The next day, Beam woke with a start, hearing the forest birds begin their dawn song. He sat upright in panic and looked around, wondering where he was. Breathing a sigh of relief, he recognized Dominus' hut and the surrounding area that he was beginning to grow familiar with.
The events of yesterday came flooding back, and he had to hold a hand to his throbbing head in an attempt to process them. He sat there, shirtless, the wounds from yesterday cleaned and laced with honey to keep out infection. Dominus had made him clean his filthy shirt, saying that wearing that over the top of fresh wounds would only make things worse.
He'd been lucky in the end, despite his numerous injuries. The bite to his shoulder hadn't been that deep, even if it was the most unsightly of the injuries, with a few layers of skin missing.
The wound from the sword hadn't ended up being too bad either. It was a long wound, but it was shallow, only slightly deeper than the bite. Then there were the scratches on his forearm and ears too. All of them had managed to escape the need for stitches, but only barely. Dominus was keeping a close eye on them to make sure they didn't get infected.
"Ah, finally up then, are we?" Dominus asked from his position by the fire, already nursing a cup of tea. "Feeling better after your sleep?"
Beam nodded with a yawn. "I guess yesterday really was real after all, huh?" Beam said. In truth, it was likely the most exciting thing he'd ever achieved - and by his own merit too. Of course, his master had saved his life at the end, but as Dominus had told him when they got back yesterday, 'you completed the quest by yourself – take pride in that.
The matter with the Hobgoblin is something else entirely. Even if you'd had the sense to notice it was there, you would not have been able to defeat it – the best you could have done was run to safety.'
"I should hope so," Dominus said, "otherwise we're both going mad. And just as it is real, the decisions made yesterday will be stuck to. It's become clear to me that there is far more room for me to push you in your swordsmanship and weapons training. You have quite a few more monster-hunting quests – and I would see that you improve before you attempt the next of them."
"What about Hobgoblins?" Beam asked. He couldn't quite get the creature off his mind, for it had been a stain on his otherwise near-perfect victory yesterday and the fact of his defeat to it ate at him far more than he knew it should. "Will I be seeing any more of those on the next few quests?"
"Doubtful," Dominus told him. "HobGoblins are rare beasts. To get one, a pregnant Goblin female needs to be fed a ridiculous quantity of quality food over the course of the pregnancy, and it's rather rare for Goblin nests to hunt successfully enough to be able to do that. I went to destroy the nest, whilst you were busy killing the hunting party and I couldn't find any signs of a second one.
But, it's certainly worth keeping an eye out for them."
"Should that be my swordsmanship test?" Beam asked.
"Well, you've said I need to beat Perth and his two friends in a fight to pass my fighting test at the end of the month – what about my swordsmanship test? Should it be defeating a Hobgoblin?" Beam asked.
Dominus' eyes widened in surprise. The tests weren't designed to be fun, after all. So, to intentionally suggest a test that he knew would be so extraordinarily difficult, that went a long way in demonstrating the true nature of Beam's personality. Dominus laughed. "Hah! You still absolutely despise losing, don't ya lad?
Like I said before, that's not a trait that I hate. It's necessary if you want to stand amongst the best of them, and essential if you want to achieve what no one else has, but, don't go sprinting to an early death just yet. I know I'm setting you hard tests, but going from struggling with one or two Goblins to defeating a Hobgoblin in the space of a few short weeks would be unreasonable. Naw...
Let's avoid that. Instead… Mm… Why don't we keep the Corpse Soldier as your test?"
Beam frowned, more than a little disappointed that his chance to take his vengeance had escaped. "But they're weaker than Hobgoblins, right?"
"Oh, yes, they're weaker, but they're certainly not weak… Let's see, how do I put it in terms that you can understand? Defeating a corpse soldier would mean you're strong enough to face 5 Goblins at once without needing to split them up."
"5 GOBLINS?" Beam blurted, hardly able to believe it. He knew just how strong Goblins were. With each additional Goblin, it was like the strength of the group doubled every single time. 5 Goblins at once was almost incomparable to 2.
Dominus nodded seriously. "They may be called Corpse Soldiers, but their strength is very different from how the soldier was in life. About 1 in 50 soldiers on a battlefield will get inflicted with the Goddess' curse and resurrect as a corpse soldier. Their physical abilities are augmented upon resurrection. They're faster and stronger than they were in life.
But then, only soldiers or people of a somewhat low level can fall prey to the Goddess' curse, so their strength level balances out and as such they're fairly consistently at the strength of about five Goblins working together."