As she was kinda preoccupied with the situation at hand, she skipped past the content of the notifications and just commanded them to hide for now. Just as they disappeared from her vision, a male human in the group answered her question. “Yes please!” The desperation in his voice was quite apparent, so Sylvia didn’t beat around the bush and went to action straight away.
Before her were some fifteen-odd goblins and five enhanced goblins. In a clear display of the advantage higher stats can give, she had beheaded the two goblins that had been on either side of the hobgoblin. This seemed to bring the flock of goblins back to reality, and in the typical behavior for goblins, they began to flee from incredible danger.
Not all that interested in letting them regroup with the village and more importantly, letting the exp get away, Sylvia set off towards the closest enhanced goblin. On her way to it, she managed to cut down another two goblins, and as she reached her target, it only managed to turn its head just in time to see the spear come in to behead it.
Compared to her last encounter with the bastards, it felt like they were noticeably slower. With a smile it struck her, it was because her level had more than doubled compared to previously. With the smile not fading at a single point, Sylvia was able to end another three goblins and one enhanced goblin before any of the goblins made it out of the small clearing.
At this point, the goblins, in particular the enhanced ones, had begun to realize that they wouldn’t be allowed to escape. Thus, with their fight or flight instinct limited to fighting. That’s what they did. With frenzied expressions and eyes screaming of insanity and desperation, they one by one began charging towards Sylvia with weapons drawn.
To avoid giving them the chance to properly surround her, Sylvia changed her strategy to target the goblin at the end of the vague line they formed. From that point on, the whole situation almost looked like a classic one v. many fight in a movie, as she one by one dispatched every goblin that came charging towards her.
Regardless of whether or not the goblins had a club, a sword, a spear, or something fourth, none of their desperate attacks were particularly hard to avoid or parry. Thanks to also enhancing her spear through magic, Sylvia held no worry about it accidentally breaking from her putting in too much force. So, like seen so many films, she was able to slice and dice the goblins in just a single or two hits.
The last goblin turned out to be an enhanced variant, so with there being no other threats left, she decided to take out some old frustrations out on it. Without killing it immediately, she stabbed through the gut, which made it bend over forwards in pain. Before it could fall over, she kicked it in the chest, sending it flying down on its back.
As it screeched abhorrent sounds in pain, Sylvia looked down at the figure that now just looked pitiful. “Funny that I was actually scared of you guys just a couple weeks ago, and to think that not a single one of you could use any magic. I’m almost disappointed, but, as that’d just have been a needless danger, I don’t mind there not being one.” While she looked at it, her frustrations just felt pointless, so she decided to end its misery with a quick stab through the throat.
Now that all of that was handled the time had come to take a look at the pop-up from just before. “Apparently the bottleneck just required some actual action to clear. I wonder if I can still level up the skill without fighting actual creatures or if that’s now over. Anyway, time to rank up my class.” Between the other people and her class upgrade, the latter was a bit more interesting to her, so she kinda just forgot about the people for a bit. With a smile, she mentally decided to accept the rank up.
Class [Novice Spearwoman Trainee] has become [Intermediate Spearwoman Trainee] Due to learning how to infuse the spear with mana on your own, you have forcibly learned the [Competent Spearwoman] class’ skill category {Spear Skills}. You have learned the {Spear Skill} |Spear Enhancement|.
You have learned the {Spear Skill} |Spearhead Explosion|.
“Oh damn. That’s a lot more than I expe… Yes?” While she’d been reading the notifications from her rank up, the same man who replied earlier had approached her and asked, “Excuse me?” Which threw her mind off course, and before she had even thought about what to say, she instinctively replied with a yes. With that said, it was probably too late to look more at her class and new skills, so that would have to wait.
“Thank you so much for saving us!” The man suddenly made an almost 90 degree bow out of nowhere, surprising Sylvia enough for her to take a step back. “Calm down… All I did was kill some goblins I was about to hunt anyway, no need to show that much gratitude.” The appreciation showed by the man felt a bit much for Sylvia, as she lacked the knowledge of how badly things had been looking for the other party.
