THE BEGINNING AND THE CAVE

Hamon kept laughing and humming while walking until he got close to the front again. Theo intercepted him. “So… sneaky thief, how much is your physique already?” Hamon froze up and started stuttering. Theo didn’t let this shame linger for long and eased it up for him. “You didn’t have such a toned body before, thought I wouldn’t notice? I know how many goblins you killed. I was the one letting them through for you, remember?”

Seeing that Hamon was taking too long to answer, Theo patted his head. “Don’t worry that much, it’s fine for now.” Hamon nodded with a naughty smile. “Your safety is more important to me. You need to get stronger, fast. But we will talk about that later.” Theo pointed outwards. “We will be rushing the village soon. The goblins seem to be cooking up something.”

Hamon tried to look around but to no avail. Between goblin corpses and people, the caveway was packed. “Can’t we just try acting scared and bait them inside?”

“Well, why not?” Theo pondered. “Let’s ask the guys deciding things. I’m not the guide anymore.” They walked to Andre.

It was a total failure. Theo presented Hamon to them and motioned so that he proposed the idea to them. Andre tried to consider it, but his helpers soon discarded it. In part, they were patronizing, quickly judging that it was just a childish idea. Mostly they based themselves in that to attract the goblins. They would need bait, and it would be too cruel to set someone for the job.

Theo thought both sides had their merits. He could have been the bait if they had considered it enough. There were many methods to avoid the battle, for example, they could simply scare away the goblins by shouting and throwing things at them. Truth be told, Theo preferred a full invasion, so there was no reason to risk himself or dwell too much in other ideas. He needed the extra experience to deal with what was to come next.

“It’s ok. We let them charge through and catch the goblins through the sides.” Theo said just before the charge.

“We will stay behind. We need to flee.” Hamon rebutted exasperated. As much as he liked the experience, invading the full settlement seemed too much.

Theo laughed. “The goblins are cowards, right?” Hamon nodded. “Then, where are the cowards going to fight?” After waiting and having no answer, Theo sighed. “I bet they will be bunched up on the exit. We can’t flee without wiping them out, or at least making them run away.”

The next battle was weird at most. Humans got out and advanced, but most of the bridges and mud houses were empty. The more courageous goblins kept throwing rocks from the bridges and retreating towards the exits. The humans rushed to the bridges and to the exit while using the mud houses as cover. They killed all goblins that lagged behind as they advanced. They kept on fighting, and the goblins went into a full-blown panic, trying to run away.

Those leading the front were already prone to violence. They had no mercy as they saw the retreating goblins that kept throwing rocks and harassing them. The fleeing goblins started knocking each other over and stepping on them. That caused them to lag even more piling up the casualties on their side. As the last of the alive goblins fled, the humans got out and cheered while breathing the fresh air.

During the whole battle, Hamon focused on stealing the experience from the corpses that were left on the way. Since no one had complained before, he thought there would be no problem this time also. He got surprised when Theo started doing the same thing with a ‘don’t judge me look’ on his face. They both agreed to not let anyone see them and kept to their business. When the battle ended, and people were fleeing en masse, they finished the loot with the haul of goblins at the front.

“Well done, Hamon, well done.” Theo gave him thumbs up.

Hamon replied back with another thumbs up and a big smile, almost as if his fear earlier didn’t exist. “Eighteen physique reached.”

“Impressive.” Theo made an exaggerated face, but he meant it. He didn’t reinforce himself yet because he had other plans for the collected life force. At this point, Hamon’s physique was already better than his, which rested still at sixteen. “You could easily beat many strong guys from back on earth.”

Hamon laughed and kept kissing and flexing his muscles, but the joyful atmosphere was broken up by a dark aura that appeared in the air above everyone outside the cave.

The imp gave them a wide toothy grin. “What a smart bunch of critters you all are.” Its voice echoed to be heard by everyone. “As I said: fight and survive. You did well. For overcoming this challenge come rewards.” It waved its hands, and blue strings got into each person. “Five experience for everyone and five more for the one with the most kills since I love rewarding the best.”

There were angry, gleeful, and distrustful expressions in the crowd. They thought the fight was over, and some would think the blue energy was some form of mind control or similar. The imp couldn’t care less. “Since you were all so proactive in fighting, I will give you guys a heads up.” It pointed in a direction. “Some of the goblins you let free went running to the orc encampment. You better hide well for the rest of the week.” It disappeared with a grin.

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People started debating with each other about where to go and how to hide. Since no one knew from where help was coming, they were directionless.

“Come, Hamon. From now on, it’s just us two. We need to get away from them.” Theo hurried Hamon to follow him into the forest.

“Isn’t it safer to run away in a group?” Hamon looked behind to the distancing people.

“Two or twenty won’t make a difference against an orc.” He waved away Hamon’s worries. “They may get a kill or two, but to what cost? Ten will die for every orc slain and besides…” Theo smiled. “We are not running away, we are hunting them.”

Hamon stopped in his tracks. “Are you insane? We are going to die!”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry.” Theo pulled Hamon along. “I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t know I could. Now let’s find somewhere safe for me to prepare.”

