Day 5
{Max Mana +10}
{Strength +1}
{Endurance +1}
{Dexterity +1}
‘I guess I’m awake.’ It still felt odd seeing those the moment I opened my eyes. The morning light was coming in the window and I heard Selena stir next to me.
“Good morning Taishi. Having trouble sleeping?”
“Huh? No, why?”
“You were moving a lot last night. Look at yourself.”
So I looked and felt my blood rise. The shirt I wore to bed was twisted up past my belly and my tail was between my legs looking like something I once had. ‘Oh god.’
“Ah. I didn’t do anything!”
“Don’t worry. I know you were asleep. We all do it at some point, though it’s the first time I got to watch.”
“What?!”
“Oh calm down. I never thought a tail could bend that way.”
*Knock knock knock*
“Yes?" Selena answered.
“Um, Selena? It’s Chi. Can I come in?”
“Sure. Let me get the door.”
“Wait! Let me get dressed first!" I rushed to find and don my dress as Selena walked to the door and unlocked it. Instantly Chi was in and looking around.
“Aw, she’s already up!”
“What? What would you have done if I were asleep?!”
“Well, Selena’s still here so I’d just watch you! ♥”
I was still trying to fit my tail through the dress, but thankfully I was covered up. I gave Selena a look, “I’m glad I woke up when I did then." She returned the look and nodded. Meanwhile Chi kept turning to look at both of us.
“Okay, what's going on between you two?! Sharing looks AND a bed!”
‘Oh no, she’s jealous.’ “Nothing’s going on Chi. I’m just too small to warrant a second bed. Right Selena?”
“Well, I’d say Taishi’s more like a little sister right now. So Chi, I don’t want you doing anything Taishi doesn’t want, you understand?”
“F-fine! I already have a deal with her too you know!”
“Wait, sister?" I was still stuck at that. Selena looked a bit shy at that.
“Yeah... Well neither of us have family here, and our ages are a little far apart to be normal friends.”
“I never had a sister, so I don’t mind, but don’t expect me to call you Onee-san.”
“What?”
“Never mind." Of course they wouldn’t know what that meant. “Selena, we’d better pack up if we want to make good time.”
“You’re right. I’ll go get our breakfast wrapped up to go.”
As she left to do so, Chi had a puzzled look. “You aren’t leaving are you?”
“Leaving? Ah, no, we just want to try our magic on some bigger packs of monsters, so we have to camp out tonight.”
I had prepared for her to look down, but... “Ooh! Then take me along too!”
“What?!" I was getting more shocks that morning than was safe for the heart.
“I said take me with you! Ah it’s perfect. You two are still just practicing your magic so I can help out and I have lots more mana to use. Plus, if you ever get hurt,” at this point her eyes glazed over and she started drooling, “I can always heal you. He he, he.”
The door bumped open and Selena walked in with our wrapped breakfast. “What’s got the pervert going now?”
‘So she calls her that too?’ “She wants to go with us.”
“Really?" She looked over at Chi, who had just recovered and was wiping herself. “Don’t tell me you plan to become a sage?”
“Ooh, this big sister’s got it! Yup! I hope to walk the world, healing everyone I see!”
“So this would just be practice for you too? Alright Taishi. I say let her come with. Do you have a pack and traveling gear?”
“Well, no… I won’t be fighting so my clothes are fine, but…” She looked a little hopeless so after sharing another look with Selena, I pulled out my purse.
“Here. Take this and go to Stella’s place. Ask for just the essentials for a night on the plateau and she’ll help you.”
Maybe I was too nice, because she jumped up and hugged me tight. “Thank you Taishi! I’ll go get ready then!”
As she rushed to leave, I yelled after her, “Don’t waste all that! I want what’s left!”
Selena just watched in wonder. “That girl adores you.”
“Well, I can’t say it’s one sided, but don’t let her know that.”
“Hahaha! I won’t tell her then, but only because it’s fun watching you hold her off.”
“Thanks…” The last thing I wanted was to get caught with a fifteen year old, but it was hard not to like the girl. Why couldn’t I have known someone like that on Earth?
