Chương 4: Why are Red Goblins Brown?

Well, the following day, we learned we were just taking our training on the road. Our destination was over a hundred miles away. My squad had two woodsmen, two instructors, and two mages assigned to us, but they all rode horses. Meanwhile, we spent our time at the fast march with heavy backpacks, leather armor, spears, swords, and shields. When we stopped, we were either eating or weapons training.

Sleeping outside was not fun either, as the temperature dropped overnight, and our packed bedrolls were made of thin wool. We even had to spend 4 hours on night watch duty. The woodsmen and instructors schooled us in those duties. I spent my free hours with the woodsmen as well. Helena was in the other squad, traveling a separate route, so I could not get additional staff practice. The woodsmen showed me basic camping skills and some foraging skills.

There were six plants I came to identify as edible, filling, and nutritious. Two were roots that had bulbs that could be found year-round, but you needed to peel and then boil them. Two were nuts from trees, a little uncommon, very bitter, and made your urine very pungent. Using the urine to pee around your campsite at night would keep most wild animals from your camp. The last two edibles were sap from shrubs; both were very sugary.

You had to be careful just to drink the sap from the hollow stem, as eating the stem would give you massive cramping and diarrhea. We didn't see any wild game on our outings, but one of the woodsmen did show me how to identify game trails and animal passing. It took five days to reach a farm that had been attacked. The mages and instructors rode out to question the inhabitants of the farms nearby. We got a chance to rest, but I walked the nearby woods with the woodsman who had been instructing me.

We found trails with small humanoid prints. We were lucky as it hadn't rained and washed away the evidence. The woodsman guessed the farm had been attacked by six to eight of the red goblins. We identified the direction they had left in by the trail of chicken feathers and footprints. Soon, the mages returned with the instructors. The family that lived at the farm had moved to a neighboring farm for protection. We headed out with the two woodsmen leading the way.

The going was slow, and I was put on the left flank, ten yards out, since I was slightly better at moving quietly. Another soldier walked the right flank. The two woodsmen and two of our best soldiers were in the arrowhead. The main body of the force trailed 50 yards back with the horses, mages, and our trainers, ready to support. One of the woodsmen hand-signed a trap to the lead element. We all stopped and waited. It was only two heartbeats later that all hell broke loose.

Two goblins I didn't notice broke from my left less than eight feet away, more attacked our center. My first thought was that they looked more brown than red, and then I got my wits about me. I interposed my sword and got ready to react. I deflected the wooden spear aimed at me and put the attacking goblin between me and the other goblin. This would give me only one foe for a short time. I tried to bash the closer goblin with my shield, but it had already backed away.

The other goblin began to circle, and sounds of combat erupted from our center and right flank. I figured I would need to hold out for 15 seconds for our main force to close in. The two goblins I faced were 120 degrees apart and attacked in a coordinated lunge. Using my shield, I cleared the spear on my right. The sword in my left hand mostly deflected the other spear. It cut my armor near my ribs, not reaching my flesh, but I was able to move forward past the spears.

Now, between the goblins, I swung my sword in a short, powerful arc, clipping right-hand goblin's head and taking a chunk of the skull with the hit. Using the swing's momentum, I came around quickly to face the other goblin with my shield. I saw anger and fear mixed in its human-like eyes. It hesitated, so I pushed forward, deflecting the spearhead down with a shield and using my sword to hack at its arms. I took off one of its hands, surprising both of us.

As the goblin froze in shock, a quick slash to its neck ended its life. This all took less than eight heartbeats. I scanned the left flank, looking for other threats. Seeing nothing, I turned to help the center. One of the woodsmen was on the ground with the two soldiers, and the other woodsman was protecting him. At least eight goblins had them surrounded, with more goblins coming to assist. The main force was still about 30 yards back.

My training was to fall in and support the center, but looking at the circling goblins, I rushed the flank. I started a heavy run and used my shield to barrel into one goblin, driving it into another. Unfortunately, my feet got tangled, and I went down in a mess on smelly goblin limbs. I felt a pain in my ass and assumed I had just gotten a spear in my left ass cheek. As I rolled away, I was able to slam the hilt of my sword into the eye of a goblin on the ground, crushing its orbital cavity.

