The defenseless goblin quickly died, and except for Blake’s own gasping breath, the dark forest was silent once more.

Despite the upgrade to his stamina, he bemoaned the fact that his body was still considered average compared to non-integrated humans. While he recovered from his exertion, he quickly checked his logs to ensure no goblins still lived, and was relieved when their deaths were confirmed.

You have killed a young goblin. For your effort, you have received 199k nano.

You have killed a young goblin. For your effort, you have received 195k nano.

You have killed a young goblin. For your effort, you have received 198k nano.

You have killed a young goblin. For your effort, you have received 220k nano.

You have killed a young goblin. For your effort, you have received 221k nano.

The nano displayed was divided by a thousand and rounded per his settings. His logs proved that all had died from their injuries, and after he reviewed his status page, he found that he now held almost one point two million nano.

Another nine million and I can upgrade another attribute.

He noticed another notification vying for his attention and focused on its message.

For killing ten nano-enhanced creatures, you have been awarded an achievement. - [Slayer I]

The [Slayer I] achievement increases all your attributes by 1%.

Blake smiled at the familiar achievement. The reward was low, but it was only the first in its series. After he killed another eighty-seven creatures, he would increase his attributes by another one percent. The third stage of the achievement, on the other hand, increased attributes by five percent total and required a thousand kills.

By the time he and his faction battled the Koza, he had acquired the fourth stage of the achievement with well over ten-thousand kills. It increased attributes by ten percent total and was far more noticeable. It took years to get to that point, and the long process had almost completely desensitized him to the slaughter.

Let’s see how many more are left.

The directive informed him that the scenario was fifty percent completed. With this information, Blake deduced there were likely two more camps spaced evenly to the southwest, and one would likely contain a much tougher opponent. He opened his map and confirmed his current location. The blurry map was further revealed from the last time he checked, and displayed a marker for every single kill he had achieved.

I bet the next camp is somewhere about here.

He placed his own marker where it made sense for the next camp to be located, and closed the tool. He glanced down at the notched sword he looted from the last goblin camp, it was the best weapon he had seen so far, and he planned to continue to use it. However, unlike his baseball bat, he could not bring it back through the portal with him.

Blake searched his memory for where he had dropped the bat but came up blank. He then proceeded to search the dark battlefield for the next ten minutes before he gave into defeat. The baseball bat was gone.

Oh well, I haven’t used it yet anyway.

After a mental shrug, he once more used the map to orient himself to his new direction, and began to cautiously trail through the woods. As he traveled, he peeled off his blood-stained coat and tied it gingerly around his waist. His cotton t-shirt was soaked in sweat, and he was beginning to overheat in the thick humidity, despite the coolness of the night.

Much better.

The light wind began to cool him and his mind began to clear. By the time he neared the marker he placed upon the map, he began to shiver and was forced to slip into the stained jacket once more. His travel was far too slow to keep his body warm, and in the damp environment, his sweat refused to evaporate.

When he reached his marker and failed to detect a nearby camp, he frowned.

One of them should be around here. Where the hell are they?

He continued on in the same direction for another ten minutes before he finally found signs of a camp. In the distance, he could see the glow of two small campfires only a few feet apart. He crept closer to the light until he had a full view of the camp.

Shit.

Instead of two smaller camps, as he had discovered earlier, all thirteen goblins had combined into a single, large group. Four of the guards were awake, and one of them wore a bone necklace. Its jewelry most likely signified that it was in charge of the band. The fact that every goblin faced away from the fire instead of into the bright flames meant he was far more intelligent than the others. They were also more alert and held their weapons close.

How the hell am I going to take them all out by myself?

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

With his weak body, thirteen was far too many. His only hope was to separate them, as he did at the first camp. He backed away and cautiously circled around the grouping until he smelled a nearby latrine.

After he located nearby cover away from the odor, he sat down and leaned back against a tree, careful to ensure he made no noise. It would be a long wait, and he wanted to get comfortable.

----------------------------------------

A branch snapped and jolted him awake. Despite his vigilance, his teenage body had betrayed him, and he had fallen asleep. The forest had noticeably lightened, which meant he had been vulnerable for hours as he slept. He mentally cursed at himself for the lapse in discipline.

The sound of water splattering against the ground focused his attention, and he was able to discern the backside of a small goblin, urinating. Propped against a nearby tree, was a quiver with crude arrows stored inside it, and a small bow.

Quickly, before it could finish, Blake rose to his feet and stalked it from behind. The young goblin was alone, and if he wanted to take advantage of the situation, he did not have much time.

Instead of using the pocket knife as he had before, he readied his sword. The stream of urine was beginning to falter, so he rushed forward, muffled the distracted goblin’s mouth with his left hand, and dragged the edge of the foot long blade against its thin, green throat. It struggled for only a few moments before it dropped in his arms, lifeless. A sudden cry of alarm surprised him, and he spun to his left. Only ten feet away stood a frightened guard.