We gathered our things, including the bedrolls for the cold night, both of which were purchased by Selena the day before. No wonder she was easy to convince. I left my goblin knives though. Thankfully Selena overlooked it. Since we had time and Chi had obviously eaten already, we ate the packed breakfast then waited for Chi outside.
“I’m back!" There was Chi with a bedroll and small pack. “Sorry, Granny caught me and I had to explain where I was headed.”
“No worries.”
“Wait, you’re going out like that Taishi?”
“Pay it no mind Chi. She seems to prefer being barefoot everywhere and seems to think that dress is special.”
“Well, I won’t complain. I mean, if she does any kicks maybe I’ll see something!”
Our first stop was the town square to fill up our water skins and buy some travelling food. After all this I was nearly broke again. Which reminded me. “Hey girls, I need to check the smithy real quick. You mind waiting for me?”
“Ooh, I’ll go w-” Suddenly Selena grabbed Chi from behind, covering her mouth.
“Quiet Chi. Taishi, go ahead. We’ll wait at the gate.”
“Thanks.” It could have gotten really noisy if I brought Chi with me. After a short walk I entered Eve’s shop.
“Oh, it’s the little one. Come come. Ven’s a bit busy right now but I have your order here.” Saying that, Eve pulled out two knives. Unlike the one she showed me before, these had smaller handles to fit my palms, and three connecting pieces instead of just one. Here try holding one.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. Closing a fist around it I immediately noticed how comfortable it was. I could barely feel it in my hand. Looking closer I could see the two extra connectors meant they could each be thinner, and the two outer ones reached the dagger near enough to the edge that if it was buried to the knuckles in something there was nothing to catch on the way out.
Plus, even though everything else about it was small, the blade was a whole 6 inches(15cm) long. That had to be for the more armored monsters.
“As you can see we had to change it a bit to fit your small hands. We also needed a bit of dragon root to toughen it up, but as I promised you won’t pay for that.”
“Dragon root?” Were there really dragons in this world too?
“Yes. It’s the root of a plant that only grows in Antor used to harden steel. There’s nothing better but it’s a bit pricy.” Before I could even ask, Eve saw my question. “For your daggers we used about 60 silver worth.”
“Wait, that’s too much! That’s way more than I payed.”
“I told you we wouldn’t charge for it. Really, we just want to know how these perform before we try selling them normally. So take them with you on your hunt today and let us know how they are.”
“Wait please. Them? I only payed for one so far.”
“Don’t worry about it young’n. As long as you pay the rest within a week or return the other one, I don’t mind. It’s just the cost of making a new product.”
So not only was I getting both my new weapons at once, but on credit? I struggled to push down my guilt as I responded. “Thank you. I’m heading out now for a couple days so I’ll be sure to test them for you.”
“Good, now here are the sheaths I made for them. I figured you could conceal them if your pockets are deep enough.”
Trying it out, they indeed were just barely big enough to hide the weapons. It helped that my purse was all but empty too.
“Perfect. Now get going, and don’t forget to report back.” Just like that I was pushed out. Ah well. I couldn’t blame Eve for being excited.
I met back up with the other two just outside the gate. Again holding Chi back, Selena asked, “Was your weapon not done yet?” I just smiled as I pulled out one of my new blades. “Oh, now that’s interesting.”
“It’s a new design Eve and Ven are working on. They want me to try it out and report back when we return.”
“Oh so that’s how it is.”
She looked like she wanted to continue but Chi broke free and yelled “Let’s go already!”
“Why are you in such a rush?” Selena had the same thought as me.
“The sooner we get out there the sooner I get to heal Taishi of course.” In other words she just wanted me to get hurt. This was going to be a long two days.
Because of Chi’s slower pace, it took nearly an hour and a half to find our first goblin. For our first test we let Selena try out her shielding magic. Instead of her normal shield bash, she took the knife hit with a barrier just in front of her. She let him wail away for a few seconds before finally stabbing into him.
“It takes mana to hold, and each time it’s hit. Oh, I just got Sustained Magic. That should help.”
“Do you think it would take more mana for bigger hits?”
“Probably, but we won’t know unless we find an ogre. Let’s go find another for you and Chi.”
