He needn’t have worried.

  Curtis was pissed, shouting obscenities and swinging his massive sword in wide arcs. Darkness splashed from the blade, killing every goblin touched by the substance. Daggers jutted from his shoulders, arms, and even his legs, and his health had dropped to around 76%. None of it seemed to bother the Reaver.

  Lashing out with spears of shadows, Hannah moved through the monsters on light feet, jumping away from attacks and killing without taking a single hit.

  Hiroki fought differently. His movements were fluid and precise, and he turned goblins aside with ease before slamming the wood against their heads, crushing skulls one by one with nothing but his staff. He didn’t rack up kills at Curtis's rate, but as far as Luke could see, no goblin had managed to land a hit on him.

  But as Luke stepped back into the fray, a goblin leapt at Hiroki’s back, dagger raised in both hands.

  "Watch out!" Luke shouted.

  The blade slammed down only to bounce off without even breaking skin. In a blur, Hiroki twisted, grabbed the goblin, and hurled it to the ground. The butt of his staff smashed into the creature’s green-tinted face, ending its life in an instant.

  "Behind you, Luke!" Hiroki called. "Remember what I taught you!"

  Luke’s staff materialized in his hands. He spun to meet a charging goblin, redirecting its momentum to the side. Rather than finishing it off with the staff, Luke thrust a Needle of Life into its chest even as it stumbled. The creature dropped to the ground and didn't stir. Quick and lethal.

  Goblin. Level 2.

  Goblin. Level 3.

  Goblin. Level 3.

  Goblin. Level 2.

  There were many, but they were weak. Low-level monsters stood no chance against Curtis’s sweeping darkness, Hiroki’s speed and technique, and Luke’s Threads of Mana. As the trio stabilized the situation, dispatching the last of the creatures, Luke noticed something odd. Each goblin wore a blood-red armband tied around its upper arm.

  Before the final goblin in the first group even hit the ground, Curtis charged toward the second cluster of enemies waiting farther off. These looked tougher.

  "Wait!" Luke called. "At least let me heal you first, or pull out the knives!"

  Curtis ignored him, rushing headlong into battle. Hannah let out a groan and followed.

  Goblin Geologist. Level 4.

  Goblin Captain. Level 5.

  Goblin Archer. Level 4.

  Goblin Soldier. Level 4.

  Luke cupped his hands around his mouth, but his words wouldn’t carry far enough. He switched to party chat instead.

  Luke: "Curtis, Hannah, kill the geologist before it spins up a bunch of rocks. Met one of those in the Tutorial Dungeon. They’re no fun."

  Curtis didn’t reply, but at least he shifted his focus toward Luke’s target. Hiroki followed, and Luke sighed before sprinting after them. The monsters were too low-level to grant much experience, but at least Luke could harvest cores and corpses afterward. That would help him recuperate some of the credits he’d spent upgrading his inventory.

  "You fight well, Curtis," Hiroki said, pulling out one of the harder-to-reach daggers from the Reaver’s back.

  "Thank you," Curtis replied, breathing heavily. His health bar hovered just below 50%

  "You’re reckless," Luke said in a flat voice.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  "These were nothing," Curtis grumbled, wincing against the pain of Hiroki’s ministrations.

  Luke reached into his friend’s mana channels, made a jump into the physical realm, and dealt with Curtis’s pain before healing him.

  "How're you doing, Hannah?" he asked. She was still uninjured, but her trepidation earlier worried him a little.

  "Fine," she said, not elaborating further.

  After the initial fight, Luke looked around. They were outside again, and it was daytime, the sun hanging high in a cloudless sky. Insects buzzed around them in a wide field of grass dotted with small groupings of trees. The landscape was flat, but far in the distance, beyond the haze of heat, Luke thought he glimpsed the top of a wooden structure. He saw no sign of the lost Integrated.

  He pointed. "Over there. Maybe."

  Hiroki shaded his eyes with a hand and squinted in the opposite direction. "There’s something over there as well. Near the edge of that forest."

  A road meandered through the landscape, cutting into a sprawling forest in the east, vanishing between the trees. Luke narrowed his eyes, certain he saw movement. A group of creatures was making its way toward them from between two patches of trees.

  "What do you think?" Luke asked.

  Curtis pointed. "Let’s meet the new arrivals first."

  Said and done, they set off at a fast walk. Before long, they could make out the approaching creatures.

