Three days had passed since Derrick’s first excursion outside, and he stood alone in the basement, covered with sweat. The only sounds audible in the room were Derrick’s straining breaths and the dull thunk of metal against wood

Congratulations! Knife throwing has reached Level 20!

Derrick bit his lip. He knew that his ability to level up would most likely slow down, but he had still only increased knife throwing 5 levels in three whole days! He wished that the skill would level up faster.

He let out a sigh and shrugged his shoulders. Even if the leveling was slow, there was nothing that Derrick could do about that. He didn’t think that just training knife throwing more would work, either. After all, he had spent most of the three days time training, and adding more time for knife throwing would in turn leave him less time to train in another area, like his stats. He only had so much time in the day, after all.

Derrick collected the metal menagerie of kitchen knives that he had been using to train his knife throwing skills and clambered out of the damp air of the basement. Soon enough, gentle splashing noises could be heard as Derrick collected some of the water that occupied the sink within a cup. He was very glad that he had filled every basin in his house with as much water as it could hold when this disaster started. The idea was certainly showing its usefulness now.

Derrick wiped the sweat away from his forehead, and allowed himself to sit down in one of the many simple wooden chairs that characterized his dining room. It was good to take a break every now and then,

A little later, Derrick’s panting breaths had returned to normal, and his throat was no longer dry from the constant sweating. His condition had improved considerably, up to the point that he could continue training, but he didn’t. Instead, he remained, staring at the portrait.

It was one of the main features of the dining room, standing out besides the long wooden table and chairs.The whole family had gotten the photo taken during a summer trip. It portrayed Derrick and his father in tropical, flowery shirts, while his sister, Angela, made a face at the camera. His mom stood next to his father in a beautiful dress.

She was the one who had insisted they put this picture on the wall, even though Angela had practically ruined it. Something about showing the ‘spirit’ of the family.

“You guys are okay, right?”

Derrick’s family had not returned in the four days since the world went to hell.

Derrick had done what he could to distract himself until now, but the fact remained that his family was probably in danger. When he thought about some of the monsters that he had seen until now, and what those monsters could do to his family . . .

Derrick felt a cold sweat break out upon his back. His teeth clenched.

His own inability to do anything hurt the most. Derrick could only sit here and wait. Anything else risked his life. The monsters that had claimed the area around his house stood out, fresh and deadly, in his mind. He had seen, from a distance, a bunch of green humanoids that looked like goblins, along with even more of the wolves. Worse, the wolves and the goblins seemed to be working together, cooperating to hunt what Derrick feared and knew from distant roars and hulking far-off shadows to be larger prey.

If Derrick went outside of his house without a plan,without some way to evade the various monsters that had him trapped and surrounded, then he knew that he would die fruitlessly, and that did nobody except the monsters any good.

Stay in the house, get stronger. That was his mantra nowadays and Derrick knew that it would serve him well.

Derrick stole another glance at his family’s photo and pressed his lips together. He wished, from the bottom of his heart, that they survived this, whatever this really was. He hoped beyond hope that he would be able to see his family again.

Derrick took a breath to stop the anxiety that his family’s absence had instilled within him. Worrying all day would do nothing about his situation. Worse, it would take from him valuable time that he could use to get stronger. That was the key to all of his objectives now, he had to get stronger. Derrick began to move back towards the basement, but stopped at the entrance to the dining room. He turned, and regarded the portrait for a few more seconds, before sighing and turning away to walk to the basement, his impromptu training grounds.

In the three days that he had trained so far, Derrick had discovered and adopted a variety of exercises to help him get stronger. For example, while Derrick could not train Sprinting and Running due to the small space, a jump rope allowed him to raise his dexterity. If he continued to use a jump rope long enough, he could even raise his endurance and vitality.

Of course, Most of the exercises that Derrick performed seemed to allow him to raise his endurance and vitality. The only conditions that those two stats needed to increase seemed to be persevering to an exercise, a suitable condition for rising the stats that represented health and stamina. The trade off for the variety of different methods to raise endurance and vitality however, seemed to be that both stats took a longer than usual time to increase, often taking twice the time that it took to increase strength and dexterity when he had trained those stats.

