“Hey, mister Jacob. This is Roy.”
A middle-aged man with a gray and dark beard slowly opened the door. He had an incredulous look on his face as he stared at the young man who should have been burned at the stake just a couple of hours earlier.
“Oh, thank the gods. Thank the gods in heaven it’s you.” Jacob opened the door fully and invited the group inside. “Please come inside, it’s not safe out there. Those monsters might come back anytime.”
Roy and his friends entered the house only to find Jacob’s wife and daughter with a hoe and a knife in their hands respectively. The two looked at Roy’s group with a mixture of fear and hope.
“Don’t worry,” Roy consoled the pair of mother and daughter with a smile on his face. “We have killed those monsters outside.”
“Really?” The little girl’s voice was full of hope as she looked at Roy. When the latter nodded at her, she sighed in relief. Their bloodied clothes and the swords that they wielded were all the proof she needed.
“You boys must be tired. Come sit down on the carpet.” Jacob then looked at his wife and told her, “Martha, go and bring some tea for our guests.”
Roy wanted to tell that there was no need, but just one look from Jacob and he knew that he shouldn’t press the issue further. As Martha and her daughter went back to the kitchen, the group sat down on sheep wool carpet along with Jacob. The latter then asked the question that had been bugging his mind the whole time.
“Don’t take it as me being rude, but I thought that noble was going to burn you at the stake. I didn’t even open the workshop today because I didn’t want to see or hear about what they did to you.”
Roy warmly smiled at Jacob’s concerned words. “The gods didn’t want me to go back to their side just yet. When they wanted to start the fire, the storm started so they had to postpone my execution.”
“What luck,” Jacob replied with a surprised expression. “Even with the world ending, there still seems to be a good side to all this hell.”
“Truly,” Roy answered. His face then became serious as he continued, “To be truthful mister Jacob, the reason we came here is to ask from you something.”
“Please tell me. If it’s something within my ability, I would never say no.”
“Honestly, we want you to come with your family to Roger’s house. I know you wouldn’t want to go outside when it’s not safe, but it is very important.”
“What? Is that it?” Jacob let out a hearty laugh. “And here I thought it was going to be an unreasonable request. Of course, we would love to come to Roger’s house as long as they’re fine with it. In times like these, we need to stick together.”
“It was mister Roger who told us to invite you,” Alfonse interjected.
“If that’s the case, then there is nothing to debate about. Let’s have a cup of tea first and then we can all move.”
Martha and her daughter brought over a plate full of cups of tea for the men to enjoy while the group discussed all of their adventures. They talked about their escape, the monsters they had met, the awakening that happens after killing ten monsters, and of course the tragedy of the David family.
“How unfortunate for those two kids,” Jacob commented with his eyes looking down. “We will definitely take care of them. David was good people, I’m sure he would have done the same to my daughter if he was in my place.”
Seeing that the mood was turning sour, Jacob quickly changed the subject. “But it is amazing this awakening thing, how strong is it?”
“I would say that I’m twice as fast and strong,” Roy answered with a confident voice.
“That is incredible.” Jacob’s eyes were wide with surprise before he broke into a wry smile. “I guess this is the type of world the gods have created. Those who fight will get immensely rewarded, but those who don’t will die.”
“No, mister Jacob.” Roy shook his head. “Those who fight will protect those who can’t, that’s the type of world we will make.”
Jacob looked with surprise at Roy’s passionate words before bursting out in a hearty laugh. “I’m glad you think that way. But don’t you dare worry about us old heads when you’re still a young bud. We will also be fighting monsters to protect ourselves. We have a duty as men of the village to protect it.”
Roy smiled at Jacob’s words before gulping down the cup of medicinal tea. “Well, since we’re all clear on what we should do. Let’s go to Roger’s place.”
“Ah before that, let me go bring my tools.”
With those words, Jacob went to his master bedroom rummaging for around a minute before he come out wearing a large backpack.
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“What’s that?” Fred asked.
“Oh, these are just my tools: bandages, herbs, flasks, and medicinal oils. You never know when someone is going to get wounded and we would need to fix him up.”
Roy smiled as a heavy weight was off his chest. The fact that they were fighting all this time without access to any doctor limited the risks he could take by a lot.
“Okay, we can move now.”
