These Kobolds planned to get Martin and Me away from the carriage to attack it! I am amazed by the intelligence displayed by the kobolds, considering goblins have been brute forcing their way into me since I first got sent here.
Seline is keeping Emma safe on the other side of the carriage, but it seems that Emma is also defending herself. I run over to help out Seline, but before I get there, I see the face of the Kobold attacking them go up in flames.
Damn! Seline sure has some talent! Doesn’t seem like she needs my help. So I look around for any other kobolds whose faces I could punch in. 3 large wolflike kobolds are facing off against Seline, they probably don’t stand a chance.
Looking a bit more carefully I see kobolds huddled behind bushes in the forest all around us, seems like they’re waiting for some to get taken out to take their place. But I won’t let them! I hop into the bushes and start punching them in their faces.
When I take out a second kobold, all the other ones in the bushes run out to the carriage in a panic. Everyone by the carriage looks around in surprise at the sudden influx of enemies. Emma now joins the fight in honesty, taking potshots at kobolds from time to time and defending.
I run up from the bushes again and join the fight near Emma, it seems like Seline and Martin have got a wrap on the situation. “Hey Emma, how’re you feeling now? You think you can fight properly?” I ask hesitantly. Emma looks at me confidently, “You don’t need to worry about me, I feel nice and healthy again!” It’s still amazing that those kinds of injuries can be healed… Checking around once again, there are now about 10 kobolds in total left. 3 taken out by me, 1 by Seline.
We slowly get a wrap on the situation, it seems that because there are now so many kobolds out in the open, they don’t have a solid plan anymore. All of these kobolds seem to be pretty big cowards, they sit back and watch one of their pals fight one person and then jump in to take his place.
Why do they not just overwhelm us?! “Emma, why the hell are they fighting so weirdly?” I ask. Emma answers while slashing at a kobold, “Well, kobolds are intelligent in planning an attack, but they’re pretty stupid monsters in a fight, that’s why they need all the planning…”
Wow, so they’re like genius strategists, but they simply don’t know how to fight someone? I punch one in the face and he falls to the ground dead, then another one takes his place. I jump between the people a bit, helping out at Martin’s side and Emma’s side. And slowly but surely the last kobold jumps into combat position only to get socked in the head.
You have defeated 7 Kobold Warriors: 105 XP received
You have reached Level 11, 1 point received
I got 1 at the beginning, 2 in the bushes, and then 4 in the carriage battle. I wonder if the others also leveled up?
Martin yells out, “All right everyone! Kobolds are done for!” The bystanders peek their heads out of the carriage in relief. We clean up the place and ask Seline something hesitantly, “Um, Seline? Before these kobolds attacked us, I went out into the forest to scout something and found some small wolfman creatures that shot arrows at me. Were those kobolds as well?”
She doesn’t even turn back to me and says, “Yup, those are kobold younglings, they’re mostly used as scouting parties, they’re probably the reason we were attacked in the first place. They found us, told the warriors, then we got ambushed by them.”
Well, damn. Maybe I should have had some more agency when I saw them. Seline realizes what I’m thinking about, “Don’t worry. As soon as Kobolds found us, they would’ve attacked us. Nothing you could’ve done.”
We get the materials we can from the kobolds and then everyone goes back to sleep, leaving me alone to keep watch. I wouldn’t want to put anyone up to night watch after such an event either.
The rest of the night goes by uneventfully and in the morning, everyone wakes up normally, so we continue our ride after breakfast. There is one thing that I’ve been thinking about though if I use energy to charge my attacks, is there some way to manually charge myself before passing out?
It would be pretty annoying to sit on a 5% charge and be forced into a battle for which I’d need to use [Skills] only to then pass out mid-fight because I couldn’t charge myself before the fight. I know these robots have a secret manual shutoff, but that doesn’t automatically turn on the fusion reactor, only turns me off. Gonna have to keep that a secret, don’t want any enemy secretly turning me off…
I think for a second, but it had to be something within the robot’s programming, but I don’t know how connected I am to this robot’s body anyway. Shouldn’t I have much more info and even something like a HUD from the robot? Right now, I don’t even know how much charge I have left and if any part of my body breaks, I wouldn’t know it either!
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The only thing I can think of that could be the reason is, that I am not a robot. I was a human, I wouldn’t even know what to look for if I wanted to feel all of the sensors this robot could feel. Because at the end of the day, for the robot his charge of battery was as much a feeling as it was a numerical number to us.
The only sensors I know of that I and a robot have in common are hydraulics and motors as an alternative to muscles, cameras for eyes, microphones for ears, and a speaker for a voice. It’s simply impossible for me to know what kind of a sensation having 73% charge in your battery left would feel like.
