All of the students rushed out as soon as the carriage stopped, waving their weapons around like idiots, while Dominic and the girl in the chain mail went last, neither of them with their weapons out.
"Just stay close to me, so those idiots don't smack you accidentally. My dad is a guard as well. Well, a guard officer. The younger son of a Viscount and holder of a Baron's peerage himself." The younger girl whispered.
"Don't worry, I've got your back." Dominic whispered back with a conspiratorial wink.
The thought that a girl half his size and years his junior was going to protect him was rather amusing. But she seemed quite confident in herself.
The girl might be a Cygnia noble, but he seemed to have more common sense than the rest of these kids put together, and Dominic was beginning to wonder if this trip was officially sanctioned by anyone in charge of the Academy. If it was, then surely there should have been at least one proper guard with them.
The majority of the students began to run off into the woods, spreading out and not keeping in any sort of formation as soon as the carriage was gone, and Dominic's fears were confirmed. This was just a field trip to them, and they didn't take the goblins seriously at all.
Dominic had spent years in the mountains, often foraging for food when villages had simply run him off for being dragonkin. He was no stranger to the dangers of monsters in the wilderness, and he had spent years learning the best way to hide from danger.
Only a handful were moving together with him and the guard's daughter and keeping a proper watch for threats.
"Eyes to the right. I hear something moving," one of the men in their small group announced.
How he could be sure of that was anyone's guess, but the rest of the students were making so much noise that it would be impossible for the Goblins not to have heard them if they were even remotely close to this location.
The crashing was audible to Dominic only a few seconds later as an injured student ran past them with two goblins chasing close behind. His armour was damaged, and there were signs of blood on his face. Red human blood, not goblin blood.
"Stand and fight, man. You're a Warrior. Where is your sword?" The guardsman's daughter shouted, moving in between him and the Goblins while Dominic prepared his [Arcane Blast] spell.
A moment's focus sent a blast of energy that felt a lot like nature magic, with a hint of ancient power, flying out from his hands, taking the lead Goblin off its feet and leaving the creature nearly dead.
The Ranger next to him, who was wearing a light leather vest over his school uniform, let loose an arrow into the unfortunate creature, ending its life, while the second one charged around their attempt to block and continued to chase the fleeing warrior.
"You idiot, get back here. We can't protect you from that far away." The Ranger shouted, but the boy kept screaming and running, slowly losing ground on the goblin, who was not showing any signs of fatigue.
Dominic focused again and unleashed another [Arcane Blast] into the creature's back, flaying the skin apart and dropping it dead on the ground.
Still, the boy didn't stop, and he kept running down the road until he was out of sight.
The sight had disheartened a number of the students, who hadn't really considered that they might get injured, and Dominic noticed that they were beginning to slip away into the forest in the direction of the city.
They had left town with twenty people, which seemed like enough at first, but now that they were here, only six were useful at all, and the others were either running away or wandering solo through the woods, shouting and laughing, not realizing that they were in danger.
"Can you get them back here? All that shouting is going to bring Goblin patrols down on them, and we don't even know where they are." Dominic asked the small group that was with him.
"No, Darrlys is a Duke's son, and he's the only one the rest of the group will listen to. We're all the children of lesser nobles and knights. He did us all a favour to get permission to leave the academy grounds in the first place. They're not going to listen to anything we say." The Ranger boy informed Dominic with a rueful sigh.
One of the girls snickered at that, and the boy amended his comment. "Correction, we're ALMOST all children of lower nobles. But nobody ever listens to anything that Elanor says anyhow, despite her being a lesser Princess."
Elanor was a silent figure at the front of their group, as well as one of the student group's two Paladins, armed with shining plate armour and a sturdy shield paired with a brutal flanged mace, but the boy was right. She was just kind of there, and nobody was asking her to do anything or acknowledging her presence.
In fact, with her visor down, Dominic hadn't even realized she was female, much less a Princess. He just thought she was another young teen boy.
"Elanor, would you like to take the front line with our other brave warrior? You can stop them from getting to the two ranged members, and then." Dominic paused to see what the magical gems mounted into the clothing of the other two were.
"And then our Scribes can throw rocks at them or something." He finished.
The two boys who had gotten the scribe trade skill cores looked back at him in embarrassment. The pair had no magical combat skills, but they did have magical blades and some combat training as the children of Nobles.
Elanor smiled back at Dominic and nodded, then moved up to the front of the group.
It was a good thing that the Goblins were all under twenty kilos, or Dominic would have felt awful about asking the Princess to lead the party, even if she was a fully armoured Paladin.
They continued on as a group until they heard more screaming and then an abrupt halt to the screech, which was replaced by a soft gurgling noise.
"Straight ahead, it might not be too late if we can get Princess Elanor there," Dominic commanded.
The group moved up and saw three students, one boy and two girls, on the ground. The boy had his throat slit, while the girls were cowering in terror as the Goblins taunted them and slowly moved to encircle them.
Elanor cast her only healing spell on the dying boy as soon as she got in range, and then settled into a fighting stance as the Goblins realized that someone was interfering with their fun.
Dominic fired off another of his [Arcane Blasts], and the Ranger let loose an arrow, each taking down a Goblin while the other monsters rushed their front-line defenders.
A second Arcane Blast dropped a Goblin, and the two scribes ran forward with battle cries to support the girls in front.
"There's their courage. I knew it was the right call to stay close to the two cutest girls in class." The Ranger laughed as he continued to fire, pulling arrows out of a leather quiver hung across his back.
So that was the reason the boys were so energetic about fighting, despite not pursuing combat capable trades. They wanted the attention of the girls from their class.
Well, they had it now, and the Guardsman's daughter even looked a little impressed with them, while Princess Elanor had the same neutral stance as she had from the moment that they had engaged the Goblins.
Calm, assured and experienced. None of which were words that Dominic would normally associate with anyone her age.