The group of five friends along with Jacob’s family left the house with the destination of Roger’s place. When they passed by the pile of corpses of the goblins that they had killed earlier, Roy stopped and looted the long sword he had wanted to give to Jaimie earlier.
“Mister Jacob, take this. It would definitely come to be useful.”
Jacob took the sword from Roy’s hand with a chuckle. “Who would have thought that after spending a lifetime saving lives, the day would come when I would take them with my own hands? What was the saying again, better be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.”
With all the men armed, the group moved along the streets and alleyways. As they were the two strongest, Roy and Robb guarded the front and rear respectively. Robb was accompanied by Fred, while Roy had his trusted friend Alfonse.
As the two marched forward, they quickly found a small pack of goblins: five small ones and one tall variant.
“How many until you awaken?” Roy asked.
“Six.”
“It’s perfect then. Let’s have you join the cool boys club.”
With a smile, Roy took a stance and charged toward the pack of monsters. Not expecting the otherworldly speed, the creatures were frozen in fear. Roy quickly slashed at their arms and legs to cripple them before facing the tall goblin. Along with the spark of the two swords clashing, Roy unleashed an onslaught of attack at the creature. Stabs and slashes merged into a beautiful dance of blood and death that felled the monster to its knees with wounds all over its body.
Meanwhile, Alfonse followed after Roy and killed every goblin the latter defeated. Some he stabbed in the chest, while others he slashed their neck open, but in the end, he killed them all. Once he finished off the last monster, words appeared in front of his eyes and a green light covered his body.
Along with a scream of pain, Alfonse fell to his knees as his muscles contorted, expanded, and tightened.
After a while, the pain mellowed out. He followed the commands of the floating words, and a status screen appeared in front of his eyes.
Stats Attributes Rank Level Strength Initiate B- Constitution Initiate B- Agility Initiate A+ Mana Initiate A+
“How does it feel?” Roy asked while looking at the smiling Alfonse.
“Amazing, it feels incredible.” Alfonse looked at his injured hand and clenched it—he felt no pain. He unwrapped the makeshift bandages over the palm of his hand, and his wound was no more. “Even my scarred injury has healed.”
“Yeah, it happened to me too,” Roy replied while scratching his left shoulder. “It seems like the process of awakening heals all injuries—well, at least the flesh ones.”
“Interesting, we will have to keep an eye out for that.”
With those words from Alfonse, the two continued on their journey toward Roger’s house. The way was relatively safe apart from the few streets that were filled to the brim with gluttonous large packs of goblins. As Alfonse and Roy properly scouted the front, the Jacobs were never truly in any danger. Even when the loose goblin squeeze past both Robb and Roy, young Jaimie is able to deal with it using his dagger.
As they came close to the street of Roger’s place, Roy and Alfonse found a pack of five tall goblins.
“Seems like we’re going to finally have a challenge,” Roy joked.
“I would have preferred not to have one.” Alfonse smiled wryly. Even though he complained, he was not slow in taking a stance with his long sword.
The two looked at each other for a second before bursting into action. Roy dashed towards the leftmost goblin and clashed swords with it. The power with which he slashed surprised the monster who couldn’t help but let go of his weapon. Not wasting such an opportunity, Roy closed the distance between them and stabbed it right in the chest. Before it could die, he grabbed it by the neck and used it like a meat shield as he charged toward the rest of his opponents. He kicked the body towards the next goblin pushing the latter off balance. With a quick stab to the side of the chest, the second goblin fell to its knee before Roy slashed its neck.
The third goblin, seeing its friends dying in front of it, dashed madly toward Roy in an attempt to overwhelm him. However, the latter casually parried the monster’s slash and counter-attacked with a stab of his own. He finished the monster with a slash across the chest, letting draw its final gurgly breath.
Alfonse, on the other hand, finished the job with the other two tall goblins, killing them swiftly.
“Good job on your first real battle,” Roy teased Alfonse.
The latter scratched his head and laughed. “It was much more intense than I expected.”
As Roy was smiling, feeling satisfied after their victory in another battle, all of the hair strands on his body stood. An overwhelming aura suffocated him and all of his instincts screamed at him to run. He turned around to see a gargantuan silhouette over three meters tall make its way from behind one of the houses. It wielded a club that was more akin to a tree trunk on top of its shoulders, and each step it took was like an earthquake as it cracked the muddy ground.
Roy looked at Alfonse with an expression full of panic and shouted, “Run! Go to the others and run!”