The carriage continues to travel as I contemplate all the complicated issues my reincarnation has set upon me, the only thing I can do is keep on surviving though. I don’t have the luxury of a walkthrough or guidebook here.
I should probably just keep leveling up. The second and third days on the road go by largely uneventfully, I indulge in some more idle chatter with everyone and draw up plans on what to do in the capital when we get there. When we still were in Lunach, Seline seemed far less eager to go back to the capital, but now that we’re actually on the road she seems very excited. There are small bands of monsters on the road occasionally, so it isn’t very peaceful, but at least no giant ambushes anymore.
You have reached Level 12, 1 Point received
And a nice little Level-Up to go with the boring ride.
As I get back in the carriage, I overhear from listening in on a conversation between Seline and Emma, that we’ll be living in a house in the Royals district of the city. Kind of a big upgrade, isn’t it? Going from a seedy cellar straight to the empress’s back garden.
As I’m thinking about all the kinds of luxurious furniture that the other home will be bedecked with my train of thought gets interrupted by Seline knocking on my head, “Andy! More goblins up front. Go take them out!” Oh! I get down from the carriage and my way up front to meet them.
I continue punching in goblin faces like I usually do. But suddenly I feel like something is weird, I hear sounds I’m not supposed to and a rhythmic banging can be heard as I bash in the face of a goblin. I turn around to look for the source of the noise, but the people in the carriage seem just as confused as me.
The only person who seems to have a clue is Seline, who hops out of the carriage and screams a warning at everyone, “Watch out everyone, I think some Novum Apes are nearby!” The less educated people in the carriage look in confusion as they probably don’t know what a Novum Ape is, but Emma and Martin seem to get the message, anxiously nodding to her.
I yell over to her, “Hey, uhh, what are Novum Apes?” Emma signals back by waving her hands anxiously and putting a finger on her lips. Oh, I should be quiet! But just as I’m thinking this, a giant ape burst out of the woods and snatches me into his giant hand.
I feel like I’ve just been gripped by King Kong and the ape doesn’t stop. He looks around for a second before just running off with me back into the woods! Faintly I can hear the screams of Seline yelling, “Andy!” in the distance. But the ape keeps running, I try and use a [Crushing Grip] on his finger, but he simply swaps me into his other hand.
All right, he’s holding me close to his chest, so I’ll just use [Power Punch]! I charge up a punch and punch the ape in his chest, but his thick fur absorbs all the damage it would’ve done. This giant ape is easily bigger, hairier, and much more muscled than the Wolf King from before. But why the hell does he want me so much?!
The deeper this dude runs into the forest while holding me, the harder I’ll have it finding my way out of here! Gotta get outta here! I charge up a 25% [Power Punch] and when I finally impact the monkey his entire chest blows out of his back! It looks like a finisher move you’d find in a fighting video game!
You have defeated Novum Ape King: 350 XP received
You have reached Level 13, 1 point received
You have reached Level 14, 1 point received
You have reached Level 15, 1 point received
You have learned [Devastating Kick]
New Possible Future Evolution Options are now foreseeable
New [Skills] available to purchase in the [Skill Shop]
You have reached Level 16, 1 point received
Holy crap, that guy was loaded with XP! I don’t know if I should be thanking him for kidnapping me!
The monkey now without anything in his chest, collapses onto the floor while running and slides across it, with me tightly gripped in his hand. I don’t see much in all the tumbling his body does but one thing catches my eye, the giant crevice he was planning to jump over just a few seconds before I punched his chest empty!
The next seconds happen in slow motion in my head. The giant ape tumbles straight toward the hole, I still can’t free myself from this guy’s hulking grip and am barreling toward the hole together with him. I see smaller Novum Apes around their king trying to stop his descent into his grave, but it doesn’t seem to be working, and finally, the Novum Ape King, with me in his grip, falls into the hole.
Looking down the hole from the monkey’s grip, I don’t see anything except complete darkness. Holy crap! Where the hell does this hole even go?! In complete weightlessness during the fall, I release another small [Power Punch] onto the ape’s fingers, finally freeing myself.
There’s only one problem, I’m still falling! I can do absolutely nothing and simply hope my robot body will survive the fall. As I keep falling, I see something looking down, a dim green light, and I and the giant ape’s corpse is falling towards it!
The green light perpetually grows brighter until I can make out what’s down there. It’s something bioluminescent! Holy crap is this like some kind of underground ecosystem?! The closer I fall the more excited I get, there is an entire ecosystem living down here. Then I realize the bigger issue concerning my current situation: Wait, will I even survive such a long fall?!