Additionally, both endurance and vitality each had their own ‘progress counter’ and while typically both stats raised at the same time, they each had exercises that seemed to raise their specific stats more efficiently. Effectively, vitality and endurance had to be balanced, lest your imbalance of training become a weakness upon your stats.

Today, Derrick was focusing on both endurance and vitality, coupled with the additional stat of dexterity, in an exercise that he had become accustomed too over the last three days.

Derrick picked up the jump rope and swished it gently over his head. Before long he had settled into a gentle rhythm, jumping along with the beat of the rope. It came down, and up went Derrick, before the rope came over and around, again and again. Derrick’s feet slammed against the concrete floor, narrowly dodging the width of the rope with every hop, the gentle wind generated by the rope just barely whisking by Derrick’s feet as it travelled back up into the air.

Derrick stayed like that for a while, with his body in sync with itself. The only noise in that basement, the gentle whipping of rope against stone, accompanied him. Before long, he could begin to feel a gentle burning feeling in his legs, the consequence of his activity. Despite the pain, Derrick persisted. He had long since learned that pushing through discomfort helped when you were training vitality and endurance.

You have received the skill: Pain Resistance, Level 1, Increases the ability to push through pain with level

But he could only push through the pain for so long. Eventually, the gentle tapping sound of the jump rope stopped, and Derrick curled down gasping for breath. Sweat dripped down his forehead, soaking the back of his shirt. Several breaths passed before Derrick dismissed the notifications that had propped up during his exercise with a thought, and eager to see any progress that he might have made, took the faster route of opening his status.

Class: Rogue

Titles: Coward

Level 1

Health: 110/110 (R/Hour 14)

Mana: 114/114 (R/Hour 14)

Stamina: 28/110 (R/Minute 10)

Strength: 9

Mind: 4

Intelligence : 7

Wisdom: 4

Dexterity: 15

Vitality: 5

Endurance: 4

Luck: 8

Points:

Derrick grinned, seeing that his training had netted him another point in vitality, and his fifteenth point in Dexterity, both of which he sorely needed, as both would help him in his quest to stay alive. The Dexterity especially, was very good, as it helped to boost all his rogue skills significantly, the main focus of all the training that he had put in in the last three days. The class boost that he had received for certain skills was excellent, and it certainly was good to play to all the strengths that he did have when his situation was as fragile as it was. All it would take was one strong monster . . .

He needed to train more. He could never be sure that he would be safe until he was so strong that the monsters outside posed no threat to him.

But for now, this was good. Derrick was improving. Slowly, Steadily, but he was improving, getting better. And soon, hopefully, Derrick would not have to worry about goblins or wolves anymore.

Derrick yawned, the tiredness from training until the early evening finally catching up to him. For now, this would have to do. He needed some rest. After all, he didn't want to be fried when he woke up to train tomorrow.

----------------------------------------

Derrick did not wake up the next morning. Instead, he woke to a banging sound that jolted his teenaged frame awake. Blearily he grabbed at the many blankets that he had surrounded himself with, desperately trying to get a handhold of some kind. Quickly enough, Derrick found the side of his bed and pulled himself up into a sitting position, where he could hear his own breath wheeze hard within the darkness.

Soon enough, the sound of Derrick’s breath was disturbed, replaced by the clattering of something once again.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Derrick pulled himself out from under the sheets, until he felt his feet softly land upon solid ground. Carefully, he stood up, grasping his hand around the knife that he had placed on his dresser, just in case.

All the while the noise continued, a banging that seemed to come with objects falling on the ground. As if someone, or something, was ransacking the place.

A monster had most likely made its way inside his house. The thought made a chill shake down Derrick’s spine. It made him want to hide back under his sheets.

He couldn’t.

Congratulations! Your Wisdom has increased by 1

He knew that it was only a matter of time until whatever was downstairs got bored of ravaging what was there, and then there was nothing stopping it from becoming interested in the rest of the house, the part that Derrick currently resided in.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

At that point, Derrick would only be able to run or fight, and the only way that he could run involved hopping through the second story window.

Doing that would cripple him. It would not be hard for the fall to break his leg, and then, the monster just had to find him. No, Derrick did not like that idea one bit. Especially when his first strategy towards monsters was running away from them.

