The Achievement Junkie

Not wanting to lose initiative, Rydel took out a torch and lit it. He then threw it into the ground and stuck the bottom point into the earth in front of him.

With a swish of his arms, his bow and arrows swung through the flame and launched the two arrows into the distance. One struck the earth and lit up its surroundings while the second struck the chest of some living thing within the darkness, the light revealing a goblin now on fire. The other goblins froze, taking that shot as a warning.

"Get ready, we were surrounded the moment they saw the light from the tunnel," shouted Rydel. He took in his surroundings while launching lit arrows at a frightening pace. There were no walls near them, just a rocky, open floor. The ceiling was about five meters high in this part of the cave, preventing Rydel from causing any sort of shower of arrows.

"Right!" everyone drew their weapons and stood in wait for the goblins to rush, but they didn't come like the party had anticipated.

The goblins only stood there to maintain their encirclement, not acting or stepping into the perimeter that Rydel had created.

A couple of minutes passed while Rydel completed the perimeter, not leaving any part unlit. Jack swallowed some saliva and spoke his thoughts for the party to hear, "We need to leave. They're stalling for more goblins to show up. How else could they fight with Rydel and Maynard without overwhelming numbers?"

"Impossible, how could they contact the other goblins so quickly?" asked Brunar.

Everyone tensed up, paying close attention to Jack's answer. "I don't know, but would you rather wait here and find out? If we don't break the formation and escape now, we may end up like the other parties."

"Right!" Rydel shouted as he released two more arrows, this time at full strength. The arrows barreled through the air and pierced through not one, not two, but three goblins as they lodged themselves in the third goblins' carcasses.

In a fraction of a second, Maynard vanished from where he stood and reappeared amidst the goblins outside of the perimeter. Before the goblins could retaliate to the charge, four goblins were beheaded and dropped to the floor.

With no other choice, the goblins charged the perimeter. Like the party had guessed, the goblin ambush was made up of two outposts that swarmed after seeing the light from the tunnel. Had the party attacked sooner they wouldn't have much trouble but given the extra time, most of the straggling goblins caught up to join the fight.

Facing the remaining thirty-two goblins, Maynard and Rydel acted the quickest but each was soon met with a lv. 30 goblin captain, one from each outpost. Most goblins were lv. 15 but there were a few at lv. 20 as well.

With both Rydel and Maynard occupied, many goblins charged in without worry. Brunar and Troni readied themselves and began to face the goblin waves. They focused on repelling and injuring rather than killing, knowing that they had two people to protect.

"Hey, you might want to get out that fox of yours," shouted Brunar, busy pushing back goblins.

"He's still resting from the last time. Give me a minute, okay?" answered Jack.

Brunar was going to reply, but he saw that Jack had already closed his eyes and gone into some kind of trance. Angered by this, Brunar took his rage out on the goblin swarm alongside Troni.

Slivia was terrified of the scene, flashing back to her memories of her last party and the death of her former captain.

Maynard yelled amidst his fight, "These weapons really are from the Royal Court!" The goblin captain's smug face swiftly contorted and became ugly as he felt Maynard's rage become palpable. "This is unacceptable!"

Like red lightning, Maynard didn't hesitate to use his trump card, unleashing "Bloody cross" to quickly finish off the unsuspecting goblin captain.

As the goblin captain fell dead to the ground, Maynard appeared behind the second goblin captain. But as the other captain turned to face Maynard, Rydel activated a skill and a layer of green light surrounded his arrow. "First lesson of combat: pay attention."

That green arrow shot directly into the goblin captain's chest, piercing its heart. It slumped over on the ground and drew its last breath.

"Let's get this over with," said Rydel, nodding with Maynard. They split up and began mowing down the goblins that were still trying to keep the encirclement.

During all this, Jack was busy with his achievement system. Thanks to Maynard and Rydel's initial attacks, Jack reached lv. 10 and completed his first leveling achievement. He gained twenty skill points and quickly spent them all to upgrade his companion bloodline skill to lv. 2. By the time he had gone through his notifications, achievements, and skill tree, both captains had been killed and Jack rocketed to lv. 11.

