The World Dragon's Heir

The next morning started predictably, far too early in the morning, but not because they were feeling energetic. Instead, the family woke up to one of the neighbours ringing the alarm bell, signalling that monsters had made it past the forest and were in the fields.

Wiz had been so excited last night that he had slept in his armour, and the banging of him getting out of bed woke Dominic, who was sleeping on a futon cushion near the fireplace in the main room.

"Get up, they need us out there. None of the nearby farms have fighters at them, they’re all younger families." He insisted.

"Alright, I’m getting up, just give me a minute." Dominic sighed, then pulled his robes over his head and began working on equipping his armour.

His own armour was Uncommon Quality, the same as Wiz’s, but it had all formed with a small amount of [Spell Haste] and [Spell Damage] thanks to the Swiftness Forge Rune that he had learned and a bit of luck. If it had been all mana on hit, he likely would have traded it to Bella and tried again when he got home, as his primary attack didn’t burn through his mana pool at all.

Eventually, he would get a gem or a Magitech Orb that would give him a regularly used spell that needed mana, but that day hadn’t come yet, so Dominic was still working with what he had been born with.

It didn’t take them long to get ready, with Bella helping Dominic and Dominic fastening Bella’s armour buckles. The warning bells were still ringing when they burst out the door, chasing after Wiz, who was already running toward the next farm out toward the forest.

"Damn, that boy can run." Dominic complained, wishing that his dragon side had given him supernatural strength and endurance instead of catlike agility and a pretty face.

Especially the face. That had gotten him into more dangerous situations than anything else, even more often than his hobby of digging through damaged and malfunctioning magitech parts looking for treasure.

They only caught up when Wiz crashed into combat with a Hobgoblin. Literally crashed, as he put his shoulder down behind his shield and his sword forward to impale the creature and throw him backward away from a terrified farmer who was holding a broken pitchfork.

As far as weapons go, the pitchfork was severely underrated in Dominic’s opinion. It was long and pointy, with multiple spines to seek out weak points in the opponent’s defence. You could certainly pick a worse tool for the job.

The major concern was how a Hobgoblin had gotten past the guard patrols. They weren’t small enough to hide in the grass, so someone should have seen him coming. But the guards from the town were still on their way here, as they had only left when the warning bell was rung.

Then Dominic reached the peak of a small hill and realized the truth. It wasn’t just the Hobgoblin, there was an entire raiding party in the fields. Dozens of Goblins, a total of three Hobgoblins, and one Shaman.

That was far more than any farmer could be realistically expected to fight off. Even if they had money for proper weapons, it would go to improvements to their farm or their farming skills, not to combat equipment. Even Terry didn’t ask for any combat equipment for himself, only replacements for his combat - loving Crusader son, who had chosen to take up the sword instead of becoming someone’s burly farm husband.

The first Hobgoblin was in a bad spot, being both shorter and less violent than the Crusader, who was hacking the creature apart as it bled out from the initial wound to its chest. The roar of the Hobgoblin’s companions echoed through the fields as the attackers gave up their pretense of stealth, and the other Hobgoblins moved to surround Wiz.

Their smaller kinsfolk split up, attacking the farmers and trying to charge Bella, whose new pistol was picking them off faster than they could decide if they were going to fight or run away.

"This thing is amazing." She shouted, then fell to the ground to let a flurry of Goblin arrows fly over her head.

"Glad you like it." Dominic called back as he finally reached the battle.

The Shaman was hiding in the back, casting some sort of spell that had his staff, a gnarled oak branch, crackling with lightning.

The creature’s strange feathered headdress came into clear focus as Dominic drew on the magic in his body, letting it flow through his eyes and channel an [Arcane Blast] directly into the Shaman’s face.

The Lightning spell faltered for an instant as the vile creature’s face was scorched, but a single spell wasn’t enough to take it out, even with the help of his newly enhanced equipment.

If he had a higher level Enhancement Core socketed into his gear, his innate magic surely would have been enough to take out the Shaman, but there hadn’t been time to do it before the Goblins had attacked.

Attunement took some time, and he would have to finish fitting it into the armour as well.

But most importantly, he would need monster cores to level it up. Unlike the Trade Skill cores, the Enhancement Gems and Magitech Orbs wouldn’t level up on their own, unless you had some cool special ability, or another magitech item that would allow them to.

The Goblin’s Lightning Magic came to a crescendo, and a single bolt of lightning streaked down from the sky, hitting the house and lighting the thatch roof on fire.

[All that effort and he targeted the house?] Dominic wondered.

But then he realized that it was actually a brilliant plan on behalf of the Goblins, as two women, an elderly man and nine children came running out of the burning house, where a swarm of Goblins was charging toward them.

"Bella, the house." Dominic called as he ran toward the farmyard and prepared another spell.

The lightning began to charge again, Dominic could feel it on his skin, pulling his attention away from the Goblins as he ran toward the children. A shift of his attention and the second [Arcane Blast] hit the Shaman square in the chest, dropping it to the ground dead, but the distraction left Dominic far too close to a packed swarm of Goblins, without time to cast another spell, and only a dagger in his hand. free𝑤ebnovel.com

His advance was stalled as he swayed to avoid a filthy goblin blade, then lunged forward to drive his dagger through the creature’s throat. That was one down, and Dominic skidded to a stop between the children and the Goblins, giving himself time to get his sabre out of his storage cube.

They were all clustered together, headed for the same target, and when his fiery breath spread out, burning through his throat and scorching his lips, the entire pack of them was engulfed in Dragon Flames, a sticky magical fire that was incredibly difficult to put out without large amounts of water.

Then Bella was beside him, cycling her new revolver at a rate as fast as both of her other pistols combined, dropping the burning goblins like targets at a carnival.

Dominic was fairly sure that you could operate that weapon one-handed, but the fancy thing she was doing with her other hand to cycle the weapon seemed to be helping to increase her firing speed by quite a bit.

"Can I get a little help over here?" Wiz yelled out as he fought off two Hobgoblins at once.

Dominic and Bella shared a smile before they turned their attention on the last attackers. Three rapid fire bullets and an Arcane Blast took one of them in the back, and it swayed on its feet, already dead but not quite bright enough to have realized it yet.

Wiz kicked it over backward and raised his shield to fend off the final attacker.

"Thanks for that. If we can get them all down before the guards get here, we get a small bonus for the defence." Wiz laughed as his oversized blade chopped an arm off the Hobgoblin at the same time that a single round from Bella’s pistol hit its temple, splattering green Goblin blood everywhere.

"And the bonus is ours." Bella agreed.