"Let's go," Oliver said. Verdant didn't move until he said those words. The priest seemed to trust him implicitly when it came to matters of the battlefield. He was likely one of the strangest men that Oliver had ever met – how could you trust anyone so completely without having a mountain of proof that they were right?
Of course, Oliver had shown him that he could swing a sword, but Oliver didn't think he'd done anything to show Verdant that he knew what he was talking about. In fact, Oliver was sure he didn't. He was only a little stronger than the rest of them. That was strength, though. It didn't necessarily mean he would be a good teacher, and yet here he was, training five people.
What would Dominus say seeing that? It was hard to picture. He probably wouldn't say much… Though, Dominus himself hadn't taught anyone until he'd taught Beam, so maybe he'd encourage it.
There were too many doubts to deal with, and something as savage as a Hobgoblin was not want to wait for him to clear them up. They burst back into the clearing with the Hobgoblin hot on their tails.
Oliver came to a screeching halt, pinning the Hobgoblin in place, and deflecting the attack of its club with his sword. The others had paused their process of butchering when they saw the Hobgoblin come running in. Most of them were on their feet now, and Blackthorn had already drawn her sword.
Oliver wasn't going to force them to keep working whilst the Hobgoblin was there, but he decided to at least keep it far away enough so that working was still an option, should they be brave enough to do so.
"Ready, Verdant?" Oliver asked, ducking his head out of the way as the club came for him again. He'd taken the full aggression of the beast. Its entire focus was on him right now, giving Verdant whatever time he needed to prepare himself.
"As ready as I imagine I will ever be, my liege!" Verdant shouted back, above the roar of the Hobgoblin.
"Go, then!" Oliver said, jumping back, as Verdant came rushing in, praying that the beast would have the sense to turn its attention away from him. Some of them – he'd noticed – could get so enraged that they'd even ignore attacks to their side all in pursuit of one foe.
This one didn't make that mistake. It rounded on Verdant as he came nearer, swinging a lengthy club in his direction.
Oliver tensed. This would be the first test for the priest. In order to defeat the Hobgoblin he had to find some way of dealing with a strike from the club, without ruining his momentum.
Verdant paused, before throwing himself into the snow, ducking underneath it. Oliver breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't the best dodge, because it was hard to build an attack from the position that he was in, but at least he'd survived the first wave.
He was back on his feet, and the priest seemed to realize the same thing. It would be an endless case of eternal harassment if he just chose to dodge under every blow that came near him.
When the second strike came, Verdant tried something different. He looked like he was about to attempt to jump over it – ridiculously – but he changed his mind at the last second, and instead attempted to parry it with two hands on his short spear.
"Gah…" Oliver freed his sword from hip. Indeed, Verdant had managed to block the club, just as he'd intended to… but he hadn't managed to stop the force of it. It carried him thoroughly off his feet, and sent him flying a distance away.
If not for the strength that the Bohemothia's blessing had given his arms, they likely would have shattered. He landed with a plop in the soft snow, as the Hobgoblin went hurtling after him.
Oliver rushed to follow, just in case the priest couldn't recover in time. He'd quickly learned why Verdant had been reluctant to say anything positive about his martial skill – the priest's battle instincts were virtually non-existent. In fact, the instincts that he had, the things that he tried to do, they were the very sort of things that were liable to get him killed.
The priest stood up quickly, just before the Hobgoblin arrived.
His short spear was up over his shoulder. Oliver's eyes widened in surprise, at the same time that the Hobgoblin's did. With a powerful throw, like a bolt from the blue, Verdant's spear blasted through the tiny distance between him and the Hobgoblin – only five paces at most – and punched its way straight through its next, killing it.
It was hard to think of the right words to greet such a sudden kill. From the emotionless expression on Verdant's face, as he unceremoniously pulled the spear out from the throat of the Hobgoblin, the man himself thought nothing of it.
But regardless of how he'd killed it, that was a Hobgoblin. A beast that had wounded Oliver more than once. Even if the way he'd killed it was rather unceremonious and ungraceful, it still had worked. Whether it would work again in future was another matter…
"You were right, my liege," Verdant said. "It seems that I am capable of slaying even such a savage beast. The Blessing of Bohemothia is a wonderous thing."
"Uhh… Yeah," Oliver said, still pretty much speechless. "…Good work."
With the two Hobgoblins tended to, their organs gutted and bagged, along with their fingers and toes, the party set out once more, in search of truer prey. Oliver found his heart pounding. A good sort of nervousness. A foe that he'd never encountered before. Just an honest competition – a true battle. He lacked those in his life as of late.
With the loot that they'd gathered – the equivalent of a couple of sacks full, which the three new retainers easily carried slung over their shoulders – Oliver hoped that his finances would once again be put into a more positive position. It certainly felt good to have the extra hands.
Only Kaya and Karesh were needed to carry them as of yet – since only two of the waxed sacks had been filled – with Kaya and Jorah swapping every now and then, to keep themselves fresh. Karesh insisted that he was fine to carry it the whole way.