玉蒲团之云雨山庄

"Your highness, we should attack. It\'s frustrating, but it\'s unavoidable. If we didn\'t attack now, not only them, but we\'ll end up getting killed as well," Julius grimly advised Erich. While gritting his teeth, Erich was about to let out the command to let his men attack and let saving the women tied on the stakes as the secondary objective, but the goblins suddenly stopped their movement.

(They stopped after surrounding us?) (Erich)

The goblins then opened a path, revealing a crowd of other goblins, but they are not just a group of normal goblins.

"Y-You must be kidding me..."

"C-Captain! Your orders!"

The royal knights exclaimed as they saw a group of fifty red goblin champions approaching them with nasty grins on their faces.

"This surely is bad... I never thought the subjugation would be such a hellish quest..." Erich uttered with a wry smile as he stared at the approaching group of enemies. As the danger approached, the name of a certain person entered his mind.

(Lyan... If you have any kind of hidden aces under your sleeves, there would be no other chances other than these to use them, you know...?) (Erich)

Erich glanced at behind him and saw that Lyan is also fighting a group of more than a hundred goblins by himself.

"I guess I have no choice but to use it. Julius! Don\'t hold back! Fight with all we have!!" (Erich)

As Erich and Julius unleashed the full output of their mana, the situation on the Valkyries\' side doesn\'t look favorable as well. Emilia that about to attack a goblin champion halted her attack because of the appearance of the living human shields, resulting in her getting a direct attack from a goblin champion.

"Howl!" Following her call, Surena\'s sword unleashed several wind blades, cutting all of the goblins that are getting near Emilia. Alice rushed to Emilia\'s side while cutting the throats of the goblins she passed at high speed with Raine and Ravia following her from behind.

"Are you okay, Emilia?" (Surena)

"Could you stand?" (Alice)

Surena, Alice, Ravia, and Raine covered Emilia from four directions and surrounded her to protect her from the incoming goblins.

"Heh! It\'s fine. But sorry, I gulped down the first potion," Emilia stands back as she put the empty vial inside her pouch.

"It\'s fine. We need to get out from their encirclement and continue to went straight to the goblin king. But-" (Surena)

As Surena and Alice are thinking about how they should pass through the goblins surrounding them, the black goblin champions that surrounded the goblin king approached them. The surrounding goblins opened a way to let them pass, while the goblins holding the living human shields do the same as well.

"Those bastards..." Raine scowled at the goblins that are grabbing the naked women on the stakes with their disgusting grins.

"If only we could regroup..." Ravia sent a glance towards Lyan\'s direction and saw he was still fighting the group of red goblins, but someone commented on her mumblings.

"Don\'t trust him too much. He\'s on the same side of the Astellian. I don\'t trust him. The chances of him helping you before running with his tail between his legs are slim," Alice uttered coldly.

"Wha!? Lyan won\'t do that!" (Raine)

"You wouldn\'t know. When someone faces a life-endangering situation, their true nature will be revealed. We wouldn\'t know what would he do in this kind of situation," (Surena)

"....Indeed," (Ravia)

Ravia noticed that after the incident with the [Crows], the Valkyries had been showing hostility towards Lyan that helping the crown prince Erich\'s plan. She knew that they had a certain animosity towards the Astellian, but she didn\'t know that it would be to this extent.

(Arguing about that kind of thing isn\'t matter, right now. We need to get out of this situation first...) (Ravia)

"Heh! You\'re as cool as you look, aren\'t you?" Emilia commented on the sight of Ravia readying her knives.

"Thanks for the compliment," (Ravia)

They have prepared themselves for the battle before them. As if they are waiting for them to finish their preparations, the six black goblin champions rushed toward them at a speed that didn\'t match their size.

Their height is about 4 meters tall, and when their distance had shortened enough for them to land their blow, the goblin champions strikes their weapons at a speed even faster than their run. They clearly are stronger than the red goblin champions.

*BOOM!!!!!*

The girls managed to evade the strikes, but the debris from the explosion hit and sent some damage to them, and clouds of dust floats into the air, hindering their vision.

But the Valkyries are not a Mythril-ranked mercenary party for nothing.

