Episode 12: VS Hobgoblin

Chased by the Hobgoblin along with the woman I rescued, I had no choice but to fight. I managed to lure him to a place easier to fight in, but in terms of ability, the Hobgoblin seems overwhelmingly superior.

As the Hobgoblin closed in with his sword, I launched a preemptive strike, firing several “finger flicks” while simultaneously throwing a stone. The finger flicks were merely a distraction; the thrown stone was the real attack. If acting on sight alone, dodging a stone flying through a forest almost untouched by moonlight should be difficult.

However, his eyes glinted sharply, and he easily dodged the finger flicks with Telekinesis and diverted the trajectory of the incoming stone. Without slowing down, he charged straight toward me. It seems he has night vision as well.

As expected of a ruler holding territory in this forest, he must have honed his skills fighting the beasts here thoroughly. His body is small, but his arms and legs, built of bulging muscle, are thick as logs.

Using the momentum of his charge, he swung his sword wide, slashing down from overhead. I couldn’t tell if it was accelerated by Telekinesis or just sheer brute strength, but the speed of the sword tip was abnormally fast, making it difficult to track. Because the swing was large, I could predict the general trajectory and dodge, but it was still a razor-thin margin.

His downward swing smashed deeply into the ground with its momentum. Yanking it out with brute force, he readied it high overhead again and slashed down. This guy is definitely a Goblin. He can use Telekinesis and has incredible strength, but his intelligence is low, and his brain is overwhelmingly weak!

At first, I thought he was seriously dangerous because he had a sword, but he has no sword technique whatsoever. He’s just gripping it because the handle fits his hand, repeating the same overhead attack like a fool.

Probably, his strength is so great that wooden or stone clubs and spears break immediately, rendering them useless. Just seeing how he uses the sword buried in the ground tells me that. His overhead attack is likely because he saw a swordsman fighting him use their height advantage to attack a short Goblin from above, leading him to believe that’s how a sword is used. He has absolutely no ability to adapt.

Still, the sword speed is abnormally fast, so even a graze would shred my flesh. Naturally, he hasn’t maintained the sword, so it’s rusty and dull. In a sense, it feels scarier than being cut by a sharp blade. I’m barely dodging, but one wrong move and it’s over.

I fire finger flicks while dodging his attacks. Dodging the sword takes everything I have, so that’s the only counterattack I can manage. However, I realized something from this.

He seems unable to use Telekinesis to dodge my attacks while attacking himself. If his consciousness is focused on attacking, he can’t use Telekinesis for defense. His low intelligence shows here too.

The finger flicks aren’t powerful, but getting hit in the face repeatedly is visibly irritating him.

“Gaaaaaaahhh!!!”

Roaring loudly, he swings the sword with even larger motions. While dodging, I slowly retreat, luring him. He can only see me now; he has no room to look around.

And beautifully, he fell into the trap. Timing it with his step forward to swing down, I dropped and slid under a tree leaning against another. His sword slashed into the tree, burying itself deep.

He frantically tried to pull it out, but his excessive strength combined with the brittleness of the rusty sword caused it to snap. After a moment of surprise, he angrily threw the sword hilt at me.

Dodging the hilt, I seized the momentary opening and slammed my club into his flank with all my might. The club digging into his side conveyed the sensation of breaking ribs as it sent him flying. He rolled across the ground and slammed into a tree.

It should have been a considerable impact, but as expected, his muscle armor isn’t just for show; staggering, he stood up. I didn’t think he’d die, but I honestly didn’t expect him to stand up immediately, so I was surprised.

The sensation just now suggested a collapsed or punctured lung, but his toughness is a threat. The impact snapped my club in two. Creatures in this world seem built much sturdier than Earth’s creatures, or rather, it’s eerie how they try to continue fighting even when wounded.

Don’t they have the thought to run away? Is it because they are fantasy world creatures?

Whatever, he definitely took damage. Moreover, he is now bare-handed, while I still have my whip and stones. I approached him as he wobbled and threw a stone from point-blank range. But just before impact, his eyes glowed, and the stone changed trajectory, flying behind him.

His Telekinesis really is powerful. He easily dodged a point-blank throw that the boar-pseudo couldn’t. Until now, I thought larger bodies meant stronger Telekinesis, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Goblins have some intelligence; maybe that influences it?

“Gugoooooooohhh!!!”

