Ronald wasn’t prepared for an encounter with anything hostile yet, but he was pretty sure that it would turn out that way. From everything that he could recall in fantasy settings with goblins, they rarely did anything outside of destruction and pillaging.
Concerned that he was about to be hacked apart for some unknown reason, besides fantasy inspired prejudices of his past life, he quickly looked over his status screen. He did see that he had one potentially offensive ability. He did have the ability to ram objects, and he was hoping that for the sake of this weird game-like system, that the goblin counted as an object. He also hoped that maybe, the goblins will not find anything of value and just move on.
Ronald would be holding his breath if he had to breathe as he focused solely on the approaching goblin. The small creature had to be no larger than about 3 feet, with its arms being slightly longer than a human of proportional size. It’s back was hunched slightly, its legs were never completely straight as it walked. Always bent as its head swiveled around as if looking for something. He was pretty sure that the goblins were looking for food, or at the very least something to eat. He couldn’t say for certain what exactly this creature ate, but judging by the very sharp and mostly jagged teeth, he was pretty sure it was carnivorous.
The goblin continued its casual meandering around the edge of the aura, walking close to the outer area, but not crossing over into the inner portion. Initially, this confused Ronald, as the goblin appeared to actively be heading in his direction, but always seemed to detour whenever it got close to the edge. Ronald checked over his status screen again to re-read the entry for his aura and was unsure why exactly the goblin kept failing to walk in, as there did not seem to be anything in the description about repelling monsters or enemies. The only thing he could think of was that it was an unstated benefit of his aura, which eased his mind tremendously. He would just have to wait for the thing to wander off.
At that moment a much louder noise sounded just beyond the bushes where the goblin appeared and a much larger, more densely built version of the goblin appeared. This version stood approximately 5 feet tall and wore something close to leather armor. The larger goblins area was still roughly the same proportion as the smaller one, but the nails on its fingers were much thicker. Its arms rippled with a sinewy muscle that the smaller goblin lacked, and unlike the smaller goblin, it had a thick mess of hair across various parts of its body. On its back was a very rudimentary shield that appeared little more than planks of wood lashed together to provide some basic covering. At its waist hung a rusted short sword, or what Ronald assumed was a short sword, he was never really sure of the difference between medieval weaponry. Alongside the larger goblin four other smaller goblins appeared. These additional small goblins appeared almost identical, with the exception being that they all had different weapons. The most lethal appeared to be some version of a mace or morningstar, yet again Ronald’s lack of knowledge with medieval weaponry was making itself known.
Dragging Ronald from his thoughts, the large goblin made some grunts and pointed animatedly at the smaller goblin that had been poking around his aura just recently. Ronald noted that he was unable to understand anything that was being said by the larger goblin, but clearly the smaller ones were able to get the meaning, because the one that was being pointed at quickly stammered out its own grunts and began to wave in Ronald’s general direction. This caused the larger goblin to lift its head and stare a moment in Ronald’s direction. It squinted it’s eyes and then turned its head slightly as if listening to something else before turning back towards Ronald.
Ronald began to think that maybe they couldn’t actually see him as they were still outside of his aura, and that maybe it was hiding him from their sight somehow. He began to relax slightly, hoping that maybe they would pass him by because they were not able to sense him, when the larger goblin suddenly kicked the smaller goblin, who was now screaming, directly into the aura.
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As soon as the screaming goblin missile crossed the barrier something shifted Ronald could tell, as the other goblins brought up their weapons and the larger goblin began to grin widely, a mouth full of razor sharp teeth on display.
Ronald could tell that his aura was still active, but whatever camouflage it had provided was obviously broken as the goblins all made their way into the area. Scattered around Ronald were still some supplies and boxes that he hadn’t broken down yet, and the smaller goblin’s attention was drawn to those instantly. The three that weren’t sent flying with a kick to the stomach quickly made their way over to the nearest boxes and began to rummage through them. Various items were being thrown carelessly onto the ground around the boxes, the exception being whenever one of the goblins found something like food and then they quickly shoved that item into their mouths.
The large goblin, however, moved directly in front of Ronald and stared at his wide front, then yelled something in that guttural language of theirs. When a few seconds passed and none of the other goblins answered his call, the larger goblin turned to look at the smaller goblins, all of them now tearing into whatever they could find among the boxes, he yelled louder. With a yelp, all four of them quickly moved over behind him and began to grovel. The large goblin quickly backhanded the closest one, and then pointed to Ronald and grunted some more words.
All four of them looked at each other for a split second before they began to walk over towards the sides of his wagon. He really did not like the way this was going. He quickly realized that while there was much inside the open top wagon, just a few boxes and barrels like the ones spread around the area. There was one thing that the goblins will definitely notice, and that’s his glowing core situation on a slightly raised platform. It would be very easy to spot as soon as they managed to get high enough. He had originally hoped to get out of this mess by having the goblins just loot the boxes and then going on their way, but that larger goblin was obviously much more intelligent than the smaller ones. A trait that was quickly proving to be an issue.
Ronald decided to wait until the smaller goblins were all standing between his large wheels and grabbing for his sides and he would attempt to use his Ram ability. He just hoped that he didn’t need to be moving already to use it. As the smaller goblins approached, time seemed to slow down, or at least that is how it felt to Ronald. Every step was agony for him. He almost activated the ability prematurely because of how nervous he was getting. If this Ram didn’t work, or didn’t actually kill or harm them significantly, then he was going to be in big trouble. It was his only method to defend himself, besides running, or well rolling away. And he had no clue how fast he would be once he got moving. Were wagons fast in his old world? He knew horses were fast, but he had no idea how fast wagons would move. While thinking of his old world, he felt the first goblin hand touch his side, and he instinctively activated the Ram ability.
Ronald was unprepared for how fast he would move once he activated Ram. He shot forward far faster than he thought he would and at the same time he felt himself run over four bumps. He could also feel the weight of his wagon smash into the large goblin that had been standing in front of him, obviously not ready for the giant stationary wagon to suddenly speed forward. The larger goblin’s body crumbled as it flew backward a good 20 feet, rolling over and over into the bushes. Ronald tried to focus outward and see where the larger goblin went, but his sight outside of the aura was just too poor to get a good view inside the bushes nearby. He turned his vision back to the other goblins and saw their broken bodies where his much larger wheels ran them over. Seeing the grotesque forms of the broken bodies, Ronald determined that Ram was intended to be used against larger objects, and not individuals who were much smaller than himself. Strangely he also noted that while the view of the broken bodies was disgusting and bothered him as a person, the act of killing the goblins hadn’t bothered him. Or at least was not bothering him just yet.
He also felt that with the death of the goblins, his aura surged back into full activeness, and he could once again break things down in the area around him. Which is just what he started to do, because he probably needed to move on and get somewhere safer, because this was obviously not a good place to learn how to get used to his new body.
