Gust and the others made way for Cornelius and his men.
When I saw the hobgoblins I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I had already known they would be here so there was no surprise.
“You two, get off to the side. We will handle this.”
As the weapon master marched away, I found myself conflicted. Part of me was desperate to face a hobgoblin again, but the other part relieved I didn’t have to.
“Come on," Victoria said, pulling me out of the way of the well-formed fighting force.
“I’ll check in with Peter,” she said.
We stood there as Cornelius commanded his men to charge.
These men had already been fighting on another front just minutes before. I feared they would be too spent to face another battle, but as the two forces came together I saw how wrong I really was.
“Peter?” she said through group chat.
There was no answer.
The front line of the unorganized goblin mob was leveled or tossed aside. As I had been learning, a weapon and shield combination could be devastating. Seeing twenty men apply it in unison made me cringe.
The next row of goblins faired better against the coordinated spear assault, but not by much. Within a matter of seconds, the goblins were backing away, looking for relief.
“Peter, are you hurt?” Victoria asked again.
My bowels churned as the nasally roar of a hobgoblin halted their retreat. These goblins were much smarter than the normal ones. Those in the middle of the line ran to either side allowing the hobgoblins a clear path to the player line.
"Hold!" called Cornelius from the rear. The hobgoblins came into striking distance.
Charred lightning burst forward as Cornelius unleashed his spear. It soared over his men and struck true in the closest hobgoblin’s shoulder, sending him back in a wobble.
A whip of black shot forward following where the spear had just been. The massive man himself leaped over three lines of his own men. He landed with a roll.
Ladies and gentlemen. This is what you do to earn a billion followers. Was what he just did even possible?
It had taken Cornelius half a century's worth of training with all that modern medicine had to offer working for him to get this far. The average lifespan of man had reached 115 years and it was possible to compete at the highest levels of competition well into your eighties, and even nineties in rare cases. The human marvel that was Cornelius was the result of such technology and relentless training. Knowing all of this and seeing it up close was something else entirely.
I nearly sliced my own cheek while bringing my hand to my mouth in awe. I had forgotten I was holding a sword.
He stood from his roll and lunged at the unwounded hobgoblin. A tree-club met his approach in a devastating arc. He dipped low and raised his own bronze kite shield and braced for the club near the hobgoblin’s grip. With a single arm, he deflected the blow over his head and slashed the beast half a dozen times at its leg and gut with his dazzling short sword.
It crumbled to its knees while swatting at Cornelius with two empty hands. Its club lay in the dirt.
My chest tightened as the second hobgoblin wound up and sent its tree-club flying toward his back.
With a twist of his waist, Cornelius bashed his attacker in the knee with the lip of his shield. An additional flick of his sword sent the creature’s blow high. Facing the new threat, he leaped forward, slashing the ribs of the hobgoblin that had yet to recover from its swing.
A defiant growl proved he had struck a sweet spot.
The hobgoblin that had fallen struggled to regain his feet and retrieve its club.
And I had thought Chewme was impressive. Cornelius’s speed and strength were insane, but his skill was just as overwhelming. I had been able to accomplish the same thing, but only in the right game. This was… real.
He didn't wait for them to attack. Launching forward, he assaulted the hobgoblin with the wounded ribs on the same side as the wound. As he slashed up and down the creature's side, it clenched its arms to itself to fend off the attack. A slice to the back of the knee dropped it.
He ducked behind the downed monster as the other giant looked to finish him. A two-handed swing missed him, battering the kneeling beast and collapsing its chest.
Cornelius's men cheered.
I turned to find they had almost wiped out the rest of the goblin warriors. Not even half of his men remained fighting.
A hand grabbed at my forearm. I didn't have to look to know it was Victoria. She didn’t seem afraid. Her thumb brushed the hair of my arm. Was she trying to comfort me? No, she seemed unaware I was even there. Her focus was directed at the fight.
The final hobgoblin swung again. Cornelius danced back then forward as soon as the blow passed. He jumped, cutting up as he passed, dragging his blade into the pit of its arm.
The tree-club skidded down the dirt road. It was lost to the monster. Before it could even turn back to the fight, a frenzy of slashes disabled the hobgoblin’s arm and leg. As it tumbled, a single uppercut met its throat. The hobgoblin was dead before it hit the ground.
One hundred spears met shield. Stomping followed. In that order, Cornelius’s men repeated their applause for their commander.
It echoed in my ears. The dream of becoming a professional gamer was struck a critical blow. How could that ever compare to this?
“We are all right!” Peter finally answered.
“We have Cornelius and we are coming your way!” Victoria screamed.
“There is a hobgoblin at the side gate. Hurry.”
A side gate?
***
We were waved forward after they looted their kills. We pointed Cornelius in the direction we had left our friends and relayed Peter’s message. They didn’t show up on our local maps yet. I found myself overwhelmed in his presence.
They moved at a jog as we stuck to the main street. Victoria kept quiet, but at a glance, she didn’t seem to be in bad shape.
