Walking through the forest, every adventurer was ready to fight.
But there were no goblins nearby. An hour had passed or so and no one met anything. Could it be because of Simon's Goblin?
Right now, Helga was deep in thought as she moved forward with the other adventurers. She knew she wouldn't be able to react instantly if danger struck, but being near the center of the group reassured her. But since she was approximately at the center of the party she knew that it wouldn't be a problem.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a light tap on her shoulder.
Knowing it couldn't be a monster she slowly moved her sight to the left, instantly recognizing who had called for her.
She saw the blond-ash guy who had answered some of her doubts yesterday.
"Yo, you are here too? Well honestly I should have expected that" he said
Not expecting anyone to talk with her, except the party leader, she was a bit stunned, shyness was a part of her after all. Shaking her, head she answered.
"Well I couldn't have said the same for you"
A light laugh came out of his mouth.
"To be honest I was a bit reluctant, but the party leader is right, I do have a reason to be here too" he said, a small smile appeared on his face after his last words.
Indeed, he was right. The party leader's speech had inspired many people. It wasn't well-prepared, nor was it particularly good—but it had come from the heart, and everyone knew it. But those words came within his heart and that was known by anyone.
"I guess you are right" she said
…
An awkward moment of silence fell, but it wasn't for long.
"You know, I just thought that i never asked for your name" he said
And he was right, even though this was their second conversation they haven't known each other's name yet.
"It's Helga"
"Well, nice to know something about you besides the fact that you live in a cave," he said, using that joke again.
And it worked, a little laugh came out of Helga's mouth.
"Oh and I'm Andrew, nice to meet you Helga" he said with a gentle smile
"Where is your friend? I saw him coming with you but I can't see him now" Helga said, watching her surroundings.
"You mean Bram? He probably met someone he's familiar with, gosh that man really knows everybody" he said, not caring much where his friend was just as if it was a common thing.
"I see"
"I wanted to ask, but are you alone?" fixing his gaze to her direction, watching with a bit of confusion in his eyes
"Yeah… I arrived in this village only yesterday" she said
Understanding that she probably wasn't good at socializing he decided to scoff his previous question and tried to help her.
"Do you want to stay with us? I mean Bram is pretty invasive sometimes" he said, and wanting to add another joke he continued "and I know that it will be tough to stay in a party with me since I'm the greatest" deciding to move his hair to the side for the sake of the act.
But his expression betrayed him, Andrew's attempt of not laughing was quite bad.
Helga laughed a bit and tried to cover her mouth, however unlike Andrew it wasn't her mouth that betrayed her, but her eyes.
Seems like his stupid joke helped her relax, she wasn't used to talking to people that casually.
The answer was quite expected, surely being in a party would be better to stay alone, indeed with this her chance of surviving amplified, even if it's just a small change.
After a few hours, all of the adventurers decided to stop and set up camp for the night. Even if all of them were together only by words, in reality everyone was on their own or with their parties, so deciding to continue was an option, but wandering around a forest at night time wouldn't be productive, it would only be a risk, and a stupid one.
Strange was that no one encountered any goblins. Even after hours of traveling through the forest toward Simon's Goblin's location, they had encountered nothing. It was strange… incredibly so, within the heart of some experienced adventurers something was wrong. After all they were going on for a full daytime, could it be due to Simon's Goblin? Who knows…
But one thing was sure, if it's due to that goblin, they are going to find it out one way or another.
Next to a fire Helga, Bram and Andrew were talking to each other, or more like Bram and Andrew were talking while Helga was just nodding sometimes and saying just small answers when it was needed while listening to their conversation.
Helga understood some important things during this talk, first off it's about their weapons, she was indeed correct about Bram, since he is the tank of the group, while Andrew is like her since he uses a sword. She also learned about some of the battle tactics they often used.
Nothing much happened after that, except the complete disappearance of any goblin in the forest, which is bizarre since in this forest there are only those and other types of goblins such as orcs which are indeed a lot stronger but more rare to encounter.
Everyone already realized that something was off but there was nothing much they could do.
Tomorrow is the day they would theoretically meet Simon's Goblin, which only increased the fear of some adventurers, while others were stupidly confident of winning, thinking that they could do something the ones before them couldn't.
But now there's no way back, even if running away back to the village was still a choice available, no one dared to. For them the only choice was to move forward and win against a monster who terrorized the remainder of mankind years ago.
As the sun rose everyone woke up and knew about the enemy they would meet sooner or later that day…