A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 39: Battle With The Goblins - Part 5

Beam just nodded again. "I'll see what happens and consider it."

Then he turned his back on them and walked through the empty market square in the rain and back to the forest where his master was.

Only, he'd forgotten his master's bread. When he was halfway down the road out of the village, he remembered it, and sprinted all the way back to the bakery for it, thoroughly drenched. The old lady had had a few choice words for him about looking after his health, but he'd only smiled and assured her that he was fine.

Wandering back towards the forest with his bread in hand, he caught sight of something that he was growing used to seeing. It was the strange woman in black again, with that long straight hair of hers, that went all the way down to her waist. She walked emotionlessly in the rain behind an old man, without moving to lift up her waxed black robe to protect herself.

Beam knew the old man, or at least, he knew his face. He'd seem him around a couple of times. It was the village Elder, leaning heavily on a staff as he walked with a crooked back towards his house. The woman trailed after him.

…

…

"Goblins, eh?" Dominus said, hearing about the first quest that Beam had chosen. He'd heard mention of it yesterday and been sceptical, but now that he knew the number of them, he was even more sure that it was a bad idea. "That damn merchant. He's an evil bastard, he is."

Beam frowned at that. "Are Goblins really that terrifying?" He'd never had an altercation with one personally. Though he'd seen signs of their existence, like carcasses they left behind in the woods and broken weapons and scraps of cloth. "They're small, right? Like the size of a kid?"

"Aye, and they have the strength of a kid too," Dominus agreed, "but their speed is extraordinary and their viciousness is out of this world. Once you get started on them, they'll be looking for your head till the moment their heart stops. I think, a week ago, you likely would have struggled against a Goblin. It might have been fifty-fifty whether you'd live or not."

"And now?" Beam asked.

"Now I think you can kill one with certainty – but that's one. This here is a group of five. You're not ready. Even that brute Judas would struggle. He'd manage it, but he'd struggle. He wouldn't be able to do it without wounds. So, to set a single child on them, one with unknown combat abilities, that's the height of callousness. That's approaching evil," Dominus said darkly.

"Mm… Have I made a mistake?" Beam asked nervously. He'd thought he'd done well by solving the problem that his master set, on finally reaching an agreement with Greeves, one that had a benefit to him too, in the end.

"Hah…" Dominus sighed, looking up at a sky that was still pouring with rain, then shook his head. "No. You did the best you could. But once this is over and you have your money, you would do well to be mindful of that man."

"He did burn my house down, after all," Beam agreed.

"This again was caused by your poor reputation though boy. Don't get me wrong, you're still just as trash as you were a week ago – the improvements have been slight. For however long you've spent digging holes in this village, you've been digging your own hole for the same length of time. You've been digging it deeper, cutting more and more people off, making sure you have no allies, and this is what happens. People like Greeves can smell society's castoffs. They know exactly just how much they can take before the people rise up against them. And he knew very well that you had no allies, that was why he was so quick to target you," Dominus told him, his back against a tall pine tree as they avoided the worst of the rain within the mountains.

Beam clenched his fist at that. "I really need to get better," he said aloud.

Dominus smiled at that. It seemed that whatever disease Dominus had that made him seek progress so strongly, that disease was now spreading to his young apprentice. 'I haven't made a mistake in choosing you then,' Dominus said to himself.

"Well, what's done is done. You have a tough month ahead of you, boy. You know the problems you have to solve and you know what you're going to gain by solving them and what you're going to lose if you fail. This business with the Goblins – yeah, you're definitely not ready to take on five by yourself," Dominus said, "but we can use it as an opportunity to train you more. We'll go seek them out. You'll do your martial practice against them today."

"You mean you're going to help me?" Beam brightened. It was a weight off his shoulders to have Dominus in his corner. To someone who'd managed to wound the legendary Pandora Goblin, something as measly as a normal Goblin would see so pathetic in comparison.

"No," Dominus said, correcting him. "I'm not going to help you. I'm merely going to keep you from death. All the hard work is going to be done by you. These quests were assigned to you, after all."

Beam didn't know quite how that differed from helping, but he smiled without mentioning it, just glad to have his master in his corner.

"They're a few hours' walk to the east," Beam told him, "on the edges of the forest near the plains, like where you guessed there were some a few days ago."

Dominus nodded at that, and they began in that direction.

"Ah! Wait! What am I going to be fighting them with?" Beam realized. He didn't even have an axe to his name, and he couldn't imagine a stick would do much good against a Goblin. Not unless he found a long one and sharpened the end into a spear… But then he didn't even have a knife to do that.