I controlled my panicking mind and carefully backed away and slowly made my way to the pool, keeping my mind blank to prevent any silly mistakes due to the panic. After reaching the pool I relaxed a bit and my mind finally went in the over drive.
What the hell was that?!?
The hell if I know..!!!
Wasn't that the starting mob in all the fantasy games we have played?
Fits the description I'd say...
But...but goblins aren't real...
Then what the fuck did we see?? Are we hallucinating ?
Yeah..yeah we must be hallucinating. There is no way it can be true.
But what if we are not hallucinating?
...Then we must kill them...
Are you insane? They had swords and sticks with them how are we supposed to kill them?
You are scared of goblins? And you have galls to call yourself a gamer?
I AM NOT SCARED!!! And besides it's not game, it's real and we know nothing about them. What if they aren't hostile?
I don't know but I'm not one of those shitty main characters who are scared of killing!
Yeah..yeah, you are real badass, happy? Anyway, what are we supposed to do now?
I don't fucking know anymore. Let's just wait here and try to make sense of it? Yeah, why don't we just drink the water and rest here?
Uh..sure. Drinkability of the water is least of our worries for now.
After finally calming down I walked towards the pool, got on my knees and started drinking directly from the pool in big gulps like a wild animal. I drank till I was full and laid down on my back. After few moments I felt a warm sensation in my stomach and then it hit me, an intense and continuous pain, I was barely able to contain my scream.
Don't you fucking dare to scream! You will attract everything in this cave to us if you do.
But...it fucking hurts! We aren't some pain tolerant super soldiers for fuck's sake.
Let's remove our shirt and stuff it in our mouth then.
I took off my shirt and stuffed in my mouth. The pain was intense but atleast now I couldn't scream.
Seriously!?! You can still narrate in this kind of pain?
...
After few minutes of writhing in worst pain of my life I passed out. I woke up after who knows how much time later. I was half hoping it was all a dream and I will wake up in my warm and cozy bed but it was all real and reality sucks.
Fuck, that shit hurt like hell!
Yeah...let's not drink from that pool again.
Hey! How can we see now?
Hmm? no wonder it felt weird.
Also don't we feel that we got a lot stronger now?
Umm...Yeah but I don't like where you are getting though.
Do you think we will get stronger if we drink more?
Hell no!! I am not drinking from that shithole again.
I know it hurt like hell but if we really are in a fantasy world then we will have to get stronger. you know? You don't want to be goblin meal, right?
Ugh...whoever designed this training method must be a top class sadist, I tell you and you are a masochist for going along with it.
Stop being a sissy. Aren't you supposed to be the badass? At worst we will die, no biggie. It's better than being weak in fantasy world.
...
And thus my hellish training began under the supervision of my other half. At least the pain wasn't as bad as first time. Either I became more tolerant to the pain or the pain itself was less. I would drink my fill from the pool, stuff my mouth my shirt and go through hell till I passed out. Rinse and repeat. I didn't even have to pee. I wonder where all that water disappeared to. Probably in sweat and tears if I had to venture a guess. Why I didn't have to eat or shit is beyond me...maybe the water in this world has enough nutrients? who knows...definitely I don't. After couple of dozens passing out, the pain was bearable enough that I didn't have to pass out. At that point I drank my fill and waited till pain went away. Rinse and repeat. My other half wanted me to continue till I could drink it like normal water. The gain was reducing though. I only felt a slight increase in my strength and senses now, unlike the first time.
I started getting used to my increased strength, senses. The first time when I tried by sprinting I crashed face first in cave wall, creating a human sized hole. That was hilarious when we went slamming in that wall. Ahem...Thankfully I didn't get hurt just few bruises here and there, getting out, seemed to be the real pain in the butt as I was kind of stuck in it. I have been taking it slow and steady since then and now I think I can perfectly control about 30% of my max strength without any mishaps.
I also tried to access any status or character sheet of mine to see if there was any. After trying every word or combination of word, gestures and even weird poses I concluded there wasn't such a thing. Or atleast I didn't know anyway to access it.
After couple of days, maybe weeks, I am not sure it's hard to keep track of time when you are in a dark cave, the pool water pretty much became simple water for me. At that point I got approval from my other half to venture forth and slay the evil goblins or probe their strength as he calls it. As it would be my final day in this hell hole I decided to use pool to it's fullest. I striped down to...nothing and went skinny dipping in the cold water. I enjoyed my first bath since arriving in this cave and after that I washed my clothes.
Let's just hope no one had the bright idea of bathing in this pool before we arrived.
...
And that brought us to this point in the multiverse, I know nothing about. I had my washed and dry clothes on and I was ready for some goblin extermination.
Hey! If our fantasy stories are right then the goblins abduct women and keep them in their stronghold, right?
Yes but don't get any idiotic ideas. We aren't some stupid champion of justice. We will wait till there is only one of them and test their strength. If we can easily deal with them then we can think about raiding their stronghold.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
...
