A/N: I'm making the mist monsters and bosses in this story a lot more dangerous, to better conform to the adapted level system I am using for this story, and it's also more realistic, if level 5 - 10 characters can take the evil forest and first black waltz, then they aren't that dangerous.

Mark's character stats(Start of Chapter 4)

Character class: Wizard Knight

Level: 5, 186xp until next level up.

HP: 108 / 108

MP: 315 / 315

Strength: 25

Speed: 18

Spirit: 27

Magic: 44

Weapon: Bronze sabre

Armour: Traveller's cloak

Footwear: Leather shoes

Accessory: Isekai ring

Skills: None

Magic: Poison, Regen

Trance: Balmung strike

Items: 2 potion, 1 phoenix down, Isekai's traveller's sack

Gil: 0

A nerfed Dingir in Final Fantasy 9, seriously?

CHAPTER FOUR

Too Many Goblins

The forest of death was home to countless monsters, but among the various beasts and insect mist monsters, there was one that actively left the forest to prey on travelling humans and small settlements, sometimes even attacking the capital in small groups, stealing, killing, and raping as chance allowed.

They hadn't succeeded against the capital in centuries, but still they tried, most Alexandrian soldiers that were stationed outside of the city, did so to protect their citizens from goblins, unlike the game, they were smart, worked well together, and were very vicious.

Ten miles away from the capital, a large group of Goblins, over one hundred of them marched on the city, but first they would attack small walled village that dealt mostly in trade for travellers. Unfortunately for Mark, he had hiked there in the hopes of finding a few mist monsters, he had found a single Goblin, a level 7 brute that he caught with a sleep spell, followed by poison, damaging several times before the poison woke the creature up, Mark lunged at it, running it through as it suddenly sat up, shrieking. It took several more stabs, and it was over.

"EXP gained: 126 points, 40 EXP until next level up."

Items gained:

180 Gil

Antidote x1

"Finally some Gil!" laughed Mark scooping up the coins, they were smaller than pennies, though some were different colours, made of copper and iron, stamped on one side with a number, and on the other with the sword crest of the kingdom. He put away his items, regarding the goblin corpse, and the primitive dagger it clutched, 'why not?' he thought, picking it up.

Items gained:

Goblin Dagger x1 (A low grade dagger made of iron, quite sharp)

"Hmm…So I can take anything for storage?" Now he had another weapon, and even though Dingir was portrayed as a swordsman, in reality, back home, he had been taught to use many weapons by a Wadou-ryuu master named Glovis, this included knives, swords, staffs, kunai, and Shuriken, and of course the barehanded methods of killing. There was no need to limit himself on combat options.

"Question, can I store corpses or living mist monsters within the traveller's sack?" he softly asked, waiting to see if the game system replied, as it often volunteered information.

"Game Alert: Meat can be extracted from mist monsters to eat using the system, however full corpses and living cannot be stored."

"Cool, so it can work as a Q+A," mused Mark. "Question, how long will the meat last?"

"Game Alert: It remains fresh when stored, but will degrade within a day outside of the sack."

"Okay, thanks." It never hurt to be polite, as he needed to rely upon this system until he became high level.

"Let's see how this goes…System, store Goblin Meat," the corpse disappeared in a flash of light, a dozen or so reddish steaks were briefly seen before flying into the sack. "Awesome."

Items gained:

Goblin salted steak x13 (a low grade red steak salted for taste and to last longer)

"It's kind of like Runescape," he thought, he didn't like the idea of eating it, but if he was ever short on food, then it would come in handy, he was rather hungry now, but he had some money now, time to head to that walled village, he remembered vaguely that you could buy items through the gaps in metal gate, it was open now as they weren't at war with the other kingdoms yet, but it had quite a few soldiers on the walls and at the gates. If he was lucky it had an inn, if he could find more monsters today and avoid a long walk back or sleep in a tall tree to keep out of the mist.

It didn't take him long to get there, after being checked briefly by the soldiers at the gates, he was let in, the village was tiny, but half the space was dedicated to shops and an inn (thankfully) so he would use this place as a base of operations for the next week or so. If he could reach level 10, he would chance the rim of the Evil forest for frequent random encounters.