It didn’t take long to find the next contestant. This one was mine, but even though I wanted to test out my new weapons, I went for magic instead. No point walking around with full mana.
I stopped just outside his vision. My test was to see how much mana just shooting a rock would cost. My first shot missed the clueless goblin by almost a meter. I shot the next one faster and this time it seemed to skip over the goblin’s head.
“Come on!”
“I think the air is catching it.” It wasn’t Selena who said that, but Chi.
‘Could it be Chi might actually be smart?’ Not wanted to acknowledge that quite yet, I found the smoothest stone I could. This time I hit the goblin right in his back, knocking down, but not killing him. The cost? 10 mana. To not kill a level 7 goblin…
{Kinetic Magic +1}
Disappointing to say the least, but at least my skill went up. “Chi, if you want you can finish him.”
“Ok!” By now the goblin had finally realized where we were and came running at us. Chi just stepped up and started casting her fireball. We figured it might be overkill, but we still wanted to see its effect.
*boom* The stupid goblin even swung at it and it exploded in his face. With one arm blown straight off he was launched back several meters, and of course he was dead by the time he landed.
“Good one Chi. How much did that one cost?” Selena asked.
“Um, 42 mana?”
Oh wow. Even if it was cheaper than my fireball, 42 mana was not easy to justify on goblins. Selena thought so too. “Let’s just keep that one in reserve shall we?”
Then I noticed the worst part. The little wisp of leftover mana from the goblin dispersed into all three of us. I didn’t even get one full mana back. The others weren’t as surprised.
“This is why there’s usually only one or two mages in a hunting group. If there were more, then they wouldn’t be able to recover their spent mana quickly enough.”
Selena had a point. If there were too many mages they’d all run out eventually. But if there were enough people fighting without using mana, their kills would help replenish the mage. This was the reason magic wasn’t extensively used.
“Alright. How about from now on only Selena uses magic unless someone gets in trouble?”
“Are you sure little one?”
“And what about me?” Chi was starting to feel left out so I threw her a bone.
“Chi, I’m going to try out my new weapons from now on. I might get hurt though so I need you to be ready.”
Oh boy did her eyes light up. “Okay! Just don’t break any bones. I can’t heal those yet.”
“Why does it feel like Taishi’s the one in charge here?”
“That’s ‘cause she’s the cute one, isn’t it?”
“Maybe I’m being too soft on her. Taishi!”
I did not like where this was going. “Yes Selena?”
“The next ten goblins are yours. No lazy kills, got it? I want to see you running in and using that tail of yours.” What was this switch? A drill sergeant?
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“Ooh. Yeah, run fast! I wanna see your dress f- Ow!” Selena stopped Chi mid sentence with a chop to the head. “What was that for?”
“To stop your perversion. Taishi, what are you waiting for? Let’s go.” And so Selena assumed the role of party leader, keeping me on my toes and Chi from drooling.
True to her word, Selena left the next goblins to me alone. I wasn’t all that upset, but I did want Selena to get some good practice too.
My first fight was against two lesser goblins. Normally I would have just waited for them to run to me, but I was pushed into running at them myself. It wasn’t long before my balance improved and I was sprinting full speed at the closer goblin. ‘I love this tail.’
As usual he had his knife over his head ready to swing down, but since I had too much momentum I ducked under it and came up at his unarmored stomach with both fists in an uppercut. My blades went right in like butter, his knife went behind me, and my knuckles served to punch the body away enough for me to bring my blades together, gutting him.
‘Ooh that was good.’ I didn’t have time to relax though as the second goblin came at my side. Instinctively I jumped back as the knife missed, and I saw that the goblin’s side was wide open. So I lunged, aiming for the ribs. This time I felt the impact, as I couldn’t punch through the ribs.
I had punched with the blade vertical. Stupid me. As the goblin recoiled in pain, I twisted, pulling my right hand away and thrusting with my left. This time I made sure the blade was horizontal and it went clean through. Even with the leather in the way. The poor goblin could only fall to the ground holding its chest as it died.
“Oh god that was fun!” What more could I say? I felt like a tiny boxer with knives for hands.
