Becoming a hero

As another uneventful day passed, I was sitting at the table with my parents, eating dinner. It was another meal that I could not avoid. The meal was poor, but perhaps due to the growth of my attributes and nourishment being unnecessary, my appearance became healthy and I no longer appeared malnourished. I found it more troubling that my body didn't seem to actually grow, with neither muscles nor height being gained. My parents were greatly pleased by my healthy look, and attributed it to the meals I was supposedly fed at the store I was supposedly working at, not knowing that I wasn't working there for a year and a half.

They also didn't seem to react to my lack of growth compared to the other children, so I assumed it had something to do with the system and my unique circumstances. In most games characters had 3 or 4 stages of life, being child, adult and old, sometimes having something between these. I hoped that I wouldn't be stuck with a child appearance until I was considered an adult, but it wasn't something I had control over.

I was absentmindedly poking at the food and eating it slowly while focusing on the movements of mana within my body when something distant poked at my consciousness. The sound was so faint that I might have imagined it, but I decided to open the sound menu to mess with the volumes.

The BGM slider was the first to increase, as the music would often be the first thing to change along with the situation. At first, I kept it low, always having something in the background, but it would sometimes interrupt my concentration, so I muted it while training my magic. It came in handy now, as I heard the fast tempo that was meant to excite the player and put them in the mood for battle. It did not excite me now.

I muted the music and increased the combat sfx and background chatter volumes. Now the shouts of fear were no longer drowned by the distance, and I knew something was going on.

My parents were startled when I suddenly rose to my feet. "What happened?" Villager asked, but I was too focused to even know which of them it was. What was I going to do? I'm not Awaken yet, wouldn't flight make more sense than fight?

"Where is Hunter?" I suddenly asked. There was only one person capable of fighting in the village, and that was him. He was First Awakened, but couldn't pass the wall and eventually retired to the village. His occupation was obvious, and he was capable with the bow, but he was just one person. Depending on who was attacking, he may be able to handle it. There was no one else in the village who could, as the village relied on Highgate for protection.

"He went out on a hunt yesterday, and will be away for at least a few more days. What is it, did Shop Owner have business with Hunter?" Villager, probably Father, answered and asked.

I shook my head. What should I do? What should I say? Should I say anything at all? They were Child's parents, but I felt almost nothing when I thought about them. Was it because they were NPCs? Not my real parents? Was it because I'm a game character? Or perhaps I was scum? I didn't know the answer, but in the end, I decided to simply hurry out of the house, ignoring the questioning faces left behind.

It was starting to get dark outside, so I decided to turn up the brightness while looking towards the sounds of shouting. Villagers were hurrying in my direction, so I ran towards them.

"Child, what are you doing?! The other way!" One of the villagers shouted at me as they noticed me running towards the battle.

"What is going on?" I asked.

The villager was momentarily startled by my calm voice, especially unexpected from a boy not even ten. "A goblin raid! Quick, you must hide!" He shouted and continued running, having no time to make sure I had the sense to flee.

What's the point of fleeing? I wasn't sure. I didn't think the villagers had a safe spot, and were probably going to scatter in a panic. Nobody here could stop a hostile force, wouldn't the goblins give chase? Fighting might be futile, but it might not be.

I considered the foe. Goblins… They were classically one of the races with the lowest capacity, using superior numbers to overwhelm weak foes and loot everything they can. Their only advantage was their superior vision, allowing them to see better at night. Even in this world, they were no different.

Unless one was highly skilled, even an extremely weak foe could win with numbers. There was obvious strength in numbers. My stats were much higher than anyone else in the village, but were they enough? If every level gave 5 attribute points to distribute, one would need 11 levels to reach my physical stats alone… But they would have skills to support them.

I knew I could flee. I knew that only mounted units would be able to catch up to me, but I would be the only one to survive. What will I do in that case?

While I was questioning my options, my body was moving towards the horrible sound, ignoring the fleeing villagers urging me to turn back. I soon saw them approach the village with their shouts and roars, their short and ugly bodies rushing towards Hardkale. The villagers' only luck was that the raid was spotted early, and that was a miracle already. If my speed was lower, I wouldn't have been here before they reached the village, but I wasn't sure how I could use that to my advantage.

I didn't mind showing my strength at this point, but my unique abilities, such as the inventory, were still something I worried about revealing. I couldn't set up defenses without any consequences later… Will I be able to use Dash once battle begins? It was going to be my first time, it's something special in a boy's life, it couldn't be- If I had time to joke, it meant that I still had some leeway. I took a deep breath and decided that if I fall here, I had no chance in this world anyway, that I was simply trash.

Full sprint with Dash added on top were a terrible sight. Goblins had poor reflexes and they could only be startled as a human child appeared to be running straight at them with speed that directed the wind itself towards them, only equipped with a stick.