His movement stopped, and he struck a pose like a bodybuilder gathering strength in his whole body, letting out a roar. His eye color seemed to change, and for just an instant, he appeared to emit a faint, mist-like light from his entire body.

What?

Immediately after, he charged at tremendous speed. Unable to react, I took his tackle head-on and was blown away, slamming my body against a tree behind me.

Gof!!!

I think several ribs broke from that impact. Intense pain ran through my whole body. But thanks to that, I didn’t lose consciousness. Stars flickered before my eyes, and I nearly blacked out, but I somehow held on.

He charged again without pause, but I instinctively swung my whip to counter. Because it was a whip from an awkward posture, the speed and power weren’t much, but a sharp crack of tearing air rang out.

Then, the Hobgoblin froze for an instant, then instantly Air Walked sideways. He barely avoided the whip attack, but it felt more like luck than a dodge.

He stared at the whip in my hand as if surprised. From that reaction, it’s clear he knows about the pseudo-croc.

But more than that, when he slid sideways, I felt like I saw or sensed something like a magnetic field for an instant. That bothered me greatly.

What was that just now?

I saw or sensed the mist-like light emitted from his body earlier changing into a pattern like iron filings approaching a magnet. I feel like the space surrounding him is forming some kind of Field.

What is this?

It’s a strange sensation. A sensation I never felt when I was in Takanashi’s original body. It feels different from an atmosphere like killing intent. The back of my neck throbs and itches.

Could this be the sense that perceives Telekinesis?

I stood up and swung the whip, making the sonic boom crack to intimidate him. He probably had a painful experience with a pseudo-croc’s tail. He was visibly cautious and wouldn’t approach. As expected, the supersonic speed of the whip is faster than movement accelerated by Telekinesis, so dodging it isn’t easy.

For a while, the stalemate continued as we glared at each other. Since we both have broken ribs, the next one to take damage will likely be fatal.

I concentrated my consciousness on the back of my neck to probe the nature of the sensation. Sharpening my senses, I could understand—how do I put it—like the planet’s magnetic field and the magnetic-field-like things emitted by me and the Hobgoblin were interfering with each other.

Like understanding the source of a distant sound when straining ears, distinguishing subtle differences when smelling, or knowing texture differences when touching—I could understand the difference between myself and the surrounding Field in that way.

Now, he is trying to initiate something. The Field around him changes, and a sensation like energy compressing is transmitted. Force capable of twisting space gathers with tremendous momentum. For just an instant, the density on his left side was released explosively.

His body blurred to the left, leaving an afterimage. Following my sensation, I swung the whip.

CRAAAACK!!!

The sound of air bursting echoed, and the whip tip caught his leg diagonally above me.

“Gyaaaaaahhh!!!”

The top of his foot tore open widely, he lost his balance, and fell to the ground. He rolled around on the ground in pain.

It was a close call. He was trying to approach by moving at high speed through the air from diagonally above left to attack. If I hadn’t trusted my senses and swung the whip, my corpse might be lying there right now. If I didn’t have a whip that could match his speed, I would have been out.

But the battle isn’t over yet. He quickly regained his stance after rolling on the ground, showing his will to fight. The beasts—or animals—of this world are truly troublesome. Once they start fighting, they don’t stop until death.

What the hell is this! I even feel like they are programmed that way, overriding self-preservation instincts. It’s closer to horror than fantasy beasts.

I moved forward while intimidating him with the whip, intending to take him down. Thinking close combat was disadvantageous, he retreated backward as if flying. Then, he threw tree branches and stones lying around at me.

At first glance, it looks like desperate action, but they fly curving at tremendous speed, making them hard to track and dodge. As expected of someone who can Space Move his own body, the curves on light objects are sharp. They sometimes come from directly above or the side.

The saving grace is that they come singly, not in multiples. However, since they come without pause, chances to counterattack rarely come.

While dodging the incoming branches and stones, I carefully observed their movements. Trying to probe the movement not with eyes but with sensation, I felt the changes in the Field as expected. When he throws things, he seems to decide where to curve them to some extent, drawing the trajectory beforehand. Though he seems to be doing it unconsciously. Thanks to that, if I concentrated, I could read the trajectory ahead.

