Finishing their meal, the party said goodbye to Lily for the first and for better or worse their final time. Although their goal had not changed, they still desired to get back to their home more than anything else, the fact that so many people had gone before them failed had dropped their spirit dramatically. “ We need a win” Liam thought to himself, “ Even if it is just a small win, it would surely lift us up again”. Liam obviously noticed the heavy feelings from everyone, and because he had been in this kind of spot many times before he knew exactly what everyone needed right now.
“ Hey, let's go to the potion and weapon shop and gear up, there should be one in every town in this kind of RPG game” Liam told the other. And it was true, this town did have one, with all the gold they have left, they all decide to spend more than half on HP and Mana potions, leaving only around 300 gold for weapons and armors. This was because they had already got the swords and bow from the forest, though their stat was low, it was enough.
“ Holy shit, those weapons and armor are expensive” looking at the price of those items, they suddenly realize that 300 gold was not as much as they thought it was, it could barely buy one item. They finally decided on buying a wooden shield for Liam the tanker of the party (Effect: blocking 12 damage from melee attack and 9 damage from range attack), this thing cost 250 gold and they were out of money at that moment on.
Kyle led the group to a billboard in the middle of the town, where many people posted their needs and rewards. Liam was trying to find an easy fetch quest for their first mission, but no such luck, the billboard was almost blank, Lily did mention to them that this was a beginner town and not much would have happened here so this was not that surprising now that they thought of it.
“ No luck huh” Kyle turned to Liam.
“ I think we should head out of here for now” Allan said “ we should look for easy picking monsters outside of a beginner town to see how tough they are, and if it is too strong we could always run back to town right?”
“ Liam is a very good strategy Allan” Liam was quite surprised that he did not come up with the plan first. It was clear to him that Allan was a gift strategis and leader like what Kyle told him after all.
“ First, let's find out what this town is connected to first don’t you think?” Maria raised her voice, everyone else was feeling kind of award as they were all talking about random and far fetched things and did not even think about that crucial detail. Asking around, they were told that following the road at the town’s exit would lead them to a much bigger city, Liam expected that in that city there would be more easy early missions and it was less than one day of travel away. And with that a different plan was made, they would travel to that city first, their items and potions should be more than enough to make it there, a straightforward and simple plan. But once again, fate had something in mind for all of them.
Their journey was smooth sailing for the most part. Following that road, no monsters had appeared, Liam said maybe it was a beginner area so there were no monsters or missions around. However, reality struck from out of nowhere. Kyle sensed something was not right, he could smell fresh blood in the air, but there was nothing on the road, then Luna pointed to a place 30m off the road where an abandoned wagon can be seen, blood was splattered all over that wagon. Kyle and Liam advise them to leave as they did not know what could have caused it and they were exposed in an open area. Then a scream echoed through the forest, someone was in trouble, they had two choices, leave and act like nothing happened or run into the unknown forest and search for the survivor. And even though it was a dump idea, they all instinctively rushed to the rescue.
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Following her voice, all five of them quickly ran through the forest, and what they saw on the way was nothing short of a horror movie, decapitated bodies of men and women laying on the ground. Maria with her medial back experience even noticed some having bite marks or their flesh was visibly ripped off, “they were being eaten alive” she said.
Footsteps and growling and be heard not to far from them and when they slowly got closer they saw what kind of creature that did it, “ Goblins” Liam said, “ In game, they are low level monsters but usually come in pack, they hunt for wild animal and sometime human”
There were 7 goblins in front of their eyes, they were shot just around 4 ft tall, with green skin and humanoid appearance and their teeth were much bigger than those of normal humans.
“Oh my God, is that a human’s arm it’s holding?” Luna pointed out that one of the goblins was still holding on to a human hand and then to the sheer shock of everyone, the goblin ripped a bite out of it and swallowed that piece of human meat. Luna, Liam and Maria felt as though they would vomit and Liam even went as far as starting to actually vomit but nothing came out. But, it was no time for them to feeling sick now, Luna with her sharp ruby red eyes saw a young girls tied up behind the goblins,
“We need to save her,” Allan said. “ Agree, but how?Do we just fight them straight on, the girls might get killed in the process” Maria said.
“ There isn't much time, they will kill her very soon. In games, goblins do not take hostages, only food.” Liam asked. Everyone then looked at Kyle, expecting an answer, but in reality, he got nothing, there isn’t any way to make 100% sure that they could save that girl and left this place without a fight, not to mention they were all level 1. And then an idea flickered in Kyle's mind, “I think I could untie her and get her out of there without them noticing. It worked before with those men in the forest, that way we wouldn’t need to fight them.”. Though it was risky, from what they all saw what Kyle could do, the party had absolute fate in his ability and followed his plan.
Kyle quietly made his way to the girl, without the goblins noticing, they were still busy eating the rest of the pure soul dead body. Kyle got to her at last, in a closer look, she was a beautiful girl under that red hood of hers, she had red hair and brown eyes and all the dirt and blood on her face did not manage to hide away her beautiful white skin. Kyle paid no mind to how she looked, he quickly cut the rope and got her up. Her eyes were full of tears and she was too scared to speak a word, she just instinctively held on to Kyle tightly and started to run. But then in Kyle's vision something unexpected happened, he saw letters in his vision saying “action failed, STH < 3”, the goblins sense Kyle present and immediately rush toward him. “ Shit, so that what she meant by life was gonna be hard without those stats” everybody though,
“Fuck, Run!!!” Kyle grabbed the young woman's hand and ran as fast as they could.
“Come on we have to help them” Liam said then he charged at the goblins head first, then Allan, Luna and Maria soon followed behind.
Though Kyle was more than fast enough to get away from the goblins, the young woman could not and Kyle could not just leave her behind, as a result the goblins soon caught up to them and surrounded them both.
“ Shit, is there any chance you guys would want to negotiate the situation?” Kyle said with a smirk on his face, the goblins just growled at him in answer. To be honest, in his mind at that moment, he was thinking about whether or not the goblins did not understand human language or that they did understand but that was the answer.
“I guess not” with that, gone with the smile on his face, Kyle put on his serious cold hearted face again.