{Unarmed +1}
{Off Hand +1}
‘Wait, even though they’re weapons it counts as unarmed?’ Was it because I was essentially just punching? Or was it because I was hitting with my knuckles after the blade went through?
Just then the others came running up. “That was so cool!” Chi would’ve jumped and hugged me if Selena didn’t catch her collar.
“Hold up Chi, her weapons are still out.”
I looked down and discovered the first problem with my lovely new blades. There was no way to clean the blood off before sheathing them. “Hey, would you mind helping me wash these off quick? I don’t want to bloody my dress.”
Selena pulled out her canteen to help and asked, “So how did it feel?”
“It was great. I didn’t have to put much thought into it. I just punch and it works. Although, I have to remember to turn it to avoid bones.”
Meanwhile, Chi was walking around me. “How come you’re not hurt? That’s not fair.”
“Chi, most people avoid getting hurt.”
“I know but…” She looked so distressed I felt bad.
“Chi might have a good point though. I know your toughness is really low, so how about taking a few hits to improve that? That way Chi’s healing can also get better.”
“You’re taking her side?” I felt so betrayed.
“Oh calm down. Just take a couple cuts on your arm or something. Chi, calm down.”
Again Chi was caught daydreaming at the thought of healing me repeatedly. ‘This girl is something else.’ Well, at least she was getting better at not drooling in her perversion.
As the hours passed by I fought my quota of goblins, and even blocked a couple cuts to satisfy Chi. Let me tell you, that hurt. A lot more than I thought. Even though the goblins are such low level, my arm was cut to the bone easily.
I did pay them back though. Once I caught an blow with a blade in the goblin’s forearm, and I was able to manhandle him from there. Another time I tried blocking with both blades and ended up accidentally slicing off a couple goblin fingers. Thankfully his knife fell behind me.
One thing I recognized though: No matter how hard I stabbed, I could not break through a skull or ribs. With my low strength I could only aim for weak spots. Not to brag or anything, but I think I got pretty good at it too. Sure my foes were pathetically slow, but not everyone could stab between leather pieces like I was.
{One Hand Blade +1}
{Unarmed +1}
Over the course of the fights I realized that I was leveling both my blade and unarmed skills at once. So efficient. My dress did get a few blood stains on it though, so I had Chi clean it off when she healed me.
We also encountered a couple lone ogres as we headed west. Selena took care of them using a barrier to block their blow as she took out a leg, then went for the neck. She did point out however that it took a lot of mana to block a hit that big, but by then she was only sharing the mana on kills with Chi.
Early afternoon we finally found a pack of twelve goblins, but no ogres.
“Hey Taishi, there’s a couple archers in there. If you want to fight here then you’ll need to stay behind me.”
I spotted the two bow wielders and marked their locations. “No problem. Get me close and I’ll take care of ‘em.”
“What about me?” Chi really didn’t like being left behind.
I just looked at Selena, leaving it up to her. “Ok, stick close to Taishi until she breaks away. My barrier should be enough to cover all of us.”
“Alright!” As if waiting for her chance, she zipped over to me and grabbed my arm.
“Chi, it’s not a date. You’re too close.”
Unfortunately Selena was on her side this time. “Taishi, let her be. She’s held back all day and it’s only for a minute.”
“Ooh this feels good…” I could only fall in line as we approached the pack, all the while with Chi almost hanging onto my arm.
The goblins eventually noticed us and the two archers started firing into Selena’s shields. They held, but Selena was quickly losing mana so once we got close I made Chi let go and sprinted off.
Most of the knife wielding goblins wanted Selena, but a couple saw me break away and tried getting in my way. Fortunately I was quick enough to go around as I targeted the first archer.
He squealed when he saw me, but without a knife he turned to run as I came up and stabbed his back. The second one noted me and actually got an arrow off before I reached him. Of course I dodged it since it was obviously coming straight for me, but what I didn’t expect was for it to hit one of the goblins chasing me. Free kill.
Just like the other archer, this one turned to run. As I killed it the same way I wondered if all goblin archers were just cowards.
