"Hero, Hero!"

"Hero, this weak?"

"Hero, this slow?"

"Can't even catch us!"

After insulting the Hero with venomous words, the strange creatures chortled with a vile laughter. They were roughly the height of a child, but their heads were far bigger than a child's head, their faces unbelievably ugly, their noses long and crooked enough to go in front of their mouths filled with razor-sharp teeth and, most notably, their skin was a sickening shade of green. Their eyes were entirely brown, from the pupils to the eyewhites, and one could tell at a glance these creatures were 'cursed' by Gnome. These were High Goblins, a race of Demon which was in a sense an alternate evolution path from the standard Hobgoblin. Unlike the Hobgoblin, a High Goblin looked the exact same as a regular Goblin, but their physical abilities were scores higher, particularly their speed and agility.

"Just die already, you little-", the Hero grunted, swinging his sword and missing for the twentieth time in a row. His forehead was covered in sweat, as was the rest of his body, and the odour coming from his body was unpleasant and could be smelled metres away.

"Kahahahaha!", the High Goblins laughed, pointing their dirty fingers and holding their stomachs. One of them took his rusty, bent sword from the makeshift sheath made from the whole skin of some forest creature he had caught and made a jump for the Hero's back, attempting to slash him. The Hero blocked the attack by forcefully twisting his body and holding up his own sword, but this forced posture left him open to attack from other sources, and another of the High Goblins rushed for this opportunity, setting his teeth into the Hero's now-exposed back.

"Gah!", the Hero cried out, shuddering. There was no pain due to Lady Luciel's blessing, but the feeling was still deeply unpleasant, so he shook heavily in an attempt to get the High Goblin off his back. After shaking like this, fruitlessly, for a few seconds, he attempted to thrust his sword in the High Goblin's direction, and managed to scratch the Monster before the High Goblin jumped off.

"Gyaaaah!", the High Goblin exaggeratedly cried out in pain, even though the scratch was only a surface wound. High Goblins were the evolved forms of Goblins which happened to be born swiftly, after all, so it was likely he had been wounded not once his entire life.

"Don't like that, do you, brats?! Well, get ready for a world of pain, you bastard!", the Hero cried out. They were not lines suited for an ally of justice, but it did not seem like he cared anymore as he snapped the fingers of his left hand, crying out "[Holy Sword's Exorcism]!" with an angry scowl on his face.

The High Goblin's scream raised in volume as the scratch expanded in size to a cut and then a gash, while faintly radiating light. The next moment, the gash had spread across the entire Demon's body, and he shrieked in pain as he fell to the ground, his body covered in blood.

The other High Goblins, meanwhile, looked on in horror, and after a few seconds, they once again started screeching out with their raspy voices:

"Hero, weak!"

"But skills, strong!"

"Don't get hit, don't get hit!"

The High Goblins again started to run around the Hero in circles, and this time, they seemed to put more of their energy into avoiding his attacks.

"How do you like that, you little shits?!", the Hero shouted, slashing left and right without any kind of strategy. Of course, the chances of these berserk slashes actually hitting a speed-focused target were as good as nil.

"Hero, dumb!"

"Hero, berserk!"

"Hero, musclehead!"

The High Goblins' screechy voices stung the Hero in his heart, and even more enraged than before, his speed increased and, by some manner of miracle, he actually managed to scratch one of them.

"I've got you now! [Holy Sword's Exorcism]!", he bellowed, and the High Goblin shrieked out in agony as the cut expanded until he dropped like a puppet whose strings have been cut, covered in his own blood.

"Hahaha! Let's see how you react to that!", he laughed with a distinctly villainous laugh. In this world, this sort of person passed for a 'hero'.

"Calm down, Reynald! You're losing your rationality!", a voice shouted from the side. This voice belonged to another, female Hero.

A faint blush worked its way onto Reynald's cheeks as he responded, "Sorry, Ebstrea! You're right, I should calm down." Taking a deep breath, he briefly closed his eyes, mapping out the terrain around him in his mind.

Ebstrea lifted her staff, gathering light around its tip, before pointing it at Reynald and shouting "[Reinforcement of the senses]!", causing a beam of light to shoot out and strike Reynald square in the chest.

"There!", he shouted, stabbing a High Goblin right as it charged at him. Unluckily for him, however, the High Goblin was right behind him, so in the process, he'd twisted his upper body over 90 degrees. It wasn't painful, but it did create an opening a High Goblin used to throw a rock at the back of his head. Although their physical strength couldn't be compared to Ogres, Orcs or even Hobgoblins, High Goblins were by no measure weak, and the stone hit him with a formidable impact.

"Ah- What... Can't...", he muttered, before collapsing due to the massive wound in the back of his head.

"Kahahaha!", the High Goblins laughed in a way similar to how they had before, but several volumes louder. One ran over, picked the stone back up- it seemed to be about 15 centimetres in diameter- and held it above his head, readying himself to bring it down and deal the finishing blow, when he was interrupted by a voice from the side.

"[Exorcising Beam]!", Ebstrea shouted, pointing her staff at the High Goblin. As the name of the spell implied, a beam of bright light shot out and pierced the High Goblin's body, after which the wound gradually expanded as the High Goblin shrieked in pain.

