"Let's meet up! / Let's meet."

I hadn't replied to their last message and they already said that. I didn't have any other words to describe those two girls except for... aggressive. It wasn't like I hated the fact that they were the one who made the initiative though, in fact, it was good that they immediately wanted to meet me even though we barely or in fact, only greeted each other through the messaging app and hadn't had any conversation... Though setting that fact aside, I had one big major problem.

What kind of clothes should I wear?

I knew they didn't mean to meet up right away, but just in case they wanted to meet in the near future, I began to think about my clothes. I threw my blanket that had covered my body for the whole afternoon to the floor, put the half eaten ice cream bucket to the floor, and walked down to my wardrobe.

A frown formed on my face as I opened the wood varnish door. Black hoodies, black jackets, black sleeveless shirts, black shirts, black t-shirts, black sweaters, black pants, everything was black except for two spare white shirts to accompany my school uniform. Heck, I had enough confidence to say that the inside of my wardrobe was as dark as one of the two famous superhero movie franchise.

Either way, lamenting at my own wardrobe wouldn't make a new set of clothes to suddenly appear. While keeping that fact in mind, I took my hoodie, which obviously was a black coloured, and went out to check and maybe bought a new piece of attire.

I began to step out from my house as the sun sank lower in the sky, the light of day draining away, giving way to the velvety dark of night, I started thinking about what kind of clothes I should buy, focusing more on the colourful colour combination, maybe it was yellow and black? Or red and black? Light blue also seemed pretty good with black.

"...."

Walking the same path to my favourite clothing store, though even when I said favourite, that store was the only clothing store that I ever visited, while thinking there was something definitely wrong with my fashion sense or I might be had an obsession with a black colour. And with each stride, I suddenly realized one important thing. My hair fluttered in the air,  my clothes clung to my body, my arms tightly wrapped around me. I didn't think about this that much but I had underestimated the cold on the middle-end of December... walking outside at six p.m with only a single piece of shirt, pants and hoodie might be wasn't the brightest idea.

I could turn back of course, but then what was the point of walking this far if I turned back right now? So bearing with the cold, I decided to march forward while rubbing my hands against each other and 'enjoying' the white fog that was flowing out from my mouth each time I breathed.

As I continued walking down the street, my shadows were now twice as long as myself, the air was damp and cool smelling faintly of a car's exhaust fumes. As the trees that lined the street stood as black statues silhouetted against the darkening sky, a green creature stood barely one meter tall with its scrawny body and wide, ungainly head wearing only a loincloth to cover its groin walking past right next to me, and almost simultaneously the street lamp clicked on.

"What the-?!"

I turned my neck around, looking to my back while hoping my eyes were playing a trick on me. 

Unfortunately, my widened eyes still saw that green creature, nonchalantly walking as nothing weird was going on. I didn't know how others would react but the only thought that occurred to me was the need to record that creature with my phone. Though as I shifted my attention to take my phone for a second, only three meters away from me the green bald creature had stopped his steps, turned around and looking at me with hate-filled green eyes.

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The intention to take a photo of that creature was ripped away from my thought by a deep growling sound that came out from its mouth. It began to slowly pace toward me, getting slightly closer with each step he took while slowly sheathing the knife away from its back.

My heart began to beat faster as I noticed a few words above the... creature that said Goblin Warrior [Lvl 1]. I might not understand a single of bit why and what the hell was going on right now but I had enough awareness to realize that an angry creature with a knife on its hand was not something that I wanted to deal with.

The Goblin stepped closer and closer with each step, making his way in a straight path toward me. I began to slowly scramble backwards, maintaining eye contact with the strange creature in hopes that it viewed me as a threat and backed away. The only effect that it seemed to have was making the corner of the goblin's mouth curled up into a wide Cheshire's grin and as the result, showing more of his teeth. Large teeth, which seemingly incredible large hung and pointed from the inside of his mouth, I couldn't see his gum, but one thing that I saw was that the teeth appeared to be coated in dry blood, browned from age.

There was absolute stillness. Not a sound could be heard from both of us, except for the goblin low growling sound. This strange encounter was only interrupted as a couple nonchalantly walking past us without even batting an eye to the goblin. 

The goblin just exposed more teeth and walked closer, using his finger to spin his dagger. From the way the goblin played with its dagger, it would be a lie if I didn't say the goblin was clearly proficient with using a dagger.

Swallowing spit that seemed to be as thick as sandpaper along with the fear of being stabbed by the goblin, my heartbeat speeded up.

Letting out a breath and trying to make a decision of whether or not I should run or fight him, the goblin already had been bellowing out a war cry, as he raised his knife and rushed toward me like a beast. The only response that I could give to the goblin was... disappointment.

Just like its physical appearance, the goblin was far slower compared to the guys that I had ever fought. And if I had to say, the goblin himself maybe not much faster or stronger than a little kid. Maybe because the goblin was still level one? Still, the goblin brought a knife in his hand, and I assumed that was more than enough to turn a little kid into a killer, just like that Halloween movie.

With his short stature, the goblin was clearly aiming for my stomach, but just like his height, his arm's reach was also short. I took a step forward and repelled the goblin by swinging my right leg, kicking the goblin right in its stomach and creating a thick sound as a sign that something had been broken.

(I did not care about the couple that was watching me from the distance and had started whispering to each other while fastening their walking pace. I more care about what happened if the goblin was real and they were the one that couldn't see him.)

Right at that moment, anger and killing intention left the goblin's face as shock took its place and the goblin dropped his knife and slowly fell to his knees. The goblin coughed up green liquid, in which I assumed as the colour of goblin blood, as he tried to pick his knife up while enduring the pain. Just before his hand reached the knife, I was able to easily step on his knife and kick it to the side. Then as if I was kicking a soccer ball, the goblin flew one meter away as my foot made contact right in his face.

My eyes widened and my jaw dropped as I watched the goblin landed to the ground. I didn't know the goblin exact weight but I assumed it was somewhere around 20kg, and I just freaking kicked him off the ground.

"--!! ---!!? GiiiIIIii"

Much to my surprise, the goblin still groaned and squirmed as he prostrated himself on the ground. I didn't know much about it as I never actually felt it, but the pain of getting thrown one meter away by a kick should be unbearable, but he was somehow persisting.

I was wary at first, thinking the goblin might still have enough power to retaliate, but that was immediately proven to be a needless fear as before I could even move my finger, the goblin had been slowly turning into smoke.

I stood still like a statue, completely dumbfounded about what was happening and how I managed to not freaking out through all of that shit. I didn't know which was weirder though, the goblin, the floating words above his head, the fact that other people couldn't see him, it turned into smoke, or the fact that it left behind a small red jewel on the ground.

Congratulations! Your level is now 2! +2 Status point. +1 Miracle.

Or the same ghostly voice telling me that my level was now two.