Soul Art Online

- Arthas -

We prepared everything for the quest and left the town at four in the morning in hooded cloaks just to avoid any unnecessary scrutiny.

A distance away from the place, we equipped our equipment and headed towards the cave.

On reaching the entrance, I looked towards the two of them. "Ready?"

They nodded.

We lit up some torches, covered our faces and eyes and entered the cave.

The scene around us changed completely.

We were right to bring the torches as the caves were dark.

Thankfully my vision with the Hunter Class was coming in handy.

I took the lead while Veena fell behind me and Shiroe took the rear with a torch in one of his hands, lighting up the path in front of us.

Shiroe made the first move and sent a Flash Spell towards the end of the cave, briefly lighting the whole path.

The passageway seemed clear but we heard strange sounds at the end of the turn and sounds of footsteps.

We carefully went forward but unlike expected, there were no traps. It was just the turn in the cave which made it impossible to see anything behind it.

As we reached the end, we exchanged looks and with one swift move, I brought a wolf corpse and threw it towards the turn.

Sure enough, three goblins jumped towards the corpse from the corner at the corpse as two arrows hit it.

We finally saw the figure of the creatures.

They were the size of a ten year old human kid with the face of a deformed old man and completely green in colour. They wore a rag around their waist and one of them didn't even do that.

A surprising thing about them was the agility with which they attacked. They were surprisingly fast.

I jumped in with my shield and bashed two of them away while slashing the last one with a Swift Strike.

Veena followed behind me with a spear, covering my back while Shiroe threw another Flash Spell in the corner.

Shrill screams rang out in the place and I turned to look at four goblins holding their eyes. Three of them had bows and arrows while the last one had a dagger coated with something in its hand.

"Four." I shouted before I shot forward immediately and used my Heavy Blow Skill cut through the archers.

Veena right behind me struck the one with a dagger right through its eyes.

The last archer had not recovered from the effects of the flash so we took it down with simple attacks.

Shiroe had to conserve his mana as we didn't know how long this dungeon would take.

The seven goblins were taken down within moments.

Shiroe checked the weapons.

"Poisoned." He confirmed. "Be careful to not let them hit."

We nodded as I stored the Goblin Corpses and the Wolf Corpse back into my inventory and headed forward.

The entire place was a network of caves and these pesky little buggers were always ready in an ambush

This made our progress very slow.

There was also the fact that our general tactics of hunting, poison and kill every fucking thing was out since we were afraid of hostages dying.

The further we went inside, the darker the cave became with only occasional torches here and there.

The place branched off in many ways with rocks here and there, making many blind spots for us to see which made everything even harder.

More often than not, we had to check our backs to make sure we killed everyone.

Thrice we had encountered sneak attacks from the shadows and I had to fall back to support Shiroe.

Finally, we reached a place where the cave branched into three paths.

"Which one?" I asked.

"Let's test." Shiroe and Veena came forward.

He cast a Flash Spell while she threw Pepper Bombs inside the three pathways.

Shrieks ran from all of them but surprisingly it was the rightmost one in which some coughing sound came from.

We looked at each other and raced forward towards the last pathway while Shiroe boosted us.

My steps faltered when we reached the end.

Eight Goblins were clutching their eyes or coughing violently.

They had sharper noses than humans and Veena's Pepper Bombs used this against them.

But what I was looking at wasn't that.

Six human bodies were in the room. Two boys were already dead and they had their stomachs gutted and partially eaten while the four girls were either unconscious or almost on the verge of unconsciousness. They were completely naked and I didn't need to be an expert to know what was done to them. There were bruises all over their bodies with dried blood and semen or at least that's what I assumed it was on their privates.

Three of the women's eyes looked almost dead while the last one was unconscious.

And as if to laugh at their situation, three newborn goblins were suckling on their breasts, their entire breast was full of bite marks, deep ones, leaving them infected.

Veena was right.

Something about this game had changed me, maybe even made me more aggressive but right now I didn't think my anger had anything to do with that.

I let out my Shout Skill.

It raised my attack and speed for 12 seconds and used Rush almost simultaneously, thrusting my sword right through the head of one of the goblins. Pulling back, I used Swift Strike on the one beside it.

One of them jumped on me but was bashed away with a Spear as Veena covered my back.

"Shiroe!" I shouted, finally getting the attention of our last teammate, breaking him out of his shock and he cast Bind on one of the enemies and Stun on another and I used Shield Bash on the last one before hacking it's head with my next strike.

Veena fought the one she had swatted away and Shiroe lent support while I went down to take out the stunned ones.

The whole battle didn't last much longer, less than thirty seconds but as soon as it ended, Shiroe threw up on the side.