We reached the same area we had split with our group. Thank God there was no sign of them or their gear.
Looking at my Local Map, I finally saw them to the south-west.
"This way!" Victoria said, beating me to it. She ran pointing in that direction. We hurried after her.
Taking a side street for a few blocks, we then turned toward the friendly cursors on our local maps.
Victoria and I were the first to pull out into a wide open street. At the south wall, about two blocks away down a gentle slope stood an open gate about half as wide as the main gate. The door had been torn off its hinges and was folded in, leaning against the interior wall. I vaguely remembered hearing that there was a second gate. Dozens of bodies littered the road belonging to players and goblins alike. There were also piles of equipment from players that hadn’t died as recently as the player corpses.
Near the gate, a dozen players squared off against another hobgoblin. Our friends, all of whom were alive, at least for now, were among the players fighting the beast.
They needed help.
"Let's go!" Victoria cried.
I grabbed her arm and held her back. Cornelius and his men passed, heading directly for the ongoing fight.
Her jaw fluttered, as her eyes filled with moisture.
"Lucius. What's wrong? We can help."
"What can we do? We aren’t Cornelius."
Her mouth snapped shut. She faced me with clenched fists.
Fear was not the reason I didn’t attack. Everything I had hoped for before entering Codename: Freedom was an illusion. Here, people were really getting hurt and real battles were taking place. I was just a gamer. Someone that played at war.
"What do you mean what can we do? Are you a coward all of a sudden?"
My body jerked as I stepped back. She hadn't hit me but it felt like she had. I let go of her wrist.
"I– I'm sorry Lucius. I didn't mean that."
I couldn't look at her.
She stayed with me. Aft
er a long silence, Victoria spoke.
"They will be fine, Lucius. You’re right.”
When she went to grab my arm I pulled back.
"Peter, Oliver, and Kline are just fine. Cornelius is taking care of it."
Glancing up, I saw what I had expected. The hobgoblin had its back to the wall and was surrounded by my friends on one flank, Cornelius on the other, and a whole wall of men to its front.
"When Peter said your injury might have long lasting effects, I didn't believe him. You have helped me so many times since then. It's my fault. I shouldn't have asked so much of you."
Before, I had been questioning if gaming was worth fighting for, but after seeing Cornelius in action my world had been thoroughly shaken.
I remained silent.
"It's dead!" she squealed.
The clang of shields and pounding of boots rose up from Cornelius's men.
Victoria took my hand and pulled me toward the celebration; toward our friends who I had abandoned to someone else's help.
I had always wanted a crack at the top gamers in the world. Not only did I want to compete with them, but I wanted to beat them. To surpass them. Billions of people cheered them on because of their mastery and skill, but their abilities existed in a virtual world.
All of the hours, the years of training to get to the level I was, then coming to Freedom, where you were the controller and not your mind through a deep dive. What was it all worth?
We approached the rear of Cornelius’s men, needing to get around them to get to our group. The doorless entrance to the city came into view. Hundreds if not thousands of goblins were running our way, only seconds from entering the city.
A streak flashed toward us. All that I could do was react. Pulling Victoria’s hand I lunged between her and the incoming projectile.
-61 Damage
+Concussion Damage
A thunder clap sounded from inside my skull. The pain from the back of my head only pounded when I started to fall. The world swirled around me. Everything went black.
Chapter 19 – Lost and Found
I was being pulled backwards by hands under my shoulders when the world fluttered back into focus. The night swirled around me. The movement didn’t sit well. My bowls warned me with a stir. Jerking my shoulder away, I heaved to the side, losing all of the food left in my stomach.
There seemed to be no stop to the spinning when the sharp sting from the back of my head reminded me what had happened.
To silence my queasiness I grabbed the bottom of my iron helm and forced it from my head. The pressure on the back of my head was replaced with cold relief. As the spinning lessened, I tipped forward, unconscious.
***
An annoying clanging, like a whole school of elementary school kids with silverware were banging them together at the same time. I tried to shake my head as if the noise would jump from my ears. My eyelids split, giving me a peek at a landscape of a shadow storm.
Batting my eyes clear, the rears of hundreds of armed men appeared, pushing to and fro. I scrambled to my knees, looking around frantically for my spear and shield. Something stank. It was me. I remembered I had fallen into my own vomit.
Wink came from nowhere and started licking my face with a whine.
“Here.”
A mustached man with a heavily damp brow handed me a beat up iron helm. There was no sign of Victoria or my group. Did she survive? I had been lying at the foot of a building between the wall and porch of what I guessed was a government building. I couldn’t even see the wall from where I was.
“I repaired it the best I could. It won’t be pressing into the back of your head anymore.”
“Thanks,” I answered, putting the helm on immediately.
“If you can join in the fighting then do it. We are losing. If not get out of here.”
“How long have I been out?”
“You were already passed out when I got here. Someone else brought you here. It took me about five minutes of hammering at your helm with the hilt of my dagger to repair that bloody thing.”