Glad to try something new, Jack drew his bow but kept his eyes closed. He focused on his connection to Bowser as if he were establishing a wordless conversation with the fox. Jack's thoughts of Bowser's bloodline transformation triggered an increase in his heartbeat.

Jack's body started to glow like he was a hot piece of metal, and his body expanded slightly, gaining half a meter in height. His level grew temporarily from lv. 11 to lv. 13, boosting his strength even further together with his new flame body.

Everyone froze with their gazes on Jack, including the goblins who could feel the bloodline pressure better than the human party.

The lv. 5 wooden bow that was in Jack's hands was burnt to a crisp and fell apart in ashes, along with his clothes. As if in a rage, Jack pulled out the lv. 10 sword and charged. However, Jack's movements weren't the smoothest and he bumped into the three party members at his side, leaving them with burns on contact.

The small fire giant lunged at the goblin hoards, burning holes through the lv. 15 goblins with a single punch and pushing back any lv. 20's he could reach.

Taking advantage of the situation, Brunar yelled, "Slivia, hurry up and heal my burns so I can join in!"

Surprised to see that Brunar wasn't angry, but excited with Jack's transformation, Slivia activated her basic healing spell to cure their burns.

"Right, I can't let some newbie show me up!" Brunar jumped into the fray, running amuck alongside the seemingly wild Jack.

One goblin slipped past everyone and stabbed a knife towards Slivia. She cried for help and was happy to see Troni quickly slay the goblin, saying, "Don't worry, you're safe with me."

With mixed emotions, Slivia nodded and accepted his protection, sure that she would die otherwise.

Rydel and Maynard saw Jack's rampage, and both smiled. Not wanting to be outdone, they picked up the pace and finished off any remaining goblins in the darkness.

It didn't take much longer to defeat the goblin ambush and relax with a deep breath. They all gathered in the center of their fire perimeter while Jack returned to his normal self while breathing heavily.

"Jack, that was amazing!" Slivia ran up to hug him.

Jack smiled and extended his arms, but he fell over before he could wrap them around Slivia.

Baffled by the sudden exhaustion, Slivia then noticed Jack's nudity as her face became redder than a ripe tomato.

Rydel spoke to Slivia in Jack's defense, "The kid's probably pooped after trying that for the first time. I have no clue how he did it, but it has something to do with that fox of his so don't worry too much. Just let him rest."

"Okay, thank you, captain," answered Slivia, retrieving a spare black cloak to cover the nude Jack.

'Yo Rydel, what level is the kid?' asked Maynard telepathically.

'The kid's already lv. 12, probably nearing lv. 13,' answered Rydel with a jealous tone. 'This kid's a monster; he'll be a peak figure in the continent.'

'I guess ya and I will have to protect him till then, huh?' laughed Maynard.

"Let's hurry up and leave this place. If we aren't careful, we'll get ambushed again." Rydel threw Jack over his tall shoulders and retrieved a thick cord from his storage. "Everyone, tie this around your waist. We can't use the kari crystals down here or the goblins will catch us again. This way, at least we can't lose anyone."

"But what about the corpses, I'm sure they've got some valuable stuff," commented Brunar, reluctant to leave behind such a harvest of loot.

Maynard stored a few of the goblin weapons on the ground before he grabbed the opposite end as Rydel, being the first to tie himself in. "Hurry up, unless you want to meet their reinforcements on your own."

Hearing Maynard's deadpan tone, the young adventurers felt their spines tingle from the thought. They obediently followed their leaders' examples and tied themselves about a meter apart from each other.

"Good, now keep silent and follow without question," commanded Rydel, who turned around and began trudging into the darkness. Being pulled along, the others followed closely behind while Maynard focused on erasing any tracks.

By the time more goblins arrived, the party was long gone and untraceable.