Chapter 125: The Road That Stopped Moving
Arthur woke the following morning and discovered that walking two steps correctly had somehow done more damage to his body than shooting monsters for half a day.
His ribs were still bruised and his left shoulder ached from Rian’s spear, but somehow his legs were worse. Arthur sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed one aching thigh before finally forcing himself upright.
He dressed slowly. When he reached toward the corner of the room, Whisperwind was actually waiting for him. He grabbed the smooth, dark wood almost automatically and slipped the familiar weight over his shoulder. The Necrotic Dagger went onto his belt next.
When Arthur walked downstairs, Seraphina was already working through breakfast.
Seraphina sat at one end of the long table, dealing directly with two employees from the family’s transport division. Stacks of shipping manifests rested near her plate, someone had just delivered a sealed message from one of the outer depots, and Gareth was quietly eating his breakfast while listening to the exchange.
Arthur sat down, poured himself some coffee, and listened while Seraphina questioned the two employees.
From Seraphina’s questions, Arthur pieced together the problem quickly. A regular western freight route had backed up after one wagon failed to reach the next checkpoint the previous evening. Drivers approaching from the other side had found several carts stopped near the same wooded stretch of road.
Something in the trees had been harassing the horses and pelting the wagons with rocks and crude weapons. A road guard sent to check the tree line had returned with goblin tracks, and with tournament traffic already stretching the city guards thin, Seraphina clearly wasn’t interested in waiting for someone else to clear it.
Emily and Kael were already preparing to go out with several Thorne guards.
"How far out is it?" Arthur asked, setting his coffee down.
"A few hours at most," Adrian answered from across the table.
Arthur looked at Whisperwind resting against his chair. His next match was still two days away, and after last night’s training, the thought of spending the entire morning staring at Gareth’s chalk marks had lost some of its charm.
"Do you need another person?" Arthur asked.
Emily looked up from her plate and shrugged. "Works for me."
Gareth paused, his eyes dropping deliberately to Arthur’s heavily wrapped ribs.
"I can shoot a bow without tackling anything today," Arthur assured him.
Gareth considered the bruised archer for a second. "Make sure that remains true."
Arthur rode out of the city in a rugged transport vehicle with Emily, Kael, and five Thorne guards, including one veteran from the freight side who knew exactly which wagons were stranded.
As they cleared the city limits, they passed a heavy Thorne wagon heading back toward the central warehouses. The driver recognized Kael through the window and raised a hand in greeting. A little later, a road guard stationed near a checkpoint greeted Emily easily by name. Kael even leaned out to ask one older wagon guard about his son’s tournament results, apparently perfectly familiar with the man’s family.
Arthur had seen Seraphina’s ledgers and the warehouses around the compound, but this made the family business feel different. The drivers weren’t anonymous names on manifests. They knew Emily and Kael, and the siblings knew plenty of them in return. One passing driver asked Emily whether she was competing this year, while another called out a quick wish of luck before their vehicles passed.
Arthur wasn’t used to seeing this side of her.
"Locally famous," Arthur teased her quietly as they returned to their seats.
Emily dismissed the comment with a roll of her eyes, but a faint, pleased smile touched her mouth.
They reached the problem by late morning.
Several heavy freight wagons had been pulled safely off the road near a densely wooded slope. The draft horses had been unhitched and moved away from the tree line to keep them calm. One wagon had a cracked side rail, and another sported heavily torn canvas, but nobody was lying on the ground bleeding.
The convoy captain stepped forward to explain the situation to Emily and Kael. Individually, goblins weren’t much of a threat to the guards. The problem was getting hold of them.
They were hiding high in the trees, throwing rocks or crude javelins at the horses, rushing whatever fell behind the main group, grabbing whatever loose cargo they could carry, and then retreating up the slope before the guards could mount a proper pursuit.
The guards had tried chasing them once earlier that morning and had almost been led into a patch of bad, broken ground for their trouble.
