"Too close for comfort," Konrad spat, wiping blood off his adamantite blade.
"That was the last of 'em, bossman," a scout reported, still panting from the melee. But he and the rest of his men seemed eager for more. "Awaiting yer orders."
Orders.
Yes, even if he followed his commanders' premade plans, he was in charge here.
Not that those plans survived for long.
The first—or this time, the second—contact with the enemy had already made them obsolete.
"Check the walls for more hidden passages," Konrad barked. "This can't happen again. And take a good look at the corpses, too. They could play dead, and attack us once we're past them."
He spoke from experience, though he wouldn't admit it.
Welf warned him about how smart a real goblin was, but he didn't expect such elaborate tricks.
Even he could learn a thing or two from these annoying little beasts. And since he was to face the best of the best in that tournament soon, he'd better use this opportunity to improve.
"Status report," Konrad demanded, a knight running up to him with a salute.
"We've counted seventy dead beasts while suffering no losses," he said, but it wasn't exactly true.
Lily was already busy healing some of his warriors, humming and whistling as she worked.
"How many injured?" he asked, keeping an eye on his lover.
Whenever she did something bad earlier, she tried to whistle and always butchered it.
Now, it looked like that was also no more than a cutesy act. Konrad couldn't imagine her figuring it out right now, if she couldn't do it after thousands of years.
The more he tried to trust her, the more signs of her manipulation he discovered.
"Ah, hard to tell, my lord, because Lady Liliana already treated most of them," the champion claimed. "I'd say half a dozen during the initial push, but only lighter scratches."
Konrad tried his best not to get hung up on the Lady Liliana thing.
It would have been great if his men respected his lover, even looking like a chunibyo tribeswoman. But this went way too far. Besides—
"No good," he said, shaking his head. "She won't be with us during the tournament."
The knight bowed and retreated without a comment.
'Come on, you're being way too careful,' Maple's complaint echoed in his mind already. 'This'll take so long like this. These are goblins, not orcs. What can they even do to you?'
Considering how she promised to stay quiet, she couldn't hold it in for long.
'I could've smoked them out an hour ago,' she chirped. 'At least let me drive them your way, and they won't ambush you again. Your men can still do all the fighting if you want—'
Which would've defeated the whole purpose.
But rather than answering, Konrad did his best to focus on his blocking spell.
It was closer to a repetitive mantra than his usual magic runes filled with mana.
As long as he'd focus on that pattern, the dragon couldn't read his mind—and that way, she couldn't enter his head, either. But that led to many other problems.
Konrad was never good at multitasking, not even in his past life.
He could hyperfocus on any task if he could get in the right mood.
But he had to do it one step at a time.
Now, he kept the mantra going while commanding an army and looking for ambushes. Neither of those was any more distracting than the dragon herself, but it was a challenging task.
Only the sudden silence in his mind told him that the spell even worked.
The question was—how long could he keep it going during the operation?
"You were right, bossman. We found two little fuckers still alive and pretending," the scout returned to report. And that already broke his concentration.
'That was so rude, Konrad,' Maple's voice returned, and he let out an annoyed sigh.
"Good work," he said, not letting his men see his inner struggle. "Reform the shield wall and push in deeper. Take the right path at the next fork, and report back on the chamber beyond."
He still had a long way to go before he could claim mastery over his own mind.
And it was obvious that he couldn't achieve his absolute control before that.
"Will I even live that long?" he muttered to himself, right as Lily hooked her arm into his again.
"You'd better," she chirped, reading his thoughts without issue despite his best efforts. "Since this might be your last life, I'll make sure to stretch it into infinity."
Suspicious or not, he couldn't question her intentions.
And being together forever did sound nice, too.
Once he took care of Maou Midori, that is.
And before that, he had an annoying dragon to pretend—kill.
'I'm in the chamber beyond your next target,' Maple noted. 'Please, please, please, take a shortcut, or I'm dying of boredom before you can become a fake dragon slayer.'
If only he could deal with everything at his own pace.
Prioritise things as he saw fit. But something or someone was always rushing him forward, and he had no time for anything. To prepare, to learn, to enjoy his life—
'I can't let any goblins survive, so we'll take care of them first,' he thought, standing his ground.
And before the dragon could complain, he restarted the mantra, cutting the connection.
"You're getting better at this," Lily murmured, leaning against him.
But that in itself was distracting enough to make him falter. She chuckled, as if she knew exactly how much he struggled before stepping away. Konrad also had to join his formation.
"One more round so I can test the men-at-arms," he swore. "Then I'll shut her up for a while."
Through the mantra, he could still pick up faint traces of the dragon's response.
And she seemed excited—in her own, annoying and perverted way.
"Starting a harem might've been a bad idea," Konrad muttered to the ginger's much amusement. "Especially made up of supernatural girls. I'm no match for any of you, at all."
Lily smirked at that, her fang peeking out for a second.
"Well, isn't that a nice goal to strive for?" she teased. "It'll feel rewarding to stand on equal grounds with us. From Eyna's level through Stella and Maple, 'til you catch up with meow."
"Even I don't dare to dream that big," he sighed. "But let's get this over with."
The next chamber they entered was quieter than the ones before.
A telltale sign of a trap ready to spring on them, if the earlier ambushes were anything to go by.
"That might've been it, let's lower our guard," he spoke with terrible acting. "I'm sure this place is safe, and no more goblins will show up. Don't even look to the sides, let's move forward."
And to underline his suspicion, the scout pointed at a well-hidden passage to his left.
A moment later, the faint sounds of a battle reached them, confusing Konrad a little.
'That's Kade,' Maple broke through his mantra. This time, he didn't mind. 'He got a drop on the ambushers, but he didn't think this through. They're surrounded on the other end—'
Because why would anything ever go according to his plans?