I had to release my shield or risk getting stuck on the ground in the tangle. Standing, I backed toward my companions. The odds were better now: six goblins and four of us. The goblins had noticed our main force, and the goblins coming to reinforce suddenly screamed, "Flee," and turned to run. I only understood the goblin speech because of my amulet. The six goblins bolted. I pursued and cut down one immediately with a diagonal slash across its back.

I took down a second slower goblin that had a limp and then paused, realizing I was alone. I had forgotten my training and pursued the goblins due to my surging adrenaline. I backed up and returned to the main force. The mages came and healed the injured woodsman and our minor injuries. I had a puncture in my ass cheek and had bled a fair amount, soaking my pants with blood. My pain tolerance was high from the training, but getting the healing from Damian and drinking some fluid replacement was still a relief.

Looking at the goblin bodies, I felt mildly ill. I had killed a sapient being. But I did not have long to dwell as the instructors quickly had us moving. We soon formed a double deep line and moved forward. Ten minutes later, we came to the goblin camp. Twenty or so goblins were packing up what they could. Seeing us approaching, they fled. We charged when ordered. I killed two more in the chaos, but they were both clearly females.

The mages shot lightning at a few goblins that had gotten too far away for us to engage in melee. In all, maybe three goblins managed to escape. Then, one of the wizards took out a large runic shield and tried to suck essence out of the goblins. It was fascinating to watch as the large device was placed on the body and blue wisps coalesced on the device to form a sphere. One out of five gave a minor essence. In total, he collected five essences from 27 goblins.

I was quickly assigned to assist two woodsmen in tracking and killing the escaped goblins. Two other soldiers came with us. After six hours of pursuit, we managed to get only one goblin; the woodsman had us return in the moonlit night. The moon on this world was much larger than Earth, and its strong blue light made it feel like constant twilight. We had been gone for over ten hours. I was exhausted and had bruises and numerous chafe marks on my flesh.

However, I had no time to rest, and was debriefed by the instructors upon returning. I got yelled at for my reckless and undisciplined attacks in the initial contact. After being told of all my errors multiple times, I was able to retire and quickly fell asleep after eating some leftover cold stew. I was able to sleep until mid-morning, mostly because the woodsman had asked not to be woken before then, which meant the three soldiers who accompanied them got the same treatment. I ate three breakfast portions.

While I ate, I was next to one of the mages. We got into a conversation, and he told me about the loot they collected.

"The big haul was four minor dexterity and one minor strength essence. The goblins had about sixty copper coins and some iron tools." He indicated the pile that had been assembled while I was hunting the goblins yesterday. Damian added, "The coins and tools will be given to the farmer so he can replace some of his livestock."

"Is that the only way to make essences?" I asked him, indicating the runic shield by the other mage. The mage tapped the shield.

"Yes, condensing life force from living beings or recent corpses. The collectors are expensive to artifice. You are lucky I wanted to come out here and stretch my riding legs." He had a self-satisfied aura that was easy to dislike.

"Could it be used on a human as well?" I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me. Both mages gave me a strange look, though Damian did answer, "Yes. Some cultures believe consuming the essence of your defeated foe is your right. Others believe it should be passed onto their children, and others think they need the strength to succeed in the afterlife in Pluto's realm."

"You said it could be used on live beings," I said to the first mage. He seemed uncomfortable with the question.

"Do they not have collectors in your lands? Or you just from some mudhole in the wild!" He stood and walked away, taking the collector with him. After he was a distance away, Damian answered my question, "When used on live creatures, it has a much higher probability of forming an essence. It was outlawed in the Telhian Empire and is now only used to execute criminals." He pointed at the mage.

"He used to work in the big cities doing the executing. He has probably killed dozens of men with that collector in the last decade. Ripping life force from a living person changes you." You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. I nodded in understanding. I had not quite come to grips with killing goblins, though it helped that they looked more monstrous than human. But as a soldier, I was going to have to eventually kill another man. I was not looking forward to that day.

I turned the topic to magic.