After getting a meal at a restaurant, he booked a night at the inn, napped for a few hours, and planned to head out to hunt more mist monsters before night fell, but then alarms began to sound, the gate was lowered, and soldiers began to gather.

"Goblin raid! Close the gate!"

"Everyone take up arms!"

'A goblin raid?' Climbing the winding stairs to the tops of the walls, slipping around panicked soldiers and villagers, he saw a large number of goblins approaching in makeshift armour and a variety of weapons, most likely taken in ambushes, but they kept a tight, almost military formation, and that was worrying, in addition to that, most of them were level 10, with only a few less than that, and some as high as level 15. Forget soloing evil forest, he'd likely have to wait until he got a party when the game started, if that was the standard of its residents.

His eyes flickered to the nearby soldiers, most of them were over level 10, or thereabouts, but they looked to be outnumbered five to one at least, and the gate wouldn't handle repeat ramming, they'd need to cover it, use wagons, carts, and crates, anything heavy, it was doubtful they would scale the thick stone walls, but they had long sharp nails, could they actually climb it? Mark hurried to the villagers and cajoled them into blocking up the gate, piling everything high with wagons and crates.

Already the soldiers were shooting arrows at the goblins, while the few among them that could use magic blasted them with first tier spells. After the initial panic, the soldiers worked like well oiled machines, and Mark felt some of his panic fade, if they could pick them off like this, then the people inside, himself included wouldn't have to fight. Still poison and sleep could help a lot, better to help from the walls at least. The Goblins were charging the gate, but it held, they tried stabbing through the bars, but the crates and carts that he and the villagers had crammed in front, prevented anyone being hurt...still, why encourage bad behaviour, palm extended towards a gap, he began to cast magic.

"Cast: Sleep. Cast Poison," they fell back, more took their place, he cast the spells another few times before they pulled back, the villagers, no longer having weapons waved at them or goblins snarling through the gaps, swiftly piled on more crates. "Good job!" Mark said with a grin and thumbs up, "keep piling things on, the heavier the better," he said. "If there are more weapons stores, get arrows to the soldiers, they'll run out soon at this rate."

"Got it," several ran off to fetch more bundles of arrows.

"What are you going to do?" one asked as he turned to leave.

"I'm going to assist our protectors with my magic, but be careful, have everyone get a weapon, some goblins might still get through," and with that he ran up the stone stairs to where the soldiers continued to fire, some missed, many were blocked, but at least thirty were dead. Oddly, they continued to attack without fear, some using the dead as makeshift shields, normally losing a third of your forces in less than an hour would make any army flee, but they pressed on, as if death meant nothing. Some goblins were riddled with arrows, but even they struggled on.

'This is ridiculous, they're smart enough to value their lives, what's driving them like this?' Mark pondered as he rushed onward. Several soldiers tried to stop him from coming among them, but he slipped past, not weighed down by armour, reaching the edge, he immediately began to use magic, "Cast: Sleep!" he declared loudly, making sure the Alexandrian soldiers heard him, several Goblins dropped, " Sleep! Sleep! Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!" he rapidly casted, targeting those at the front, many tumbling over them. "Cast: Poison on the arrows!" All of the arrow points glowed a sickly green, even those mid flight, adding a dangerous status effect, more goblins were being killed though, those asleep were quickly riddled with the projectiles.

He was roughly clapped on the shoulder and turned to meet the gaze of a surprisingly well built woman, she had a few inches on him in height, and packed with muscles, he felt his shoulder creak and he refrained with difficulty the instinct to wince. She was black haired like him, though with dark green eyes, perhaps four or five years his senior, his eyes briefly flickered to her status bar, but otherwise met her gaze with a firm, yet not challenging stare. Her name was Emilia, and she was level 25. Besides Beatrix, she was the highest level person he had met so far.

"This is a job for soldiers, magic or not, leave it to us," she said firmly. Oh she was worried about him, she took her job seriously and it was rather sweet, but he wouldn't stop until they were all dead or his MP ran empty. If they got inside, he'd probably be killed, and to hell with that.

"I'm actually a recent recruit of the Pluto Knights, I came here my day off," Mark lied smoothly, recalling Steiner's offer, "thank you for your concern, but I still have a duty to help however I can, I'm not much of a swordfighter yet, but my mana is high, I can cast magic repeatedly for a long time," he continued, making sure she understood where his value lay.