I didn't throw up but stepped forward towards the newborns.

"Are you going to kill them?" I heard Shiroe speak slightly hesitantly.

"Yes." I spoke seriously and asked without looking back. "Do you think I shouldn't?"

"It just feels a bit strange. I know this is a game and a quest but….they look like children. I know I shouldn't feel like this but it feels so….dammit, couldn't there be any good goblins?"

I know his emotional turmoil.

It proved that my new friend was human.

And that's why I wanted to get it done myself.

He will get used to it one day but if there is a chance to reduce these complicated feelings, I will take it.

I suddenly remembered a line from another anime in my past life.

For once I didn't care if this was a reference or not.

"A good goblin? I guess there might be one if you looked really hard. But in the end, the only good goblins are the ones who never come out of their holes."

Sure enough another notification appeared in front of me but right now I was too angry to pay attention to it.

That fucking Game Master really had to put these types of goblins in the game….

In my anger, I stomped on the heads of the abominations, crushing them one by one.

Veena, in the meanwhile, covered the girls with clothes she had brought out from her inventory.

Unfortunately, we didn't get much time to sort out our feelings as we heard several footsteps rushing forward from the tunnel towards us.

Veena quickly threw several of her special pouches towards the entrance.

"We need cover." Shiroe shouted and I, quick on my feet, I brought out animal corpses and stacked them in front of us.

These would protect the hostages behind us, give us some means of protection from their arrows and narrow the passage so that they cannot easily reach us.

One by one, twenty three of those abominable creatures rushed in.

The strangest ones were the two larger ones, the size of an human adult donned in leather armour, carrying spiked wooden maces. Hobgoblins. Behind them was a hunched back one with some kind of totem or staff in its hand. A Goblin Shaman.

All were T3 Monsters.

Shiroe shot another one of his Flash Spells which had recovered from the cooldown period and I covered the gap through which they could enter.

The Flash Spell hadn't done too much as there were too many goblins and some got covered behind the taller ones.

"I will take down the Shaman first." Shiroe commanded and Veena thrust her spear, right from my side, to throw back one of the goblins who had escaped the Flash Spell and tried to climb the corpse of a bear to attack us while she threw a few more of her bombs in the crowd.

I slashed the one in front of me with a Swift Strike and kicked another one of them away.

The bigger ones had recovered and came forward to attack.

Thankfully, due to the size of the passage, only one could come forward.

It raised the spiked mace above its head and a slight light gathered on the mace.

"A Skill!" Shiroe shouted and I didn't need another reminder. The mace came down.

I too raised my Shield and used a Skill of my own.

Counter.

The Mace clashed with my shield and was rebounded back as the Hobgoblin lost its balance and I used a Heavy Strike directly on its chest.

It fell back on top of two goblins and crushed them under it.

This was the first enemy which hadn't died directly from my Heavy Strike attack in a long time.

That was my strongest attack and with my stats and buffs right now, I was comparable to a T4 monster. Just goes to show this quest was not easy.

Veena thrust her spear on its legs and attacked it while I covered another attack from the other Hobgoblin behind it.

Shiroe was still sniping the Shaman who was having a hard time casting spells due to the effects of Veena's pouches and Shiroe's attacks.

My Skills recharged and I let out a volley of Skills on the Hobgoblin, finally taking it out with a Swift Strike, decapitating it.

The fight lasted for several minutes and we whitted down their numbers one by one.

Shiroe took an arrow to his shoulder while I felt my armour heat up and burn my arm due to a fireball from the damned Shaman but continued fighting and finally, we struck down the last monster.

Messages of completing the dungeon appeared in front of us and only then did we take a breath of relief.

I looked at Veena. "Can you please check the condition of the survivors and see if you can do anything?"

She nodded and went forward, feeding antidotes to the survivors and applying some salve on their wounds.

I checked the notifications in the meantime.

This quest was….very annoying.

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Author's Note:

I am back with another chapter of SAO.

This chapter was mostly focused on world building and some communication between the members of the team.

I wanted to take some time to develop their relationship and show how they develop as people as they go forward. There was also the point about how the world changes them.

Next chapter we will see the progress on Sirzechs' plans and perhaps introduce new characters….or have I already done that? 😏

I know some people may feel that the story is a bit slow and I apologise for that but I am writing this as I would write a full story because I think this story has just as much potential as Isekai Restaurant and I don't want to rewrite the chapters if I pick this up someday.

Don't worry, the story will pick up pace in a few more chapters as we will meet more characters from the DxD world in the game.

Enjoy the new chapter.

Good Day, Peace Out.