Chapter 4

"Screeee!!"

As I heard the goblins' screech, I turn my eyes to face them. Ah, I wonder why I felt that this scene repeated hundreds of time. I felt weary. My head is confused and my mind is blocked, but both my brain and body tell me that I fought way more goblins than needed. I dodge rolled a hammer attack from a goblin and juked* another one who tried predicting my landing. My sword in hand, I jumped in an arched position to thrust my sword in the goblin's belly. The familiar sensation of blood splashing into my mouth and face hit me once again, but I'm no longer fazed by it. Just, a tiny bit of disgust. I front kicked the half dead mess into its kin and jumped towards them. Predicting the coming hammers, I dodge to the down left, then slash up a goblin. Without wasting any time, I back-thrust another one to the chest before its hammer gathers up momentum, ending both lives.

Jumping back, I try to assess the situation when I notice that several dozen goblins blocked e from all directions. Getting tensed up, I dash left and jump as far as I can. I see the hammers ready to intercept me, I change my long jumped into a 360 flying side kick, making the hammers only hit my muscles rather than my bones. A numb feeling spread through my leg, but strangely no pain. I suddenly feel a suffocating weight on my chest, while nothing was there, and strangely, I feel a surface touching my back, but no such thing exist. That moment of non-focus wasn't left unclaimed as the dozen of goblins surrounded me, hitting me with their stone hammers, which are closer to stone axes. However, I didn't feel any pain. The vision in front of me became filled with dirty childish faces, when suddenly these faces became foggy and faded away like a mirage.

"Agh! ...", I opened my eyes got up by reflex. "What was that.." I mumbled.

The bright light seeping through the branches, blinding my eyes for a second. I woke up to see the greenery of the forest in its full glory. However, that beautiful scene was quickly covered up by a popup screen.

Skill(rare): Sleep learning. The ability to review situations and analyze while sleeping. No skill can be learned while sleep learning, and no exp is gotten from killing monsters.

"Hmm, what is this? That dream. Oh, so this is related to that weird dream.. weird.." I was still confused by what just happened, and my mind still foggy since I just woke up. My brain couldn't process all the information available. However, as my mind adjusted, I got a deeper understanding of what's going and finally wrapped my head around the skill and the dream.

Seems like the skill makes analyzing and fighting possible even when I'm asleep. Which means I can create simulations or ponder about a problem while sleeping. I wonder which is more efficient? thinking while awake or thinking using sleep learning. hmm, I should test that later. For now. Let's check the corpses of those goblins.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

I got up from under the tree and headed towards the entrance of the cave. Much to my dismay, the corpses weren't there. Seems like they were buried by their kin or something.

Anyways, I had no reason to continue dallying in front of the cave and I still had to test something. Whether my fear of the goblins will trigger or not. I walked towards the cave, slowly as to not alert a large group of goblins, and I made my way through the rocky and muddy passage. The humid atmosphere made it harder to breathe, but I kept my guards up.

"trr.." I heard the sound of some stones falling and I quickly try to hide in a concaved place of the cavern. A group of five goblins arrived. As expected, my heart didn't panic when I saw them. Confirming my suspicion, I waited for them to approach as much as possible without them having the possibility to see me before I jumped towards them.

"Scriieeee!!" Their screech echoing through the walls of the cave, my eardrums became irritated and started to hurt. But I tried my best to not let that make me lose focus as my eyes were solely concentrated on the stone hammers of goblins. As I reached hitting range, I did a 360 spin side kick and rushed to the side, avoiding most of the hits. Aie, it hurts, seems like sleep learning didn't upgrade my ability to resist or tolerate pain. My focus only wavering for a split of a second, I looked back towards the group of goblins and hit with my knee the face of the closest one. I then stabbed him in the belly, used the momentum of the stab to push towards his group, then I started slashing every goblin who lost his balance. Blood gushed out and I bathed in it- unwillingly. I thrust my short sword in the chest of a wounded goblin ending his life and receiving 10 EXP as a reward. Then, seeing a fairly healthy one trying to claim the opportunity of my sword being stuck in his kin's chest, I kicked him back to the place, and unsheathed my sword from the chest of the dead goblin. I then slashed horizontally towards the kicked goblin, and blood flowed out of his throat as a fountain. Ding after ding rang on my mind as my EXP bar was filling up. The group was finished in less than 4 minutes, and then I started checking their body.

I remember the blacksmith quest asked me to get rusted swords. I wonder where they are?.. Wait, let me check, maybe?..

I unclothed the dead goblins to confirm my suspicions and indeed, the rusted swords were hidden in their rags. Seems like bashing people with a stone hammer was more convenient for them than having to slash them with a sword that won't even be better than a butter knife.

"Anyways, that's one thing done. Let's get started with the skinning."

The world here felt so real, the biggest evidence is my first fight. I and the goblin both fought for our survival, he was no first area mob ready to be slaughtered so that the player can get the EXP. It was a sentinel monster with a life of its own and a story of its own. It too desired survival more than anything else. That's the proof that this world is real. But in this real world, how will the skinning skill work? Will I just say "Skin" and the skin will be taken out on its own.

"Skin.." To my surprise, it actually did. A red light covered the body before it became skinless, the flesh and bone were for everyone to behold.

I tried stopping myself fro vomiting and continued skinning the other goblins, then I put their rusty swords, skin, and body in y inventory. How did that work? Like this

"Inventory" after I say this, a big screen appear before me, then I focus slightly harder on the object I want. A miniature holographic version appears in my vision and I drag and drop it in the square I want to drop it in. And tada! The item disappears from the world in a red light and goes to my inventory.