Ackster mustered enough energy to pick himself up off the ground and gather the goblin corpses.
His body had been working hard, burning calories and tensing his muscles since he first put on the weighted suit. Ackster ate like a monster, even if all he did was injure himself a little since Strong Body took the food he ate to fuel his body’s recovery. Now that he had driven his body past its limits and broken down his muscles, some of which he didn’t know he had, his body needed to refuel so that he could heal and grow stronger.
It was a shame that the food closest to him was goblin meat, but Ackster didn’t have a choice. And as long as he had Iron Stomach and Poison Resistance, everything would be alright.
‘At least it’s fresh.’
Ackster tried to look at the bright side as he ate the raw goblin meat like it were chicken wings.
Ackster ate until he was full and then some. But, despite goblins being scrawny creatures, there was still some food left, even if the revolting meat could hardly be called food. He hadn’t had as much trouble eating it before Wilma took him to a restaurant where he could eat as much delicious, truly delicious, food as he wanted. But he still managed to force it down.
While he would have just wanted to leave the remaining goblin corpses behind and get going, Ackster knew better. He couldn’t just leave food behind when he could use it to fuel his ever-hungry body.
However, since he was covered in a layer of protective clothing that made it difficult to injure himself unless he took it off, Ackster only had two real ways to boost his body’s metabolism so that he would be hungry enough to eat the rest of the goblins.
Ackster could either break his own bones by beating himself up. Or he could exercise, which would train his body in a more old-fashioned way.
Although Ackster really wanted to get skeletal reinforcement skills, breaking his bones now would be too much of a hindrance to his progress. It would delay him for too long when he could be training his muscles using the weighted clothing.
He risked increasing the gap between his muscular and skeletal strength even further, but he could already feel the strain on his spine and joints, so the training equipment was burdening his entire body, not just his muscles. Ackster would simply have to break his bones in situations where he could wait out the time needed to recover without losing much else, such as right now, where he could be fighting wearing the equipment instead of lying around and waiting for his bones to piece themselves back together.
Ackster started doing jumping jacks, pushups, and any other strenuous actions he could think of.
Without the suit, none of it would even be enough to tire him in the slightest. Yet with it, Ackster felt his muscles grow leaden in a matter of singular counts. Thankfully, thanks to Strong Body and the supply of food, he was ready to continue after only a short break between each set.
Once he had finished all the goblin corpses and left only bone, he continued moving deeper into the forest in search of greater prey.
The goblins were great, considering how much the suit weighed him down. They let Ackster experience fighting with it in a contained environment. Thanks to the training equipment’s defensive properties, he was never in any real danger.
However, safety wasn’t conducive to his development, so Ackster would have to look for something that could at least reach his unprotected head and force him to take that into consideration.
Against the goblins, he had only needed to bob and weave with his head while keeping his arms somewhat raised to thwart their strikes toward his head. It was too simple, even for someone as untrained in actual combat as Ackster.
If he wanted the explosive growth he craved, Ackster would have to continue risking his life, even while wearing the training equipment. For that, he would need stronger opponents, which he would find further into the woods.
Ackster wasn’t dissatisfied with what he found.
At first, he only found another group of goblins. But, as expected of something further from signs of human civilization, they were stronger than the first group he had found.
The new group of goblins wasn’t necessarily smarter, but they were slightly taller, slightly stronger, and carried slightly sturdier wooden clubs.
‘Seriously, where do these clubs come from?’
Of course, one on one, Ackster would have won with one strike.
But goblins weren’t infamous for their individual combat capacity. It was their numbers and reproduction rate that made them the pests they were.
Ackster went into the battle with a similar strategy as the previous go. He carried himself defensively, ready to react to the goblins’ attacks with his arms raised. He let them hit him before he landed heavy fist after heavy fist on their heads if he could, their bodies if he couldn’t.
However, he might have underestimated them a little too much. Or maybe he overestimated himself after seeing his gauntleted fists pulverize the goblin skulls.
One of the goblins managed to take advantage of the tumultuous battle and launch an attack from behind that Ackster only noticed once the club had crashed into his skull and sent him stumbling forward.
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Thankfully, the training equipment’s weight also made him harder to topple as long as his center of gravity didn’t stray too far from his center of balance.
Ackster quickly raised his arms, both to cradle his head due to the pain and to protect it from another strike.
However, doing so exposed the rest of his body to the goblins’ attacks. It wouldn’t have been a problem, considering his suit’s defenses. But while his outfit could block strikes to some degree, it didn’t have perfect impact nullification. The blows still hit him, and so did the force behind them.
Since he was already stumbling, one stray club landing on the back of his knee was all it took for Ackster to propose to one of the goblins itching to tear his throat out and smash his head in.
‘Shit.’
His head was in perfect position for the goblins to go for a home run.
