dominic along once she realized that they were close to his place of work was too much temptation to resist.
She claimed that she wanted to prove her worth in battle so that her sisters wouldn't look down on her, but after only a half hour together, Dominic could tell that she just wanted to make friends, even if they were the guards assigned to her and a random spell caster she met in the staging area.
"Alright, we're here. Let me make the bet, and you can back me up to get the guards on our side." Princess Eleanor whispered to her new partner in crime for the day.
"Good luck."
Dominic hopped down from the wagon while the guards assisted the Paladin behind him.
Formulating his plan, Dominic assessed the group of ten seniors from the Academy. They were all wearing a plethora of level 4 and 5 physical enhancement skill gems, and they all had combat oriented base skills. It would be a tough fight to beat their accomplishments, even with a lot of luck, but Dominic had promised the Princess that he would help her, and he really did need the money.
"Boys, aren't you looking dapper today? Might you be out for a stroll in the park? I thought we were going to kill Goblins?" The young Princess teased as they waited around for orders.
"Well, now, look at that. The Princess brought a friend with her. Is he a classmate of hers, Princess?" The largest of the men, standing nearly 195cm tall and wide enough that he had to turn to get out of the carriage door, asked.
"I'm a bit more grown than that." Dominic laughed, waving one particular finger at the students, but out of sight of the Princess.
"How about we make this day a bit more interesting? You are all trying out to be guards, right? Why not prove that you've got what it takes? The eight of them can take us on as a handicap against the ten of you, and whoever kills more Goblins wins the wager." He offered.
"And what do we get if we win?" The big man asked suggestively, glancing at the Princess before turning on Dominic with a cruel smile.
"How about the winning team gets dinner with the Princess? Chaperoned, of course, but a proper sit-down meal to have a good conversation?" Dominic offered.
That way, if they lost, the boys got a hint of what they wanted: a chance to impress the Princess, and if his team won, he got a free dinner.
The Guards looked shocked at the offer. It was a big event for a lower noble of their status to join a member of the Royal Family for a formal meal, and the way that Dominic had worded it, the 'winning team' would get the chance. That meant the eight of them as well.
They might be a few years older, but none of the guards assigned to the Princess was married, a precaution by her parents and older siblings to help the Princess pick a suitable suitor from among the men her family had already vetted.
All eighteen men answered in unison. "If the Princess doesn't object, you've got a deal."
The guards' equipment had been carefully improved, with the most important of their enhancements being at level 6 and 7, with a level 10 combat gem visible on the Sergeant, giving them a distinct magical advantage. Plus, they were all Paladins from the same order that the Princess had chosen.
Going from Level 1 to Level 2 wasn't bad. But the requirements doubled with every level. So, by level 10, it took a tremendous amount of work to improve a skill gem by another level.
Evidently, the order that the day's assigned guards belonged to was a more open-minded one than most, as they had taken the Princess as a proper Paladin while she was still young and hadn't left her as some token squire with no trade skill core.
That alone was a green flag in Dominic's books in favour of the guards.
Entirely Paladins seemed like a strange group choice to Dominic, but many of the guards carried short bows or spears along with their blades and shields, so they weren't completely lacking in ranged offence, and all of the members of their team, except him, could heal the wounded.
The students were a fairly well-rounded group, with a healing dedicated Cleric, two mages and two Archers, along with their melee fighters. They shouldn't have any problems dealing with the goblins that they were expected to face today.
The hard part would be finding them.
{All teams to the ready. We have our orders. Clear the area of Goblins and all other monsters.} One of the elder Princesses shouted above the din of the crowd with a magically amplified voice.
"Yes, Your Highness." The crowd shouted back, and then they began to split up to begin their hunt.
"Can you run well enough to keep up? I know that most spell casters don't have great stamina." The leader of their team asked.
"While it might not be my strongest point, I can run well enough, and I'm agile. I'm also not weighed down by a load of metal plates, so I should be alright." Dominic shrugged.
"Good, no offence to the Princess and your escort, but we fully intend to win this challenge."
The Paladins took off at a jog, running in time instinctively after training with each other for so long. Elanor kept pace behind them while Dominic took up the rear. At first, it was easy, but after a kilometre, he was beginning to hope that they would find Goblins very soon.
"Just up ahead. There is a goblin village right where we scouted it. Caster Dominic, stay with the Princess in the middle of our formation. It's too dangerous to leave you out here in the open while we raid the village." The team leader instructed.
That was just what the two of them had been hoping for. The fight would inevitably force the team to surround them, and then, as the guards spread out, the two of them would get a chance to fight.
Dominic wouldn't even have to wait, as he had nearly forty metres of range with [Arcane Blast], so he could take the goblins out as he pleased.
The damage done by the spell was outstanding for a young caster, far beyond what most mages his age could manage, and he had confidence that he could kill enough Goblins to make it worth the trip.
The Goblins squealed in their guttural language as they saw the approaching mass of polished armour under pure gold tabards, and the Paladins broke into a full-out run, forcing Dominic to struggle to keep his position, much less move forward into the centre of their formation as they had requested.
The front rank slammed into the Goblins, and the creatures didn't have a chance.
These were trained Royal guards, all using heavily enchanted weapons and armour, and well-experienced with the task of eliminating small monsters.
"Princess, fall in toward the centre of our formation. We are going to push forward. Gerald and Tony, you are on the spear duty. Keep the second rank cleared. Everyone, keep the bows stowed until we see a shaman or a Lord," their Sergeant instructed.
Dominic didn't know what a Goblin Shaman or a Goblin Lord looked like, but he did know that there were plenty of targets for his [Arcane Blast], and they were going to run right over the corpses for him to loot them. Just a touch of his boot would do, as long as the guards in front didn't get to them first.