'Difficult, but not impossible.'
First of all, check how many kobolts there are in the area. And who better to do that than...
"Lumi, can you do that thing with the glowing dust again, this time covering the whole park?"
*Arf Arf*
He barked and shook his head.
Lumi is considerably smarter now, like cartoon dogs (actually, all the animals are like that so far), but I still can't understand everything he says. If he had formed a bond with me after losing a fight like Impeto, maybe, but there's no way Mari will let me hit him or Nawa.
"Can't you do it again, or can't you cover the park with the dust?" I asked, slightly irritated. "Oh, tap your paw on the ground once for the first time, and twice for the second," I added quickly.
He rolled his eyes and tapped his paw on the ground twice.
"Okay, so probably there's an area limit. What's the maximum area you can use, or was the maximum area already when you covered the "bridge" with slimes?"
He tapped the ground twice again.
"Hmm, so this 'revealing dust' has a range of about 500 meters, more or less, from you."
Recalling how many slimes had gotten that golden outline, I'd say it reached almost 600 meters in a straight line, possibly, in a fan shape. Considering the "bridge" itself was about 300 meters, and we were about 200 meters away.
How can I be sure of this?. I usually did morning runs there, and using the bridge as a sprinting ground at my top speed. According to my smartwatch at that point, it took me 56.3 seconds to cover 400 meters (my best time ever, just once, never again).
"Way less than would be preferable in this situation, but still better than nothing. Can you do it again, please?"
*Arf!*
At the same moment, he made the same movements, and the "cloud" of gold dust (or glitter, if you prefer) appeared and quickly fell over the park. As expected, the kobolts we had seen took shape, a little further down the trail that led to the soccer field they also took shape, a place near one of the holes and a few more.
In total, I counted 5 contours directly in front of us, 3 further to the left, and 1 near the wooded area.
If my guess about Lumi's ability range was correct, then it would have shown about 1/7, or something like 1.8/7, of the park. If there were 5 in 1/7, then there were probably 35 kobolts in total in the park, not counting the ones that might be inside the holes the giant ants made.
It doesn't take a genius to know that the anthills are much bigger inside than outside.
Wow, the difficulty changed from hard to extremely hard.
"But I still have to do what I can to get that damn magic stone. Seriously, it couldn't be anything else, like uranium?"
While thinking this nonsense, I took out the biggest bow my dad made from the [item box] and 8 arrows that were in better condition. I grabbed two and placed them on the bow, took aim, and released.
As soon as the arrows left the bow, I hid. Even though bows are generally quieter weapons than others, they still make noise, and in most stories and games, kobolts are described as having excellent nocturnal habits, or hearing. But it seems these ones barely noticed when the arrows left my bow.
Or when they buried themselves in the ground.
'Dang, seriously, Dad, couldn't you have made the bows so you could remove the strings? That would make it harder to aim.'
I thought, seeing the two arrows stuck in the ground. Luckily, they weren't close enough for the kobolts to notice.
Interesting fact: for bows to be good, they have to be stored without the strings. If they're kept with them, they're constantly under tension and more likely to break. And if they don't break, the lack of elasticity that occurs ends up affecting the arrows' flight, just as happened now.
In the case of the bow my father made, he used wax strings, which were already stiff, but with time and disuse they become even stiffer, but they don't break despite having almost no elasticity. Before becoming a dhampir, I always felt like either my fingers would break or the bow would, after two rounds of shooting three arrows.
'Ugh, well, at least my fingers didn't hurt at all after pulling the string, and now I have a better idea of how far I should pull to keep the arrow more stable.'
I took two more arrows and repeated the movements, holding them a little longer to ensure I was aiming, and released them again. This time they hit the kobolts square in the head; they barely had time to react.
[Kobolt ambusher eliminated. Experience gained.]
[Kobolt ambusher eliminated. Experience gained.]
'Two down, 33 more to go, or so. Arrrhhhhh, this is going to take a while.'
I drew another arrow, this time alone, and aimed it at a kobolt near one of the holes the park's former residents used, quickly firing it. It seemed to react to the sound of the approaching arrow, but it still wasn't fast enough to do anything when it hit it square in the forehead.
[Kobolt soldier eliminated. Experience gained.]
Honestly, it was kind of funny watching its bulging eyes go cross-eyed before it lay motionless on the ground.
'Strange, both the bodies of these kobolts and the goblins from before took longer to disappear, leaving behind the magic stones and loot. Why?'
The first goblins and monsters I faced yesterday disappeared as soon as they died, leaving behind their magic stones and loot. But both the goblins killed by kobolts and the kobolts I killed kept their bodies for a while before disappearing. Something strange is going on here.
*Arf Arff warrfffnn*
Lumi's, thankfully quiet, barking brought me out of my thought spiral and back to the problem at hand. I quickly used the three remaining arrows.
There should have been at least 29 kobolts now, but without arrows, our options were to approach the park to get the nearest arrows and start close combat, or try my luck with magic.
Well, not really. There were only three kobolts dimly lit by Lumi's magic, and after losing six of them, although they didn't show if they heard anything, some of the kobolts came out of hiding and approached the places where the kobolts I'd killed had been.
Some sort of rotation system, or just an instinct that something wasn't right?
Whatever it was, they would soon realize there were no kobolts where they should have been and the arrows on the ground, and then it was obvious what was going to happen. Dad would be on the loose.
"Get ready, you two, he'll be on the scene soon too."
I said as quietly as I could to them as I wrapped the bow around my body and activated one of my new shadow spells.
"[Shadow Cloak]"
Instantly, the world around me turned black except for a small slit in front of my eyes.
As the name suggests, this spell envelops me in a cloak of shadows that blends me into the shadows around me. However, I can't use the bushes to enter the shadows, making it harder to hit in low-light areas and slightly intimidating. It does, however, leave me nearly blind and drain 3 MP every 2 seconds.
I wonder if anyone wouldn't be scared if they saw a shadow over a meter and a half tall moving alone on the ground and heading toward them. I'm not ashamed to say I would be scared.
There aren't many places for me to hide here in the park, but my goal is to get at least the four closest arrows: the two that didn't hit anything, the one that killed the cross-eyed kobolt, and the one that killed the kobolt hiding on the park road. So, if I'm quick, I won't have too many problems.
I managed to get the first 3 easily and without attracting attention, despite walking crouched and sometimes even on all fours (well, not walking, I was more likely to push myself quickly on all fours).
It didn't even take 10 seconds when I was about to get the 4th arrow and return to our improvised barricade, when I saw a kobolt on top of the wreckage of the UPA.
He was a little bigger than the koboots I had seen so far, something around a head bigger, both in size and width. He was dressed in armor that looked like metal with a spear, a bow and a quiver with many more arrows than me.
Unlike the kobolts so far, which had an appearance that hovered somewhere between repulsive and comical, his was entirely intimidating, especially his eyes. They weren't bulging like the others, but simply large and slitted like a snake's.
And those sickly eyes were staring directly at Lumi and Impeto.