The group had acted fast to fight the goblins and flee the cave. Therefore, it was still early in the afternoon. Before it got dark, Theo showed Hamon a bit about how to survive in nature. They spent some time trying to hear a nearby stream. When that didn’t work, Theo taught Hamon how to observe the surrounding terrains, animals, and insects to find water. Hamon learned how to spot animal trails, droppings, and tracks. In the end, Theo decided to settle for eating fruits.

“Why are we bathing? Shouldn’t we be running?” Hamon scrubbed his body with fine sand and washed it away.

“The orcs have pretty dull senses.” Theo finished scrubbing himself and went to get his clothes to wash. “The only thing they are really good at is smelling goblins.”

Hamon made a face of realization. “I see… The time spent in the cave made us smell like goblins.” As Theo nodded, Hamon continued. “Why didn’t we warn the others? The orcs will find them that way.”

Theo frowned at the question, it was hard to explain that without seeming cruel. “We need time to prepare. I need time to prepare, to protect you.” He kept scrubbing his clothes and motioned Hamon to do the same. “We need them to drag the attention of the scouts away from us.” Hamon nodded, and they kept washing away in silence. At least he doesn’t get care about bathing naked, Theo thought.

The forest surrounding them had an abundance of fruits. They came in many colors or sizes. The only drawback was that most plants, like animals, were hostile in the abyss. Thrice Theo had to prevent Hamon from stepping on a hole made from fake grass, getting dragged away into suffocating vines due to a sweet scent or simply getting shredded from blade throwing plants.

For him, who lived in the abyss for years avoiding danger was second nature. Having to care for Hamon along the way was something that would delay him a bit, but it made the journey much more enjoyable.

After collecting some non-threatening, non-poisonous, and non-venomous fruits and berries, the duo found a tree to settle down. With their increased physique, climbing trees didn’t prove too difficult, even if those were much taller than normal. The treetops were dense and had many branches, which made it possible to find a flat place to lie down.

Hamon was making a mess while eating the juicy fruits. “I’ve been thinking... What those stats even mean?”

“Just some guidelines.” Theo peeled some fruits. “Imagine that you were brawling with some people, and you had fifty physique; a normal person has ten. It means you could fight five people.”

Hamon nodded with full cheeks, giving his full attention.

“Obviously, you could also lose against four, or win against six,” Theo said as Hamon frowned. “Fighting prowess, coordination, terrain conditions, all of that counts. However, the chance of you losing against a single opponent would be minimal.”

“So only physique is important in fighting. I knew it!” Hamon bumped his left fist on his open palm.

Theo almost gagged. “No! Where did you take this from?” He rubbed between his eyebrows. “If it was an arm wrestle, yes. In a real fight, control and senses would be deciding factors too.”

“I see… Mind and spirit are almost useless for fighting then.” Hamon slurped his fingers as Theo sighed. “Say, what stats are you upgrading?”

“Something like magical resistance, I guess,” Theo said as he shoved some berries on his mouth. “I didn’t start yet.”

Hamon widened his eyes and gulped a mouthful. “What? How? There is nothing like that on mine.”

“You could say it’s a subset of mind.” Theo pointed to his head. As Hamin made a frown, he continued. “For example: if you got all the experience you put into physique and focused on only enhancing your legs. What would happen?”

“You would jump higher?” Hamon asked.

Theo nodded. “You would get super strong legs, but the rest of your body would remain weak. That’s what I’m doing right now.”

“Why do you want to jump so high?” Hamon made a weird face.

“It’s just a metaphor, remember? I’m enhancing my magical resistance.” Theo facepalmed.

“Why? How do I open those subsets?” Hamon kept up.

“I’m going to need it soon. And how… forget it, you can’t ‘open’ it. Maybe in the future, if you work hard to get stronger, I will tell you.” Theo smiled. “Don’t worry about those attributes so much. They are there just to make it simple to improve yourself, it’s much more important that you learn how to fight and survive.” Hamon showed him the tongue.

“It’s the truth.” Theo tried to defend himself. “Attributes become much less important later, don’t you think? The difference between fifty and ten is huge, but the difference between one thousand and fifty and one thousand is almost nothing.”

Hamon seemed still bothered, so Theo changed topics. “If I’m not mistaken, you were crying when we arrived.” Theo looked at Hamon’s face, all messy with fruit. “I thought you would be a cry baby.” Theo laughed. “What happened?”

“I’m not a cry baby.” Hamon pouted. “I’m almost thirteen.” They stayed silent for a while until Hamon decided to talk again. “You knew mom in the army, right? She was going to get back today.” He hugged his knees and suppressed a tear. “Today, just one more day and this damn imp…” Hamon squished hard the fruit still in his hands, spilling juice all over, but he didn’t care.

Theo looked him in the eye. “Listen to me.” Knowing Hilda, he should’ve known her son would be anything but spoiled. “We will find your mother, ok?” Theo offered a fist. “It’s a promise.”

Hamon hesitated for a while. Trusting others only made him hurt in the end, but he bumped his fist with Theo’s anyway. His mother came first. “You better keep it.”