I ran without following any clear direction, only wanting to move away from the place of the battle. The situation had taken a few moments to click in after I waled away from the corpse, but as my brain had started to regain its normal functionality, I hadn’t wasted a moment before running away from he scene.
There were many things I still didn’t know about this world, more than the ones I knew, actually, but I did know one thing that was true in my world and in any other...
“The smell of blood attracts the shark”.
And I didn’t want to be any place near that dead goblin when “sharks” began to arrive. Be it actual predators or any possible friend that goblin might have… if what I had experienced the night before was true, it would be safe to assume these beings worked in groups.
My heart beat against my ribs as I dropped down next to a small stream of water to clean what blood still remained in my face and body. There, I noticed my hands were red with the blood of the goblin whose life I had just ended and, as the adrenaline surge began to wane, the reality of the situation finally hit me.
I had, indeed, been close to dying.
If my tackle hadn’t managed to stop the goblin’s attack…
If that hatchet had found its way towards my head…
If anything had gone just slightly differently to how it had happened… I would have been dead by now…
Just comparing the strength the goblin had shown in the moments before its death with my own... too many ifs for comfort… I had been oh so close to clicking the primordial “log out” button…
I nervously laughed at my own joke.
I washed my face, drank some of the clear water and stood up, my heart beginning to slow back down to a more manageable pace.
As I calmed myself down and confirmed I hadn’t lost anything during my wild run, I looked at my surroundings. The place I found myself at was in no way, shape or form any different from the patch of forest I had been in before. The trees were the same pine-like trees and they extended for as far as the eye could see, only broken by a few straight, white wooded trees that seemed to stretch right out into the sun. Blueberry bushes could be seen here and there, almost calling me to eat some of its tasty blue fruits.
But my experience from before had almost singlehandedly made me not want to eat any berries… at least for a while…
I still hadn’t found any other source of food after all.
My stomach rumbled as a smell I recognized reached my nose.
“Roasted meat” I whispered. “A barbecue…”
I realized that I was downwind from wherever the smell was coming from and, unable to see further than 10 meters because of the trees, I got closer to a large pine tree and, using its thick branches as a makeshift ladder, I found my way towards the canopy of leaves that covered the whole forest.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
I stood on top of a thick branch and looked past the leaves towards the place I felt the smell coming from.
What I saw left me with my mouth wide open, and it wasn’t just because of the large boar-like animal roasting on top of a large pyre.
In a clear not more than 100 meters away from where I stood, I saw at least 10 crudely made huts made out of wood, foliage and pelts surrounding a fairly large gathering of green creatures much like the goblin I had fought before.
Most were as small or slightly bigger than the one I had seen and were, for the most part, naked, but some were thinner and taller and wore better clothing than their smalled peers. A small window popped up and showed the information I was wanting to ask for.
A smothering of [GOBLIN] and [HOBGOBLIN] type creatures.
It wasn’t very informative, but from just looking at the creatures, I could assume which wan were which.
As the realization that so many goblins were in the vicinity of where I had been sleeping began to crawl into my mind, a big, lumbering creature, exited the largest of the huts, accompanied by one goblin creature mounted on what looked like rabid dogs.
[GOBLIN WAG RIDER] Lv. 1
[GOBLIN KING] Lv. 26
The messages that popped in front of me almost scared the shit out of me. I hadn’t even thought of asking about the creatures and the system had already given me the information I wanted, was I getting better at using it? Or was it reading my thoughts before I could have time to process them?
I decided to put that thought on hold as I turned my attention back towards the creatures in the village.
The Goblin King stood next to the roasting boar and began speaking. It spoke in the same strange language I had heard the group of unknown creatures talking in the night before, and its voice carried a crude sense of pride. It pointed towards the wag rider and every one of the goblins began to cheer.
The wag rider raised a javelin into the air in response.
It almost felt like witnessing a birthday party… almost as if they were celebrating some great achievement… maybe getting a “wag”, whatever those were, was difficult and that one goblin had managed to do so?
I felt a chill run down my spine as I realized these creatures were more than just normal NPCs, they seemed to have a culture, traditions, a sense of pride about their accomplishments. They may be driven by their lust or hunger, but they were, in a way, sentient.
And I also realized that, the group I had heard the night before had been a scouting party, probably out checking the traps they laid around the forest… and for beings trespassing in their territory.
If the dragon had implanted the idea, the scout party had watered it and the goblin had promoted it, seeing this goblin village carry out a celebratory feast had just cemented it.
This forest, and everything inside of it, could feasibly kill me, and I was getting the idea that some would do it happily.
I clenched my fist around my knife’s handle.
I couldn’t die here, not while my sister was still waiting for me back home, notwhen I knew that doing so would mean leaving her alone.
If I wanted to get out alive, I would need to learn how to survive in this forest.
I needed to get out of here, find out if my friends were in here with me and if they were safe and, if the forest was going to try and stop me, I would take the whole forest with me if necessary.
“I can’t die in here” I whispered, putting my feelings into words. I had people I cared for, and I wouldn’t let a stupid group of trees take that away from me.
No matter what happened... I was going to survive.