Chapter 74

Chapter 74: Chapter 74

The wolves hit him like a tide.

Kelvin became a whirlwind of motion. He couldn’t afford to stay still, couldn’t let them pin him down. He moved constantly, spinning, ducking, jumping, using every technique Urgak had taught him about fighting multiple opponents.

A wolf lunged. Kelvin sidestepped and his blade opened a long gash across its flank. Another snapped at his arm. He raised his sword, the wolf’s jaws closing on steel instead of flesh, then drove his other blade into its eye. A third tried to tackle him from behind. He sensed it coming through pure combat instinct, dropped low, and let it sail over him.

But he couldn’t avoid everything.

A wolf’s claws raked across his shoulder, drawing blood. Another’s jaws closed on his leg, teeth piercing through muscle. Kelvin grunted in pain but didn’t stop moving. He drove his blade down into the wolf’s skull, forcing it to release his leg.

The blessed protection Jessica had given him flared, the wounds beginning to close even as he fought. Not fast enough to make him invincible, but enough to keep him in the fight.

"He’s getting overwhelmed," Cassius observed from his position, though he made no move to intervene. "But he’s handling it better than most trained warriors would. Impressive."

Satou watched tensely as Kelvin continued to fight. The young Hobgoblin was covered in cuts and bites now, blood streaming from multiple wounds. But he was still standing, still fighting, and the wolves were learning to fear him.

Three more wolves lay dead or dying. The remaining six backed off slightly, circling Kelvin warily. They’d lost more than half their number to a single opponent. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

The alpha finally moved.

It had been watching the entire time, studying Kelvin’s fighting style, identifying weaknesses. Now it stalked forward, the other wolves parting to let their leader pass.

This was the real threat. The alpha was larger, stronger, and smarter than the others. And it was fresh while Kelvin was exhausted and injured.

"This is the moment of truth," Satou muttered.

Kelvin and the alpha circled each other slowly. Both were assessing, looking for openings, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

The alpha lunged first, moving with speed that dwarfed the other wolves. Its jaws snapped toward Kelvin’s throat with enough force to crush bone.

Kelvin twisted, the teeth grazing his neck but not catching. His blade came up in a counterstrike that opened a shallow cut across the alpha’s face.

The wolf backed off, more cautious now. It circled again, and this time the remaining pack wolves attacked simultaneously with their leader, coordinating perfectly.

Kelvin found himself fighting on seven fronts at once. His blades were a blur, blocking, parrying, striking. But there were too many angles, too many attacks coming too fast.

A wolf caught his arm in its jaws, tearing muscle. Another slammed into his back, driving him to his knees. The alpha saw its opening and lunged for the killing blow.

"Now!" Satou prepared to intervene.

But Kelvin wasn’t finished.

With a roar of pure determination, he dropped one sword and grabbed the wolf biting his arm. Using all his Hobgoblin strength, he lifted it off the ground and hurled it directly at the charging alpha.

The two wolves collided in mid-air with a yelp of surprise. Kelvin used the momentary confusion to grab his fallen spear which had been knocked loose from the dead wolf.

His movements were slower now, weakened by blood loss and exhaustion. But his eyes were still sharp, still focused.

The alpha recovered first, snarling in fury. It charged again, this time abandoning all caution in favor of overwhelming force.

Kelvin planted his spear, bracing it against the ground, and held firm.

The alpha’s own momentum drove the spear point through its chest, the blade emerging from its back in a spray of blood. The wolf’s eyes went wide with shock, its jaws snapping uselessly inches from Kelvin’s face.

For a moment, they both stayed frozen in that position for some seconds.

Then Kelvin twisted the spear, and the alpha’s eyes went dark.

The massive wolf collapsed, its body sliding off the spear to fall in a heap.

The remaining wolves, seeing their alpha dead, did what wild animals do when outmatched. They fled, disappearing into the forest with whimpers of fear and pain.

Kelvin stood alone in the clearing, surrounded by dead wolves, his body covered in blood both his own and theirs. He swayed slightly, his legs threatening to give out.