After that brief discussion I started walking towards the turn where I spotted the goblins last time. It's much easier and faster when I can actually see. I arrived at the turn and peeked a little to see to goblins standing about, one equipped with short sword...maybe iron, another with stick, club or whatever you call it. They were pretty much like what's described in the fantasy novels. Short, around 4 feet, green skin and with face even a mother couldn't love and pointy ears...related to elves maybe?
let's hope elves aren't ugly like them.
Amen.
As per my instruction from my other half I waited. After what felt like ages of waiting but could have been half an hour, the one with stick said something gibberish and walked away...bathroom break maybe? I waited for a minute longer and walked out of the turn to check if they were hostile or not. As soon as it saw me, it squealed and charged at me with sword.
Okaay...pointing the pointy end at us. I think that qualifies them as hostile?
Atleast in my books. You are free to attack however you want. Remember the 30% limit, we don't want to deal with any mishaps.
...
I looked at the charging goblin, it was way too slow in my opinion. I side stepped the thrust, which is easy since it looked like it is moving in slow motion, and punched the goblin in the face, using only 10% power, shouldn't overdo it, right? Or atleast that's what I was thinking. The punch blasted away goblin's head like some bomb went off in his head and the resulting blood fountain, from loss of head covered my clothes in blood. So much for washed and clean clothes.
Whoa....a bit over kill, don't you think?
I ignored my other half's remark as my attention was drawn towards the little particles of light drifting away from goblin's body and then suddenly they charge towards me. I tried to dodge but I was bit late and it slammed against me or maybe absorbed in me? I checked if there was something wrong but after finding nothing I chalked it up in back of my mind as another question to find answer for.
Seeing that I was literally able to blow them to pieces my other half readily agreed to let me raid their stronghold. So I picked up the goblin's short sword and quickly went towards the direction of other goblin. After dispatching it quickly by decapitation and recurrence of light particle thing, I continued to follow the path and encountered more goblin and disposed of them quickly. The light particle thing happened after every kill but did nothing so i decided to ignore it for now. The biggest group I encountered had 15 goblins in it and I managed to dispatch them after few nicks and bruises. My other half warned me about any potentially dangerous surprise attack thus I quickly blocked or evaded those. Perk of two minds sharing single brain and body.
After carefully sweeping all the caves clean off goblin I made my way to the center cave and found several females sprawled over the floor in chains, wearing nothing but rags. I also spotted bigger versions of goblins, just a bit shorter than average human males.
Hobogoblins.
Thanking my other half for that tidbit of detail, I proceeded to remove their heads from there necks. Again, everything was easy when they move in slow motion compared to me. After taking care of them I removed chains binding women in place and told them that they were free to go but they kept staring at me with confusion, panic and fear. I guess being drenched in blood doesn't make for good first impression, huh?
Crap!!!
What?
We forgot about language barrier.
...Are you shitting me? Are we supposed to learn a whole new language now?
As I was having the discussion with my other half a blue haired beauty walked in front of the group and started saying something. And as predicted I didn't understand a single word.
She is kind of pretty.
Focus! We agreed to not get close to any female again. Wait....Are those real ear on her head? I think I saw them twitch.
Of course not! It's clearly some cosplay headband. Do they even have a concept of cosplay here? I better check I guess...
...
After ending my internal chit chat. I focused my attention on the cosplay beauty. She had cute face and looked adorable with those ears. Focus. Ahem, After observing her for few moments I moved towards her. She was still in handcuffs so I guess I didn't have to worry too much about my safety. I walked up to her and checked her head, looking for some sort of headband. She was clearly surprised at my actions, I guess I was kind of being rude but I saved them so I guess it evened out. As I was thinking this I spotted something behind the blue haired woman..a tail, a fluffy swaying tail. I took a deep breath.
Holly molly!!! She is real cat woman!!!
Well it's fantasy world. I kind of guessed that the demi humans might be real here but it's really a surprise to see one.
So..you know, she isn't a human so technically our promise doesn't bind against it...
Really? Resorting to technicalities? Are you that desperate? Going to suggest beastiality next?
....
She is saying something.
My other half pointed my attention at her, ending our little discussion. She was saying something in that gibberish again while pointing towards her handcuffs. Maybe asking me to free her? I didn't have any key though and searching for one would have been a bother. I grabbed the handcuff in my hands and applied a bit of force and they easily broke apart. The girl looked a bit shocked at the display of my brute force hehe.
After I broke off her handcuffs she ran towards the corner of the cave, where there were bunch of bags were piled up and started rummaging through it. How rude!! even though I can't understand it she should have said something as thanks. As I was thinking this the girl made her way towards me with a necklace in her hand. She gave the necklace to me and motioned me to put it on.
Should we? What if it's some sort of slave caller?
I like your cautiousness but I don't think she will do something bad to her savior. Let's take a bit of risk.
After some persuasion I put the necklace on. It glowed for a bit, startling me and then returned to normal. I looked at the blue head again and heard her speak.
"Can..you understand me?"- cat woman
How the...?!!?