I already confirmed that the goblins were only equipped with simple clubs. Their attack was 2, compared to my 1, but it still meant that I could take quite a few hits before things turned dire. More importantly, the health bars hovering above their head revealed that these were level 1 goblins with only had 2 HP, with a few having 3. Humans started with 10, and they weren't even awakened. These goblins had a level, yet had so little HP! Were the villagers all cowards for running away? Perhaps if the entire village faced the goblins together, they would survive, and even then the casualties would be numerous.

Reaching the frontlines before the goblins were able to fully grasp the situation, I slammed my stick into the first goblin. His HP bar instantly emptied and a bright red 5 leaped from above his head as the lifeless body fell to the floor, but didn't vanish like in most games. I was surprised at how easy it was, especially since my stick only had 1 attack, but it made some sense when I accounted for my strength.

I couldn't have tested it before, but I knew that if my Constitution, which was lower than my strength, resulted in my HP being almost four times my starting HP, then surely my Strength would be capable of at least doubling the damage. But it wasn't just doubling. I dealt 5 times the damage! I wanted to math it straight away, but I didn't have the leisure to do so quite yet. Quickly storing the stick, I picked up the club of the fallen goblin, which seemed to instantly equip it.

I slammed the club into another goblin, quickly registering the scary 10 appearing above the now dead goblin, before the third goblin finally regained its senses and attacked. Barely managing to dodge the attack, I countered it quickly and moved towards the village. Good, Dash works! Merely being targeted by a foe didn't seem to put me at combat state, and right after killing all foes I exchanged blows with I was out of combat and could use skills such as Dash.

The goblins were stunned by the sudden distance that opened up before us, so I used the chance to examine the situation more thoroughly. I was clearly strong enough to defeat the goblins one on one, and as long as I wasn't surrounded, I should have enough room to continue with the hit and run tactics, so damage should be minimal.

Also, it was obvious that my damage was quintuple, not double, which was what I hoped for, but... This much was scary. but with how my HP grew and the damage I now dealt, I was now rather certain. Up to 10, the growth rate was 10%, then it became 20%, and once it reached 20, it became 40%, as I hoped. At 22 Strength, I would have a 370% attack increase, and after that the 10% increase from Basic Attack 2 I had from the stick training, which helpfully applied to the club, I was probably dealing 407% more damage! If the increase was 30%, then I would have 350% increase, or 385% after Basic Attack, which wouldn't be enough to deal 10 damage with the club, as I was fairly certain the system didn't use rounding but truncating when it came to integers.

Satisfied with the math, I decided that I have enough time to experiment. I pulled out a stone from my inventory using the quickbar and threw it towards the goblins. It flew with great and smashed into one of the goblins, hitting it in the chest and causing it to stumble into the goblins behind. A bright 5 flew up from the falling body, proving that strength was used for the throwing damage. Though it would be likely that dexterity was influencing accuracy, mine was still fairly high. Besides, there were so many goblins that I could throw the stones blindly and still hit them at least 8 times out of 10.

While throwing stones was rather effective, I decided that I should use the chance to get some more melee experience, so I dashed straight into them once more. I manage to take out two more goblins and Dashed away before they could swarm me, but the third time I attempted the trick, they managed to hit me before I could Dash away, leaving the skill red to indicate that it can't be used. I quickly took down the attacking goblin, which left me out of combat and allowed me to retreat quickly and examine the new event.

I noticed two things. First, I only took one point of damage, even though the clubs had 2 attack and I wasn't wearing armor. It meant that either the goblins were so weak and unskilled that they suffered a penalty to attack even with such a basic weapon, or that my attributes, most likely Constitution, were high enough to provide passive armor and reduce the damage.

The second thing was that it didn't really hurt. I felt it, and realized that I was damaged, but the feeling itself was dull. It was nothing like pain back in the modern world. Beyond simply knowing where I was damaged and how much damage I "suffered", it did nothing. It meant that I didn't need to fear pain, and that damage would not hinder me much. It might have been because I only lost 1 HP and still had 36 more, but I did not think so. Will a certain threshold lead to a penalty, or can I fight normally as long as I have at least one HP left? I wasn't in a place I could test it out, but I had to know sooner or later… Knowing what the limit is would let me know how far I can push.

As I fought, I couldn't help but take a few hits, but the goblins were unable to organize themselves and after I took down around fifty of them, they only dealt 10 damage to me. Thankfully, because I was kiting them, they didn't get closer to the village. If things continued like this, I would still have quite a bit of HP remaining by the time they will all be dead, but I didn't want to leave it to chance.

As my HP rose, so did my out of combat regeneration rate. It seemed to rise at a specific rate and it always stayed true that by being out of combat for 10 minutes would heal from 0 to full, though 0 was still an impossible situation. The Rest skill increased the regeneration by 500%, making it six times shorter. A minute and forty seconds of Rest. I took a deep breath, activating the skill. It was a mistake when I assumed that Rest required me to lie down. As long as I didn't move too much, the conditions for Rest were fulfilled.