His best course of action then, lay downstairs. If he moved down there, he would have access to the significantly less crippling first story windows, and If he could make it to one of those, he could escape. Assuming the monster down there was a goblin or a wolf, at least. If it was something more. . . Well he was dead either way, wasn’t he?

He would die if he stayed here anyway. Rogues dealt in surprise attacks and subterfuge, not in straight fights. That was what this would become if the monster came up here, at least after his first attack. Derrick didn’t fancy his chances of killing the monster in one blow, and a straight fight in an enclosed space was the only thing that could happen after that.No thank you. And what if some of the goblins set the house on fire or something? He died either way.

He needed to get to safer level of the house, someway or another.

Mustering what remained of his courage, Derrick moved carefully down the stairs, trying his hardest to not make any sound, moving his feet carefully to avoid the nostalgically creaky stairs.

Congratulations! Stealth has become Level 5!

He flinched as the blue screen surprised him, but luckily it did not give him up to whoever resided downstairs, and Derrick quickly shooed the message away.

Soon enough, Derrick had reached the bottom of the stairs. The banging and general noises had increased as he moved downwards, to the point that he could tell that the source of the noise was much closer now. Slowly, he craned his neck around the stairwell to see what exactly had caused all of the ruckus.

Before Derrick, rustling through his refrigerator, was a goblin. It had its back perpetually hunched down and all along the thing were putrid warts and bumps. It let out a nasty odor that made Derrick wrinkle his nose and step back, an odor that smelled like this particular goblin bathed within a trash compactor. It attested to the strength of such an odor that derrick could smell it through the dining room, within the kitchen. It’s only clothing was a dirty brown loincloth, which covered a bit of the gangly short frame, and unnaturally long arms and legs.

Curling his eyes around the room, Derrick could see what exactly had made so much noise earlier. The goblin had been busy. Scattered all around it were the remains of furniture and drawers that only a few hours ago made up his family’s kitchen. Most of them now lay tattered on the floor, thrown aside, seemingly uninteresting to the goblin. Derrick had never seen his house in such a sorry state. It was if a tornado had pulled through the place.

The goblin had apparently caught the scent of something more interesting to it now after all the ransacking, or at least, that is what Derrick assumed when he looked to find the goblin’s head stuck in the refrigerator. Derrick could even hear the slurping and munching sounds that the thing made as it ate, evidently eating as fast as it could manage to shove food into its small grubby mouth.

Derrick felt his face curl at the sight in front of him, and his shoulders tense. “What a disgusting creature.” He thought, looking at it with disdain. Not just disgusting, but seemingly primitive as well, judging from the way that the goblin ate. It seemed as if it were more animal than humanoid, more feral than intelligent.

The goblin in front of him busied itself with its feast. It would have been easy enough to slip out the window and disappear before it even had the time to notice Derrick leaving . . . And yet, now that he had arrived here, and now that he had seen the goblin with his own eyes, it just did not seem as threatening as it had before. In his mind’s eye, it seemed more disgusting than anything else, like a particularly ugly toad.

Besides, this was Derrick’s house. It didn’t feel right, to run from the place that he had grown up in, especially when he did not know what monster might await him outside. It seemed much better to him to have to fight a single goblin inside his house then to fight a tribe outside. Besides, goblins were supposed to be weak in games, a trash mob. This one couldn't be that tough right? Emboldened, he stepped out of his hiding place. He was sure that this one goblin would be easy to kill.

Kill?

Derrick’s frail thoughts about video games and monsters shattered into pieces as he remembered that he, not a character, would have to kill this goblin. Derrick had never killed anything in his life. How was he was supposed to kill this thing? The very thought made him feel queasy inside. Even if it was a monster, it did look like a human might, if said human was green and very deformed. More importantly, however disgusting it looked, it lived.. And . . . And he was going to just kill it? For real? What would that even feel like? How would he even do that?

While Derrick gathered his thoughts, the goblin finished it’s hasty meal. It was a simple creature, built on a primal kind of trickery and it’s own instincts, the same instincts that were telling it that this stuff was not enough, that it needed more food. It turned away from the cold box, leaving the remnants of it’s feeding strewn across the innards of the refrigerator. Turning, it moved to find more food, and immediately caught sight of Derrick.

