Deadly Battle with the Hobgoblin
I ducked under the hobgoblin’s sloppy diagonal slash and stepped in close, driving a left body hook into its right side.
On a human, that’d be a blow to the liver, a solid rib shot, but I have no idea where a hobgoblin’s organs even are. Still, the ribs looked thinner there, so that’s where I aimed.
Hard. So hard I thought I might break my hand. And it barely did anything.
At close range, the hobgoblin couldn’t use its longsword properly, so it tried to force an attack using the base of the blade.
Because the hobgoblin’s movements were big, they were easy to read and dodge. It was fast, sure, but its initial movement made every attack obvious.
The hobgoblin swung the longsword in a wide arc, trying to cut me down, but I ducked low and slipped under it. As it missed, I lightly placed a hand on its elbow, redirecting its momentum away. And just like that, its guard was wide open.
At this range, getting hit with the pommel would be a lot scarier than the blade. As the hobgoblin overextended and left itself wide open, I drove my knee straight into its groin.
A sickening crunch traveled up from my knee. Didn’t crush anything completely, but it definitely landed.
The hobgoblin doubled over, and I slammed my forehead into its face with all the spring my body could muster.
God, that hurt. Its face was like stone. After the flying knee earlier, this made two solid hits to the nose. The hobgoblin howled, clutching at its face in pain.
To finish the job, I kicked upward again, right at its crotch. There was a wet crunch, followed by a guttural roar that ripped out of its throat.
“RRRAAAUUGHHHH!”
The hobgoblin collapsed, clutching its crotch and groaning in agony.
“Ha!”
I exhaled sharply and jammed my right index finger straight into its left eye.
“GHRRAAAAGHHHH!”
Another harsh, animalistic cry tore through its throat.
One eye down. That gave me a solid advantage, or so I thought, right before the hobgoblin launched an attack I didn’t see coming.
The hobgoblin dropped its weapon and came at me barehanded. It probably realized that in a fight this close, a weapon would just get in the way.
Maybe it was trying to make up for the blind spot from its crushed eye, but it was thrashing even more violently than before.
This wasn’t like its earlier predictable attacks. Even the hobgoblin itself probably had no idea where its blows were going. It was just pure, reckless fury.
Its two arms had become its weapons now. With its erratic gaze and no readable movements, there was no telling what would come next.
One of its wild swings slipped through my defense, and I took a solid hit to the head.
I tried to block with my shoulder at the last second, but it wasn’t enough. The blow sent me flying.
“Gh—damn…”
A ringing filled my ears. The world wobbled and warped, and my skull throbbed. I forced my unsteady legs to move and somehow managed to stand back up.
“RRRHHHGGAAAUURRHHH! GRAAH! GRAA! RAAUUGHHHH!”
The hobgoblin’s savage roars shook the forest as it came at me again with a flurry of blows.
I forced my unsteady body to move, slipping toward its blind left side, the one with the crushed eye, and deflected each blow as best I could.
Against the hobgoblin’s brute strength, not even a solid Sanchin stance You grip the floor with your feet and bend your knees so you cannot be knocked over, with the rear foot pointing forward and the front foot angled inward. or horse stance The feet are spread about twice the width of the shoulders, with the hips lowered for stability. could hold up if I tried to block it head-on.
I deflect, shift my center, and move into its blind spot. Continuing to redirect its attacks, I desperately bought time until my body could recover.
It was probably only a short moment, but to me it felt like an eternity. As I parried the hobgoblin’s relentless strikes, I could feel strength slowly returning to my legs.
If I kept defending like this, I would be worn down. I had to fight back. I changed my approach, from simply dodging and redirecting its blows to deflecting and pushing them off balance in the direction of their motion.
Whenever I saw an opening, I aimed low and kicked at its knee, small steady strikes one after another. If it landed even one clean hit, I would be finished, but the hobgoblin could take as many as it wanted. What a rigged damn game.
Grinding my teeth, I kept at it, landing those low kicks while staying on the defensive. Since I had to lean my weight back to avoid getting hit, the kicks didn’t have much power, but I kept connecting, little by little.
The hobgoblin’s legs were thick and solid. Every kick hurt me almost as much as it hurt it. Our endurance match continued.
Along with the low kicks I used after deflecting to throw it off balance, I mixed in diagonal combinations, a left jab followed by a right low kick.
I switched stance, throwing right jabs into left low kicks, or parrying into another low kick, landing light, relentless strikes again and again.