Giving him another quick look, he was a merchant of some kind. Not a fighter then?
I had already recovered.
255/255 HP
“Was a girl with me?” I needed to find my group and fast.
“Not that I saw.”
Well, at least that meant she had probably just joined the fighting.
“Thanks again.”
I found my sword and shield against the wall of the building. My spear was in my inventory where I had left it. Sheathing my sword and equipping the rest, I began my search. I didn’t have time to dwell on the fact that my head wound was completely healed.
The men fighting before me weren’t even here when I had passed out. They were many rows deep but weren’t waiting in line for their turn to enter the fight either. The man that had fixed my helm had been right. If they had been pushed back just another few meters I would have been in danger of getting trampled.
Skirting around the back, I tried to circle to what I suspected was the front of the gate. I was following the line of the buildings, remembering there had been a wide street leading to the side entrance of the city.
There was no way through. Taking a difference approach, I found the stairs of the porch. From there I scouted the sea of battle. I was at the top of the hill, a block farther from the gate than Victoria and I had been when we first approached. The goblins had breached the city.
It was a last-ditch effort to contain the horde that was still trying to push through the narrow opening in the wall. Hundreds had already entered and were being held back on this major road and a number of side streets.
The majority of goblins wore golden-bronze chainmail of average quality. With a gasp, I realized they also wielded spears and shields. These weren’t just normal soldiers.
I looked to the text above their heads.
Heavy Footsoldier
Goblin
They just weren’t dying as quickly as they normally did. It was slow, but the couple hundred players in formation were losing ground. I saw some of Cornelius’s men, but no sign of my group or Cornelius himself.
Where had I last seen them?
My group was found on the local map to the left side of the gate in a location I couldn’t see from here. It was the best I had to go on.
Leaping from the porch, I ran from the major intersection and took the first alley. Skirting behind the building, I took another turn.
I had to veer up the side of another alley to get around more fighting.
While passing another alley I heard a cry. Stopping short, I saw a man skewered by a spear as his group tried to fend off three times their number while holding the alley. There were twenty players, tops.
There was no memory loss from getting hit in the head, so I immediately remembered Cornelius. No one else was here to help so I had to do something. I rebuked my hesitation.
Looking the way I had been heading, I shook my head. Stay safe, guys.
Running up the alley, I grabbed a man at the rear. No, it was a girl. A redhead with a leather cap and sweat matting her hair to her cheek.
“Go get help,” I commanded.
She looked at me, taken aback. Pushing her away from the action, she got the point and turned to run.
Wading through the disorganized group of players, I made it to the front. When a man near the middle of the front line lowered his spear in exhaustion, I grabbed his shoulder.
“Switch.”
He didn’t argue. Hopefully, a fresh pair of legs could help revitalize this sagging lot.
More than one spear met my shield immediately, which I pushed through. Stepping forward, I thrust into the gut of the goblin directly in front of me.
It drove him back, but my spear couldn’t pierce his chainmail. Not good.
Meeting the setback with gritted teeth, I was bombarded by multiple spear attacks from every direction. Holding my ground, I stabbed at the knee of the gobl
in at my flank. The all too familiar sinking of metal into flesh radiated relief.
The goblin fell. The player line finally pushed forward to join me. I could feel their exhaustion like humidity to the skin.
“Go for their legs! Chop ‘em down!” The sound of my voice reflected off my shield. It acted like a bullhorn and blasted the command to everyone behind me. That was an unexpectedly cool trick.
The men and women at my side did just that. Three more goblins met bronze and iron, falling or having to retreat from new wounds.
They didn't let up. I found myself trying to remain as small as possible to keep from getting a new piercing or two in a body part not made for accessories.
Holding back the repeated blows became tiresome quickly. I jabbed low at the legs of whatever was in front of me. Only once did I hit something, and how well it helped I didn't know.
Joining them may have given them a momentary spurt of energy, but it remained a stalemate.
If only I had one of those suits of chainmail. That would mean killing one of the goblins. At this point holding this spot was as much as I could do. I waited for an opening.
A roar from behind me almost pulled my attention away, but sharp points hammering against my shield kept me focused on what was in front of me.
Suddenly the bombardment of spears ceased, followed by a heavy thud. Daring to look up I saw a goblin warrior was grounded with a wooden chair on its lap. The chair had been thrown, pushing a number of the goblins back.
The large yellow eyes of the goblins around their fallen friend bulged even larger.
Suddenly a wooden table flew over my head. Many of the goblins tried to meet it with spears, but it was too solid. Five of them crumbled under the impact.
It was our chance. Finding myself free I lunged forward. The face of one goblin watched my spear come, but he couldn't do anything about it. The table had pinned him into a sitting position.
Without thinking, I looted the goblin and immediately equipped the armor.
A number of others had also finished the pinned goblins. We moved back to put some room between us. The table and multiple dead goblins helped to give us a breather.
Codename: Freedom: Survive Week One Page 22
