Reborn
The First Boss

"Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting."
~ Napoleon Hill ~

Key
'I'll' - Thoughts
"Finish" - Speech
"This" - Nexus/Voices
Fight! - Breaks & A/N's

~ It's time for a Boss Battle! ~

"Get ready!"

Spread out around the camp, each adventurer and beast waited for the hobgoblin to make the first attack. Looking around, the hobgoblin looked for its first target while each adventurer analyzed its movements carefully and made their own plan of attack.

'It has rusty iron armor and a two-handed battle ax,' Zach analyzed as the hobgoblin looked toward Zeke. "Zeke! Watch out!" The brunette shouted at his blonde brother.

"I know!" Zeke shouted back as he gripped tighter on the handles of his daggers. As the hobgoblin slowly walked toward Zeke, the blonde crouched low and was ready to perform one of his assassination techniques.'Rising Death!' He screamed internally as he jumped at the goblin.

Using his best skill, Zeke jumped and started to spin with one of his blades held backward, but the goblin's armor protected it against most the attack. As quickly as it could, the goblin grabbed Zeke with its free hand before starting to crush the assassin.

Screaming in pain, Zeke's health reduced into the single digits before he was thrown away and crashed into a tree before slumping to the ground. Angered, Zach used his own ax and charged at the best foolishly before slicing off the goblin's dominant arm. Seeing it drop, Zach breathed heavily before stepping back as the hobgoblin looked at him in anger. With a roar, the goblin kicked Zach away before it tried to hold its bleeding stump of an arm.

Frozen in fear, Kaida hadn't moved ever since Zeke was starting to be crushed and now could only watch the battle. Thankfully, Umbra wasn't as scared as his tamer and charged toward the hobgoblin before he landed on its back. Biting on its neck, the hobgoblin tried to shake Umbra on off him, but to no avail.

With the opportunity that Umbra created, Silver ran over to Zach and got the man on his back before bringing the man into the forest, out of sight of the boss monster. Running back to the battlefield, Silver stood in front of Kaida as Umbra kept biting the hobgoblin's neck.

"Ashura! Fight! Your friends need your help!"

Broken out of her shocked state, Kaida started to take her mana and prepared a mana blast in each of her hands. "Silver, get the goblin's ax into the forest. Make sure he doesn't get the chance to kill any of us." She ordered as the grey wolf ran off to complete her orders. "Umbra! Release!" She shouted once her mana blasts were ready to be unleashed.

Releasing his bite, Umbra flew above the goblin as Kaida started to run toward the boss with shaking legs, evident of her fear. Throwing the orb in her right hand, Kaida was hidden by the growing attack that struck the goblin and cracked its chest piece, but all of a sudden, the goblin used its only hand and grabbed Kaida.

Crushing another one of its opponents, both Zeke and Zach heard her pained shout and fought through their pain to pull out a small vial with a red liquid within it. Downing the liquid, each of the brothers felt their strength return to them, but one glance at their Nexus windows and it showed their health only going to 25%.

"Good enough," both of them said before getting up and grabbing onto the handles of their weapons. Running toward the goblin, Zeke cut off the goblin's only other hand before Zach grabbed Kaida as she was falling to the ground.

"Are you alright?" Zach asked as Silver and Umbra approached their tamer with worried looks on their faces.

Groaning, Kaida looked at one of her two saviors while the other tried to kill the hobgoblin. "I think so," she said weakly. Letting her stand on her own two feet, Zach gripped tightly onto his ax.

"The boss is weak, sit back and let us handle the rest." He told her before running off toward the boss monster. Getting close, Zach threw his ax into one of the gaps in the monster's armor before pushing it through to chop off its entire left arm.

Watching the gruesome battle, Kaida felt an ominous presence as she stood away from the battle. 'Something bad is going to happen.'

Out of nowhere, the hobgoblin made one last roar blowing Zeke away before he could land the killing blow on it. Then, purplish-black energy created a circle symbol on its forehead before replacing the goblin's lost limbs with the same energy.

"He's been cursed!" Zeke shouted before the roar from the monster blew him into another tree.

"His health is fully restored!" Zach added, closing a Nexus screen.

Clenching his fists, Zach ditched every plan he had and got ready to slice something off again. But when he got close, the hobgoblin threw him into a tree, breaking the tree from the force of the impact.

This time, Zeke was angered for his brother and slipped into the forest as the hobgoblin looked for him instead of the weaker target. Out of the shadows, Zeke jumped out and tried to stab both of his daggers into the goblin's naval. Unfortunately, the energy that had corrupted the goblin spread out from the goblin's arm sockets and blocked Zeke's attack. Wrapping around the blonde, the goblin turned around as the energy formed arms again.

"This is... a nightmare," Kaida mumbled as she stared shocked at the one-sided battle. Frozen in fear, her beasts lunged at the hobgoblin in an attempt to protect their tamer, but both were grabbed and started to be crushed.

Silver fared the worst of the two and was officially out of commission. Umbra managed to slip away and fly far above the goblin, but he was still injured.

"Snap out of it, Ashura!"

'But... what can I even do?'

"Fight! If you don't try, you've already lost!"

'I'm weak! That thing beat two people stronger than me! And no cliche is making me stronger yet!'

"Just fight! A hero wouldn't give up, would they!?"

'I'm not a hero!'

In the midst of the mental argument, the hobgoblin decided to walk up to Kaida and save Umbra for later. In front of the silver-haired girl, the goblin slowly reached to grab her by the leg and once it got a grip, it flung her across the camp, slamming her into a tree.

