Chapter 13 - What Mana Conservation?
Dominic took aim at a goblin coming at them from the side and dropped it with an [Arcane Blast] and then picked out another for his wrath.
"Go easy on the mana, boy. We will be at it a while, and you don't want to run out before things get too hectic." One of the guards warned him.
The Princess laughed. "We told him the same thing yesterday, but it appears that one of his gems has a Blessing, and he doesn't run out of mana if those spells keep killing Goblins."
That was a good excuse for his seemingly unlimited mana pool, and Dominic did his best to remember it for later.
"As long as nothing gets to me, I should be fine." He agreed.
It did take energy and focus to keep casting, but that was mental weariness, and would recover much more quickly than mana exhaustion would.
The guardsmen in the front ranks lit up their swords with bright white light, some sort of Paladin-specific attack skill that Dominic didn't know the name of, and began to hack their way through the Goblin village.
Dominic looked to his right and saw that there was a thick swarm of goblins coming their way. He had a once daily Dragon Flame which would create a five-metre cone of fire and would be perfect for that, but he remembered the warning.
Don't use up his magic quite yet because things might get worse later.
They were competing against the senior class students, after all, and with a handicap of Dominic and the Princess, who were both under-levelled compared to either group.
So, he began picking the goblins off with [Arcane Blast] as quickly as he could until they got close enough for the Paladins to deal with them. When they did, it became obvious to Dominic just how much the Paladins' extra skill and enhancement gem levels counted for.
There was a flash of light, and dozens of Goblins simply disappeared as if they had never existed, leaving Mana Cores on the ground, which quickly vanished into someone's storage item, as there was no more body left.
"Push forward through the village. Let's get this finished and find another. No way are those students going to outwork us." The Guard Sergeant ordered as Dominic took the opportunity to grab most of the Mana Cores off the ground.
The group of Paladins pushed forward into the goblin encampment, clearing the last of the monsters from their hovels before a shrill whistle sounded from the edge of town, and suddenly, there were Goblins bursting out of every destroyed building and from under every rock.
The whole village was built over a network of tunnels, and the majority of the warriors had been hiding, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
"Shields up, surround the Princess." The Guards ordered, closing ranks around Elanor and Dominic.
The Princess was clearly annoyed by the tactic, but it was their job, and they weren't going to risk her getting hurt. Dominic moved back and forth, looking for openings between thick armoured shoulders so that he could get a good shot off at the Goblin horde which had surrounded them.
They weren't charging. They had taken up rocks and spears, preparing to launch a ranged attack on the group.
"Charge out. Get them before they attack." The team leader uttered just the words that Princess Elanor had been hoping to hear.
Dominic stayed close to her, keeping the Paladin only a few steps away so that nothing could get behind either of them, and continued his barrage of [Arcane Blasts]. Elanor charged straight into combat, leading with her blade but lacking the glow of magic that the higher-level Paladins were using constantly.
Dominic's attacks made up for the Princess's limited mana pool against these more powerful Goblin Warriors, even as more and more of them appeared out of the tunnels.
"Did we pull every Goblin in the region to us?" Elanor muttered as she hacked down a particularly muscular specimen of the normally diminutive species.
The question answered itself as a group of Hobgoblins, the much larger cousins of the Goblin species, climbed out of a hole in the ground, revealing their metre and a half tall bodies behind the lines of Goblin Warriors and carrying massive clubs, too large for any human Dominic had met to wield.
They should all be level five and six monsters, as ranked by the power of the mana core they dropped, giving Dominic hope that the Paladins had this under control, but more and more of them were coming up out of the tunnel network.
"This isn't right. There shouldn't be this many Goblins in the entire Duchy. Clear the area and retreat. We need to report this to the Captain." The team leader ordered.
It was a great sentiment, but clearing the Goblins wasn't going to be easy. There were simply too many of them for the limited number of guards in their team, and they had to protect the Princess, who was currently being eyed like a prize by a pair of Hobgoblins.
She activated a skill that swept the area in front of her with white light, cutting down a whole row of Goblins and giving her a chance to catch her breath, while Dominic killed the first few of the creatures to attempt to come forward to fill the void.
"Princess, back up, and we will close ranks again. They are too close to use their ranged weapons now." The team leader ordered.
The Hobgoblins were enraged when the Princess and the spell caster were back behind the lines and began to charge through their smaller kin to get to the Paladins. They had waited long enough for their chance to fight, and they weren't going to let the humans keep taunting them.
Dominic heard shouting in the distance as the Hobgoblins closed the distance, but his focus was on one of the large creatures that had been heavily wounded by a javelin made of light. It was bleeding heavily from its chest, and he saw his chance to get some real rewards.
An Arcane Blast to the chest tore the Hobgoblin apart, and it stumbled over its feet as it died, trapping one of the smaller goblins underneath it.
That was more than he had expected, as the Hobgoblin was easily heavier than most grown men, thanks to its wide and muscular build, and must have gotten some advantage from the difference between their power levels.
Arcane Blast was an innate skill due to his lineage, and not a skill gem that could be improved as he spent resources on it. But more importantly, if he could get that Hobgoblin's Mana Core, he would be able to stack a lot of experience on his Blacksmithing Trade Skill Core and possibly even bump it up a level.