At the end of the hall, three small humanoid shadows and their grunts of joy were coming in our direction. I said "humanoids", but that was because of their figure's shape. As they approached us, their ugly faces were enlightened by the torches on the walls, and they weren't humans at all.
Each of them was probably around 1m (3'3'') in height, but their slim small bodies were curved, and the only thing covering them was a piece of dirty rag around their waists. Their ears were pointed, their noses protuberant, and their green faces covered in warts.
The creatures' eyes became visible to us. They were yellow with horizontal pupils like a goat's, and they were full of malicious intent.
"Goblins!" Sarah's expression changed in the presence of danger. Each one of them was carrying a rough cleaver knife.
I won't lie, I got nervous from seeing a monster in front of me for the first time. I didn't scream, but my eyes were fixed on the green and grotesque creatures. Leo must have seen my expression and brought me back to earth.
"Rick, stay back!" he said to me while still looking at the creatures with a serious expression. He put himself in front of me, and Sarah stepped back to regroup.
One of the goblins sniffed the air around him, and after that the beast started to smile. It grunted to the other goblins, communicating with them. Of course, I didn't know what those creatures were saying, but I quickly understood when the monster pointed to Sarah and the other two started to act like him, their disgusting faces grinning.
Goblins are a type of monster with low fertility between the females, so in order to reproduce, the male goblins frequently breed using females from other species of monsters or even humans. It's not unusual for goblins to attack small villages, kill the men, and kidnap the women. In other words, they were making Sarah their new target.
But it wasn't pure instinct. One single look at their glee-filled faces and you would notice the mix of lust and malevolence coming from them. Goblins weren't as intelligent as humans; even among other monsters, they were closer to animals in this regard.
Nonetheless, with their small brains, they knew what they were doing, and they enjoyed doing it. They loved to slaughter and to deflower innocent girls, and that's what made them evil.
I got instantly mad. The last thing that I wanted was these filthy green bastards gushing over Sarah. The mere thought of what they wanted to do with her made me want to kill all of them.
If they could, they wouldn't kill her, because that was against their lustful intent, but me and Leo were not the case. For them, Sarah was supposed to get captured, and we could die on the spot.
'As if I would just sit and wait for them to butcher me.' I wasn't a fighter, but there were some things that I could do against them.
I was carrying two bags with me: the first was my backpack, but inside of it weren't things prepared for the heat of battle. The second one was.
I didn't have good skills for combat, but with the Alchemist skills I could prepare something to fight as the team's support.
From a little bag wrapped around my waist, I took a small sphere and threw it right in the middle of them. "Take this!"
When the sphere touched the ground it burst. They got scared by the sound, but they relaxed when they noticed that it didn't deal any damage.
'Of course not. I wouldn't expend precious bombs with the likes of you. This one will be enough.'
When the bomb finally affected the goblins, they started to scream in pain and were scratching their eyes.
Thanks to alchemy, with the right materials and the skill necessary for that, it was possible to create potions, antidotes, and even stun bombs. What I threw at them released a substance that irritated their eyes.
"Try to fight now with your eyes burning."
"Hurrraaah!" one of the goblins screamed with anger and started to run in our direction, ready to attack with his weapon in hand.
I was taken by surprise when I heard a voice calling me. "Good job, Rick. You can leave it with us now." The red-haired girl said this before jumping into the battle.
"Dash!" She was 2 meters distant from the nearest goblin, but thanks to her ability she surprised the monster with her agility, closing the gap within one step.
The goblin clumsily tried to attack with his cleaver, but Sarah effortlessly dodged it and swung her longsword against the enemy, slashing the goblin from the shoulder down. One goblin down with a critical strike; only two remained.
They tried to retaliate against Sarah, caring only to release their anger, but Leo came to her defense. With his greatsword, he stopped the two blades going in her direction.
Unlike Sarah, the blond man didn't have any interest in avoiding attacks. His fighting style was based on challenging the strength of his enemies. For moments like this he had the perfect weapon for victory.
