Chapter 278: First Contact

Chapter 278: First Contact

Reivyn felt the dense Mana all around him as he trudged along through the open field. The grass was weighed down by its own weight so it only reached up to his hips. The wind was clearly visible in snaking lines among the greenery. Walking through the thick grass and thick Mana gave the impression that it was more difficult to move than it actually was. It was like having the expectation of wading through shallow water only to find that one’s feet moved effortlessly forward.

Moving fully into the Tier 5 Region brought equal parts relief and trepidation. There had been no more encounters with rogue trap portals or mysterious beasts that could camouflage themselves from his Divine Sense - that he knew of. They were also lucky to avoid any encounters with higher Tier monsters or beasts on the backend of their journey through the Wilderness.

The Wilderness was a wildcard. It was more likely that they would run into generic Tier 4 and 5 creatures, but there was always the possibility of something much more terrifying randomly appearing. The Tier 5 Region was populated almost exclusively by Tier 5 creatures, though the occasional Tier 6 could be found in the deeper areas as well as along the border to the Tier 6 Regions.

Coming out of the Wilderness was a relief that they wouldn’t run into any more tentacle monsters or have a bad random encounter, but now they had to worry about the hordes of Tier 5 goblins spoken about universally in the journals they had read about the Upper Region. The goblins were nomadic for the most part, and for some unknown reason they liked to separate into small bands that broke up into groups of twos and threes to wander around the countryside.

There were mentions of goblin settlements in the deeper areas led by the hobgoblin variants, but those large groups with the Tier 6 leaders were never found near the border to the Wilderness. There was no explanation given, but Reivyn didn’t really care why it worked that way. He was just happy that it did.

He wasn’t worried about running into a singular Tier 6 monster. Their Party could handle such an encounter, especially with the Honor Guard still following along. The problem with Tier 6 hobgoblins, though, was that they were always surrounded by hundreds of Tier 5 goblins.

The goblins in the tribes headed by hobgoblins were semi-sapient. They seemed to have their own culture and politics from what was read in the records, but they became uncontrollably bloodthirsty in the presence of humans. Some of the reading material mentioned witnessing warring factions of goblins, but if the humans watching were ever discovered by even one goblin, both sides would halt their hostilities to chase down the intruding humans until the bloodlust wore off.

Reivyn was much more confident in fending off small bands of twenty or so goblins as opposed to several hundred. He would reserve judgment until after first contact, but he was pretty sure, especially with his parents along for the expedition, that they wouldn’t need to resort to building a temporary fort to successfully fight off a roving band.

Reivyn kept his eyes on the horizon as they walked through the open field. Keeping his focus on the distance allowed him to view everything that happened between him and his focal point. The trick was to not focus on something closer than the absolute distance, because it was much harder to catch something beyond focus than something out of focus inside the range of his vision.

The open plains stretched before him for miles. It was deceptively empty, but goblins were short. If he had to guess, Reivyn would assume there were hundreds of goblins in his vast field of view if the grass was just shorter. It almost looked like waves in the ocean as the wind blew the grass.

Off in the distance, Reivyn could see rolling hills, and even further, the tips of mountains far, far away were visible above the hills. There was no telling how far away those mountains were, so he couldn’t judge how tall they were. From the context of how they seemed misty from the atmosphere, Reivyn guessed they were still incredibly far away.

The plains weren’t completely open. There were still little copses of trees, though nothing he would consider a forest, or even just the woods. Off to the side, way in the distance, there was a long line of trees that hinted at a forest much larger than anything they had found in the Wilderness. The distant mountain range continued beyond the forest until it disappeared behind the line of trees.

It wasn’t just grass that swayed in the wind. Splotches of color decorated the landscape. Reivyn wasn’t much of a botanist, so he couldn’t tell whether any of the colorful flowers were on any kind of useful plant or not, but he would probably secure some as presents for his sisters to experiment with. They wouldn’t get much of a bonus for working with Tier 5 materials for simple crafts that didn’t refine the materials in any meaningful way, but it was an opportunity for them to play around with new things.

I’m sure the Adventurer’s Guild will have a primer on useful resources to look out for in the outpost we’re headed to, Reivyn thought as he scanned the area. We’ll have to remember to stop by and pick one up. Getting natural treasures for Kefira’s Bloodline is the main purpose of the excursion. It wouldn’t make any sense to just wander around blindly.

They knew the main treasures they were looking for to activate the next Level of Kefira’s Bloodline. Other than Reivyn, others required a buildup of a specific type of energy with a catalyst to transform the energy through their blood. Reivyn was unique in that he could just convert different types of energy into Experience to dump into his Bloodline.

They could stock up on a multitude of lesser treasures from the Lower Regions and then top it off with the right catalysts, but that wasn’t ideal. The quantity required to achieve the necessary power levels and purity would take considerably longer than if they used higher-grade materials from the start. Other than looking for the catalyst, a Tier 5 material, they were hoping to fill as much of the necessary deficit with other Tier 5 treasures as much as possible.

