Stephan’s jaw dropped, for facing him was a mine so deep, it looked as if it bored to the center of the earth itself. A single misplaced step would forfeit his life for certain. Each clink and clang resonating through him. As to not get himself too shaken up, he shook off the thought.
Turning back to the matter at hand: Exit. Find an exit. He thought as he slowly panned his head taking into account about 5 different passageways . Though as his panning came to an end, his vision landed on a small creature, similar to the one he’d had and all too friendly encounter with before. Shit…
It felt like the air just got 5 degrees colder as the realization kicked in. His body reflexively recoiling away.
Thud. Tripped up.
A grin slid onto the goblin’s face as he began walking towards Stephan, twirling a knapped flint knife. Just then, speeding like a dart. Bunny! The girl rugby tackled the goblin with every ounce of might and will she possessed trying to bind his arms. As if this sight were a piece of cruel satire though, the damn thing barely stumbled.
Turning it’s focus, he shrugged the poor girl off so hard she dropped to the ground. Seeing how frail she was, the green imp kicked and stomped at her, as if dealing with a cockroach, seemingly blind and entranced in it’s own fury.
The force of those kicks. She’ll die. Stephan could easily figure that out from witnessing such a dystopian scene 6 feet away.
Stunned, Stephan didn’t know how to deal with this situation. Need to think faster. Increase oxygen given to the brain: deep breaths. Taking a deep cold breath, time slowed and the fog cleared.
Now. Goblin distracted, blinded by rage, small silent movements wont be noticed: Stand up. Methodically standing up, knife in hand, He crept up right behind the goblin.
Attacking: best weak spot, head. Target moving too much, can’t risk to miss: no stabbing, must slash. Turning his knife upside down, he charged his attack to make sure it’d go through. Then, slashing so hard he thought he’d pulled a muscle, Stephan zeroed in on his target, pushing the knife as deep into the goblin’s neck as he could.
One unaccounted discrepancy. The layer of muscle on the goblin’s neck was so thick that it’d stopped the knife before it even reached halfway.
“Shit!”, Stephan exclaimed as he tried to pull the knife out. Stuck, it did not budge, and the goblin wasn’t about to let him have another go either as he spun around with a
Knife! Dodge!
Correction: Two unaccounted discrepancies. The goblin still had a knife of his own.
Deja vu. Stephan was back on the ground after failing to step backwards.
Fuck, if only I’d pulled it out, he would’ve lost so much blood he’d have died already.
As if god himself heard that call, the goblin pulled out the knife himself.
D-doesn’t he know? Doesn’t he know that knife is his only lifeline right now? Aah right… it’s still just a goblin. The creature looked confused for a moment before feeling his own warm blood enameling his body. A wide smile slowly spread on Stephan’s face. “idiot…” was the last word that thing heard before collapsing to the ground.
Rushing over to the girl, he felt around, checking the damage. Broken rib. Surprised only one broke. It shouldn’t kill her, but in her condition… Nevertheless, gotta find a way to heal her. As he was checking to see if there was anything else wrong, their eyes locked. And so the moment itself paused until- [Blip]
As if to purposefully startle him, a window popped up around the bottom left corner of his vision.
[+3 Exp]
This pop-up looked as if it were a pretentiously etched, light-blue stained glass. Transparent as glass would be, though the words were a clear white color and easy to read. It seemed to defy the dim lighting conditions of the cave, appearing to almost glow, though somehow never enough to actually give off light. Stephan of course, recognized it immediately. A notification window! Only 3 Exp measly from killing that *thing*?
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
“Is this some kind of cruel joke?”
Suddenly, he recalled his previous goblin encounter. Did I not get any Exp from that? If experience is a thing in this world, then there must be a way of seeing where it’s stored.
“Status window”, he said awkwardly. Do I need to say it louder? “Status window!”, he exclaimed, in a more proud manner now, whilst unconsciously putting his hand in front of him like some mage from a game summoning a spell. The only thing achieved though, was a confused look from the girl, a light blush from the embarrassment, and still not summoning the window.
This failure brought to his mind how weird it seemed that superheroes always said their move out loud before actually performing it, and so: Status window!
[General Data: Stephan Stein]
------------------
[Title: None]
[Class: รŦ๔ђﻮคɭןร๔ Lvl: 0 ]
[Exp: 6/200]
------------------
[Life: 10 (8)]
[Mana: 10]
[Will: 8]
[Strength: 6]
[Endurance: 8]
[Agility: 4]
[Intellect: 12]
[Wisdom: 15]
------------------
[Status Points: 0]
The window’s appearance widened his eyes, but upon reading it however, Stephan wasn’t particularly satisfied.
If my life and mana are average baselines, then doesn’t that mean I’m below average in all physically related stats? Like, c’mon. Did I take Tai Chi for nothing? These stats are completely untrue but whatever. What about… Skills!