When he threw a stone, I swung the whip at the curving point. Since it’s a small stone, I didn’t just swing; I snapped the whip willing it to hit. However, catching a stone flying at high speed is difficult, and the whip tip passed just in front of the stone. Since the whip missed, I thought the stone would hit me, but it narrowly avoided me and flew behind.

Relieved, I understood simultaneously that adding will was good. Naturally, I can’t track the movement of the whip tip, but I felt the Fields interfere with each other.

The Field he created to curve the stone and the movement of the whip carrying my will—that is, the Field I created—interfered, disturbing the space. Because of that, the stone veered off its original trajectory.

Come to think of it, dodging the stone axe he threw first by a hair was also because I was able to disturb the Field he created with my will. Avoiding the falling leeches and flying bees was also because I disturbed the space with a Field.

A Field is the force itself that affects space and objects. Will is the Field created by consciousness.

In other words, Telekinesis is nothing other than the power to affect space and objects through consciousness.

It might seem late to realize, but knowing it as knowledge and recognizing it as actual sensation are vastly different. Just because you have knowledge of F1 doesn’t mean you can actually drive a formula car in a race. There is an unbridgeable gap between knowledge and practice. Furthermore, in the world I came from, Telekinesis was a fantasy power.

Understanding the concepts of Field and Will as a reality, I use the whip charged with will to change the trajectories of the branches and stones he throws. Even before the thrown object changes course, interfering with the trajectory he drew allowed me to avoid it.

Crushing the trajectories of his thrown objects one after another, I swung the whip and advanced forward. He retreated in panic, but the tangled trees cut off his retreat. Moreover, he finally ran out of things to throw around him.

I seized this chance to rush forward and swing the whip. However, he dodged the whip, tore off a tree branch with brute force, and swung it to attack. What outrageous strength!

The branch was 4-5 meters long, with many twigs and leaves, looking like a bamboo broom with a spread tip. I hurriedly retreated and barely dodged, but the whip got tangled.

This seemed unexpected for him too, but the chance flowed to him. Grabbing the whip, he discarded the tree branch and grinned. Thinking this is bad, I racked my brain on how to escape the whip attack.

But he messed up. He whipped himself in a way common to amateurs who don’t know whips. He was swinging the whip sideways with brute force, but tried to swing it down vertically to hit me after pulling it back. If he had just swung it sideways, it would have been fine, but by making it vertical, the trajectory of the whip tip changed, striking the back of his own head and back hard. It’s an amateur mistake. I messed up like that at first too.

“Gyaaaaaahhh!!!”

He let go of the whip and rolled on the ground. Because he swung with all his strength, the power was immense; flesh was torn open deeply from his back to the back of his head. I survived thanks to the Hobgoblin’s low intelligence.

I approached the rolling Hobgoblin, quietly picked up the whip, distanced myself, and whipped him repeatedly to beat him down. Entering the range of his limbs is dangerous. Even gasping in pain, his strength is a threat, so I attacked while being careful not to be grabbed or kicked.

Perhaps lacking the composure to use will, he screamed as he took the hits. Leg flesh tore, belly flesh was gouged, and his body was shredded every time the whip roared. Eventually, he stopped screaming, and by the time bones and internal organs became visible, he stopped moving.

He seemed dead, but just to be sure, I picked up the tree branch he had swung, swung the thick part down with all my might, and smashed his head. His head was completely crushed, brains spilling out. It was disgusting to watch, but now he is definitely dead.

At this moment, for an instant, something like a black mist escaped his body and vanished. What is that, a spirit or something? I saw it when I defeated the pseudo-panther and pseudo-boar too; is it related to will?

I don’t know, but flipping his body over and sticking my finger into the torn nape, I felt something hard and pulled it out. As expected, it was a hardened gem-like object. It felt a size smaller than the pseudo-panther’s. It was dark so I couldn’t tell the color, but it felt somewhat greenish.

Anyway. I managed to defeat the Hobgoblin. The end was like him self-destructing, but a win is a win, even if lucky. Honestly, I wonder how I won, but deepening my understanding of Telekinesis was a stroke of luck. Thanks to that, I found a way out. I managed to survive.

The Goblins watching from a distance scattered like baby spiders when their leader, the Hobgoblin, died. I’ll kill them as soon as I find them later. Considering their treatment of the woman, I can’t just leave them be.

Right now, I’m injured and tired too, and above all, I’m worried about the rescued woman. I headed to the place where I left her.