I woke up to loud screaming outside my door, along with a notification that kind of helped to clear my grogginess as it just popped up right in front of my face.

Ding! (Previously muted due to state)

Welcome to Stage 3 of the Tutorial

Dungeons are abound, Enter for Riches

But at your own Peril

Survive

Ugh…I feel…hungry. Why am I so hungry?

“RAIZENNN!!”

Oh, shit yeah, we’re getting attacked or something.

I quickly grabbed my spear and pouch and ran towards the door. Upon opening the door, I could see a frantic Richard getting ready to bang on it once again. I won’t mention that I almost ran into the door due to not being used to my current body.

“No time to talk! Come quickly! It’s over a hundred of them!!”

Shit that’s a lot, I didn’t even bother putting on a shirt as I took off towards the gate. Thankfully I slept in my pants, so I didn’t have to worry about that. It was still very dark outside so I’m assuming it’s just past midnight. Anyway, I could hear the fighting outside. It sounded brutal.

As I opened my stride and sprinted as fast as I could, I eventually left Richard far behind me, and since the gate was already opened, I jumped through and could finally see everything I was hearing as I got closer. It was a war like environment. Tens of humans were fighting and screaming as Goblins kept pouring in from the Forest. Fireballs constantly illuminating the night sky and arrows flying through the air at rapid pace.

I took a second to take stock of the situation before taking off towards where most of the fire magic Goblins had concentrated. I weaved through the bodies of both humans and Goblins alike before jumping with all my strength towards the backline where the fireballs were originating from. I don’t know exactly how many Goblins were standing there spitting out fireballs, but I didn’t waste any time as my spear danced in the darkness. Almost every movement I made resulted in the head of Goblin flying.

I’m not sure if it’s because of how quickly I made it 3rd Cycle Body Tempering, but the increase felt exhilarating. I felt unstoppable. The Goblins could barely react before I was upon them like a reaper coming for his due.

I’m not sure when it happened but eventually a smile made its way onto my face. I truly loved fighting. I didn’t lose focus though, after taking care of the fire magic Goblins, I began sweeping through the masses of people to help relieve pressure where I could. There were far more Goblins than the people here and more were still pouring out from the Forest.

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I didn’t stop for a second as I moved across the battlefield, at some point I spotted Richard and a couple others who appeared to be in Body Tempering as well doing their best to help and take on multiple Goblins by themselves.

I need to relieve more pressure if I wanted more people to survive the night. Quickly dispatching the Goblins close to me, I moved closer towards the forest where more and more Goblins were still running out from.

I intended to stop most of them from getting by me.

Although I was stronger and faster than everyone here, I wasn’t omnipotent. I would miss some of them. But I would do my best to stop that from happening.

And that’s exactly what I did. Every now and then a fire magic Goblin would come out from the forest and fireball would illuminate the area, and the glint of my spear would flash in the light as it moved with speed towards the neck next in line to be severed.

The first problem I faced in doing this was footing. The Forest floor was already crowded with logs, bushes, sticks, stones, and even uneven ground but adding a lot of bodies to the equation wasn’t helping. Yes, the bodies will eventually disappear and leaving small orbs in place, but with the number of Goblins dying it was starting to become a problem.

Not like I could do anything about though other than keep fighting.

After who knows how long, I noticed that Goblins finally stopped pouring out of the forest and after I cleaned up the large group in front of me, I turned around to the folks behind me still engaging in battle and after sweeping my eyes across the area I saw the folks who needed the most help and did just that.

It took maybe another 10 minutes or so, but all the Goblins were dead. I don’t know who did it first, but someone cried out and eventually everyone was doing the same thing. Though at some point, the noise levels died down as Richard and company began taking stock of the situation.

Apparently two people had died.

I didn’t know them.

I don’t necessarily feel anything emotionally about them dying but I couldn’t help but think that if I was stronger then I could’ve prevented that. Some might say that’s a bit of a selfish way of thinking, but I can’t control the things that pop into my mind.

Moving on, I turned back towards the Forest, and stayed on relatively high alert as Richard and his group cleaned up the battlefield behind me. Picking up all the orbs, helping the injured and dealing with their dead.

Eventually I could hear steps approaching me, and I turned around to see it was Richard as expected. In his hand was a pouch that was clearly filled with a good amount of the orbs. I had no idea how many Goblins were killed but based on that it looks like a good amount.

“This is for you. Thank you for your help, I don’t know if we would’ve survived if you hadn’t been here. I’m assuming you advanced past the first stage in Body Tempering because you were like a superhero out there. Thanks again.”

I stared at the pouch for a moment, but I decided against questioning it. Everything about what he said seemed extremely genuine and I didn’t want to spit in the face of that. Plus, I needed the orbs so who am I to say no.

Richard seemed to notice my look as he spoke up once more.

“Haha don’t worry there were hundreds of orbs laying about. We gave you most of them, but we have more than we’ve ever earned on our little hunting trips. They will help a lot.”

“Thank you, I’ll stay out here a bit longer to make sure everything is okay.”

He simply nodded and walked away towards his group.

But hundreds huh…I didn’t even realize it was that much. I couldn’t even imagine the type of damage that would’ve ensued if even just one of the big ones made an appearance.

Either way it’s still dark outside so let’s go get some sleep. I’ll visit Greja in the morning to exchange these orbs.

Ugh…yeah I’m still hungry.

I haven’t felt this hungry since I entered the Tutorial…how did I even manage to fight that long and that hard on an empty stomach.

I quickly made my way home took two of those food pill things and was in dreamland once again.

….

Knock Knock

Dammit.