In the end, it took Damian what he estimated to be six minutes before he was finally able to clear the path to the heart.

As much freedom as this reality patch gave him, the more intricate and troublesome details that couldn’t be conveyed through the limited medium of a pixel RPG game were starting to show.

When controlling a character from behind the screen, Damian just had to click one button to activate their Special Energy, there was also a bar that indicated how long he could use it.

However, when he personally handled Iris’ body, Damian still had to ask her for the activation method even if the body itself remembered it. In addition, he got to feel the shortcomings of a chosen one firsthand.

{I’m sorry… It’s all because my body is too useless. Everyone else at the main house has already reached the Intermediate Tiers, but I’m not even a Tier-1 Knight yet.}

Iris herself looked like she was on the brink of crying. After almost losing her mind earlier, she had no self-esteem left. Even the person that came to help her was struggling due to her uselessness!

Although she could still utilize Aura as an unofficial knight, Iris could only bring it out for a few seconds before having to rest for a minute.

To make matters worse, just after momentarily using it through the last 6 minutes, Damian could already feel that Aura was almost fully depleted from his heart.

“It’s alright. I’m here to help, remember?”

Considering that he still needed her sane, Damian tried to comfort the poor Iris.

‘She wouldn’t have needed Plot Armor if she was already capable.’

As frustrating as it was to start from the bottom, it all made absolute sense. Even in the game, there wasn’t a single character that started with extreme power… After all, there would be nothing to do if that was the case.

To begin with, one of the things that attracted Damian to Fate’s Guide was the constant weak-to-strong ladder.

His current situation might be more terrifying than enjoyable, but Damian wanted to do something right for once now that he got the chance…

Splat.

‘It’s a dud, huh?’

Unfortunately, his hard work didn’t pay out in the end. Not every monster had a special type of resource in their heart, and this Goblin sure didn’t.

After receiving one more disappointment, Damian knelt in front of the puddle to wash his face from the green blood. Inspect Element didn’t reveal anything about possible infections, but better safe than sorry.

Of course, Damian tried his best not to pollute his only source of water. While it would revert back anyway once he died, he didn’t want to mess it up if things turned for the better on this run.

Feeling a bit parched, Damian directly took a sip before standing out and stretching out his body. It was finally time to go.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Phew. What do you say, Iris, shall we go exploring?”

Naturally, Damian had no intention to Save before heading out. Not only had he wasted so much time for nothing, but his only advantageous ability was out of gas.

In any case, the first exploration run was usually known to be a sacrificial one.

{Y-Yes?}

If she was the one to choose, Iris was sure that she would have stayed in this space for as long as she could, even if she knew she would come back to life. Rather, that made it even worse for her.

However, when she saw Damian’s confidence shining through her face, Iris felt motivated all of a sudden. Perhaps she wasn’t destined to remain as a nobody for what little was left of her life.

{Let’s go.}

“Well said, off we go!”

Once Damian stepped into the darkness of the tunnel that led out of the cave, he felt a deep chill in his heart. Nonetheless, he couldn’t identify his fear among the excitement that flooded right in.

‘An unknown adventure.’

This was exactly the reason Damian couldn’t stop playing Fate’s Guide, the backstories might be very basic or even at the level of a copy-pasted sob story. However, Damian never really cared about that.

What truly mattered was the journey propelled by that rough start. The magical lands and the mysterious opportunities that have to be discovered so that the character can achieve their long-awaited reversal!

‘Looks like I need to memorize everything through touch.’

While the starting cave had some light seeping off through some cracks in the ceiling, the tunnel was completely pitch black, and since this character didn’t start with a Night Vision passive, Damian could only depend on feel to move along…

‘There it is.’

A light source finally appeared in the distance not too long after Damian departed, but he wasn’t so excited about it.

‘Something has lit a fire.’

The illuminated area’s orange shade betrayed the nature of the source; some creature or a group of them had likely made some sort of bonfire within the area behind that opening.

‘Scouting… Or should I just go for it?’

In this situation, Damian usually had two basic options.

The first would be, running into the place, collecting as much information as possible even at the risk of death.

The other one was strategizing with the intention of battle based on nothing but referencing the layout of the area and prior experience…

Considering that the first was his favorite, Damian would have directly gone with it without giving it much thought. However, each new life wasn’t that cheap, even if they were likely infinite.

‘No point in chickening out now.’

Damian hesitated a bit but ended up deciding to mix the two. Although his priority would still be to collect sufficient information, he planned to give fighting it out a try in the process.

As he stepped closer to his target as silently as possible, Damian tried his best to calm his beating heart.

He might have much more movement options now that he was controlling a fully functional character, but the thought of meeting another one of those Goblins made his hands a little bit shaky.

While moving through the square roads of a pixel map was quite inconvenient, Damian at least didn’t have to manage his emotions doing so!

‘Hopefully, the flexibility outweighs the emotional disability. Inventory.’

Taking out the flimsy sword, Damian tightly held it as his head peeked out from behind the walls of the lit-up area.

‘Oh my-’

Once again, Damian held back his reaction as much as he could. This wasn’t the one or two beginner monsters that he was expecting.

The entire family of the departed Goblin seemed to be gathered together for lunch after his burial.

“Greee!”

And it looked like Damian was part of the menu…