The goblin, unlike Derrick, did not hesitate, or run from a fight. Instead, it took one look at Derrick and charged. As it went it let out high pitched roar, an instinctual tactic to demoralize the foe.It was unarmed, but its primal instincts overwhelmed such concerns, making the goblin focus only on Derrick, who to the goblin, was marked as it’s prey, a designation that the goblin had no desire to take away anytime soon.

Derrick, surprised and befuddled, reacted instead of thinking. He slammed the knife in his right hand forward, stabbing roughly and jerkily, a movement that could barely be called an attack. It was enough. The goblin, blindsided by its own fast movement, took the blade in the side, before it yanked back, howling in pain as the blood spotted cold steel left it’s wound, a big red 12 damage appearing on Derrick’s retina as it fled.

You have Received The Skill: Dagger Mastery, Level 1, Increases Damage and Ability with Daggers. Scales with Skill Level. As a class skill, Skill Level is boosted by Dexterity and Luck halved

It snarled, and lept back, looking at Derrick more warily than it had before, and more importantly, looking for an opportunity with which to strike.

It came. Derrick, almost bewildered with his own actions, looked down to the blood upon his small blade, and in the moment Derrick’s attention was not fully on his opponent, the goblin struck. It’s sharpened fingers, which each possessed a deadly point, reached towards him and struck him in the chest. He gasped, a sharp pain biting into his torso where the claws struck, a spatter of his blood filling the air. A red 16 floated off of the wound.

The pain was important, because it was an alarm bell that brought back Derrick’s focus. It forced him to think of the matter at hand, rather than the blood on his knife.

The goblin slammed it’s second hand towards Derrick, but this time he was ready, ducking back toward the stairwell. The goblin’s hand collided with the oak stairwell railing, spattering wooden splinters across the air and stopping the creature in its tracks.

Breathing hard, Derrick stepped back to take a frantic swing at the goblin, but it merely ducked under his knife’s telegraphed movements, and countered with a viscous swipe at his neck. Instinctually, Derrick guarded his vital point with his shoulder, before gasping at the sharp agony of the goblin’s clattering fingers raking through his flesh.

Derrick clenched his teeth against his growing urge to scream, and sent a viscous kick towards the goblin, who just having completed it’s attack, had no choice but to take it full in the face. It connected with a gratifying smack, sending the green demon bouncing on its way to the back to the kitchen, where the refrigerator held domain.

“Drip” something splashed along the floor and the sound attracted Derrick’s attention. He turned his head and saw the extent of the wound the goblin had delivered to him, for the first time feeling the deep throbbing pain throughout his damaged shoulder. Derrick’s blood ran down his arm in rivulets, spattering across his skin. The ugly red flowed endlessly, at what Derrick realized was an unhealthy pace. Would he bleed out? Derrick gulped at the thought.

Congratulations! Your Pain Resistance has reached Level 2

It disturbed Derrick, to see so much of his blood outside his body, gushing down his arm, all from a single wound. All from a ‘weak goblin.’

The goblin might have been weaker than some of the things outside, but Derrick was weaker still. The only reason that he had been able to kick it away earlier was due to their sheer difference in body weight

Fear grasped Derrick’s mind as he glanced forward to the goblin in front of him, shaking its head from the stunning blow that Derrick had delivered to it. This thing would kill him, if he let it. Even if it was ‘only’ a goblin, it still had the strength to rip him into little pieces. It snarled as it hopped back up on its feet, licking the blood on its claws. His blood, Derrick realized, as a cold chill pulsed through him, rippling down his spine.

To win this he had to use the house to his advantage. If he could just find something . . . something that he could use as a weapon . . . He darted into the living room, his feet bolting as fast as his 15 dexterity allowed him too.

Congratulations! Sprinting has become Level 2!

Frantically, his eyes darted around, looking for anything he could defend himself with before the goblin followed him. He didn’t have much time. He could already hear the patter of feet coming from the room just behind him.

His eyes fell upon the lamp. It was an antique, with a slim, solid iron pole as its base and a lampshade made of a rough linen with floral patterns sewn all across it. His father had removed the lightbulb weeks ago, meaning to replace it with one of the new, energy efficient ones that had begun to proliferate across the market. Of course, that was fine with derrick, he just wanted it for its pole.