"Counter!" After enduring the attack from the monsters, Leo pushed them away with his blade. His skill granted him, for just one attack, power equal to the attack he suffered. After releasing the goblins, Leo struck them with a single horizontal blow.
After this attack Leo turned to our direction with a smug expression. "You guys saw that? Two in one." He said this to us, trying to be a show-off.
But he didn't finish off the two goblins. The first one that suffered the attack acted as a buffer, reducing the damage of the second. Now the remaining one was behind him, prepared to avenge the fallen.
Leo almost got hurt, but a shining blade thrust into the goblin's mouth, impaling him. In the last second, Sarah protected Leo. There weren't any surviving monsters.
After cleaning the blood from her sword with a swing, Sarah turned to Leo with a very familiar smile.
"I was pretty awesome, huh?" she asked us, but there wasn't one single doubt in her expression.
"Hey, stop praising yourself, Sarah," Leo said. "I almost killed the damn thing, so there's no reason for being full of yourself."
"No, no, no, my dear Leo. You misunderstood everything."
"What did I misunderstand?"
"What counts is who gives the finishing blow. So it makes me have 2 points, and you only have one." Sarah said to him, swinging her ponytail. "Even though you are the strongest, I still won."
Leo got shocked by Sarah's thought process. His happy expression changed and now he was sad for losing to her.
"But Sarah, you're not forgetting something?" I asked her.
"Huh, what did I forget?"
"These goblins were too easy for a fight. But why though?" I said as if looking for an answer.
"They were just running angry at us," Leo said half-heartedly.
"Exactly." I encouraged his response. "But why?"
Sarah was looking at me, starting to get grumpy about my words. From the looks of her, she already knew what I would say.
"Ah, I know. That was because of my tear bomb."
"Hm..." She didn't want to give in.
"If I didn't gas them, they wouldn't attack aimlessly. You guys wouldn't have such an easy fight."
"Oh, that's right," Leo said, but he took my joke too seriously. Well, I had the majority, so I could be bolder.
"So I'll take all of your points." At that moment I was the smug one in the room.
"Huh? Why should you take all my points? Why don't you take Leo's?" she asked me, completely surprised by my conclusion.
"Because his final attack was cool," I said bluntly. "So that's the price of my assistance. It's pretty fair, don't you think?"
I couldn't see her face, but I had the sensation that I messed up. My objective was to break the ice between us; however, I could swear that I was seeing steam coming from her head.
"Are you saying that Leo is cooler than me?" Sarah whispered something, but I couldn't hear. After this she said audibly, "Half…"
"Uh? Half what?"
"Half! You will only take half of my points! Just half of them! Do you get that?!" she shouted her definitive response.
"I-I think so…"
"Good!" She said this, puffing her chest. She was almost following down the hallway, but Leo interrupted her. "Wait, so was this a draw?"
"Eh?"
"One point for me, one point for Sarah and finally one goes to Rick," Leo said pensively. "Maybe that's what people call perfect teamwork?"
His eyes were shining like he was making a great discovery. "If we are synchronized like that no monster can stop us. I'm fired up." And saying this, our leader took the lead.
But Sarah stayed close to me, looking fixedly at me. "Did you plan this from the start?"
"Nah, I'm not so smart. It was just a coincidence." I shrugged. "But I think that you're not satisfied with the end result, right?"
"I'll show you. One day I will kill three goblins with a single strike." She said this to me. I knew where her feelings were coming from. She wanted to prove her own strength; even if it was by a childish game, her sentiment was genuine.
"Why stop there?" I said with a playful smile on my face.
"Eh?" She didn't expect me to say that.
"I think you could do more than that. Even a goblin horde wouldn't be a challenge to you."
"Do you think so?" she said, clearly embarrassed.
"I know for sure, but you have a long journey until you get there."
"Huh…" She looked annoyed by my words, but it couldn't be helped. My intent wasn't to lie to make her feel better.
"So don't rush yourself," I said kindly to her.
"Hmph!" She turned her head, irritated. But right before I could follow Leo's footsteps, she said, "Thank you, Rick."