Jake calmly moved through the forest, at a moderate pace that gave him enough time to examine his surroundings, but not slow enough to be labeled overly cautious. His short sword was already drawn, ready to meet anything that leaped at him with his cold, metallic blade.

He had already slain three goblins but still hadn't managed to amass enough experience points to hit the next level. He had expected a greater amount of resistance, or a feeling of disgust as he cleaved through these monsters, but surprisingly he felt nothing at all. Jake had experienced an urban lifestyle since birth, so he'd never even had to kill the animals he consumed for sustenance. For someone like him to just hack at these monsters without any change in emotion was definitely unnatural, but he simply took it in stride.

A loud crashing sound snapped him out of his musings, and it had been uncomfortably near his location, perhaps only a few dozen meters to his right. If the old Jake had been in this situation, he would've made haste and legged it in the other direction while mumbling incoherent prayers to higher powers in hopes that he would survive.

The new Jake simply switched directions and started jogging in the direction the sound had emanated from. He wasn't going there to throw his life away, but instead test whether the age-old adage 'the greater the risk, the greater the reward' applied within this twisted survival game.

As he was almost there, he dropped to a crouch and peeked through the bushes to help determine his next course of action. Next to a massive oak tree, were little bits of rotten wood scattered around. Some pieces were relatively more intact, allowing Jake to determine that a wooden container of some sort had fallen from a sizeable height, to cause such a loud noise. And in the center of the debris lay a pitch-black set of boots.

The boots had no sole, yet they still stood upright despite the fall. They had no outer markings on them and were made of a material that seemed to absorb the surrounding light and make them harder to detect. These were definitely not of human make, but this had to be the oldest trap in the book. To have boots with presumably special properties just lying around unattended, did the Goblins really expect him to fall for that? Well, they were pretty dumb from what he'd seen so far, so it was a possibility.

A rustling sound from the tree indicated that he would soon see the culprit behind this contrived plot. He shifted his gaze upward, only to bear witness to a completely unexpected sight. The leaves and branches of the tree obscured a large part of his vision, but he could still make out a human silhouette rapidly descending the tree with a surprising amount of grace.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Jake watched as a young caucasian man, no older than 18 or 19 loosened his grip on the tree and ended up landing on his buttocks. Before he could react, the teenager recovered with impressive situational awareness and summoned a one-handed sword only a few inches longer than his own. He then walked towards the boots and started slipping them on one by one, in a standing position while having his sword hand free to move and staring northward.

Jake felt like there was something off about the situation, so he didn't make any hasty movements. This encounter had given him a vital piece of information, i.e, there were wooden crates hidden on the treetops that could provide equipment, and maybe even weapons. The part which made him wary, however, was the how and the why. Either he had run into a professional rock climber, though due to the man's young age it seemed highly unlikely, or the young man had managed to reach the next level and get a bunch of boosts to his physical abilities.

While a single Goblin, on its own didn't amount to much, the problem was that they seemed to have a tendency to travel in groups. Jake was forced to deal with three of them rushing him at once, and the outcome had been a bit too close for comfort. For this young man to have killed more than him this early into the first floor, was impressive.

Jake had decided that he would climb the tower, hoping to find some greater meaning behind his existence. He wanted to prove, to himself, more than others that he wasn't simply a brainwashed puppet that had been mindlessly carrying out orders all this while, and that he could amount to something far more significant. Jake Lane would become a God if that was what it took to prove to himself that his entire existence amounted to more than just serving as a vessel for others to live vicariously through.

But before he decided to cut all the ties with his past, there was one last issue he had to resolve. He had almost condemned his son to the same mindless path of misery and self-loathing that he once walked on, a sin that was unforgivable in Jake's eyes. The [Token of Residence] the Tower had given him meant that he could meet his family for one final farewell. And he had resolved to return with the [Elixir of Life] for his only son as reparations, even if it meant walking down a path of no return.

For that, however, he had to stay alive. Killing that man would allow him to at least reach level 2, and receive those special boots along with anything else he had managed to acquire. Unfortunately, there was a distance of 10 meters between them, and he was facing a physically superior opponent. The risks were too high in comparison to the rewards, and he was on the verge of retreating.

Until three armed goblins burst out from the North, right in the direction of the young man.

As he saw it, anyone who participated in the Tower of Glory when they could have easily gone to the safe zone hadn't done so with noble, selfless intentions. Even if they had, humans were inherently self-obsessed creatures, to begin with. He doubted that people would sit still after seeing the [Elixir of Life] as an available reward.

It was his reckless actions that had brought upon this situation, and regrettably for this unlucky young man....

He would die in a single, painless blow without ever knowing how. That was the only bit of kindness Jake had left to offer.