Arthur looked toward the trees.
"We should flush them out," Kael said, his hand dropping to the hilt of his sword.
"Agreed," Emily said, looking at the slope. "But I don’t want the guards abandoning the wagons again to do it."
"We don’t need everyone," Arthur pointed out.
Arthur pulled Whisperwind free and looked over the slope. Within seconds he had picked out the clearer lanes between the trees, a patch of higher ground beside the road, and the most likely route the goblins would use if Emily and Kael pushed them downhill.
He climbed into position, planted his feet, and drew an arrow. This time, nothing about the stance required thought.
Emily, Kael, and two guards moved carefully into the edge of the woods, while the remaining guards held a defensive perimeter around the stranded wagons.
A shape shifted behind a thick oak tree, and a goblin raised its arm to throw a jagged rock.
Before the creature could even clear the bark, Arthur’s arrow slammed into the wood an inch from its hand. The goblin shrieked, dropping the rock and attempting to scramble backward. Emily changed direction instantly, catching the creature with a heavy strike before it could retreat.
Further up the slope, another goblin dropped from a low branch and rushed Kael from a blind angle.
Arthur didn’t try to thread a perfect, lethal shot between Kael’s shoulders. He shot a heavy arrow directly into the dirt just ahead of the rushing goblin, forcing the creature to stutter and break its stride. That fractional hesitation was all Kael needed to close the gap and finish it.
The first scattered group of goblins broke quickly once Arthur started providing heavy covering fire. A few went down, and the others began retreating deeper into the woods toward a rocky rise.
Scattered goblins didn’t retreat that neatly.
"Hold there. Don’t chase them straight up," Arthur called out, lowering his bow slightly.
A crude, iron-tipped javelin immediately sailed out from the rocks farther up the slope and buried itself in the brush near Kael’s boots.
Kael’s expression changed immediately. He tightened his grip on his weapon and began moving carefully up the incline beside Emily.
The goblins had been using a ruined, overgrown stone toll post as their base.
The leader stepped out from the cracked masonry a moment later. It was larger than the other goblins, heavily scarred, with scavenged strips of leather and rusted iron covering its chest and shoulders. A notched short blade rested in one hand.
Arthur noticed the difference almost immediately, especially after the previous night’s training.
When Emily attacked, the chief stayed uncomfortably close to her guard. It used short, balanced steps instead of constantly jumping away, and when Kael swung his blade, the chief smoothly circled the attack rather than simply retreating in a straight line. Its free hand was constantly moving, interfering with Emily and Kael’s wrists and forearms to ruin their strikes.
The chief’s eyes flicked toward Arthur between exchanges. A moment later, it disappeared behind the ruined stonework while Emily and Kael dealt with another rush from the remaining goblins.
Arthur tracked it for a moment, lost sight of it behind the brush, then caught movement farther down the slope.
He lowered Whisperwind and drew the Necrotic Dagger.
The chief burst from the brush, closing the distance and slashing its short blade sharply toward Arthur’s weapon hand. Arthur avoided the cut, but the goblin didn’t reset. It immediately stepped forward, following the missed strike to press the advantage.
Arthur’s back foot started to retreat on instinct. Instead, he caught himself halfway through the movement and turned the step sideways.
His weight stayed under him.
The chief’s next knife thrust missed his ribs by an inch. Arthur brought the dagger up, knocked the chief’s forearm off line with the steel guard, and turned the point toward its ribs. The goblin was forced to break away rather than continue pressing him.
The chief stepped back to recover.
Arthur immediately used the space it had given him. He moved away, brought Whisperwind up again, and put an arrow on the string.
Emily reached the chief a second later, forcing it away from Arthur entirely, while Kael came in hard from the opposite side.
With his preferred distance restored, Arthur went back to work.