My jabs targeted its damaged eye, adding to its pain and chipping away at it little by little. The missed swings were wearing it out, and the repeated low kicks had begun to slow its movements.
The hobgoblin was clearly starting to hate those low kicks. It had learned that a kick always followed the jab, and began lifting its leg to block them.
I threw another jab, then followed with a high kick. Draw the guard low, strike high. It was one of the most basic attack patterns in martial arts.
Of course, the hobgoblin had no idea about fighting techniques. The high kick, driven by every ounce of power I had, crashed squarely into its jaw.
The hobgoblin’s body swayed, then pitched forward and fell. Feeling the sure sign of victory, I got careless for a moment, forgetting the importance of zanshin. A state of mind where you remain alert and prepared, regardless of the opponent's condition.
The hobgoblin suddenly stopped mid-fall. Then, in a move it hadn’t used once before, it lunged and bit at me.
I was too late to react, and the hobgoblin took advantage of that opening. Even so, I twisted my body just in time to avoid the bite aimed at my neck.
Although I managed to deflect it away from my throat, its teeth sank deep into my left shoulder.
“Aaargh!”
A sharp pain, like being stabbed with a blade, shot through me. Then came the sound of bones creaking and cracking.
The hobgoblin’s bite force was strong enough to crush bone. After the piercing pain came a heavy, throbbing one. Enduring the agony, I raised my right hand and stuck out my middle finger.
“F*** you, bastard.”
With that, I drove my middle finger into the hobgoblin’s ear canal. The hobgoblin’s jaws loosened for an instant, but it didn’t let go.
My shoulder screamed in pain as the bones started to give way. Gritting my teeth, I drove my finger in even deeper.
A horrible cracking sound came from both my bitten shoulder and my pressing finger.
My finger sank to the base, and I roughly stirred it around, gouging its brain. The hobgoblin released me with a howl and kicked me away.
My back slammed into a tree, the air squeezed out of my lungs. Pain from my shoulder and the rest of my battered body blurred my vision.
If I pass out now, I’m dead. I forced my hand to move, grabbed one of my emergency hot peppers, and shoved the whole thing into my mouth. Normally I’d only take a nibble, but this time, I needed the entire thing.
It felt as if molten lava had been poured into my mouth. The heat and pain were so intense that drool, tears, sweat, literally every fluid in my body, burst out, jolting my senses fully awake.
Tears streamed down my face as I forced my body to move, pushing myself back onto my feet.
Blood poured heavily from my bitten left shoulder, and I could barely feel it anymore. I had been blown away with my middle finger still jammed in its ear, and that finger was now bent backward at an impossible angle.
My ribs ached too. At least none of them had punctured my lungs. That was something. The hobgoblin, maybe from brain damage, seemed to have lost its sense of balance.
It staggered toward me, unable to walk properly. But even after taking all that damage, its will hadn’t broken.
On the contrary, it was seething with rage, its bloodshot eyes glaring at me with a chilling fury. Gathering what courage I had left and forcing myself not to lose heart, I glared back.
The hobgoblin came closer with unsteady and swaying steps. The distance between us shrank until I was within its reach.
At the moment it raised its arm to deliver the finishing blow, I clenched my chest muscles through the pain in my ribs and forced out a breath to spray a fine red mist.
“GRAAAGH!”
The burst of burning-hot chili juice shot into the hobgoblin’s good right eye. It clutched its face, momentarily frozen in pain, and I seized the chance to strike.
Even if there was barely any distance between us, I took a short running start, using every ounce of strength in my body to launch myself upward.
“Raaaaaah!”
It was a desperate, all-or-nothing strike. A blow that would burn away everything I had left. I drove my right knee upward and brought my right elbow crashing down.
My knee and elbow crushed the hobgoblin’s head between them. I felt the sickening crunch as its skull caved in. With all my strength spent in that single strike, I couldn’t even land properly and crashed to the ground.
When I tried to push myself up, my fingers only trembled and refused to move. Maybe I had lost too much blood. My vision blurred, and my consciousness began to fade.
Am I going to die like this? The thought crossed my mind when I heard a voice.
“Mr. Goblin! Where are you, Mr. Goblin?”
It was the voice of the village girl. “I’m here!” I tried to call out, but no sound came.
Through the fading haze, I thought I saw the shape of a person in the distance. The moment I realized that, darkness swallowed my mind completely.