Chapter 36 - Coming Up With A Plan
When the arrow of flame was conjured behind her back, Sheila's sixth sense was alarmed, and without any question, she knocks the goblin out of her way before jumping back away from her previous spot. If she were a little bit too slow, that flame arrow would have been stabbed deep into her body. She looks toward the path from where the flame arrow came from and finally noticed that the huge door was wide open.
In front of the huge door stood a goblin with a hood from the cloak covering from the head to the whole body. That was not the only thing that stood out, the fact that the goblin was holding onto a staff was also included. No need for more explanation, it must be the goblin shaman, the Boss of the Second Floor.
But the weird thing is, how does the Boss escape out of the room. In most games and novels that she reads and played, the boss never left their room as if they were in prison, unable to escape from the fate of getting defeat by people who came in drove. Even if the boss ended up killing the people after its life, nothing would change. Unless a miracle happens which in the other people perceptive it would be a disaster.
Either way, it was sort of underlying rule that the boss couldn't escape from their room. But apparently, the goblin shaman on the front of the door, a distance away from her was not influenced by the rules. In some goblin lore, a goblin shaman could use curse magic. She doesn't have any way to protect herself from curse magic nor having resistance for it, she has to be careful, and if it seems like it was going to chant, she must stop the spell by disturbing the chant.
Sheila tries provoking the Goblin Shaman to charge at her like the other goblin, but it didn't seem to be working as it just stood there while commanding the goblin left alive to attack her. So it also has a bit of intelligence, as expected of Goblin Shaman who could conjure magic. It knows that confronting her upfront would be deadly since, like most mages in the stories and games, they are pretty weak physically.
Sheila could be considered as an apprentice mage since she could use Flame Magic which is now level 2. But she was not weak; in fact, she is way stronger physically to the point that one would not expect her to be a mage and would think of her as a fighter instead. The Goblin Shaman probably also believed that the female human in front of it was a fighter and never did it cross the mind that she was also a mage.
Goblin Shaman seems to be planning to make her tired out from all the fighting as it sent and command all the goblins to her while staying back behind them. Another group of goblins came out of the room behind the door. Including three goblins from before, now she has to face eight normal goblins with the Boss of the Second Floor, Goblin Shaman. The difficulty just went up.
But she was not a bit flustered at all now that she got a weapon in hands. A sword is different than a kitchen knife in all sort of ways, after all. Before charging head-on, Sheila went back to pick up the huge rock and put it inside the inventory as the goblins are running straight at her. She couldn't throw the huge rock with her current strength since it would require both of her hands and she would be unable to defend against their attack which prompts the goblin to be able to land a hit on her.
If she has some sort of spell from Barrier Magic, it would have been great. Well, that would be too greedy for her to ask for more. It couldn't be helped since she doesn't want to get injured in the slightest if possible even when she has health potions in the inventory. She is not a masochist.
She put up a guard as the goblin approaching closer before swinging the club at her. The sounds of the club hitting on her sword resound, Sheila managed to block the attack and the impact coming from her sword is no joke if she didn't increase her strength back then. She sends out a slash at the goblin, and it was too slow to defend against it before getting split in half.
A goblin to her right swing the small club at her which Sheila avoids by bending herself over before stabbing the sword deep into its body. The blood splattered on the ground as the goblin howl in pain, but Sheila didn't care as she immediately moves to another prey to her right. Two goblins down, six more to go.
The Goblin Shaman didn't let Sheila do as she please as it chants a flame arrow while she was attacking the two goblins and when she was going to the next prey, the flame arrow flew toward her. She managed to dodge it on hair breath by jumping back as fast as she could. The flame arrow warns her that the Goblin Shaman is a lot more of a threat to be ignored. Without any choice, She decides to use magic in the battle. She wanted to fight without using magic and to see how far she could go, but with a group of six goblins and a Goblin Shaman, it is not possible if she didn't take out the boss first.
Talk is cheap, if not for the group of goblins stopping her from going after the boss, then she could have disturbed the chanting which would make it impossible for it to conjure a spell. This also makes her wonder on why she didn't need to chant to conjure the spell while the Goblin Shaman require to do so or it won't work. Did she have some sort of latent talent for magic? Or is it due to the system? Whatever it is, she couldn't come up with anything solid since she was in the middle of a battle.
She needs to defeat the boss first, and to do that means she must give a surprise attack that it wouldn't expect coming from her. The only thing that could cause it a shock is that she could use magic. Thankfully she didn't use magic when she battle against the group of goblins before the Goblin Shaman coming out from the door. She has said this before, but the Goblin Shaman must have misunderstood her real job as physical combat instead of a mage. As long as the Goblin Shaman was in her firing range, she was sure that the magic would hit right in the target.
In the end, she needs to get close to the Goblin Shaman. But how could it let her get closer to it without making the goblins attacking her without a rest? While she was dodging the attack both from the goblins and Goblin Shaman, she was pondering on what kind of plan will make it possible for her to execute. Because she was so focused on dodging the attack, she couldn't use her brain that much to come up with a plan in the meantime.
When suddenly, a single thought crossed in her mind when she looked at the crushed corpse of a goblin at the side. Maybe, she could use the huge stone in the inventory? No matter, a plan is still a plan. If it works, great, but if it doesn't, she will just come up with another plan. Now, how will she go with the plan? She couldn't throw the rock obviously with her current strength; she needs more points in the strength attribute to do such a thing.
"A head-on charge, huh?"