18
1060 Words
Thankfully, his luck was good, and a lone kobold stood around a smoldering fireplace, as if in a daze.
Scooping up a rock, Matt bashed the small monster on the head once, then twice, but as his weapon impacted the monster for the second time, it shattered in an explosion of motes of light. The item’s destruction wasn’t dangerous or a surprise, but it was inconvenient as the monster wasn’t quite dead yet.
Even as the kobold swiped at him, Matt stepped backward, keeping out of its range, before stomping down at the monsters over extended leg. Bone snapped and the monster was sent stumbling backward, which allowed Matt to grab a larger, head-sized rock and awkwardly drop it on the monster’s head.
As it died, its body faded away and was replaced with a pair of gloves that had spikes on the knuckles.
The instant Matt touched them, they appeared on his hand, and he took off running toward the nearest tower. He frantically searched for more monsters to kill before the waves of monsters started spawning.
He was able to find and stomp another kobold to death quickly, and this one dropped an iron-plated, leather chest piece. Fortunately, putting armor on quickly wasn’t a part of the challenge, and the chest piece appeared on his body with not a second to spare before the countdown hit zero.
Not bothering to run anymore, Matt stayed in the clearing and listened to the sounds around him.
All he heard was normal birds chirping and the rustling of the forest as branches moved from the wind.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
At least, not until he heard the sounds of crashing from his left.
Turning that way, he found half a dozen goblins appearing out of nowhere from inside the nearby trees.
They seemed to phase into reality as if walking through water or a heat haze.
That wasn’t an ideal way for the first wave to start, but it was random, and his luck couldn’t always be good. But still, he would much rather have had the monsters appear out of noisy portals, or from burrowing out of the ground.
Not having time to complain any further, Matt ran to the left, stretching the line of monsters out to give him time to analyze their equipment.
Three out of the six were armed with only small daggers, while the remaining three had a bow and two short spears, possibly for throwing.
Thankfully, the archer was less than skilled, and Matt could read where they were going to fire well ahead of time. He ducked the first shot while punching the first waist-high goblin in the face with his spiked gauntlets.
The monster’s face exploded in a shower of gore, and even before the monster hit the floor, it was already dissolving into a mass of light.
Seeing how strong the weapons actually were, Matt held his ground and killed the next two goblins with two more fast, straight jabs.
Before he was able to pick up their loot, he was forced to sidestep yet another arrow as it almost hit him.
The two spear wielders tried to use their range advantage, but Matt was twice their height and was easily able to grab their spears behind the sharpened blades and disarm them.
To his disappointment, the spears vanished as soon as he tried to use them, but with no weapons of their own, he was easily able to punch one of the goblins to death, and then use the second one as a shield as he ran down the archer.
Despite the archer’s best efforts, he still managed to pulverize its head in a single blow, which then retriggered the mental countdown of five minutes.
Matt also had the idea that he was now able to leave the challenge at any point, so long as he wasn’t in a fight.
He firmly rejected that idea, and instead grabbed the items that dropped from the goblins.
Not every monster had a drop, but half of them did, and he was grateful that the archer was one of the goblins that dropped something.
He was less excited when it appeared to be a bow with a dozen arrows, as he was barely a decent archer at the best of times, but he still accepted the bow with a mental command.
The other two drops were more useful, at least to him. The first was a dagger that seemed to be made of decent steel, and the second was a pair of chainmail trousers that felt more durable than the chest plate he had recovered earlier.
As he took off toward the tower once more, he inspected his spiked gloves.
They had obvious cracks on their surface that made them seem ready to break in a few more blows. He suspected three to five, but he couldn’t be sure without actually punching something, which he wasn’t willing to test on anything but a monster.
The second wave came out before he was able to reach the tower, but he was able to repeat his earlier tactic of leading the goblins away from their spawn area to kill them one by one.
There were twice as many goblins this time, and the two archers made things difficult, but he was able to dodge most of their shots while killing the melee monsters.
As it turned out, the gloves had four more uses in them before they shattered into motes of light, which forced him to use the dagger to finish off the final two goblins armed with similar weapons.
The spear wielders were a more difficult problem now that there were four of them, as they tried to surround him anytime they got close. A good strategy on their part, as it forced Matt to stand and take three blows to his back while dealing with the main group of goblins.
Thankfully, his armor held up nicely and blocked the weapons from injuring him.
Quickly dispatching the two remaining goblins, he ran down the archers and finished them off, despite taking an arrow to the chest that made the cracks on his armor visible and concerning.
With the final monster dead and with five minutes left to recover, he ran back to where he killed the first goblins and collected the items they dropped.
- Writer
