Judging from the noises, the swarm was already close.
Konrad's first instinct was to throw a fireball at them, but Maple's chuckle stopped him.
"You forced your men to fight by the tournament's rules, but you want to use magic right off the bat?" she accused, flapping her enormous wings.
"How else am I supposed to fight this many of them?" he complained.
But seeing the first monster stumble through the narrow entrance—
An answer already presented itself.
He drew his sword and rushed to the cavern, cutting that ugly green head off before it could face him. The second beast couldn't slow down in time, bumping against his armour.
Konrad didn't hesitate.
He kicked the goblin back into the narrow corridor, killing it with a stab in the chest.
The ones following had even less space to manoeuvre, stomping over the fallen monster.
They carried primitive weapons from spears to pickaxes—but their reach was lacking.
The bastard sword in Konrad's hand could lob off their arms before the stone tip of their spears could reach him. As long as he kept them in that narrow space, he was untouchable.
Which was, of course, too easy.
"A nice chokepoint," the dragon boomed. "But aren't you forgetting about me?"
The cave rumbled, and new fissures opened around Konrad.
"What are you doing?" he demanded, forced to take a few steps back, giving the beasts an opening. "We already established that I couldn't hope to defeat you, so why—"
"Well, you wanted to make it believable," Maple noted with a holler.
And the chamber's walls crumbled.
New passages opened and collapsed as if the goblins dug them out in record time.
"Who'd believe you fought me, if every corpse was in the same place?" she asked as they surrounded him. "Their blood could cover our tracks, so make sure it gets everywhere."
"Easier said than done," Konrad groaned, his eyes scanning the quick-changing battlefield.
Goblins were everywhere.
They weren't tough—without their tricks, they didn't pose a threat to an adult with a sword.
Not in a one-on-one scenario at least.
But he faced dozens at once, all controlled by the dragon.
His armour could weather their attacks, their salvaged tools like toys next to his blade. But with so many of them, it was only a matter of time until they found some gaps.
Even if all his swings were deadly, he had too many targets.
If only one in every fifty goblin strikes was a success, his chances of survival were still grim.
"You're not playing fair," Konrad gritted out.
He soon lost count of how many little beasts he had dispatched.
If anything, it felt like they were multiplying, forcing him on the back foot.
"I had a different kind of battle in mind, too," Maple moaned, urging her minions to attack.
Right. That dirty leaf was always thinking about sex, but with Lily nearby—
He was stuck fighting a swarm of goblins instead, while the dragon laughed at him. Not the kind of entertainment he had imagined, but somehow, he was still alive.
Which wasn't something he'd complain about, but why was this fight so easy?
'You are doing fine,' Lily's voice confirmed, too. 'Since she took control of them, they almost act like dungeon spawns. Careful not to slip on their blood, though. They're not turning to dust.'
"That explains," Konrad groaned, his blade—no, both his arms—starting to feel like lead.
He couldn't stop his legs for a moment, either.
Trying to dance away, he prevented the monsters from surrounding him—for now.
But he had to do that while avoiding a fall into the fissures or stumbling over corpses he left behind. He became slower and slower with every passing moment and hard-fought victory.
His armour bore dozens of scratches already, and his forearm and sides were bleeding.
Adrenaline warring with the pain, he felt empty inside and unable to think anymore.
But he was alive, and fighting, almost every one of his swings leaving a dead goblin behind.
No magic, no tricks.
If anything, that pesky dragon kept changing the rules to make things more difficult for him.
At least that was what he imagined until a goblin lunged forward.
It was about to stab him in the neck, but froze in the air only a few inches short.
He cleaved the beast in half, but was too slow to react.
Without that divine intervention—whatever it was—he knew he would've been dead.
There was no time to mumble thanks, though, or even ask if it was Lily or Maple who saved his life. The other monsters could've still killed him at any moment, so he had to fight.
Tired and bruised, desperate and surrounded—
But he knew that his guardian angels never left him.
Well, okay, Lucifer might've, because he hadn't heard of him in ages. Gabrielle was away, too.
It was more accurate to say guardian his demoness or dragon—but still, he'd thank them later.
"Almost there," Maple purred behind him, as if satisfied with his thoughts.
And sure enough, the goblins finally started to lose momentum.
At the very least, he could now count them, and their ferocity was waning, too.
They still wouldn't retreat, moving like zombies under the dragon's influence.
But that made it all the easier to cut them down—his greatest enemy now his own exhaustion.
"I swear, I'll take Lily's advice," Konrad groaned, out of breath. His swings and stabs become sluggish. "I'll work you to the bone so you won't have time for any other bright ideas."
"Rude," the dragon scoffed, fanning him with her enormous wings. "Don't you see I'm helping?"
Her idea of help had more in common with torture than anything.
But then, even Konrad had to admit—without pushing his limits, he couldn't have improved.
With a final, desperate strike, he sliced a monster from its shoulders to its hips—
And then, he collapsed.
There were no more.
If he could believe Maple's maths, he vanquished seventy goblins, all alone.
Seventy brainwashed and neutered monsters—the weakest of the bunch, but still.
"I hate you," he breathed, his consciousness slipping away.
The walls around him became blurry.
Was he bleeding out? Or was it simple exhaustion?
"Wake me when you're done planting your fake evidence," he mumbled, lying down.
'Oh, it's already done,' the dragon claimed, her voice both offended, proud, and distant.
The chamber—white and clean from all the salt earlier—looked like a battlefield.
Blood everywhere, and collapsed passages. Ruins and corpses, and—
A dragon's glistening scale. And another.
Maple herself was gone, or at least, Konrad could no longer see her.
But her voice lived rent-free in his mind as always. He was way too tired to try blocking it at this point. The other sounds reminded him of footsteps echoing in the distance.
How much time had passed?
He told his men to begin searching if he didn't return in an hour.
Plus, unless that dirty leaf tricked him, they also had to face seventy goblins. That said, he had seventy men-at-arms ready for them, so it was obvious they had an easier time.
Konrad wanted them to report, but his eyelids were too heavy.
By the time his men found him in the middle of that gruesome scene, he was fast asleep.
Counting beheaded goblins was almost as effective as counting sheep.