The energy would start off purer, would be more potent, and would take less time to metabolize. It was a win-win. If they didn’t gather enough treasures, though, it wasn’t a big deal. That wasn’t something they were worried about, though. As Ameliyn had mentioned, they were fully expecting to get more than necessary for everyone else in the expedition to use as well.

The leader of the Imperial Army squad fell back to the Party. He pointed to the mountains in the distance.

“Our destination is at the foot of those mountains,” he said. “It’s far enough away from any concentration of monsters or beasts while still being relatively close to resource-rich locations such as the mountains, the forest, and a river that runs through a sort of valley between the rolling hills and the mountains.

“It’ll take another week or so to get there at our current pace, but will probably be at least double that once we start running into monster encounters.”

“Thanks,” Refix nodded his head. The squad leader nodded back and made his way back to his squad.

Just as Reivyn turned to speak to his father, a piercing shriek sounded out from the grass nearby. It was just out of his Divine Sense Range, so he quickly looked toward the disturbance. He wasn’t surprised in the slightest by what he saw.

A pair of goblins hopped up above the swaying grass and snarled at the approaching group. Despite their group consisting of nearly 50 people with their Party and the Honor Guard soldiers, the two goblins fearlessly charged at the group.

Another couple of shrieks sounded out from different directions nearby. Again, Reivyn turned his head toward where the sounds came from, this time to the left and right of where the first pair of goblins popped up from. Another two groups of goblins hopped up into his sight, another duo and a trio.

More and more shrieks cascaded out from the epicenter of the first two goblins that screamed at them. More and more goblins popped up in a semicircle radiating out from in front of the group.

In less than ten seconds, many small groups of goblins popped up, totalling over thirty little monsters. Most of them were responding to the various calls, but they all immediately focused on the group of humans and charged at them with zero forethought.

“Honor Guards, cover the flanks!” Refix called out. The two groups of Honor Guards in front and behind moved to the sides. Refix motioned to the Party members to take their positions, and the Honor Guard soldiers compressed their lines to cover the flanks.

He and his mother continued to attack the goblins still trying to reach them, and they eventually began to succumb to their wounds. Kefira paid attention to the melee combat and let the closer goblins out of her Space trap to approach the groups in a controlled manner.

After twenty minutes of combat, the final goblin finally fell to the repeated strikes of the Honor Guard soldiers. Reivyn’s Party were able to dispatch the goblins much quicker than the soldiers on either side, but they also had the advantage of powerful Magic. The Honor Guards were mainly melee and physical ranged type Classers.

Nobody was panting or exhausted after the combat, but everyone did take a moment to look around at each other once all the action was over.

“Well...” Reivyn trailed off, scratching the back of his hand. “I might have been a bit arrogant when comparing ourselves to the authors of those journals,” he finally said.

“Yeah, that was a bit of a wakeup call,” Refix nodded. “If we didn’t have your mother and Kefira to control the goblins and inflict damage on them through their particular brand of magic, I can see how it could quickly get out of hand.”

Ameliyn and Kefira looked at each other with self-satisfied smiles and struck a pose.

“Never fear. The girls will carry us through this ordeal,” Ameliyn said, throwing an arm over Kefira’s shoulder and pulling her in for a side-hug.

“Oh good,” Reivyn said, wiping invisible sweat from his brow. “I’m relieved. I’ll leave it to the two of you from now on.”

Ameliyn gave him an unamused look.

“You’ll be cooking your own dinner, too,” she replied.

A look of horror came over Reivyn’s face.

“No, no! I was joking! I was joking!” He frantically waved his hands in front of him.

“Your girl and I will simply be too tired to care about such trivialities as a nice meal,” Ameliyn continued.

“Noooooo!” Reivyn put his face in his hands.

Ameliyn smirked at her son’s antics.

“Alright, alright,” she relented. “I know you can’t get enough of your mother’s cooking. How could I call myself your mother if I deprived you of that?”

Reivyn stopped his fake tantrum and beamed a smile at his mother before hugging her.

“I know you love me.”

“Uh huh, and I know you’ll continue to try and keep up with me in combat. You’ll fail, but I know you’ll try.”

“Of course, mom,” Reivyn shared a look with Kefira and rolled his eyes behind Ameliyn’s back as he hugged her.

“And stop rolling your eyes at me!” Ameliyn admonished.

Kefira put a hand in front of her mouth as she giggled at Reivyn.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Reivyn said, letting go of his mother and stepping back.

“Sure, sure. Get back in formation.”

“Yes, mother.”

The others watched the interaction with a smile. Refix looked back and forth between his wife and son.

“We good?” Everyone nodded. “Alright, let’s get going. Only a couple of weeks to go to reach the outpost.”