CHAPTER 33: BIMBO CORPSES AND HORNY GOBLINS

When I’d gotten there, Isobel thankfully wasn’t around. The boss goblin was, though, cluelessly looking around the forest clearing for the illusion mage who’d gotten him stabbed by its companion. Using that distraction to my advantage, I slashed at the creature’s back, my sword slicing its skin like a sharp knife through steak. Blood sprayed from the incision, coating me from head to toe in the dark, metallic-tasting liquid.

The goblin whirled on me, swinging its sword in wide, sweeping slashes in what I could only assume was an attempt to attack either me or Isobel. The goblin boss itself was weakening, sure, but it was also getting desperate. Its attacks were unrelenting, sword slash after kick after aura-infused stomp, leaving me with little else to do than parry and dodge its attacks. Once again, I lamented the fact that I needed to account for Isobel. If it were just me, I would’ve been able to kill the damn thing in a single hit!

"Lloyd!" Isobel shouted from everywhere at once. "Let me help you!"

"Like I said, the best thing you can do is blast the damn thing with that same attack you used earlier! Hit him in his back while I hold him here."

"I-I can’t!" Isobel responded. "That attack used up most of my aura. I... I don’t know any offensive spells! I just shot aura at the goblins earlier. It wasn’t an actual technique. The only techniques I know are illusory, like the ones I’m using to hide and mask my voice!"

An idea occurred. "That’s perfect! Can you conjure an image of this thing’s partner?"

"Sorry, that takes too much aura! I barely managed to do it earlier when I was sneaking up on these two."

"Okay, well, what can

you summon? Doesn’t matter what. Something to keep the thing distracted. Ideally something you can do from a distance, that way I can kill the thing and not have to worry about sending you to the Clerics."

"Goblins are necrophiles, right? I can summon the image of a hanging human corpse, and that should be enough to distract it!"

"W-what the fuck? Where’d you hear that?"

"A book on goblins and their mating habits! I read it before taking this Quest! It said that goblin women will fellate dead human men they find attractive and that goblin men will have their way with human women who die around them. Actually, when goblin couples are having trouble in their relationship, they’re known to kill low-level Adventurers just to use their corpses as sexual stimulants. Their close relatives, the half-orcs, aren’t known to have any necrophilic urges, but they do have a similar sexual ravenousness. It’s said that if you ever encounter a half-orc alone in Ublar, you should wear a necklace made of bell peppers to ward them off, otherwise, you’re likely to be sexually assaulted by one. In certain circles, though, some people go to Ublar with the express purpose of mating with half-orcs, though. They can be quite attractive–especially if they’re human enough to not have those protruding bottom teeth, but their unrelenting libido is almost as bad as the vampires, apparently, so those who seek them out for conquest usually end up getting–"

"Isobel! The illusion! Please!"

"Oh, right! Sorry!"

Isobel indeed summoned an illusion behind me. Perhaps from God’s mercy, I never saw it, but whatever it was got the goblin boss to stop dead in its tracks. Considering everything she just said, I don’t think I even wanted to know what–

"Done! I summoned two hanging corpses behind you! Two naked women with large breasts and hairy bushes that the goblins gravitate toward!"

"Why the fuck do you know what goblins... Let’s just get this over with."

Unfortunately, Isobel’s illusion worked on the goblin boss. It worked well. Way. Too. Well. Ignoring my internal pleas to turn the sword on myself, I leveled it at the... excited goblin in front of me, charging a Divine Smite in my sword. I slammed the blade through the creature, the ensuing shockwave like a stick of dynamite going off right in front of me. When the dust cleared, there was nothing left but a goblin in a crater, smile on its face, body cleaved down to the waist, lower half... as it was pre-death.

"That wasn’t too bad," Isobel noted, revealing herself once again. She’d been sitting behind a felled tree, blood now dried on her body. "I think if–"

A wave of screeches sounded from behind me. It was more of the weaker goblins. I turned, prepared to cut them down, only to stop when I noticed they weren’t approaching us. No, they’d been transfixed on the illusion Isobel had conjured. The one I’d thanked the heavens for not showing me.

"Goodness. It seems that’s working a bit too well. It doesn’t even take much aura to maintain. Perhaps if we take another goblin Quest, we can–"

"No. No more goblin Quests. Literally anything other than a goblin Quest. When I came out today, I assumed we were gonna get a few kills, celebrate in the city, spend some time together, and call it a day."

"Spend some time?" Isobel’s tone took on a sultry tone. "How forward. I suppose you’ve earned it after–"

"No. You don’t get to be sexy right now. Not when I’m standing in front of a bunch of erect goblins staring at hanging bimbo corpses."

"Are you squeamish?"

"To this?! Yes!"

"You’re free to look away, you know." I narrowed my eyes at her. She rolled hers at me. "It’s gross, but it works. Is that not the nature of Adventuring? You sometimes do the things others won’t for the greater good of Aspia."

"That ’greater good’ doesn’t include bimbo corpses and horny goblins!"

"I don’t think you’re committed to this Quest, Lloyd May."

I took a deep, shuddering breath and gathered aura in my sword. Before they could ever understand why, I swept my blade through the cluster of goblins, killing them.

"There," I said, flicking the blood off of my sword. "They’re gone. Can you please put that goddamn illusion away?"

Isobel chuckled. "All you had to do was ask."