Rushing out of the city was easier said than done. The crowds were so thick that I had to skirt on the edge of the street, moving the people out of the way as gently as I could. That mostly meant that they tried shoving me out of the way and then found me not even budging when they bounced into me. Big strength stat had its uses.

  It took two minutes before Bryga decided to step in front of me. Suddenly, we were given a wide berth. ”That’s how you do it!”

  I laughed as I began running to catch up to Bryga, who finally made it possible to run, the thought of a fight making the feeling of annoyance seem insignificant. “Not everyone is your size, Bryga!”

  “Excuses, excuses.” Fink mocked me, sitting atop her shoulder. Cheater!

  “Crudia, can you run on top of a building to see what’s up?” Mark said, looking ahead from above.

  With a nod, Crudia disappeared, running into a side alley.

  I didn’t understand what use scouting had here - We were almost at the city exit. And since we wanted to defend the city, we’d have to fight now anyway.

  Replacing the buildings, I arrived at the city outskirts, and watched the black grass in front of m. I had to admit, the fight ahead looked a bit fun. Or it would be, if the city guard weren’t dying by the dozen.

  Dark Orange little creatures sat atop lizards. Or worms. Maybe the combination of the two? I had a hard time discerning what they were, exactly. They looked like worms, their bodies long and sinuous, their heads replaced by a circular maw of several rows of teeth. But their bodies were scaled, shiny, and they stood atop 4 legs. One of them was pretty close, slashing a sword at one of the guards who was too slow to get into the city.

  The creature on top of it looked kind of human, actually. It was short, its ears were pointed and long, its skin was dark orange, and its face looked like it was made as the opposite of mine - ugly, wrinkly and unpleasant to look at. But it was still undeniably a humanoid, wearing some chainmail armor and holding onto the worm-like creature for dear life.

  [Analyze] showed both descriptions at once. Glitchy bullshit. It was either annoying me by trying to gnaw at me, or it continued doing weird stuff like this. Or not describing at all, like with the eye-lens I still had equipped. I tried again, this time really focusing hard to not show both of the boxes of text at once.

  Earth goblin

  Creature

  Level 16

  These little shits are always so fun to look at. Mostly due to the fact that they speak like a 6year old that found their daddy’s stash of Rakija and decided to down the whole thing. Thanaus, the God of Words, seems to love them especially. Hell, he’s probably watching as you read this stuff.

  But don’t let their stupid way of talking fool you. They are some of the nastier inhabitants of our shared universe. Usually nocturnal, they like to compete for gold, beat little children for fun, and think up tactics on how to dominate the ruling race of the world they are currently at. That includes making a lot of weaponry, magical stuff.

  Oh, and explosions.

  Great. That sounded lovely. I was kind of interested in how they speak, though. The other was also interesting.

  Wurm

  Creature

  Level 14

  They are what they look like. Lizard and worm combined. The lizard being a nonexistent one. This one was actually kind of fun to craft. We just took the lizard’s architecture and thought: ‘Hey! Let’s make him look like an imbecile!” And it worked EXTREMELY well, as you can see.

  These guys are to lizards what homeless people are to blue collar people - someone they scrunch their nose at as they see them. For good reasons, too. The particular type of worm we used for this masterpiece usually sweats a lot. That’s something the lizards cannot do. They also don’t have an asshole.

  Can you guess where all of their fluids come out of? And in? You know the saying! As long as there’s a hole, there’s a way!

  “What the actual fuck” whispered Mark. MARK whispered that, not me! So it wasn’t just me thinking that these assholes were clinically insane! My chat beeped with a new message.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Crudia: Found a good spot to watch from! The sky is really beautiful now, and the mist is gone.

  Talisha: Crudia, FOCUS.

  Bryga: How about the enemies? Is there a lot to slaughter?

  Crudia: There’s a lot of them, but they are spread out around the city. Maybe 50 total? I’m not completely sure

  Mark looked at Talisha, both of them whispering for some reason.

  Crudia: Do you want me to count them?

  Crudia: Or do I come help?

  Crudia: Can someone please answer?

  Shrimpie: Come here, Crudia. See us on the map?

  Crudia: Yes. Are we fighting them?

  Mark: No, we’re just going to pet them!

  Crudia: Yaaay!! Wait. Is that that ‘srackasm’ of yours?

  Talisha: Shut the fuck up Mark. Yes, it’s sarcasm, sweetie. Now come here. We’ll decide what to do in the meantime.

  Bryga watched the chat, humming as we watched the carnage in front of us. “So, how are we fighting?”

  Dusk sighed. “We had a pretty good formation, but we didn’t practice a new one. We’ll have to play it by the ear, I guess.”

  Fink scoffed, his voice haughty. “Just do the formation you practiced. We’ll do fine on our own, like we always did. Right, Bryga?”

