When Sylvia got home, the sun had passed its high point multiple hours ago, leaving her with just a couple hours for training, so that’s exactly what she did. For the next couple hours straight, not counting small breaks to get water or eat dinner, she swung, stabbed, slashed, and thrusted her spear against imaginary goblins.
Had she not realized how much her lack of practice was a threat to her own life, she wouldn’t have been able to keep at it that intently for hours. So, in a twisted way, she was actually happy to have had such a hard time against them, as that would probably save her life in the future.
Halfway through her practice, she began to move around a bit more, though still far from as much as she would in an actual battle, as her focus was on actually hitting where she wanted to. At the end of the day, it was clear to her that she still needed a lot more practice before she’d feel confident calling herself somewhat competent. With a sigh, she added another thing on the growing list of things to practice.
With her mana having mostly recovered, she switched back to Frank and finished his pathway, before turning back to practice her water magic. As an experiment to see if the produced water actually stuck around for some time, she quickly formed a simple stone bowl and poured around half a liter into it, as that was more or less all she could produce with her leftover mana.
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The next day was even less interesting than some of the past ones, Sylvia didn’t do much more than produce water, hold water in her hand while manipulating it, and practicing her spearmanship. By the end of the day, even her drive to not die to goblins was beginning to fade, as she now felt that her improvement in actually hitting where she wanted would make quite the difference, so they no longer felt as threatening.
While she knew that she should still take this fully seriously, her feelings and boredom at the constant practice left her wanting to go back and face goblins again. In addition to boredom, there was also the want to level up, so after producing well over a liter of water, and checking that the water from yesterday was still there, she went to bed.
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On her tenth day in this world, Sylvia went back into the forest for some pest extermination and upon returning to the area from two days ago, she discovered some good news and some bad: The good, she had discovered goblins to kill; the bad, there were six goblins within sight, with one being the clear leader of the group.
The bastard stood half a head taller than the others, was actually quite a bit, when the others couldn’t have been much more than 1.3 meters tall. Unlike all the other goblins, this one had some actual equipment, consisting of a leather breastplate and a rusty sword. There also seemed to be some amount of muscle on the guy. All of this combined to make it appear quite threatening, especially when compared to the other goblins.
Unsure what to do, she stayed hidden and continued to observe the goblins whilst she decided. The more logical side of her argued that she hadn’t even been practicing for two days, taking this on would be too big a risk; it’d be better to find a smaller group and hunt those. On the other hand, her more impulsive side argued that it was time to test out her skills and that the big goblin would probably give a good bit more exp and the other ones.
Though as to save her the effort, a decision had already been made for her, as by the time her mind returned full focus on the current situation, she realized that she had been surrounded, and that the big guy was trying to approach her in what she assumed to be an inconspicuous manner. What she had just assumed to be the big one ordering the others to spread out do whatever they had been doing when she found them, must’ve instead been an order to slowly surround her.
‘I guess that settles it. I don’t know how capable he is, so I’m not gonna turn my back to him, meaning, no running away.’ Having made her choice, she swallowed the lump that’d formed in her throat and prepared to be the one initiating a surprise attack.
As soon as the goblin got within striking distance, she got up and stepped straight through the bush in a single step, while simultaneously thrusting out her spear. Her stepping out turned out to have been the best decision she could’ve made, as the next two seconds were filled with goblins slamming their clubs down around where she had been previously. Realizing that she had just avoided the goblin’s emergency beatdown made all the scratches worth it.
Despite aiming for its chest, she ended up just heavily injuring its left shoulder. However, this wasn’t purely her own fault, as this goblin actually seemed to have some vague idea on how to use a sword, so it had managed to notice, react, and parry her blow away from its chest in time. As if its injury didn’t faze it, it stepped closer and swung down its sword from its left.
This attack actually left Sylvia in a bit of a predicament, as her spear was on its left side while its attack was forcing her away from its left, and with the bush and goblins behind her, stepping back wasn’t exactly an option. In the end, she stepped as much left as possible while pulling back her spear. By the skin of her teeth, she had managed to avoid the attack, at least almost the entire attack; the tip of the sword had managed to cut into her right leg, though it luckily wasn’t more than a couple centimeters.
Taking a couple quick steps back, she raised her spear and gathered a quick view over the battle situation. The five regular goblins appeared to have collected themselves and were about to approach her, and the big one had already turned to face her and raised its sword. ‘Gotta deal with the big one first, the others likely aren’t much smarter than the ones from last time. Hopefully a faint will work.
