The figure walked across the burning sand under the glaring sun. Its throat completely parched, and its fat nowhere to be seen. Through the black haggard cloak, one could see a skinny non-human, clearly a feline-type. It had not much flesh remaining, mainly bones, and burnt fur of unknown colour.
Its listless eyes stared into the void as it slowly collapsed, and fell down from atop the dune it was trying to cross.
Tumbling down in the sand, the non-human landed on his back as he stared into the bright sky, unable to move much.
At this moment, a window popped up.
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Do you wish to live?
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Back in the Central continent, Mason was on his way to the capital of the Bard kingdom.
With the meagre savings he had, he rented a seat in a caravan of the ‘RedForce Company’, the largest and most successful merchant company in all of the Bard kingdom, holding a tight grasp over the financial system of the kingdom.
Naturally, that was excluding the royal family itself.
Along the way, Mason had dozed off at some point. There was not much on him beside the wolf skin, which he kept on himself after completely washing it clean using river water near the town gate.
Other than the wolfskin, Mason also had a few copper with him from the sale of the items he had scavenged from the wolf.
All the different nations had their own types of currency, however, every nation allowed for barter between each other, which, along with the wills of the gods, made every nation stick to a simple standard.
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1 gold = 20 silver = 20 copper
And although the engravings on these coins from each nation were different, their sizes were the same, the currency from one nation could be used in any nation other than the deserted Southern Continent, and the Mysterious Northern Continent.
Naturally, most countries had their own upper limits to this system for their nobles and royalties, with crystal and even platinum coins. Some rich countries even kept diamond coins, but this information was nothing but rumours to Mason.
He simply had too little for anyone to rob from, not to mention that this was a RedForce caravan, and stealing from a client of their meant facing the wrath of the entire RedForce company.
Suddenly, the caravan had stopped and the driver was yelling in a calm tone.
“Dear clients, do no panic. Some disturbances have appeared. Do not worry, we, The RedForce, will take care of them.”
The way the driver was speaking showed that he had spoken this very line uncountable times and by now his lips were moving faster than his brain could comprehend.
Everyone in the caravan became slightly nervous, but did not rush out. They headed the instructions of the driver and waited calmly.
Mason was awoken by the driver’s squeaky voice and blinked a few times before stretching.
It was currently 3:42 am Local time, according to the system. After the system update, a clock had appeared on the top left of the screen, which made a lot of things easier for Mason.
Seeing the nervous tension in the air, Mason readied his knife he had with him. He currently did not have any money for a sword, and even if he had one, using it with a missing leg would only put him more off-balance.
“It’s just goblins!” yelled a loud and booming voice.
Mason stuck his head out the front of the carriage along with the other people, only to see nothing but the back of a middle-aged man.
Realising it was the driver casually sitting on the front of the carriage, still holding onto the reigns of the ropes to the horses, Mason struggled a little and finally got his head through the crows of fellow travellers inside the carriage and got a clear picture of the ‘obstacle’ the driver was talking about.
In front of Mason, was a handful of knights, numbering around 5, as they stood their ground against a sea of 30 or so goblins, and a taller goblin among them, which roughly amounted to the same height as the average human male.
Looking closer at the names above the battling sides Mason noticed the clear disparity in level.