He dove for the lamp, dropping his knife in the process and practically ripping the cord out of the wall until it finally gave out with a yank. Clutching his prize in his hands, derrick turned to face his opponent, who entered the room with an angry growl, it’s tiny goblin face rendered even more ugly ( if that was even possible) by its rage.

Derrick slammed the iron pole down on its head, the cord whipping wildly in the air as he made to strike. But Instead of a solid blow, the goblin’s face caught a blow full of lampshade, which only served to make it more angry. It growled and tried to side step the pole, but Derrick swung again, and this time the goblin took a direct hit from the metal bar.

You have Received the Skill: Polearm Mastery, Level 1 Increases Damage and Ability with Polearms. Scales with Skill Level.

After the first success, Derrick swung again, and again, trying to hit the beast as it dodged and weaved. His frenzied lamp-swinging had little rhyme or reason, and even less technique. Instead he substituted technique with frenzy, attacking as much as he could. And certainly he did manage to keep the beast at bay, and deal a fair bit of damage to it as well, albeit less than the goblin did with its sharp claws. But he couldn’t keep fighting like this forever. His stamina, which he felt rapidly draining since his wild strikes began, wouldn’t allow him too.

The goblin’s moment came when Derrick, feeling himself tire, slowed down his wild stance. Seeing it’s chance, it let out another pitched yell and rushed forward. Derrick stabbed forward with his weapon, but it was a lamp, not a spear. The creature simply glanced off the lampshade and continued forward, undeterred.

It did not take long for the small goblin to get inside of Derrick’s guard, raking its claws across his belly, taking advantage of his momentary weakness. Derrick yelled out as he felt another slashing injury penetrate his skin and slammed the iron lamp into the goblin to knock it away. Still, it had done what it wished too. The wounds that covered Derrick had begun to wear him down. He took another pant of breath.

He had to end this goblin, before it ended him.

At least Derrick was not alone in taking his fair share of wounds in this fight. The goblin was covered in bruises where the lamp had made its mark, and the creature was still bleeding from the knife wound in its side. It would not last much longer than Derrick in this fight. One of them would win soon, and to that victor the spoils would be survival.

It was the goblin that made the first move, and it was the goblin that made the first mistake. The warty beast stepped forward, looking for another opening with which to attack. All that it found however, was a pole to the face. Now that Derrick was not swinging his weapon like a rabid monkey, he found timing his strike an easy task.

He couldn’t just swing and swing. Derrick realized that now. That would only make him tired and then make him dead.

Congratulations! Your intelligence has been increased by 1!

Instead Derrick just watched the goblin as it got up again, staggering to its feet. It let out a roar, almost in defiance, and charged at Derrick once again, blindly lost in a rage. Derrick tensed, felt his grip around the pole, and let loose a mighty swing (as mighty as his nine strength could render it). He was rewarded with a meaty crack as the goblin charged into his strike, throwing the goblin back once again. This time Derrick did not let up. As the goblin stumbled, Derrick stepped forward, delivering another stunning smack with the heavy iron lamp. The goblin fell, moaning into the floor, it’s body weak and pale from all of the injuries that it had accumulated. Derrick didn’t register this, slamming down his makeshift weapon with a dangerous crunch. In his mind, the creature lying in front of him was still dangerous, and so he brought down the lamp in a fervor, again and again.

His attacks rained down upon the vulnerable goblin like a heavy, pulsing storm that went onwards and onwards. Blows from heavy iron fell easier and easier, faster and faster. A monotonous, forward march of attacks.

Derrick stopped when he felt something wet spatter across his shorts. He blinked, as if waking up from a dream, and looked at the scene laid out before him. What was once goblin was now a ruinous mess of meat and fluid. The head of the goblin was gone, dented in by heavy iron. Bone was visible, both in the ruined skull, and scattered around in miscellaneous fragments. Grey, veiny material that was unmistakably a brain was spattered across the floor, ripped apart from the whole mass that it had once been. Derrick looked down and noticed that some of that same ooze was spattered across his pants.

Derrick dropped the iron pole in his hands, and leaned over and threw up, the contents of his lunch spewing upon the floor. He stood there for a second, closing his eyes before sneaking another glance at the corpse upon the floor. He threw up again, and idly took note that that lampshade was most definitely ruined by all of that . . . mess.

“What have I done?” He choked out in the stale air of the living room. No one was there to give him an answer.