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Sylvia was about to take a step forward and emulated her beginning movements of an attack, and to her relief, it worked. Less than a second later, the goblin swung its sword to parry the spear she had already stopped, resulting in it leaving itself open, an advantage she did not miss. With a quick thrust, the goblin finally groaned out in pain, as its one lung got taken out of commission. Its leather breastplate had provided some amount of increased resistance, but it wasn’t enough to stop the full force of the thrust, resulting in some of its ribs breaking and piercing its own lung.
In a quick follow-up whilst the goblin took to its chest, the spearhead forced its way through its throat, which was enough to end the goblin, prompting the death message to appear.
Killed enhanced goblin lv. 19. Gained exp Leveled up
Leveled up
Leveled up Gained: 6 strength, 5 vitality, 5 endurance, 6 mana, 5 wisdom, and 3 perception.
As the messages appeared, she felt her scratches and the small injury disappear, as if they had never been there in the first place. But she didn’t have time to dwell on what that was about, there were some scared goblins to take care off first. Seeing their leader die in front of them, all but one seemed ready to stick its tail between its legs and run off.
Neither wanting to lose potential exp or to risk making anyone aware of who she was, she speedily ran towards the two closest goblins, speared the first in the chest, and after pulling out, slit the other’s throat.
Killed goblin lv. 7. Gained exp
Killed goblin lv. 8. Gained exp
Seeing how quickly those two were dispatched, it appeared that the flight instinct in the goblins was discarded, probably in the same way that she didn’t want to turn her back to the enhanced one earlier. With adrenaline fueling them, the three remaining ones ran around the bush and headed straight for her, all three with clubs raised and ready for a frontal attack.
With how easy the goblins’ intentions were to read, a possibility of why the enhanced one hadn’t expected a faint began to dawn on her. ‘If those are the kinds it’s been practicing with, then that feint earlier probably surprised it quite a bit, allowing me to win.’ Her thoughts were then interrupted by the goblins having reached her.
Almost at the same time, the two outmost ones slammed down their clubs and missed spectacularly, as Sylvia simply took a quick step backwards. Mid step, she realized that the middle one, the one with the most desperate expression, still had its club raised. Though that didn’t last long, as it quickly came down, and it was just as quickly released, sending it flying straight at her.
As she was mid step, turning her side to dodge the projectile wasn’t exactly easy, and the short distance gave her very little time to react, so she swung her spear up as fast as possible whilst also turning slightly. The good, she managed to avoid the club, the bad, there was now a pissed goblin running straight towards her, ready to rip into her with its fingernails, not to mention her poor balance.
In an effort to avoid a collision with the goblin, she slammed her spear down towards it for full force. Luckily, despite just hitting with the wood, it was more than enough to bring the goblin to its knees, though it sadly wasn’t dead. That, however, was something that could easily be fixed with a quick pull and stab.
Killed goblin lv. 10. Gained exp Leveled up Gained: 3 strength, 3 vitality, 2 endurance, 2 mana, and 1 wisdom.
With a quick step around the falling goblin, she was able to reach the two that had just gotten their clubs back up. In fact, they had been raised just in time for one divert its look and see the spear about to enter its face. At this point, even the pointless flight option seemed more promising to the remaining goblin than staying and trying to fight, but it hadn’t even turned its back before it got speared through the heart.
Killed goblin lv. 8. Gained exp
Killed goblin lv. 6. Gained exp
Seeing the last goblin fall to the ground, most of the tension left Sylvia’s body, and after quickly looking around for more goblins, she left herself breathe out in relief. “Alright, I’m not going near another big goblin until I’ve leveled up a bit more. Luckily, that one didn’t seem to have much experience with feints, but I don’t want to stake my life on the hope that the next one is the same. Though, with those goblins’ way of attacking, them not experiencing feint makes sense.”
She walked over to the enhanced goblin and felt the leather, confirming that it had been treated in some way, most probably through boiling it. With how much the thing stank, she figured that it’d be impossible for her to rid of most of the stains, which would make it continue to irritate her, so when combined with it appearing to be too big both her and the goblin, she decided to let it stay with the goblin.
The sword however, that was something she wanted to take with her, as while it did reek like everything else, it was at least made of metal, so she should be able to burn most of the bad stuff away to leave herself with a new tool. She thought about making it her new weapon if it seemed alright after cleansing it, but she threw that idea away quite quickly, as she knew nothing on how to fix it if was to be damaged, which was something she could do fairly easily with the spear. Besides, from what she’d heard, then the spear was also the easier one to learn quickly.
Before making her way back home, she quickly got the idea to make things annoying for any potential goblins who may discoverer these. So, she got the breastplate off the goblin and dumped it in the river, just so the others couldn’t easily find it and recover it. Of course, if the goblins actually made their own gear, then it wouldn’t matter much in the end, but if they instead stole it from parties, it wouldn’t be fun to lose equipment. With that done, she set course for her cave.