When I spun around to face my chaser I found only one left. That arrow must have killed in one shot. The remaining one though was a greater goblin with double the level of a lesser.
Blocking wasn’t going to work so I dodged after the first strike and stabbed his side. The problem was his toughness was much higher and he ignored the pain as he swung his knife back at me. I barely ducked under in time and took that moment to uppercut his jaw. He instantly went limp as my blade reached his brain.
{Off Hand +1}
With that all done I faced towards the others to see all the rest were taken care of. All around Selena were dead and disintegrating goblins. Behind her, Chi was just standing up from a crouching position.
“Selena, you two okay?”
“Yeah. Chi was able shield herself, and I only got hit a couple times.”
“Oh, you’re hurt? My turn!” Chi was seriously addicted to healing.
“Thanks Chi. And good work getting those archers. If my barrier went down before they did it could’ve been bad.”
“Does that mean you’re out of mana?”
“Yeah. Too many little hits, but I did learn I can put the barrier behind my shield to save mana.” Looking around, she continued with, “Enough of that. We need to grab the loot and move on.”
The whole time we were picking up loot, Chi was just standing there in her post healing feel good phase.
The next pack was a bit big for our tastes, so we let Chi throw a nice hot fireball into the middle of them. For a measly 47 mana this time, she took out 9 goblins, and disabled 13 others. All that was left was for Selena and I to clean up before they got back to their feet.
In return, Chi and Selena both regained about 32 mana, which meant that the greater goblins mixed in were worth more than the 2 mana lessers gave.
The next couple packs were handled the same way. Since Chi barely lost mana, she was just fine doing it. The only problem was we received less loot from monsters who were too close to the blast. So the dilemma was, fight more and faster with magic, or fight slower without it, but get more loot per kill.
Finally when Selena had gotten her mana back, it was my turn for magic again. The last pack of the day was about 10 greater goblins, and an ogre. We waited a bit to make sure, but there were no archers this time.
“Okay. I’m going to fireball the ogre. It may not kill it so be careful of the flames.” Lining it up, I show my napalm style fireball at the ogre and hit him right in the chest. Flames flew everywhere as some of the splash landed amongst the unlucky goblins.
Suddenly a massive plume of fire erupted from the evaporating gases. We could feel the heat from 40 meters away. None of us were expecting that, but after seeing it we weren’t surprised that once the fire died down not a single enemy was left standing.
{Fire Magic +1}
“““...”””
What could we possibly say to that? It was the single most devastating spell any of us had seen. It was almost a waste to use it on such a small pack when you consider the 68 mana I used for it. Especially when Chi and I only got 26 mana back.
We also found no loot left over except for two ogre horns. Truly a waste, but damn was that great to watch.
Shortly afterwards we found a good spot to camp for the night and had our dinners. It was just dried fruits, cheese, and jerky, but it wasn’t bad for a cold meal.
We chatted about whatever came to mind as we ate, and continued well past sunset until it became too cold. Because monsters could still wander right into us, and I didn’t trust sleeping with Chi yet, we set up a simple look-out. The first half, I would stay up. Then when I couldn’t last any longer I was to wake Selena for her turn.
It wasn’t long at all before Chi was passed out completely, at which Selena and I shared a laugh. The night was peaceful enough during my shift, and the stars were bright enough I could see a fair distance.
During this alone time I really thought about what I wanted to do in the future. My whole plan was simply to enjoy myself, but how best to do that? I would have to find harder monsters to fight. I would need to train my magic as much as possible too.
When it was Selena’s turn I went straight to sleep. I thought I might be able to stay up and talk, but after all the exercise that day, I passed out just like Chi.
A/N: Woo! This was a fun chapter to write for you guys and girls. I'm to a point that my rough draft is almost worthless to me now, and nearly everything from now on will be written as I go. All I have is a general outline of plot points and characters.
As for yesterday's question, I've decided I will post a totally optional, non spoiler chapter describing the stats and mechanics of the world after I finish Act 1. It won't have any story elements at all, just a bunch of numbers and descriptions copy pasted from my spreadsheets that I keep track of everything in.
And as always, thanks for reading! You have no idea how much motivation I get just seeing that people like this. Love you all!