Then his knees buckled, and he collapsed forward.

Satou and Cassius were there in an instant, moving with supernatural speed. Satou caught Kelvin before he hit the ground, lowering him gently to the grass.

"I did okay, right?" Kelvin’s voice was weak, his eyes searching Satou’s face for approval even as blood seeped from his numerous wounds.

Satou smiled, genuine warmth and pride filling his expression. "You did more than okay. You were magnificent. Twenty Dire Wolves, Kelvin. You faced down twenty and won. That’s not just okay, that’s extraordinary. Urgak is going to burst with pride when he hears about this."

"Really?" Kelvin’s face lit up despite his pain.

"Really," Satou confirmed, helping to stabilize him as Jessica’s blessing continued its healing work, the worst wounds slowly closing. "You fought with discipline, strategy, and courage. You proved exactly what you set out to prove. You’re not the weak goblin who got hurt anymore. You’re a warrior."

Kelvin’s eyes watered slightly, though whether from pain or emotion was unclear. "Thank you, big brother."

Satou turned to Zik, who was staring at Kelvin with open-mouthed awe. "Can you lead us to your elder now? We need to check on your people."

"Yes! Yes, of course!" Zik shook off his shock and started moving toward the cave entrance. "Elder Grik will want to meet you immediately. What you just did, what he just did," he gestured at Kelvin, "I’ve never seen anything like it."

"Kelvin," Satou said, "can you walk?"

"I think so," Kelvin replied, gritting his teeth as he tried to stand. His legs wobbled dangerously.

Cassius moved to his other side, and together he and Satou helped support Kelvin’s weight. "Easy now. You’ve lost a lot of blood. Just lean on us."

They made their way toward the caves, stepping over the bodies of fallen wolves. The cave entrance was partially barricaded with rocks and logs, hastily assembled defenses that had somehow held against the siege.

As they approached, Satou heard movement from within. Frightened goblin voices, whispered conversations about whether it was safe to come out.

But then Satou heard something else. His enhanced hearing picked up sounds that made his blood run cold. Female voices. Not goblin voices, but voices of other races. Some were crying. Some were pleading for help in languages he couldn’t understand. Some were begging to be killed.

His head snapped toward a side passage, one that branched off from the main cave entrance. The sounds were coming from there.

"What is that?" Satou asked, his voice taking on an edge that made Zik flinch.

"What is what?" Zik asked nervously.

"Those voices. Female voices. Coming from that passage." Satou’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

"I... I don’t know what you mean," Zik stammered.

Satou’s instincts were screaming. Something was very wrong here. He started moving toward the side passage, still supporting Kelvin but driven by a terrible suspicion.

"Satou, wait," Cassius said, but Satou was already moving.

They rounded a corner into a smaller cave chamber, and the sight that greeted them made Satou’s blood boil.

Women. Dozens of them. Human, elf, even a few beastkin he didn’t recognize. They were chained to the walls, their clothes torn and tattered, barely covering their malnourished bodies. Their eyes were hollow, empty of hope or life. Some cowered at the sight of more goblins entering. Others didn’t even react, too broken to care anymore.

The smell hit him next. Unwashed bodies, waste, despair. This chamber was a prison. No, worse than a prison. This was a breeding pen.

Reality crashed into Satou like a physical blow. In his previous life, he’d read isekai novels, played fantasy games. Goblins in those stories always had a dark secret. Their populations were heavily male-dominated, ratios of seven males to three females, sometimes worse. And to sustain their numbers, they kidnapped females from other races.

He’d known this intellectually. But he’d pushed it aside, focused on survival, on building his settlement, on protecting his people. He’d never stopped to think about what other goblin settlements might be doing. What traditions they might be continuing.

And now he was staring at the evidence of that horror.

Rage, pure and incandescent, flooded through Satou. His bloodlust erupted so suddenly and intensely that the very air seemed to vibrate with it. The temperature in the cave dropped. Small rocks began to crack from the pressure of his presence.

The captive women who’d shown no reaction suddenly looked up in terror, and some began screaming. His rage was so palpable it was manifesting as a physical force.