32 - lonely battle

After separating from Sora and the others, Thor headed alone to the southern wall, which had not yet been repaired.

While running along the wall to the most obvious damaged areas, Thor spots something moving among the trees and stops.　

He crouches down and turns to go into the forest, trying to hide his presence.

Nothing is already there, but he finds faint footprints on the ground.

They are larger than the goblins he is used to seeing - hobgoblins.

Thor gets up and starts to head in the direction of the footprints, keeping a wary eye on his surroundings.

It seems that the monsters are moving through the forest close to the wall.

Normally, they would have attacked the stone wall, aiming first at the inhabitants who were living right there.

Thor felt uncomfortable with this action of the monsters, which seemed to be accompanied by some kind of purpose.

Thor, who had been chasing after the monster at a slightly slower speed, being careful not to be surrounded, hears the sound of a horn blowing in the distance.

It seems that a battle has started, but at least it is not near here.

From the direction, it seems to be on the opposite side, around the northern wall.

Thor continued on his way and was convinced that his fears were correct.

Through the trees, he saw green-skinned subhumans clustered around the stone wall.

At a rough count, there were about twenty of them.

An ordinary resident with no means to fight them could have easily killed several hundred of them.

It seems that the place was fragile from the start, and some of the piles of stones have already been moved aside and are turning into a big hole.

The location is almost to the south of the city, far from the northern wall where the battle has already begun.

The area is well wooded due to the sunlight and it is difficult to notice the approach from the top of the wall.

They were probably moving through the forest near the wall, looking for a broken and easy to break through area, or checking for the presence of guards.

Thor, who was trying to observe from the grove of trees, his intuition, cultivated over many years of walking in the forest, tells him that this is unnatural.

It seems that there are more ambush soldiers lurking in the forest.

Five of them are close by.

There are probably as many on the other side.

If even one of them raises its voice, more than 30 of them will attack.

But there is no way to call for reinforcements, and it would take a long time for them to come this far.

But if we don't move now, the monsters will surely enter the city.

From the fact that the flags have not been lowered, the evacuation has not been properly completed yet.

The more time we waste, the more damage will be done.

Thor draws his sword soundlessly, just as he is about to consider what might have been possible if Sora and Mu had been there.

His cheeks naturally lifted in amusement at the fact that he had been so poisoned after only a few days of working together.

For twenty-five years, I had been fighting alone.

I am not so weak as to be intimidated by something as trivial as this.

Hiding his presence, Thor approaches the hobgoblins who are lying in the undergrowth just in time.

His body leaps out from behind a tree, and is instantly pulled up to top speed.

It is a move he has mastered after many tastes of Mu's lightning rod.

With a light, silent step, he first cuts off the head of the hobgoblin in front of him.

With a soft flick of his wrist, he strikes the second hobgoblin on the side in the temple.

Turning around, he slits the throat of the third hobgoblin standing behind him, then spins around and decapitates the fourth hobgoblin as it rushes to its feet.

Then, lowering himself, Thor thrusts his sword point toward the mouth of the fifth animal as if to reach for it.

The hobgoblin, about to scream, is pierced through the upper jaw and head, his limbs twitching as he gasps for breath.

"Haaaa...... haaaa...... haaaa...... haaaa......."

Thor, who had rendered the five animals soundless and inactive in less than ten seconds, let out a long breath from the bottom of his lungs.

His body, which was so exhausted from the full force of his exertion that he could hardly stand, was brought back to normal with , and he turned around to put an end to them.

Thor, who had taken care of the other side in the same way, turned his attention to the wall, breathing on his shoulder.

It would be foolhardy to take on twenty of them at once.

Thor is pondering how to lure only a few of them, when he senses a new presence in the forest behind him and turns his head.

An even stronger enemy is approaching.

Thor senses this and frowns at the thought.

The difference between goblins and their subspecies, hobgoblins, is not only their size.

The hobgoblins are, annoyingly, slightly more intelligent.

They had the wits to use the weapons dropped by the adventurers and the cunning to gain an advantage over them.

In this case, too, they probably attacked the north side first to draw attention to their position, and then attacked by surprise from the opposite side.

However, such a large-scale operation would naturally require a leader.

A boss who could give them orders.

Probably the chief of the hobgoblins, the master of the kobolds' cave, has come out to take charge.

Thor is about to leave when he hears a loud noise that stops him in his tracks.

He looked over and saw that the stones at the top of the widened hole had just collapsed.

The hobgoblins let out a strange cry as they pull out some of the trapped animals.

Thor, who had decided that the hole in the wall had opened up into the city, immediately changed his mind.

It is a more dangerous situation, but also an opportunity to take advantage of it.

Thor caught his breath just in time, sensing the presence of several approaching behind him.

Just as the hobgoblins finished digging their holes and rushed inside, leaving a few guards behind, he jumped out from behind a tree and rushed toward them as fast as he could.

Thor's body, which had reached its maximum speed in an instant, slid past the guard hobgoblins like a whirlwind.

A breath later, green blood spurts out from around the necks of the two hobgoblins.

The heads of the two animals in front of the pit tumble to the ground.

Thor runs through the hole back into the city, and as he leaves, he touches the wall of the hole to return it to its original solid wall.　

The new hobgoblins who had arrived at the other side of the hole, which was now blocked again, let out a loud cry.

Thor hears a particularly vicious cry mixed in amongst them.

It seems that his bad premonition was not wrong after all.

Thor, who has narrowly escaped from danger, exhales thinly and braces himself.

Now that he has put back the sword that had spilled its blade, he has seven.

He would like to regain his strength, but there are still quite a few hobgoblins waiting for him.

Even now, more than a dozen hobgoblins who had entered earlier were baring their fangs in anger at the fact that the hole they had painstakingly made has vanished.

Thor, surrounded by a gaping mass of monsters with rusty swords lowered, lifts the corners of his lips slightly in despair.

"Hurry, sleep..."

The next moment, Thor heard a familiar prayer, and he lowered himself and kicked the ground.

"--"

Thor swept past the feet of the hobgoblins distracted by the voices with a forward roll, and behind him, the monsters that had been standing so vigorously stopped moving all at once.

One after another, they fell to their knees, closed their eyelids, and hung their heads.

But now, all the hobgoblins in front of him have fallen into a complete sleep.

There is only one person in this town that Thor knows of who can master ice magic to this degree.

Thor could not help but call out in confirmation to the woman who was holding a broom instead of a walking stick and smiling as usual.

"...... landlord?"

"Oh, Mr. Toll. Welcome home."