Her eyes narrowed, perhaps sensing his lie, "focus on using that poison spell, Goblins are not so swift they require Sleep for my soldiers to hit them with their arrows."

"Yes ma'am," Mark replied easily.

"Head over to the other mages and assist them from there, and don't get in their way." Oh, definitely an order. He sharply saluted and ran over to join the few magic users in their group.

They had already seen him assisting, they wasted no time talking, a swift nod and he joined them with blanketing the enemy with magic, they all used fire spells, but they required several strikes to kill one, 1st tier magic definitely, and though his own magic dealt much less damage, he had a far greater range and could blanket bomb the enemy with Poison per the muscular woman's orders, though Mark continued to slip in the occasional Sleep spell in other areas to help out.

Cannons were Alexandria's main means of long ranged attack, but with such a small walled keep, they lacked them and were forced to rely on arrows, they weren't brilliant archers, but they were decent enough, pity his little brother wasn't here, he was an annoyingly good shot with a bow and arrow, got a bull's-eye every damn time. He on the other hand was annoyingly terrible at it, if you didn't count throwing small sharp pieces of metal as long ranged skill.

It continued for another hour until all but one was dead, it was strangely dressed, and far back enough that none could hit it. It watched passively, showing no fear or concern, much like its dead allies.

'Something isn't right, they way they fought, this one's confidence, this odd feeling of pressure...' a sense of dead filled him, something had felt in decades. Somehow his life was still in mortal danger.

"Question," he whispered. "Can I view the name bar of this distant Goblin?"

'Game Alert: It is not a Goblin, and yes the stats can be viewed at a distance.' A small bar appeared in front of his eyes.

Necromancer Hobgoblin

Level: 50

Status Ailment: Berserk

"Oh you have got to be kidding me!" Mark growled.

"What's wrong?" one of the magic users asked.

"It's a Brahne damned Necromancer!" he replied. This was bad, those Goblins were dead from the start, that would explain their ruthless, reckless charges, and mindless lack of fear. It would explain why he hadn't levelled up a lot, even with shared EXP, he had contributed to many kills with his magic. The one he fought early must have been a scout, kept alive to be able to act independently. The Hobgoblin would revive them soon, Mark wanted to charge in and kill it, but at level fifty, it was ten times as strong as him, even Emilia would be killed in a few direct hits, he however and most of the others, would die in one hit. Only Beatrix could win against this thing.

He ran to Emilia, who too was observing the Hobgoblin with confusion. "Emilia! It's a necromancer!" he yelled.

"What?" she demanded, turning to face him.

"It's a level 50 necromancer, we need to send for reinforcements, we need Beatrix."

"Level 50?" she replied, looking unsettled, good, so they did know themselves about the levelling system, he had wondered. But her face soured at the mention of Beatrix, given her strong physique, she likely hated not being the best fighter, losing out to someone of an almost petite physique like Beatrix, likely hurt Emilia's pride. "Wait, how would you know that?" her gaze suspicious.

"I can use the spell Scan," Mark lied easily. "I was puzzled by its appearance and actions, and used it to confirm my fears...that it was strong."

"Shit..."

"Yeah, any moment now it will bring them back, we need someone to head to the city and request the general and any available forces to come here, do we have any horses?"

"A few that could handle hard riding, are you volunteering?" she asked.

"As much as I'd like to run, I've never rode a horse before, and it needs to be someone strong in case they are followed," Mark replied.

"CAST: HOARD LIFE!" bellowed a guttural voice, they focused on the Hobgoblin, it's staff raised, body surrounded in black, pulsating magic.

"It can talk?"

"Oh, this is not good," the blackness stretched out over the battlefield, slowly the Goblins struggled to their feet. An army of one hundred, once again stood ready to kill them. They had used up a lot of arrows, all the magic users apart from Mark used up all their MP, and he was down to less than half, and that was after being given an Ether.

"Here we go again..." Mark growled. Once they ran out of arrows and magic, they could probably scale the walls or at least begin battering down the gate. "We need to get someone to go now!"

Would this be the end of them? Wait until next time to find out.

CHAPTER END

Next Chapter: Fetch the General, stay alive!

Sorry for the slow update, I was computer was broken for two weeks, which sucked so much!

Until next time!