Not even a full day had passed since Leige issued his orders when the patrolling cavalry discovered a group of several dozen goblins entering the Barony of Catalan from the northeast.
The cavalry scouts confirmed that this group included one Goblin Chief, four Hobgoblins, and the rest were ordinary goblins.
Goblins are barely considered one of the intelligent races in the Nola World.
They are short and ugly, typically possessing dark green skin, red eyes, long pointed ears, and sparse or no hair, with a disheveled and untidy appearance.
Goblins are greedy, despicable, inclined toward evil, bullies who fear the strong and prey on the weak, selfish, and hot-tempered.
Because their intelligence is relatively low and their civilization is not highly developed, they usually exist in the form of tribes.
A goblin kingdom has never existed.
Goblin society is generally divided into four classes: ordinary goblin, Hobgoblin, Goblin Chief, and Goblin King.
An ordinary goblin stands between 90 and 120 centimeters tall and uses stones or wooden clubs as weapons.
Their individual combat power is inferior to that of a human farmer holding farm tools.
A Hobgoblin reaches the height of an adult human and possesses greater strength.
An individual Hobgoblin can defeat a farmer and can contend with multiple farmers or a single average human soldier who has undergone long-term training.
A Goblin Chief is slightly taller than a Hobgoblin, but they have already stepped into the ranks of the Transcendent and possess intelligence that is not low.
Most Goblin Chiefs have strength equivalent to the lowest tier of apprentice-level Transcendent.
Potentially, even a newly-minted Battle Master apprentice could contend with or even kill a Goblin Chief.
When a goblin arduously crosses into the beginner stage, it becomes a Goblin King, possessing intelligence comparable to a human.
However, the scarce Goblin Kings cannot lead their peers—who are generally of low intelligence—to build a goblin kingdom.
After the cavalry returned to report, Leige took off his mage robes and changed into a set of light metal armor, preparing to set out.
Leige is a Mage and primarily focuses on his arcane cultivation, but having a seventh-grade Physique Talent, he exercises his body to some extent.
Even Mages require a robust body.
The stableman quickly brought a high-quality warhorse for Leige. Leige mounted the horse and rode toward the city gate.
After waiting a few minutes, Knight Gerald arrived with ten cavalrymen to rendezvous with Leige.
Knight Gerald was covered in heavy armor, and his warhorse was also armored.
The ordinary cavalry wore only leather armor; ordinary warhorses are not fit to serve as mounts for heavy cavalry.
The cavalry detachment consisted of 18 riders in total, divided into two shifts.
One shift patrols in the morning and rests in the afternoon, while the other rests in the morning and patrols in the afternoon.
Each cavalryman has only one horse; warhorses cannot be ridden for long periods.
Knight Gerald led the cavalry to march out, while Knight Angli remained to guard Cheryl Town.
"Move out!"
At Leige's order, the cavalryman who had returned with the report led the way, and the detachment galloped toward the position of the goblins invading the territory.
Some people in the town were curious about what Lord Baron and the cavalry were rushing off to do.
Could it be that enemies were attacking the villages below?
After more than half an hour, the cavalry had marched over 15 kilometers and finally found the group of goblins that had entered the territory.
The Goblin Chief, wielding an iron sword obtained from who knows where, possessed not-insignificant intelligence. It was not afraid of a single human rider.
But now, more than ten human riders appeared at once, and there was likely an human Transcendent among them.
"You, fight, block, humans."
While issuing combat orders, the Goblin Chief moved toward the rear of the group, stealing a glance at a nearby forest.
The Goblin Chief intended to let its subordinates block the human cavalry to buy time; if it could manage to escape into the woods, it should be able to survive.
"Knight Gerald, you command the battle," Leige instructed Knight Gerald.
"Yes! All riders, heed my order, charge with me!"
The lone heavy cavalryman led the way, followed by the ten light cavalrymen, and Leige rode closely behind the detachment as they charged toward the goblins.
Ordinary goblins have low intelligence, but that does not mean they are stupid. Sensing danger when they saw the human cavalry approaching, they completely ignored the Goblin Chief's orders and fled in all directions.
The Goblin Chief had no choice but to speed up and run toward the forest. Several Hobgoblins followed the chief toward the woods.
To a certain extent, this illustrates the deterrent effect cavalry has on infantry; if it were a dozen human infantrymen, the goblins likely would not have fled.
The fleeing goblins could not outrun the human cavalry. The riders spread out, waving their longswords as they hunted down the fleeing goblins.
When a rider caught up to a goblin, they swung their sword; the goblin's head was severed, and the headless body ran a few more steps before collapsing onto the ground.
Knight Gerald and Leige both pursued the Hobgoblins and the Goblin Chief.
Feeling that they would be caught by the human cavalry before reaching the forest, the Goblin Chief shouted at the Hobgoblins to halt, took up its iron sword, and prepared to fight.
The Hobgoblins, whose intelligence was higher than that of ordinary goblins, obeyed the chief's order and stopped.
Several goblins huddled together, preparing to fight Knight Gerald.
Knight Gerald continued his charge, while Leige had already brought his warhorse to a halt.
Constructing the spell model with his Mental Power, injecting Magic Power, and casting it!
Lesser Magic Missile!
Just as Knight Gerald knocked aside a Hobgoblin and swung his sword toward the Goblin Chief, Leige released his most proficient attack spell: the apprentice-level universal spell, Lesser Magic Missile.
A fist-sized Lesser Magic Missile shimmering with silver light quickly crossed the distance of several dozen meters and accurately blasted the head of one of the Hobgoblins.
The Goblin Chief, holding its iron sword and trying to block Knight Gerald's attack, had both its blade and its body sliced through by Knight Gerald's sword.
Knight Gerald moved on to attack the next Hobgoblin.
The last Hobgoblin was pierced through the chest by Leige's second Lesser Magic Missile.
As for the ordinary goblins, they were left to the cavalry to deal with.
The ordinary goblins, who were not even a match for a farmer, could not harm the riders as long as they were not clustered together.
Leige rode over, arrived at the corpse of the Goblin Chief, and dismounted.
Under the puzzled gaze of Knight Gerald, Leige placed the bodies of the Goblin Chief and the Hobgoblins into his Portable Space one by one.
Although Leige did not need to explain anything to his subordinates, he did not want them to misunderstand that he was going to use the goblin corpses for some evil research.
"If the goblin corpses are left here, they will attract beasts or even magical beasts. By putting them into my Portable Space, they will fade away along with the Portable Space itself."
Knight Gerald looked half-enlightened.
It was not just the Goblin Chief and the Hobgoblins; Leige also ordered the cavalry to bring back the bodies of the ordinary goblins to be deposited into the Portable Space.
He figured the cavalry would not want the trouble of digging pits to bury the goblin corpses, anyway.