  "More goblins," Curtis muttered.

  Luke craned his neck. "Are they… waving a flag?"

  As the two groups drew closer, it became clear the goblins were indeed holding up a white flag, raised high above their heads.

  "White," Hannah said. "Surrender?"

  "They want to give up?" Luke asked.

  "Doubt that," Curtis scoffed. "Maybe white means ‘murder’ here." He took a step forward. "I’ll deal with them."

  Hiroki placed a hand on Curtis’s shoulder. "Perhaps we should speak with them first."

  "Yeah," Luke agreed, pointing. "They’re wearing blue armbands."

  "So?" Curtis asked.

  "The ones we fought back there," Luke thumbed over his shoulder toward the portal, "had red ones."

  Curtis let out a long sigh. "I don’t want to get dragged into a goblin civil war. Let’s just kill them and be done with it. That’s the quest. Kill the Goblin King."

  "Goblin leader," Hannah corrected. "And it doesn’t say kill. It says deal with. Maybe we’re supposed to make a deal with him."

  Curtis gestured toward the approaching goblins with a sweep of his hand. "Be my guest. Speak with them if you want. But it’ll just end with you getting another knife in the shoulder."

  "I’ll give it a shot," Luke said. "Murder-hoboing through the dungeon every time might not be the most effective way of dealing with all this."

  The goblins didn’t look like they wanted him dead. Well… they sort of did, but at least they weren’t attacking right away.

  Goblin Leader. Level 6.

  One at the front waved a clean white flag back and forth. Its little face split into a tooth-filled grin which, if Luke was being generous, might have been meant as friendliness. The rest of the group, six goblins in total, chattered to one another, waving knives and spears while throwing furtive glances in his direction.

  "Hello?" Luke called, unsure what to make of the strange procession.

  "Human," the Goblin Leader hissed.

  Its thin lips trembled as though it had to force out words Luke could understand. "Human kill things."

  "What?" Luke asked.

  The goblin slapped the blue armband tied around its upper arm. "Me blue."

  Luke waited. The leader looked back over its shoulder at the others, who laughed at its effort. If Luke didn’t know any better, he would have sworn the goblin blushed. It turned back, grinning wider, scratching at its long, pointed ear. "Me blue. You kill red."

  "Right," Luke said, nodding. "We were attacked by goblins with red armbands. Defended ourselves. Were they friends of yours?"

  The goblin’s eyes widened as it struggled to parse his words.

  Luke tried again. He pointed at the leader. "You blue." At himself. "I kill red. Blue and red friends?"

  A reflexive growl escaped the goblin. Its lips peeled back, showing sharpened teeth. It jumped up and down, shouting, "No friend! No friend red! No friend blue!"

  The others mimicked their leader, chanting in garbled voices: "Blue kill red! Blue kill red!"

  "How’s it going?" Hiroki called from behind.

  Luke looked back at his friends with a bewildered shrug, then returned to the conversation. "You want red dead?"

  The goblin leader nodded. "Yes! Yes!" It pointed toward the distant wooden structure Luke had glimpsed earlier. "We kill red. You kill red."

  "You want our help to kill the red goblins?" Luke asked.

  The leader nodded. "Yes. Yes! Help! You help kill red goblin, we give treasure."

  That made Luke’s ears perk up. "What sort of treasure?"

  "Good treasure."

  Luke raised a finger. "One moment."

  He trudged back toward Curtis, Hiroki, and Hannah.

  "Are you almost done with this?" Curtis asked.

  "They want us to help them kill more goblins, the ones with red armbands," Luke explained. "They want us to fight with them."

  Curtis glanced over at the little group, who were huddled together with expectant, almost eager looks on their faces. "I say we kill them."

  "I like rewards," Hiroki noted.

  "The quest said to make a deal with the Goblin Leader. That’s him right there."

  "This is such a pain," Curtis groaned. "If we kill them all, both blue and red, we can take their reward for ourselves. We can’t trust anything in these dungeons. You, of all people, should know this."

  "What does he mean, Luke?" Hiroki asked.

  Luke rubbed the back of his neck. "Well… we’ve been lied to and betrayed in pretty much every dungeon so far. The Hollows used us to get out, especially their queen. For some reason, they could leave when these goblins can't. Then we found humans in the last dungeon, and they lied too. A lot of people died as a result."