He scrambled to his feet, narrowly avoiding the deadly tip of a rudimentary blade made primarily of stone. Though his eyes were focused solely on the goblin, his mind was elsewhere. First, he made a note of the fact that he only saw one goblin in his immediate vicinity. Were they not social creatures in this world? Was this a scout, an outcast? He had so many questions.

What world was he in? What was his goal? Why now, of all times?

There was no way to sate his curiosities at the moment so he was left with nothing but frustration. One thing he did know, at least, was that these situations almost always involved the hero receiving some cheat skill, or skills, from whatever God that summoned them. He didn’t remember choosing anything in some sort of waiting room, so he could only hope that he had what he wanted. He wanted to check his status to confirm, but he had other problems at hand.

His memories flashed back to his younger days, before he and his wife had passed the boundary of friendship. He was hanging out with her, watching some show he couldn’t be bothered to remember the title of, and the question of whether their initial instinct would be to run or to fight was brought up.

Her answers were always so straightforward. Was it cute? Capture it! Could it speak? Reason with it. She saw no point in ceaseless slaughter and always looked for a more unique solution to every problem. If the rules were able to be bent, she would bend them to her will to maximize her own enjoyment. If they weren’t? She’d do it anyways!

His answer was, as always, complicated. So many factors played into it for him. Was he harmed? What was he fighting? What was his condition? Did he spawn with a skill? Was he alone? He could never just generally answer, he had to have every single detail. He had to make the best decision possible.

But now it was different. Then, he was thinking from the perspective of a man that wanted to make the best of his time in the fantasy world. Now? He just wanted to get home, as soon as he possibly could. He wanted to make it back to his family. So, instead of taking his chances running into the unknown forest, he readied himself for the fight in front of him.

‘Quest Generated: Defeat 1 Goblin!’

A white screen with golden text appeared in front of him.

This told him a lot. There was a System in this world, and it would give him quests. He was being watched, evaluated. That meant he’d receive rewards based on how well he did. It also raised more questions. Was it his willingness to fight that generated the quest? Would it have been a different one if he chose to run? He resigned himself to finding out with time and refocused.

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He didn’t know how to fight though. He knew a few theories, though the legitimacy of them were questionable since he mainly learned them from manga, but he didn’t have the physique to enact them. How could he? He’d spent the entirety of his life watching anime and reading stories.

The goblin, about the size of a second grader, stepped in towards him and swung the blade in a large back handed arch that would’ve cut him from his right to his left had it connected. Luckily, all he had to do was step back to avoid this attack, so he clumsily did so.

‘Passive Skill Generated: Dodge!’

The goblin pressed forward, continuing to swing wildly. His dodges became more deft. Each time he dodged again, he got better at it, no longer threatening to trip over himself in the process. His steadier footing allowed for him to properly position himself for his next movements, which left room for planning ahead.

He had to admit, there was a rush to all of it. Fighting with his life on the line? He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t exciting. As he found himself starting to enjoy it, his back hit something sturdy: a tree! It happened while he was dodging an upward swing from the goblin’s knife, which was swiftly followed up by a downward stabbing motion.

He pivoted around the tree, allowing the knife to cut deep into the silvery bark and momentarily disarming his foe. The tree was a tad bit too large to circle completely and expect the goblin to still be unarmed, so he planted his foot on the ground and pushed off of it, throwing his body weight at the monster and his fist into its face. He wasn’t strong by any stretch of the word, but a punch was a punch!

The goblin ate the hit with a smile. It did damage, but not enough. The goblin swung back, hitting him in the stomach and knocking the wind out of him. He doubled over, instinctively going to clutch his stomach, but instead he forced himself to grab onto the goblin’s small neck. With both hands wrapped around it, he let his weight do the work and fell on top of the goblin.

The creature was in dismay. It was much smaller than him, so it couldn’t escape easily. It scratched and clawed at his arms and torso, drawing blood and attempting to get away as he choked the life out of it. He gritted his teeth against the pain of the throes of death. How long would it take for it to suffocate and die? Would he bleed out first? He couldn’t be sure.

He let go of its neck and started wailing on it. Punch after punch to the face and torso of the creature revealed its blood to be a nasty orange, almost rusted color.

‘Active Skill Generated: Punch!’

He didn’t know how to use the skill, but he was happy for it nonetheless. This battle had given him two skills already.

His assault had sent the goblin on the defensive. It covered its face in hopes of lessening the damage, but it didn’t help too much. After a minute or so of the onslaught, he felt the body go limp from being beaten to death.

‘Goblin Defeated! +25EXP! You’ve Leveled Up! All Stats Plus 1!’

‘Item(s) Dropped: Goblin Knife!’

‘Quest Completed! +30EXP! You’ve Leveled Up! +2 Speed!’

‘Reward(s) Received: None!’

He fell to the ground beside the corpse, panting. He was covered in a mixture of his blood and the goblin’s, but his blood had stopped flowing. The level ups clearly healed him, which he was grateful for.

He was bummed out over not receiving any quest rewards, but he was happy overall. He survived his first ordeal and learned a lot during it as well.

“Status.” He said firmly, making his stats appear.

‘Name: N/A

HP: 375/375

MP: 225/225

Level: 3

Title: Blessed One

Race: Human

Class: Dungeon Master

Active Skills: Transcendent Eye(Max), Punch(LV1)

Passive Skills: Affinity(Max), Linguistics(Max), Dodge(LV1)

Strength: 4

Endurance: 3

Speed: 6

Dexterity: 4

Mana: 3

‘