The chief held its ground when Emily and Kael closed in again. Kael’s relentless aggression kept the creature moving, and Emily’s precise strikes forced it to respect her guard.
Watching from range, Arthur noticed that the chief had developed a distinct habit of shifting off Emily’s right side whenever she drove forward.
Arthur drew and sent a Mirage Shot flashing toward the chief’s left side.
The chief turned toward the false attack just enough.
Emily took advantage immediately, stepping in and driving her shoulder into the chief’s chest. Its footing broke beneath it. The creature stumbled, its guard wide open.
Arthur’s actual arrow crossed the distance and buried itself cleanly in the exposed opening.
The chief hit the dirt and didn’t get back up.
Once the chief died, the remaining goblins scattered entirely, abandoning the ruined toll post and fleeing deeper into the woods.
The guards didn’t bother chasing them through the dense forest. They moved in to destroy whatever crude camp the pack had been using, retrieved a few crates of stolen freight, and made absolutely sure the immediate road was safe to use.
Arthur leaned against a tree, caught his breath, and finally checked the system notification waiting in the corner of his vision.
[Level Up!]
[Phantom Sniper Lv.29 → Lv.30]
[Attribute Points Acquired: 2]
He opened his attributes. This time, he didn’t agonize over the distribution. After staring at those numbers in his room last night, the decision was already made.
[Strength +1 → 45]
[Stamina +1 → 41]
A faint warmth passed through his body as the points settled. The difference was small, more an easing of fatigue than any dramatic surge of strength.
Arthur was about to close the interface when a second notification suddenly appeared beneath the level-up text.
[Rare Drop Acquired]
[Skill Book: Silent Knife Technique — Lv.1]
Arthur paused, opening the item details.
[Type: Short-Blade Technique]
[Description: A compact knife-fighting method built around quick cuts, close angles, weapon-hand attacks, and continuous movement.]
Arthur read the description twice.
Yesterday, Arthur would have looked at short-blade technique and thought it meant learning better ways to stab people.
Gareth had thoroughly ruined that simplicity for him.
"Is something wrong?" Emily asked, walking over. She noticed him standing completely still, staring at empty air.
Arthur dismissed the system screens and looked at her. "No. Just thinking about the fight."
Emily gave him one last look, then turned back toward the road. Arthur followed her down the slope.
The Thorne guards successfully guided the stranded wagons back onto the main road. One damaged leather harness was quickly replaced, and the wagon with the cracked rail was deemed stable enough to continue at a slower pace.
Not everything was recovered. A few crates had been broken open and some of the cargo was simply gone, leaving the convoy captain muttering as he added the losses to his ledger.
Kael helped a couple of the guards shift a heavy crate back into its proper place on a wagon bed. Arthur considered offering to help, but wisely decided to keep his bruised ribs out of the heavy lifting.
By early afternoon, the first wagon finally rolled forward through the section that had been blocked all morning. Arthur watched the remaining wagons fall into line behind it, heavy wheels steadily rolling through the stretch that had been empty all morning.
The ride back to the compound was considerably more relaxed.
Arthur settled comfortably against the carriage seat with Whisperwind beside him.
Emily watched him for a moment. "You look much happier with the bow back in your hands."
Arthur rested his arm on the window frame. "Turns out I enjoy fighting when the other person isn’t holding a six-foot stick in my face."
Emily smiled, leaning against his good shoulder as the carriage rattled back toward the city.
They reached the Thorne compound before evening.
Arthur was tired, but not destroyed. He had more training tomorrow, his next tournament match was still approaching, and he had something new sitting quietly in his inventory.
Later, finally alone in his guest room, he opened the item screen again.
[Skill Book: Silent Knife Technique — Lv.1]
Arthur read the description one more time.
[Consume Skill Book: Silent Knife Technique?]
His finger hovered over the confirmation.
After last night, he knew enough to be suspicious of anything that looked like an easy answer.
Arthur closed the window.
Morning would be soon enough.