"Can you tell me more about the magic affinities?" Damian smiled and went into teaching mode.

"There are three rarities of magic, common, uncommon, and rare. Each one has seven affinities for a total of twenty-one known magical affinities. Eryk, both of your affinities fall into the rare rank."

"What are the rare affinities?" I leaned in close to listen. Damian smiled as he listed them: "The seven rare affinities are space, time, displacement, materialism, void, worlds, and convergence." He shifted to face me.

"Space is primarily the ability to create pocket dimensions. Time is limited control over time, usually speeding or slowing time around the mage. Displacement is the ability to teleport. Displacement mages are extremely rare and valuable in the Empire; they operate the portals in the larger cities." Damian paused to take a drink. He still had my attention when he continued.

"Materialism is summoning objects from nothing, but it breaks the second covenant of magic that objects cannot be created from nothing. There is a lot of debate about whether the objects are summoned or created. Void magic is eliminating something from existence. It is extremely rare magic, and anyone with its affinity is sent to the Mage College in the capital for study. Now, world magic is the ability to move between planes. Traveling the cosmos like a great adventurer!"

He dwelled for a moment on the idea of traveling between the stars.

"Finally, convergence is the rarest of all the rare magics. It allows a mage to draw mana from the environment, specifically at ley line convergences. Essentially, the mage could have an infinite well of aether under the correct circumstances, and thus wield tremendous power!" Damian finished with a flare of his hands, standing to leave.

"Eryk, I know your strongest affinity is space. I do not want to get your hopes up, but if you successfully complete the legionnaire training, the commander is considering testing you to see if you can learn the dimensional pocket. Since you have a low potential in aether shaping, you would have to imprint the spell form on your aether core to learn it."

"What exactly is a dimensional pocket?" I asked. Damian nodded and continued, "It creates a private space from which a mage can put and pull items. They are usually small, but even a legionnaire with a small space could be enlisted as a royal messenger. But do not get your hopes up. When I can get a tablet, we can see if your affinity for space magic is at least ten." Damian reiterated my poor chances.

"Most people have affinity ratings under five in their primary affinity. It is one of the reasons they have not checked you. They assumed you would have been evaluated in your homeland and, if you had any potential, would have utilized it. I have not told anyone you have never been tested." I was twenty-five, and Damian had said it was common for people in the capital or a large city in the Telhian Empire to have all their affinities checked when they turned fifteen. Damian was called away to attend to an injury.

I was gaining a lot of benefits from my friendship with the mage. That he was willing to keep my secrets was a massive boon, along with the preferential healing he gave me. Unlike most of the other men, I had no scars from all the healing I had received while training. It was a few more days before we packed up and returned to the training camp. We had no luck in locating more goblins. The instructors said they probably crawled down a hole to breed for the winter, and he would have to come back again next year.

We learned the other squad had killed 48 goblins and lost three of their members, who rushed into the other goblin camp. After returning, we had two days off and were tested again on the tablet.

Physical Mental Magical Strength (+2/+0) 44/79 Intellect (+0/+0) 26/54 Aether Pool (+1/+0) 10/22 Power (+1/+0) 40/82 Reasoning (+2/+0) 40/59 Channeling (+0/+0) 7/55 Quickness (+2/+0) 26/49 Perception (+3/+0) 52/60 Aether Shaping (+0/+0) 4/8 Dexterity (+1/+0) 25/56 Insight (+1/+0) 28/49 Aether Tolerance (+0/+0) 20/50 Endurance (+5/+0) 56/87 Resilience (+1/+0) 44/71 Aether Resistance (+0/+0) 3/19 Constitution (+4/+0) 34/65 Empathy (+1/+0) 10/21 Prime Aether Affinity Space Coordination (+1/+0) 35/61 Fortitude (+4/+0) 44/89 Minor Aether Affinity Time I made modest gains for myself—but Damian said I was doing well, and as long as I didn't get myself killed, I would graduate.

For weapons testing, I finished 11 th in sword ranking, 18 th in sword and shield, 22 nd in dagger, and 7 th in hand-to-hand. I realized that two of the men killed had been ahead of me in the rankings, later learning that they had done something foolish like myself, rushing alone into combat with multiple foes and no support. We were also tested in dual-wield sword skill, which none of us were familiar with. Somehow, I finished 11 th.