Ackster could already see multiple of the ones left to try for just that. He could also sense and hear a couple of goblins behind him inhale and charge up their attacks as well.
Ackster could cover most of his head with his arms, but it didn’t take a genius to realize that it wasn’t the solution to his current predicament. If he decided to block, he would end up in an impossible-to-escape cycle of repeatedly trying not to get his head smashed in.
He could feel time slowing down as the goblins’ clubs approached. It gave him more time to look for a way out. Unfortunately, it also meant his body slowed down, unlike what his thoughts did.
But he had already gotten used to his body not being as reflexive and agile as he wanted it to be.
Ackster quickly found an opening among the goblins crowding around him with their clubs poised.
With his training equipment, he could probably force his way through regardless of what he did. But he risked getting whacked if he did that. And since he already felt warm blood trickle down his hair and neck, he decided now was as good a time as any to try and train his dodging skills.
Ackster dove forward, adamant not to let his training equipment drag him down. He aimed for a gap between two goblins, which was slightly bigger than the gaps between the other goblins.
If things went according to his imagination, he would pass through with ease, maybe even to a roll, and stand up in one smooth motion before turning around and turning the tables on the goblins.
He used the leg whose knee was already touching the ground to push off and dart forward, already taking his next step while bending down until he was practically parallel with the ground.
Within one and a half steps, he had already shot forward into a dive that would propel him out of the encirclement. He saw the ground where he would land on his shoulder and roll, and he could feel the goblins begin to commit to their swings behind him.
The feeling of his senses going into overdrive and analyzing everything around him before compressing it and telling him what happened before it happened was surreal. However, Ackster had no spare time to indulge in or think about it since the view of his escape disappeared from his eyes as it was replaced by a goblin leg.
One of the two goblins that Ackster planned to dive between reacted almost as quickly as Ackster was thinking, and Ackster, who was already in the air, couldn’t do anything about the leg that impeded his escape. He also didn’t have any time to ponder on how the goblin had reacted so quickly.
Ackster’s body cleaved through the air, and the goblin’s efforts at trying to stop him were valiant.
However, Ackster was muscular and decently tall for his age, so he alone weighed a significant amount. And he was also wearing a suit of weighted armor that added several times his body weight.
When combined with the momentum of his dive, the outcome of the goblin’s feeble leg trying to block him was predictable. It broke.
But it had succeeded in canceling Ackster’s dive, roll, and table-turning as he crashed on the leg almost face first and then collided with the ground like a meteor.
‘Tastes better than goblin.’
Ackster spat out the mouthful of dirt and crawled forward to escape the goblin encirclement. At least he had managed to incapacitate one by completely crushing and pulverizing its leg with his and his armor’s weight.
The goblin crumpled to the ground, almost falling onto Ackster. It would have if Ackster hadn’t shrugged and brushed it to the side before crawling forward and standing up to rush out of the encroaching encirclement of goblins.
He slipped a little on the crushed goblin leg but eventually made it out without his head taking another blow.
Ackster turned around as soon as he took two steps since that was enough to distance himself from the goblins and let him turn around and let him face his opponents without risking blocking another club with his head.
However, he had to raise his leaden arms as soon as he turned around since goblin clubs were already flying for his face. Fortunately, they didn’t do anything, thanks to his armored training equipment.
After blocking a couple of attacks from the goblins who had gotten close while he scraped to his feet after escaping the encirclement, Ackster realized that his muscles were quickly growing too tired to fight a drawn-out battle. Well, he knew he wasn’t going to fight for an extended period of time, even before he started fighting, but he was nearing his limits, and there were still a whole group of seven goblins left.
If he just continued taking hits with raised arms, it wouldn’t take long until he could no longer keep his arms up since they would be exhausted beyond their limits. Even if he forced himself, he would still eventually end up in a position like just before, where the goblins encircle him and manage to sneak in one or two attacks to his only real weak spot.
And unlike a broken leg, Ackster doubted he would be able to heal a broken skull. And that was only an option if he somehow managed to defeat the goblins and could be left to heal in peace.
Ackster had to finish this fight before it was too late. He was in a precarious situation where his body was so heavy that even taking a step was a task, much less defeating seven goblins, all of whom were stronger, larger, and more agile than the goblins he had fought previously. But he couldn’t stop a cold grin from shaping his face.
This kind of situation, where he could see a way out, even if it was like walking on the wire between two mountains, was exactly what he wanted. If he wasn’t careful, he might die. He might die even if he was careful.
The only way he could survive was by pushing himself to his limits, whether it be in raw physical strength or in terms of senses, both physical and combat. And if he survived, he would come out on the other side a stronger, more capable person.
He had almost died a couple of times looking for this balance, but considering he had lived, maybe it wasn’t so bad. At least he had found it now, and if he could replicate it, he would shoot through the ranks and acquire multiple death-defying skills.
Eyes shining with determination, Ackster dove into the fray.