"Your health is at 8%. Get ready for a ride.".

'What?'

All of a sudden, Kaida felt a mysterious force enter her body as her eyes became slit and a screen appeared in front of her face.

Hidden Ability unlocked
Dragon Blood

Ignoring the screen, Kaida looked at the hobgoblin. "I don't want to do this," she said before running back into the camp, her body low and close to the ground. "But I want to live."

Using her mana enhancement skill, Kaida leaped toward the hobgoblin and caught it off-guard before punching the creature in its face. The force of her punch tore off the head of the beast and the ominous purple energy disappeared from the corpse of the body.

Landing on the ground on one knee with a hand behind her and one on the ground, Kaida was shocked by what she just did and creeped out by how natural and effortless it felt. But the boost she felt had disappeared as her eyes returned to its normal form.

Flying down to the ground, Umbra landed in front of his tamer. "Weird," she mumbled before looking at the carnage in the wake of the battle. "Umbra, go help Zach, I'll get Zeke and then Silver."

Nodding, Umbra flew off with a shaky start to look for Zach while Kaida limped to Zeke. Reaching the blonde assassin, she grabbed his bag and looked through it for something that could help her.

"Make him drink the red one."

Following the real Kaida's advice, she pulled out one of the red vials and gave it to Zeke. 'By the way, is there anything I can call you by?'

"Is my name not good enough for you?"

"No, that's not it. I can't call you by the name I will use." She spoke out loud, confusing Zeke who was slowly regaining consciousness.

"Hm... I was never good with names... Anyone names you know? But remember to think your answer."

'Sorry. Then, how about Arienne, a noble guardian?'

"How do you know that off the top of your head?"

'Take it or leave it.'

"Fine. Call me Arienne from now on."

Humming in agreement, Kaida had finished giving Zeke his health potion before taking another for Silver. Once she healed Silver, Zach emerged from the forest with Umbra on his shoulders while being scratched under his chin.

"Good. It seems we're all okay," Zach said as he looked at the wreckage. "Kaida, take a break and rest while we get some of the loot out of here."

Nodding, Kaida walked over to the edge of the camp before sitting down and starting to communicate with Arienne. But luckily, Zach and Zeke had plenty of loot saved for them since blood stains could be cleaned up, though the rusty and cracked materials were a lost cause.

~ Time Skip ~
~ BTYB Umbra chasing his tail ~

After nearly half an hour of walking, the party had returned to the gates of Evergreen village, but yet again, the guards completely ignored them and continued to chat amongst themselves. Tired of their behavior, Zeke whispered something to Kaida's ear, growing suspicion from Zach, but he was too tired to care.

Doing what Zeke told her, Kaida let Umbra land on her shoulders as the group stopped right outside of the gate. Whispering the little plan to Umbra, he hesitantly nodded and followed the orders he was given.

The plan started with Umbra flying to the top of the wall around the village and spitting a fireball at the guards, testing their reaction. Unsurprisingly, the guards ignored the fireball and continued talking. Looking back at his tamer, Umbra wanted to drop out of the mischevious plan but Kaida motioned for him to try again.

This time, one of the guards looked at Umbra and shouted, "Hey, I'm trying to talk here!" Giggling to themselves, Kaida and Zeke laughed at the guards' reaction, finally getting their attention. "Who in Gaia's name are you three?"

"We're the adventurers that were hired to wipe out that goblin camp," Zach replied since he was the only adventurer not having a giggling fit. "Don't worry, that camp is gone. You two can keep doing nothing."

"Hey, man! We're doing something! We're keeping watch over here!" The other guard shouted, just making Kaida and Zeke burst into laughter.

Shaking his head in disappointment, Zach grabbed his two companions by the wrist before dragging them through the wide open gate. When the two had finally stopped laughing, the group was already back at the tavern. Walking into the building, the bartender was napping behind the bar while a waiter calmly cleaned tables, so Zach stopped dragging the two along as he sat at a table and dropped his backpack on the ground with an unexpectedly loud thud.

Sitting down at the same table, Kaida's mind had finally let everything set in. "Guys." She said quietly, getting the attention of the two brothers. "Did we do the right thing?"

"Of course we did. We even got paid for it, well, we will be paid for it." Answered Zeke.

"But... those goblins were still living creatures." She said, seeing their expressions didn't change at all. With a sigh, she spoke, "I guess it just feels odd."

With a few seconds to think about it, Zach had finally realized what Kaida's problem was. So, putting on a sympathetic face, he tried to comfort her. "I know it's strange at first, but those goblins and other monsters don't intend to live peacefully with us. Even with their low intellect, they still attack us and our job as adventurers is to complete these missions, no matter what it takes."

"That doesn't make me feel any better." She replied to him as she crossed her arms on the table and laid her head on top of her arms.

"Don't worry. You'll get used to it eventually," Zeke said, trying to comfort her but he still couldn't or rather didn't read the room.

"That's what I'm afraid of," she mumbled quietly as she rested her head in the crook of her arm. "I don't want to get used to killing."

"Pussy."

'Shut it.'

~ Arienne is Rude! ~

A/N: Finally a solid 2k word chapter! It's been a while since I've actually written that much, but I hope you liked the boss battle. I wanted to show that even as side characters, Zach and Zeke are capable of fighting, but Kaida is still the main character.

Also, this is the end of the Reborn Arc, so next time, there will be a 'special' chapter that will give a teaser to the future but it's only about 1k words long. After that, I'll bring back some old characters (Though their names may have changed...). Anyway, see you next time, Lovelies~