“This is the least I can do. Some of us were about to meet a fate worse than death, so is there anything we can do to repay you?” As she thought about it a little, she began to see where the man was coming from. After all, the group consisted of multiple females and it didn’t sound like they were able to defend themselves properly. However, Sylvia still didn’t think that she did all that much, but if it would help the man, then she had a thing she was already intending to ask the man.
“Since you’re out here, you wouldn’t happen to know if there’s a town nearby, would you?” While one could argue that it’d be best to try and keep as many cards as close to her chest as possible, Sylvia just wasn’t the kind of person who found that kind of behavior natural.
At her question, the man first looked relieved, but that was soon followed by a somewhat sad expression. “Sorry to disappoint you, but that was actually something I had hoped you could answer for us. We’ve been lost in this forest for the past couple weeks and have reached a point where we can no longer aimlessly travel in the hopes of finding civilization.”
“Well. That’s not exactly good to hear, as I can’t really claim to be more informed than you guys. However, I do have a place not too far away from where you guys could probably rest out. Then you could also help out with different things that I’m not too knowledgeable about.” Her suggestion wasn’t exactly thought through, and it was only after bringing it up that she realized that being surrounded by people wasn’t exactly a great way to hide her different forms.
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But what’s done is done, and with the man’s answer that came pretty much immediately, she didn’t have it in her to take back her offer. Besides, maybe it’d turn out to be a benefit, and there’s no guarantee that they’d have a problem with her ability. “Do you really mean that? On behalf of the entire group, we’d like to take you up on that offer. Feel free to ask us to help out as well.”
As he seemed to calm down more and more, his posture slowly became more relaxed. Since his savior had also told him that it wasn’t all that much and he wasn’t exactly used to overly formal stuff, he just extended his hand for a handshake upon remembering that he had yet to introduce himself. “Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m the Journeyman Blacksmith Philip.”
Relieved that things were becoming less informal, Sylvia took the hand and shook it with a smile. “Nice to meet you, I’m Sylvia, an Intermediate Spearwoman Trainee.” Without realizing it, the name that she’d naturally used was Sylvia and not Frank, which she’d otherwise used her entire life up until her death.
It quickly became apparent to Sylvia that stating her class maybe wasn’t the best idea, but she’d just done it in response to Philip doing the same. The sign was how his jaw just dropped when she said it. “You’re kidding, right? What you just did definitely wasn’t something that sounds feasible for a trainee, not to mention just an intermediate one.”
To those words, she couldn’t do much more than shrug. “It’s the truth, the goblins were just under-leveled. I mean, it wasn’t exactly as if the regular goblins were much of a threat even before I got a class, and enhanced goblins were only a real threat when they were in groups. Regardless, this is pretty unimportant and probably one of the less surprising things you’ll learn about me.” At this point, she figured that there wasn’t much to do besides sucking it up and preparing to have people around her. It wasn’t like she’d be able to keep it from getting out at some point anyway.
It was quite clear that Philip had more to say, but after a couple seconds he stopped himself. “Alrighty, if you say so. Want to head to your place before I introduce the rest of the group, or would you rather get that over with right now?” With another shrug, Sylvia replied as she bent down to the dead goblin at her feet. “Let’s just do it back there, for now I just want to finish up here.”
Just as she was about to turn into Frank like she usually would, she remembered that she wasn’t alone anymore. So, she thought a little about an explanation she thought was passable. “Just a quick heads up. I was born with a pretty special constitution, so don’t be alarmed at what I’m about to do. Please tell this to your group as well.”
With a confused expression, Philip told her alright and went to tell his group. While he did that, she removed the leather shoulder pads the enhanced goblin had been wearing. By the time she was done, all of the people she’d saved were looking at her with confusion and curiosity painted on their faces. With a small smirk, she turned into Frank and got out her basket to put away the armor.