  What was that guy’s problem? He kept going from being kinda friendly to a complete dick. Was he really that envious of my colors? Sorry that not everyone could be good looking, dude.

  Bryga laughed at that, as if what he said was funny. “Nah. I’ll stay. I feel like splitting would be a bad play here. I also want them to live until the real attack begins.”

  Fink got awfully quiet there! Embarrassed by your protector not agreeing with you, buddy? Sucks for you!

  Chuckling, Dusk approached from behind me, not looking offended in the slightest. “Glad to hear how highly you think of us.”

  “Hey, that sounded worse than I meant it, okay? You guys are fun! Especially you, drinking buddy.” She gave him a wink, which made Dusk lower his head and scratch his hair. Was he really that embarrassed about drinking? I’d have to tell him it was okay later.

  “Okay, let’s wait for Crudia, and then we go in.” Mark said, but I wasn’t sure. Each second we stood here meant another soldier dead. A soldier that we’d need in just five days. I looked at Dusk, and saw the same thought flash by in his eyes. We couldn’t afford to lose them.

  “Let’s go in. Crudia will join later.”

  Mark almost blanched from surprise. “Are you crazy? I said we wait, and then approach carefully!”

  “If we wait and approach carefully, we’ll have no-one to help with the defense in a few days.” Dusk replied, calmly.

  “Having a few low-leveled soldiers is not worth the life of even one of you!”

  Talisha tried slapping him. The hand went through, of course, but it had a visible effect on Mark. He looked surprised. “What the-”

  Talisha didn’t let him finish. “And here I thought that we were the humane ones, and these players were animals. Just listen to yourself. They are right, even if they are thinking of it strategically. And trust them a little. They’ll manage this much.”

  I didn’t wait to watch that play out. Instead, I summoned my shields, and dashed forward, knowing that the rest followed. A gas cloud appeared in the center of the battlefield, making several of the goblins retch on the spot. Fink chuckled from behind me as it started dissipating. Oh, how fun.

  My only wish was that there’d be less of these guys, but stronger. Fighting a swarm after a swarm of enemies ever since I’ve gotten here was getting a bit tiring, and the bosses offered a more unique experience anyway. Something more like what I was used to.

  I was at the first enemy before he saw me coming. Jumping, I flew through the air, as high as my legs allowed me to, and smashed my shield into the face of the closest offender. His skull caved in with a crack, the helmet offering no protection against my assault. No XP notification beeped, but I knew he was dead already.

  The worm squealed, agitated as I landed on top of it, wiggling from side to side. Bryga’s anchor smashed its head before it could throw me off, the flesh exploding in all directions. She didn’t even stop, instead continuing to run at another one of the things, one that was attacking three soldiers. I watched one get impaled, feeling a wrenching sensation in my gut. These feelings again. Why did these people matter to me more than the Mole-orcs? Or the ants? All of them showed some intelligence. Yet I only felt so defensive about these, for some reason.

  Sighing, I hopped down from the now-dead Wurm, and looked for my next target. Dusk was a few metres away, using his spear to create distance from another goblin, and Fink was nowhere to be seen.

  A hand grasped my shoulder, jolting me, my fist ready to strike. It was Crudia, slightly winded. “Are we fighting?”

  “Oh yeah. Save the soldiers. Let’s go help!” I gave her a smile as I held her hand.

  “There was a different goblin in the back.” She pointed in one direction. “He was wearing full plate armor. Had a bigger…” Her eyes glazed over as she turned at one of the goblins, and then she turned back to me. “Wurms. Had a bigger one. I didn’t manage to scan it, but it was weird. Do we go to get him?”

  That sounded promising. A good fight at last!

  “Crudia, go help Dusk! He’s about to get surrounded!” Talisha said, looking at Dusk’s direction with a worried gaze.

  I met Crudia’s eyes, seeing the question in them. But the answer was clear. We both nodded at the same time, and went off in different directions.

  Picking up as much speed as I could, I pivoted around all the enemies, punching any that got too close, saving a soldier here and there, but always running forward. I saw my target in just a minute, and Crudia’s description was on point. He was larger, wearing better equipment, and he rode on a larger Wurm, the beast almost twice the size of the others.

  He also had Fink thrown over in his saddle, and was turning away from the fight.

  “Hurry up! He’s getting away!” Mark shouted, livid.

  He didn’t have to tell me twice. I used [Dash] to close the distance, appearing right behind the now fully-turned Wurm, and got met by a flash of pain as the tail smacked me in my head.

  Falling to the ground, I braced and fell with a grunt. This much pain wouldn’t stop me, not after the fight with Majorica. I stood up, shook myself, and looked at the disgusting thing. Oh I’d get him back for this.

  But it was already running, fast as a horse, into the black plains to the east. With no better idea on what to do, I hurried to follow.