"Other Hero!"

"Dangerous, dangerous!"

"Kill quick, kill quick!"

Ebstrea panicked a little in response to the High Goblins' merciless decision-making, but soon resolved herself, swinging her staff to summon several balls of light.

"[Lances of light]!", she shouted, and the balls changed shape, essentially taking the form of spears or arrows, before they launched themselves at the High Goblins. Ebstrea's aim seemed to have been perfect, as the High Goblins were all pierced right through the heart and breathed their last breaths right then and there. Ebstrea was then forced to place her staff on the ground, leaning on it, as she fell to her knees, breathing heavily. Crawling, she made her way over to Reynald before casting [Minor Recovery] on him to close the wound. This spell would not recover lost blood or vitality, but it was better than nothing. She then proceeded to grasp her staff and hit Reynald square in the head, upon which he slowly regained consciousness with a groan.

"If you're waking me up, then... You got them?", he asked, still feeling slightly groggy. "Man, why does Lady Luciel leave us Heroes to deal with monster exterminations like this?"

"We're contributing to the peace, and it's training, right?", Ebstrea asked, tilting her head at the line of questioning she'd never considered.

"Training?! Training?! I could've died! I almost did! Thanks for saving me, by the way", Reynald said, awkwardly averting his eyes as he spoke the final words.

"Ah, you're welcome", Ebstrea said, placing her staff back onto the ground and leaning on it once again. "But, isn't it natural that this is dangerous? We're fighting Monsters, after all, so if you don't develop a sense of danger, you might forget this is real."

"Well, I suppose that's true..."

Unknown to them, this was a difference in susceptibility to brainwashing, and they wouldn't find out for some time to come...

"No, no, no!", Gnome's voice sounded. As she stamped on the floor with her right foot, her short brown hair jumped around, and her dark brown eyes glared at an empty space in front of her while her mouth was locked in a pout, distorting her childish dark-skinned face. From the side, she might have looked like a young child throwing a tantrum, and thus, quite endearing. The trembles in her Godly Domain caused by this tantrum, however, were no joke.

"Why is she only targeting my adorable little Goblins?! Even my High Goblins!"

Yes, the Goddess of Earth was throwing a tantrum about the fight that had taken place moments ago, and several others that were taking place at the same time.

"If you continue to send your stupid Heroes that way, Luciel, you'll find my Goblin Village!"

This village, despite being named this way, did not contain only Goblins: it also contained many of the Goblins' higher evolutions, such as Ogres, Orcs and even Trolls.

"You, you faker, you! You dare mess with my precious, cute little Monsters?! You'll pay for this! Let's see, let's see... Ah, I know! I'll ask Lady Entropy for help!"

Thinking nothing of her own complete difference in respect for Luciel and Entropy, Gnome decided she'd ask Entropy for help, and set about contacting her.

"Ahaha~ I wonder why Lady Entropy needed my power~? That was a strong monster, too~", Undine's voice sounded in her domain in an almost sing-songy tone.

"Well then, let's monitor the new Ice Statue properly, shall we~?", she asked no one in particular while looking at Richard and the Ice Queen through a mental connection.

"A-ha, this should be interesting~"

On her face was a very amused smile, and her eyes were narrowed happily as she watched...

"Have you gotten used to your powers now, pawn?", the Ice Queen's voice sounded from the location her throat would be, were she not undead.

"Y... Yes, Your Majesty!", Richard responded, his face flushed a darker blue than it had been when he woke up that morning.

"You seem to have a talent for blending in with the background, so I suppose such rapid progress is to be expected... As expected of someone completely irrelevant who's only a background character in the whole scheme, I suppose", the Ice Queen said, the flames which passed for her eyes shining in ridicule, before letting out a chattering which passed for laughter.

"Your... Your words are too kind, Your Majesty!", Richard responded, his face flushing an even darker colour of blue. In truth, these words had been incredibly abusive, probably enough to potentially get someone fired on earth, but Richard truly did not care.

"Then, now that I have pulled out my pawn's full potential as of right now, shall we pay a visit to my liege and see how well he's handled the other? I felt a strong change in the balance, too, so I'm sure he's done something very interesting and potentially quite stupid", she said, once again chattering like only a skull could. At this moment, Astaroth shuddered as he felt an indescribable chill...

'So, I'm turning into a Monster tomorrow, huh?', the golden-eyed girl thought to herself. 'I wonder what a Shadowcaster looks like? Judging from the name and what an Ice Statue looked like, probably something dark? Maybe I'll turn into a moving, living shadow... That'd be creepy! But, miss Tempest and the other Witches look like regular people. I wonder if it'll be more like that?' Completely ignorant to the fact that a Monster's appearance was decided by its Goddess, she theorised, without even considering what the lord of darkness had given as a reason for the delay. Of course, such a thing was unnatural, but she did not notice this, just as the lord's servants simply thought he was a greatly devoted servant of the Goddess for locking himself inside a shrine for an entire day, only opening the door to receive food and offerings. In the face of a Goddess's Aspect, such unnaturalities were only minor inconveniences...