"Go!"
At Isaac's command, everyone charged out in an instant. The Black Knight and Smith were at the forefront. Two flashes of sword light streaked past, and the seven goblins that had been fishing were instantly turned into fourteen pieces!
"Er..."
At this moment, the others had only just emerged from their ambush positions...
Isaac hadn't even managed to deploy his Arcane Shield...
Staring at the goblin corpses on the ground, Isaac fell into deep thought. 'Have I... taken this matter a bit too seriously?'
"WAAAAAAAH~"
While Isaac was still stunned, a goblin emerged from under a large boulder. It looked at its kin, whose numbers had just doubled, and froze for a moment. Then, it picked up a rock from the ground and, with a great cry, charged toward Smith and the Black Knight!
So brave!
"PSHHT!"
In response, Smith simply swung his sword, cutting it in half at the waist and turning it into 2.5 goblins. He then instantly rushed to the boulder, his Staff Sword flashing with streaks of light!
"BOOM!"
In a flash, the massive boulder shattered into countless small pieces!
The Goblin Nest was completely exposed!
Revealing a dense swarm of goblins that had been drawn to the entrance below.
A flicker in Smith's eyes, and without a moment's hesitation, he retreated to Isaac's side. Though he had no fear of these goblins, there was no need to fight them inside the cave. Goblins weren't very bright; they would come out on their own.
Sure enough, a large number of goblins soon swarmed out of the small cave. In the blink of an eye, over a hundred goblins appeared by the riverbank!
"Hiss!"
The sight made Isaac suck in a sharp breath. 'That's a fuck-ton of them!'
At the same time, he dismissed his earlier thought. His thorough preparations hadn't been an overreaction at all. Before one's personal might became transcendent, sheer numbers were still extremely effective.
'The goblins' ability to multiply their forces is terrifying,' he thought. 'And this is just a single goddamn river!'
'How many people can a single river sustain just by fishing?'
'My manor, which is planted with cash crops, can only support two or three hundred people!'
'And we didn't even notice these hundred-plus goblins. That's not normal. Either they possess exceptional stealth capabilities, or they have a terrifyingly high reproduction rate, and all of these were born in the last few days!'
'The former is unlikely. Those seven goblins were fishing right out in the open. So, they must have been born recently!'
'Well, what can I say? Truly the Creation of a Legendary Mage...'
"Go!" Shaking his head, all traces of condescension vanished from Isaac's mind. He gave a light wave of his right hand, and the men immediately reacted, raising their longswords to meet the screeching, charging goblins.
A pale blue barrier materialized around Isaac, deflecting a few thrown rocks.
Glancing at the stones that fell beside him, Isaac smiled faintly. With a RIIIP, a menacing Demon Claw burst from the nape of his neck. Its five fingers spread wide, facing the goblin horde, as the vicious, serrated mouth in its palm let out a series of excited, cackling sounds.
Then, Magic Power surged through Isaac's body, gathering in the Demon Claw. Specks of blue starlight materialized before it, and in the next moment, twelve blue meteors shot toward the goblin horde!
A triple-cast of Arcane Missile!
"THWAP THWAP THWAP~"
The streams of blue light flew over the heads of his men and were the first to meet the goblins. In an instant, seven goblins were decapitated, three had their chests blown open, and four had their arms shattered!
A remarkable result!
"WAAAAAAAH!!!!"
However, a casualty rate of nearly ten percent did nothing to break the goblins' morale. On the contrary, spurred on by the blood of their kin, their ferocity only intensified as they continued their savage charge!
"PSHHT~"
But all that high morale was completely fucking useless...
Even without the Black Knight and Smith joining the fray, the battle was completely one-sided with just the Knight Guard.
It couldn't be helped. While the Knight Guard wasn't a formal army and their equipment was poor, it all depended on the comparison. Compared to a regular army, they were certainly lacking. They were all in Leather Armor, and even Barton didn't have plate Armor.
But at least they had Leather Armor, and the Knight's Longswords they each wielded were sharp.
And the goblins?
For protection, if you could count skirts woven from leaves as Armor, then maybe one percent of these goblins were "armored." As for weapons, a tree branch was considered high-end equipment; most of them were just using rocks they'd picked up, some of which were smooth pebbles...
How could they possibly fight?
They couldn't, you know?
Soon, without the Black Knight or Smith even needing to act, the hundred-plus goblins were annihilated, leaving only a field of corpses.
Seeing this, Isaac gave a light wave of his right hand. The Black Knight immediately charged into the cave to begin a new round of slaughter, while Isaac himself walked over to a goblin's corpse and crouched down, his eyes gleaming.
He had discovered Magic Power in the goblin's body!
'It's faint, but it definitely contains Magic Power. With a little processing, it could be used as a Casting component.'
'An unexpected bonus...'
'So...'
'Since they have Magic Power, what if I were to perform a Heart Transplantation Surgery on a goblin?'
'How much could it be Enhanced?'
Inspiration after inspiration popped into his head. The corners of Isaac's mouth lifted slightly. He found a relatively intact corpse, and the Demon Claw lifted it, tossed it, and then...
"CRUNCH~ CRUNCH~"
The goblin's corpse fell into the serrated mouth in the Demon Claw's palm. With a few chews, it was completely swallowed. The goblin's physical structure transformed into streams of information that flowed into Isaac's mind. He stood up, closed his eyes, and tilted his head back slightly, ecstatically receiving the information transmitted by the Witchcraft.
"URGH!!!"
However, this scene terrified everyone. Except for Smith, all the others, including the Goblin Slayer who had killed countless goblins himself, turned pale. They couldn't help but take a few steps back, covering their mouths, feeling nauseous...
'No matter what, even though goblins are monsters, they're still humanoid. Eating one raw...'
'It was enough to shatter one's worldview!'
The Goblin Slayer, in particular, was filled with regret. Before coming, he knew the stingy Nobility's five Gold Coins wouldn't be easy to earn, but he never expected it to be *this* hard!
'If I had known Isaac was a Wizard, forget five Gold Coins—I wouldn't have done it for fifty! Five hundred...'
'Er, for five hundred Gold Coins, I'd at least consider it.'
'But only consider it, because the reputation of Wizards...'
'...was questionable, on par with Witches, and far worse than Arcanists!'
'Isaac's brand of brutal Witchcraft wasn't an exception...'
Smith, on the other hand, just sighed heavily. He had been somewhat prepared for this, so he could still accept it. 'All in all,' he thought, 'as long as Isaac isn't eating the goblin corpse himself, I guess it's fine...'
By the time Isaac had finished absorbing the general information on goblin anatomy, the sounds of slaughter from within the cave had also stopped.
Isaac carefully stepped around the pools of blood and curiously entered the cave, which was now filled with the corpses of young goblins. The moment he stepped inside, he was once again surprised.
Because there were over thirty more young goblins inside!
And this cave... was also astonishingly large!