Where the hell did he come from?

“Wake up!” It yelled, “Enemy!”

Before the guard could retreat and join its brothers, Blake dropped the light corpse and sprinted toward it. The young goblin slowly backed away and brandished its weapon. It was scared and not thinking clearly, as it never occurred to the dim creature to turn and run.

Blake used his greater weight to his advantage. After his initial attack was blocked, he tackled the green-skinned humanoid. His weight knocked it breathless, and the creature gasped loudly as it was pinned beneath him.

He never allowed it a chance to recover.

Blake dealt a quick slash to its exposed neck. Once he was sure it would die, he rose to his feet and searched for the nearest enemy. To his dismay, the entire camp heard the cry, and the leader was shouting orders to get them organized.

Time to get out of here.

Blake turned and dashed into the cover of the woods. With the dim light of dawn to aid him, he was able to weave his way deftly through the trees and quickly distanced himself from the angry band of goblins. When he felt he had retreated far enough, he began to circle around and slowed his pace.

He wanted to see how they responded, as their actions would determine his own. He reasoned, if all eleven goblins remained within the camp, alert, he would have no way to defeat them. However, if they split up to search for him, he may have a chance. He had not heard any goblins in the woods behind him as he ran, so he assumed they all remained within the camp.

As he neared the clearing, his worst fears were confirmed.

“No!” the leader yelled at an angry goblin. “You stay! We no know how many attack. Could be trap.”

The chastised goblin nodded reluctantly and obeyed, but remained focused on his commander.

“Face trees, not me!” the boss shrieked.

The group of goblins sheepishly turned in place and began to scan the surrounding woods for signs of their ambushers. Blake hid behind a thick tree and observed them for another few minutes as he formed an idea. Before the brightening day could spoil his stealth, he backed away from the camp and circled to the latrine, where he originally killed the two guards.

When he arrived at the foul stench, he approached the first goblin he had killed, dropped the sword, and took its quiver. Once he threaded his arm through the basket of arrows, he bent down and retrieved the tiny recurve bow. He quickly pulled back the string to test its strength and was surprised at the draw weight. By his estimation, it required sixty pounds of force to fully extend the bow, which could easily kill an unarmored target.

Blake slowly released the string, so as not to damage it. He retrieved a crude arrow from the quiver on his back, and nocked it on the thin groove in the center of the wood. With the weapon held sideways, the tip of the arrow stayed put, which allowed him to quickly draw and loose.

Archery was not his specialty, but he had practiced with almost every type of weapon over his many years of battle. With the bow readied, he snuck closer to the camp until he could observe the entire group from behind a tree with an oversized shrub at its base. Two of the goblins had large shields and would be difficult to kill from range, but they were not his target.

Instead, he quickly identified the leader by the necklace it wore. The rising sun limited his time and forced him to action. With a deep, calming breath, he pulled back on the string until the bow was fully drawn, stepped out from behind the tree and loosed the arrow.

There were shouts of alarm as they spotted him, but it was too late. The projectile had flown true, and the stone tip pierced through the neck of the leader. Blake reached for another arrow. It gurgled a scream around the mortal injury and sank to the ground.

He drew the bow to its full length, aimed at a gawking shield-laden goblin, and let loose. The arrow sank deep into its shoulder. Its shield fell to the ground along with the goblin as it shrieked in pain.

Without a leader to hold them back, the remainder charged toward him. Blake whirled and sprinted through the forest. The goblins were in close pursuit, however, with his longer legs, he quickly outpaced them.

After a ten-minute sprint, his heavy breathing grew louder in his ears than their distant yells of anger. When he was sure that he lost them, he slowed to a stop to recover, and ducked behind a grouping of boulders. Blake planned on circling around to pick off another goblin or two, but needed his breathing to slow in order to do so.

Hopefully they’re dumber without their leader.

While he rested, he checked his logs and was pleasantly surprised at the gains. Killing the shield wielding goblin awarded him a little under two hundred thousand nano, but the boss gave almost twice that amount.

It must have had higher attributes.

The Architect used a plethora of factors to determine the amount of nano to grant the victor in battle. In the future, longstanding arguments were held on the exact formula it used to compute the final tally. His friend Rajesh attested that if he were able to discover all the variables, the answer would be made clear. However, to his knowledge, no one ever succeeded. One aspect always remained true and became his group’s mantra.

The greater the risk, the greater the reward.

Since all the goblins in this scenario lacked a combat classification, the risk was low. He reasoned, the only explanation for the increased nano was attributes. It had most likely raised its attributes to the limit. Depending on how it distributed the enhancements, its body may have been more powerful than his own, despite its small frame.

If the leader had ignored the magical attributes and focused entirely on the physical, it would have at least a seven if not eight in all three. That would make it a threat. As planned, his ambush had eliminated the toughest and smartest of the group.

Now, all he needed was to use his new bow to whittle down his enemies one by one until only a few remained.