Chapter 165: Source Of The Goblins
Ninety shots sounded like a lot, thirty burst split into three times as many single shots.
But it took barely two minutes for Kalli to be through them all as more Goblins poured from the tunnels.
She had no idea where they had all started, there was no sign of them outside the walls of the fort. But the tide of green skinned creatures never seemed to end, and when someone managed to collapse a tunnel the occupants simply dug another exit not far from the first.
"Coordinator, I have an idea. Do you have a flamethrower?"
Kalli checked the store as she continued to fire, and nodded.
"It’s even fairly cheap. Only five points, but only available at the Rare Grade. So, it should be a one point weapon, like a sword."
She handed the weapon over, looking much like a scuba diver’s equipment with a metal wand in place of the breath regulator.
The middle aged woman laughed as she strapped the vest in place, then laughed harder as she unleashed it down a goblin tunnel, filling the air with the scent of burning trash and scorched monster flesh.
[ Mental note, that woman is scary when she’s angry. ]
Many of the men had violent, cruel or sadistic sides to them, but the particular glee that woman showed while burning Goblins seemed more than a little excessive.
"Whoever has the magical strength, come get a flamethrower. Burn them out of the tunnels."
The fire would suck all the oxygen out of the tunnels if they didn’t have another exit, and that would suffocate the Goblins before they could make the surface. Dead was dead, and the fewer that they had to fight, the better.
Flames in the tunnels almost immediately stopped the flow of the monsters to the surface, and the residents were making quick work of the rest, using machete wielding fighters and someone with a gun to surround and slaughter the invaders.
The only issue was that they couldn’t be sure that there were no tunnel exits within the buildings.
A door to door search was likely to be extremely dangerous, and they couldn’t afford to burn out their few buildings to get rid of the Goblins. And that meant they were going to have to take some major risks to end the threat.
But first, they had to get rid of the ones on the surface, and end the threat from the tunnels.
The flamethrowers seemed to have done the trick to keep the Goblins from emerging, and they weren’t digging any new tunnel exits, but the safest bet was that they were simply hiding somewhere safe underground and waiting for the right time to emerge.
"Boss, I think that we found the main exit! There is a huge tunnel near the greenhouses at the back of the Academy compound. We torched the area, and cleared the entrance, but it’s four metres wide, and we can’t simply fill the area with fire so easily," one of the boys who had been running supplies shouted.
"Gather people and set a bonfire inside the entrance. Make it too hot for them to easily get near, and the fires will draw the oxygen from the tunnels. Do the same for every tunnel exit that we can find."
"I’m on it. We will get the fires roaring. But what should we be looking for?"
"You’ll know it when you see it."
What Kalli was hoping for was something like a rocket stove. Let the air flow pull the fire through, and the smoke would come out the other side. Wherever there was smoke but not a manmade fire, there would be goblins fleeing the attack.
Firewood from the stockpiles was brought and lit at every tunnel mouth, while a huge bonfire was set at the main entrance.
A few of the tunnels began stoking the fires, blowing air out and fanning the flames.
But with the fire in place, the Goblins didn’t have much luck exiting without heavy wounds, and the flamethrowers were quickly turned down the tunnels to get the ones still inside.
Then, the wind shifted, and Kalli could see smoke beginning to rise from a half dozen locations around the town.
"Get to the smoke, bring a large fighting team, call the heroes if you need to. There is more ammunition in the hall of heroes, sitting on the counter, don’t let yourselves run out," she instructed.
The Marimgar Militia might not count as heroes, but they were not going to rely on a title to keep their city monster free.
Kalli moved back toward the hall, so that she could keep the stack of supplies up, feeding the runners as well as the base defenders. They were still burning through too much regular ammunition at the cost of one point per case.
But there were also not enough points to give every hero who used ranged weapons an energy weapon.
Not to mention that many of them had classes that specialized in bows.
Those could also use the ammo cases to make arrows and bolts, and they didn’t have an energy weapon substitute.
Under normal circumstances, the archers would go recover arrows after the battle. But that was a bit challenging when the battle lasted twelve hours, and the bodies were being repeatedly stomped on and piled up into hills by the next wave of monsters.
There might be some that could be recovered after this, but not the majority of them.
The locals were very enthusiastic about stoking the fires, and soon smoke was billowing from the ones that were on the upwind side of the major flames. The Goblins tried to escape, but with flamethrowers and shotguns at the exit, soon their bodies were beginning to block the tunnels, and more of the monsters were succumbing to the smoke.
Finally, two hours after the Goblins had appeared, Kalli saw a system message.
{New Dungeon Unlocked} Goblin Nest
{Level 3 Dungeon unlocked}
The tunnels vanished as quickly as they had appeared, leaving only the large entrance near the greenhouses in the back, which was now blocked by the shimmering portal that marked a dungeon entrance.
"Good work everyone. Take a breather, and then go make sure the front lines have food. Don’t forget yourselves, you’ve all been working hard."