[Skill Sheet]
[Skill Points: 0]
------------------
Active Skills
[Analysis Lvl: 1]
[Will Lvl: 1]
-----------------
Passive Skills
[Knife Wielding Lvl: 1]
The disappointment followed through.
Is… this it? And what do these even mean? The only one that I can really say I understand is knife wielding. What even is will?
Thinking for a second, a metaphorical light lit up. It’s an active skill so… Looking at his palm, Stephan thought of magic and how mages in games just.. materialized it out of nothingness.
Closing his eye’s, Stephan took a deep breath trying to feel the air around him. Will.
Casting the skill, suddenly… He felt it. He didn’t know what *it* was, and didn’t have anything to compare it to either, but it was everywhere, a one-to-one ratio as the air itself.
Then, as if to suggestively guide it, he pulled it towards his open palm, and kept pulling, playing around, he made it denser and denser, cramming more of this stuff into a ball on his palm. Reaching the consistency of water, he decided to open his eyes.
Nothing.
His palm was full of… nothing. Though he could still feel it, *Something* was there, yet there wasn’t anything, nothing there to see at least. This is just as rude as the goddamn Exp rate, am I just not strong enough to actually materialize my spells?
In annoyance Stephan decided to throw his handful of this ‘will’ stuff at an innocent, by-standing, boulder a few meters away. As the orb made contact, a small chunk of the boulder detonated, erupting shrapnel everywhere, sounding an echoing boom though the cave and scaring the bunny almost the rest of the way to death.
Visible panic painted both their faces as they recoiled form what just happened. A proud smile spreading on Stephan’s face from a more-than-welcome wall of messages:
[Spell gained: Willful Orb]
[+3 Skill points]
[Update: Will Lvl: 2]
[+1 Skill point]
Skill points! I can’t wait to- Thwack!
Entranced in his with his advancements, he failed to see an incoming slap from a now angry looking bunny girl. Furious, the girl began telling him off. The intent with which some words were said… You didn’t have to know what they meant to know you fucked up.
Despite the situation, this sparked a light in Stephan’s mind, and as she spoke, he really tried to understand her. He realized how much of a hindrance this language barrier would be, a so he began trying to figure out what she was saying. Looking at her mouth, connecting facial expressions and tone of voice, he could almost begin to recognize a few words when-
[Skill gained: Sophonian]
[+ 1 Skill point]
And just like that, he was able to understand a few key words. Though to no one’s surprise, most of what she was saying remained gibberish. Staring at the [+1 Skill point] prompt he bargained: Maybe I can just use skill points to upgrade it, it shouldn’t cost that much right? Skill sheet!
[Skill Sheet]
[Skill Points: 5]
------------------
Active Skills
[Analysis Lvl: 1]
[Will Lvl: 2]
-----------------
Passive Skills
[Sophonian Language Lvl: 1]
[Knife Wielding Lvl: 1]
Upgrade skill Sophonian language! Doubtful he’d gotten the command right on the first time, he began thinking of other ways to put it when-
[Upgrading skill: Sophonian Language]
[This will take 1 skill point, proceed?]
Proceed.
[Update: Sophonian Language Lvl: 2]
A sudden influx of information flooded his mind, knowledge simply embedding itself into him as if it had always been there. This threw him off for a second, before coming back to his senses. Woah, Now then…
“Hello..?”, Spoke Stephan, speaking as if questioning the language itself.
Silence.
Stephan suddenly speaking Sophonian derailed the girl’s train of thought.
“Hello…” a meek, almost mumbled voice replied, much different from the all too expressive one heard before. “Why you speak now and before you not speak?”
I can understand her more or less now, but it’s still choppy.
“I used a skill point.”
Silence… again.
Does she…. Does she know about the whole RPG thing, or is this one of those ‘MC has an overpowered superpower’ kind of deals?
“You.. you use a whole skill point for language skill?! Stupid human! You is dumb like goblin! No, dumb like bugs! Dumb like-”
“Why’re you so mad, I’ve still got 4 left. ” somewhat taken aback by the heated reaction though, Stephan mentally re-valued how much each skill point is worth.
She stared back at him, the expression on her face split between amazement and fear. Stephan couldn’t tell exactly what was going through her mind, but he knew it was a lot, a lot of *something*.
“What exactly are skill points, are they rare?” Stephan wanted to know more.
“What exactly are *you*?” she mimicked his question back to him.
As Stephan opened his mouth- A resounding roar resonated throughout Stephan’s body. Having gone through this twice over, removed some of the shock factor, just enough for Stephan to regain his cold calculatory abilities.
Before even turning his head: louder roar, larger lungs, bigger enemy. Gotta prepare. Willful Orb! He began casting ahead.
Turning around hit him with a sight enough to periodically stun him. Green alike all that is foul in this cave stood a towering creature. Bulk enough to make bodybuilders cower, and tall enough that it was a head taller over our protagonist too. Its Skin, scarred and battle-worn shined enough to outline the creature’s beastly facial features, which spoke the orc’s intentions clearly: Die.