I liked this style because I could use my quickness to alter which hand was defending and which was attacking, and surprise my opponent. I also found from all the training I was slightly ambidextrous. One of the trainers said I had the mentality for a two-weapon style. Unfortunately, they only taught it here so we would be familiar with it when facing an opponent wielding two weapons. Three had been dropped after ability testing, and another five were cut after weapons testing. This left 46 of us.

The strange thing was that we actually started forming bonds. Putting our unit against a common foe had broken down the walls of competition against each other. I don't know if that had been planned, but it made life in the barracks more bearable for me. We had light training as our instructors had to travel to the army camp. We were not told the reason. Forty-two of the forty-nine instructors left for two days.

Only forty returned, and even Damian was in the dark as to why, but he assumed they were taking command of units to reinforce a fort. During the lighter training days, I had the opportunity I was waiting for. Damian excitedly said the estate had a magic affinity tablet. They were expensive, and this one was only going to be here for two days, as it was on its way back to the Mage College in the capital. He conspired to bring it to the lake so I could check my ability in the space affinity privately.

His offer almost sounded like a trap, but I agreed. Damian brought the tablet and said, "I have configured it to display rankings of all the rare affinity magics. The tablet can only display the common, uncommon, or rare magics one at a time." He showed me how it was set to do so.

"Are you going to see my scores?" I asked as he carefully handed me the tablet. He seemed to consider and, maybe judging by my anxiety, said, "No. You can keep the information to yourself."

"Then why are you helping me?" I said with confusion. He seemed uncomfortable.

"I'm a bit of a loner. You're the first soldier in my time here who actually made an effort to befriend me. You're a decent person, unlike most of the men and women who come here to be a legionnaire." Well, score one for me for not wanting to die. I looked at the tablet. It was much fancier than the general ability tablet.

"Just like charging the amulet, push your aether into this section," Damian indicated. I did as instructed and looked at my scores. It took time, as I barely had learned the written language. It was similar to Latin, but it took a while to translate word by word in my head. Damian likely thought my concentration was due to disappointment. I looked up and asked, "What do the scores mean?" Damian pursed his lips like he was about to break the bad news to me.

"True mages usually have three or four affinities over 60, typically in the same rarity category. The average person only has one affinity, with a score around five. The higher the number in an affinity, the more power exponentially. Ten being base, and the recognized minimum to demonstrate power."

"So any magic affinity under ten is essentially useless?" I asked, looking at the tablet again. Damian nodded.

"A score of twenty is twice as strong as a score of ten. From there, the real power starts. A score of thirty is four times the relative power of ten. Forty is eight times. Fifty is sixteen times. Sixty is thirty-two times as strong." I interrupted to finish for him.

"Seventy is sixty-four times as strong. A score of eighty is one hundred twenty-eight as strong." Damian held up his hand to stop me.

"Correct! But maybe only one in 25, 000 people have any affinity over seventy. Maybe one in 100, 000 have an affinity at eighty. Scores of ninety are unheard of and are two hundred fifty-six times as powerful as a ten! Maybe 1 in a million would have an affinity at ninety or higher!"

"How do I clear my scores?" I asked. He showed me, and I did so and handed him back the tablet.

"Why was this tablet here?"

"A peasant girl was found with powerful elemental affinities. She was flying over the forest! Can you believe that? I heard she had fire, air, water, and earth all at 72! Can you imagine how powerful that girl is going to be one day?" Damian said excitedly. He asked the question solemnly.

"So can you? Is your space affinity over ten?" I nodded, and his eyes brightened.

"Excellent! We can start working on learning the dimensional pocket spell if you want. I can show you all the tricks I learned in my time imprinting spell forms." He was extremely excited about the opportunity to pass on his knowledge. After Damian left, I recalled my scores. He had never asked me what they were, but the numbers were burned into my memory. Space 98 Time 90 Displacement 61 Materialism 9 Worlds 88 Void 22 Convergence 74