"Burn!!" With a powerful slash with her burning sword, Emilia aimed her strike at the eyes of one of the black goblin champions, but the black goblin champion bends his body backward to avoid the slash, but the flame still got delivered right to its eyes, rendering them useless.

*Slash!* *Slash!*

The Small General didn\'t let the opportunity miss and cut the knee pits of the black goblin champion together with Ravia and Raine, while Surena swiftly jumped in front of the slowly falling black goblin champion.

*Slash!*

She cleanly beheads the goblin champion that had lost its ability to resist because of the loss of its sight. It was such a splendid teamwork, but there are still five others of them.

As they were about to go to their next target, the four of them realized that the five black goblin champions had taken the opportunity to completely surround them from all sides, preventing them from retreating.

(They sacrificed the first one to do this!?) (Surena)

"Tch! The front!" Surena picked the black goblin champion before her that is holding a heavy-looking ax, assuming that its strike would be slower than the others. But different from her expectation, the moment she jumped, the ax held in only one of its arms also moved but at a terrifying speed.

Sensing the danger, Surena unleashed a blow imbued with her mana and triggered one of the magic sword\'s abilities, fastening and strengthening her strike.

*Clank!!*

A powerful sound of metals colliding sounded. The amount of force seems to be the same, sending the both of them the same rebounded force. But then, the other arm of the black goblin champion moved. Surena swiftly channeled her mana, but this time, she was going to unleash the strongest blow from her magic sword.

As she\'s this time is more prepared than the bout before, this time she will definitely overpower the goblin champion by using a more powerful blow.

Or so she thought.

!?!?

Surena\'s arm stopped. It\'s not because of the black goblin champion\'s striking speed that is too quick for her to catch up, but it\'s because rather than a bare fist, what comes into her is a stake holding a naked woman that should be held by one of the other goblins.

A hesitation that proved fatal.

*Boom!!*

The black goblin champion\'s blow landed straight on Surena vertically, sending her crashing to the ground, vomiting a mouthful of blood. She barely managed to block the blow by focusing her mana on defense, but the damage is still severe.

"RENA!!!!!" Emilia\'s bloodshot eyes and powerful scream resounded throughout the place.

The black goblin champion before Surena didn\'t waste its time. It immediately swings the arm holding the giant ax towards the lying Surena. The other girls are busy dodging and fighting the rest of the black goblins, they have no leeway to help Surena.

As a veteran on the battlefield, Surena knew.

She has no chance of survival, and after this, her friends would be next.

She never thought that the subjugation of the goblin king would be this dangerous. If the red goblin champion is ranked an AAA-ranked monster, then what about the stronger black goblin champion before her?

Knowing that it\'s normal for her to lose after defeating so many enemies already, a smile appeared on her face as she glanced at her friends that are still fighting while calling her name. As the sound of the ax cutting through the air sounded, she whispered to the air.

"Run," (Surena)

""RENAA!!!!!!!!!!!"" Alice and Emilia shouted the name of their friend at top of their lungs.

*Boom!!!!*

*Whoosh!*

Clouds of dust covered the whole area as after the blow landed by the black goblin champion, but the amount of them is too much for it to be caused by its blow alone.

The moment before the black goblin champion\'s landed, they felt like a white figure passed through their eyes for a second.

*Whoosh!*

Powerful winds blew the clouds of dust away, clearing their sight. No one would know that the powerful winds came from a single slash of a person.

"Re...Na...?" Emilia uttered as she saw her friend miraculously didn\'t get killed, but her face is staring in a certain direction with wide eyes.

"Who... Are you?" (Emilia)

___________________________________________________________________________

Name: Lyan Arkanium Evocatore

Occupation: Gold-ranked Mercenary

Money: 49,722,400 Elnes

Weapon: None

Equipment: Black leather cloak, Leather Armor, 1 (Decent) One-handed Sword, 2 (Good-Quality) One-handed swords, 2 Health Potions, 2 Poison Vials

Grimoire\'s Companions: 8 High Spirits, Shadow Hobgoblin, Papilio Slime, Galewing Butterfly, Rock Golem, Deadlight, Moonlight Butterfly, Ice Golem