The exclamations coming from the group didn’t disappoint, but Frank could currently not care less, he had stuff to do. As he began to move on to the next goblin with gear, Philip approached him again. “What the fuck was that? ‘A special constitution’ is quite an understatement. Completely changing your appearance and manifesting a basket from out of nowhere in an instant is… Wait, are you even still Sylvia?”
With a fair amount of disinterest at dealing with this right now, Frank was about to say that he was still Sylvia, when he noticed that he was about to say Frank instead. His brows creased slightly as he replied while actively trying to say Sylvia. “Yeah, I’m still Sylvia. Though it’d probably be more correct to say that Sylvia is Frank, which is my name and the name of my base form.” ‘The name stuff probably works in a similar fashion to me feeling each body as being natural.’
“So, you are saying that this is your usual appearance, correct?” As Philip continued to ask questions, Frank’s focus stayed on looting the goblins. “Yep.” “Then why did you introduce yourself as Sylvia if you were gonna change appearance anyway?” “A natural habit for each form I have. Nothing more, nothing less.” “I think I begin to understand why you said that the class stuff was fairly unimportant.” “Great. If you have finished with your questions, can you guys round up your things or help me finish up here? That way we can get going faster.”
Answering that they’d pack up their things, Philip went back to the group to pack up and explain all he knew. Thus, with the craftsmen helping with the goblins after finishing their packing, they were ready to head back to the cave some twenty minutes later. “Alrighty, I’ll change back to Sylvia now, please don’t react too much.” Unlike the last time, this time they were prepared for what was about to happen, so they managed to keep in their reactions. “Alrighty, follow me then.” With the basket of gear gone from her back, Sylvia led the way back to the cave.
As Sylvia guided them through the forest, the craftsmen, who appeared to a group of be four humans and two dwarven-looking races, were busy talking between themselves, discussing what had happened that day. However, she wasn’t all that interested. Instead, she eventually asked Philip, as he was the only one she knew the name of, to join her in the front.
“So. Why exactly where you guys lost in the forest? You guys seem to have tools with you, so I assume it was either badly planned and intentional, or more likely, you ran into an accident of some kind.” For a second, Philip considered whether or not to answer the question, as he wasn’t sure he wanted to mentally relive that scene. Then he realized that he thought about it every so often anyway, and they’d probably have to explain it at some point anyway, so he might as well get it over with.
“Hugh… We were part of a larger group of craftsmen who’d been hired to work on a large project in a fief on the other side of the forest from my hometown. The trip is usually quite safe if you just have an experienced guide and adventurer escort, which we had. We were just about as unlucky as one could possibly be, as something I can only imagine being related to the mythical emperor beasts, if not one itself, flew by and was a little hungry.”
The man took himself to his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose at the memory. “It just descended out of nowhere and wiped out the entire party, with even a fully enraged and transformed beastman who was at least level 150 being unable to leave much more than a scratch on it.” His voice was almost shaking at this point. “After killing and eating all six adventures, it shot a compressed burst of air at us. The resulting tempests tore up our caravans and trees like they were paper and killed over half of us craftsmen.”
“The remaining nine of us decided that our best chance was to try and find out of the forest and look for a settlement, but we also wanted away from the direction the beast flew, so we set off after gathering up what we could. Over the next two weeks, the three that had severe injuries passed away, leaving us six. And you more or less know the rest.” After finishing his explanation, Philip breathed out; it felt surprisingly good to be able to get it off his chest to someone who didn’t witness it.
“That sounds really horrifying. Lucky that I ran into you guys, so all that effort at least wasn’t wasted. I also can’t say that I can fully understand how you felt, but I do know what it’s like to stare death in its eyes.” Sylvia’s voice turned a bit hard at the memory of how the bear had almost killed her. The remainder of the journey was spent with small talk. And just like that, they had arrived at her cave.