It took the goblins 10 seconds of staring at me before realizing that I was just standing there and not rushing them. Perhaps they suspected that it was a trap, but eventually they decided to rush at me. Unfortunately for them, I was much faster. By the time they were close to me, I canceled Rest and circled them once more, bringing them away from the village. I only needed a few more seconds of Rest to be fully healed, and I had that much time.

By the time I rushed them once more, the goblins were scared and restless, but I became annoyed and impatient. This situation was completely unreasonable! The goblins were weak, sure, but they were many. I wasn't Awaken yet! How is that fair?! All of it suddenly felt pointless, and as I was slaughtering goblins without paying much attention to the situation itself, I was feeling depressed by the whole thing.

"All this XP… Wasted!"

That's right! Not being Awaken, I could not gain any XP! The chance that the XP was stored and I'll gain levels straight after being Awaken were slim. How many levels would I have gained otherwise? So many goblins would be worthy of at least 3 or 4 levels!

By the time only a single goblin was left, I was so frustrated that I didn't notice anything strange as I charged at it and slammed my club into its body. Used to dealing a 3 hit combo to 3 goblins, I delivered one more strike, saw that no goblin was close enough for the third, and got ready to Dash away before noticing that the reason no goblin was close enough, was that there were no goblin left standing at all. It was only then that I realized that the last goblin withstood 2 hits before falling, and so I looked down to inspect the body.

Goblin Chieftain, Lv3 (Dead).

Oh…

If I noticed him coming out, I might have been more cautious… No, I wouldn't have blindly charged at him if I knew he wouldn't die in the first hit, having more than 10 HP, as it would have prevented me from Dashing away. I looked at him once more, and realized that his weapon was a sword.

Rusty Short Sword, 3-5 Attack.

It was an Awakened foe with a couple of levels that wielded a weapon that, on average, dealt double the damage of the club the rest of the goblins wielded. With his Strength and skills in the mix, who knows how much he could damage I would have taken…

And it's a bladed weapon. I doubted that the rust would pose long-term risk to my body, but a cut is different than being hit with a club. Would there be a chance to lose a body part, or would the simplified game system win over and all damage types be visual only, healing at the same rate and having no side effects?

I didn't know, and I wanted to find out later rather sooner. Not noticing the situation was a blessing in disguise, as I would have hesitated otherwise, placing me at greater risk.

I picked up the sword, claiming it as my own, and started walking towards the village. Then I stopped, turning back to look at the chieftain. I simply picked up his sword, but… I went back to the body and clicked it, the loot option popped up. It had only one item that I could loot, and it was… Goblin heart… I looked at another nearby goblin and clicked it, but it had nothing that I could loot. That's a lie, right? You have a club right there! I can see it, you're holding it!

I grabbed the club, and I could put it in my inventory normally. I could also loot other things from the goblins, such as the chieftain's pouch, which had… I threw away the pouch. But I understood that there were two looting methods, the direct one and the menu one. From the chieftain and the other goblin I inspected there was no loot that would be obvious once I took, so I couldn't be certain, but the items from the loot menu might be completely separate from the items that are actually being carried. If I took the goblin's heart and then opened up the goblin's chest, would I find another heart, or would it be missing?

I wasn't willing to check the looting function in such a way just yet, but I did loot the heart. It went straight into my inventory and I didn't bother examining it. At best, it could be used for alchemy, so it was meaningless at the moment.

It took the villagers some time before they noticed that the goblins weren't coming and for the them to return to see what is going on, and I was in the center of it. Not the dead bodies, but the attention.

I was thoroughly interrogated. Since my Charisma was low and I lacked any deception skills, I didn't bother covering it up. I didn't hide the sword I took from the chief, and simply explained how I fought. The villagers were confused and doubtful, but most of them had seen my speed to a certain extent, even if I stopped Dashing through the village after the first few days and kept most of my training hidden. Perhaps the biggest surprise was that I took down a hundred goblins and a goblin chieftain without breaking a sweat… I did not tell them that I was incapable of sweating.

In the end, I was hailed as the village hero, at which my parents were shocked and surprised. By the time news of the attack reached our house, the battle was nearly over…

The little money that the goblins carried was awarded to me, and Owner paid me slightly above market price for all the loot the goblins had that I had no use for. In the end, I earned another thirty silver, but I ended up giving it all to Villager and Villager. Not random villagers, but my parents. It took some convincing for them to take the entire sum, as it was more than they could earn in a year, but they eventually accepted it.

I didn't give it away out of love. I did it to increase my reputation in the village, which worked. It wasn't a completely negligible amount for the current me, but I knew it wouldn't matter in a year. I felt that if I increase my heroic reputation now, there will be less resistance from my parents when I ask for the Awakening ritual.

After the battle, I obtained an achievement and a title with the same name, Local Hero. The achievement gave me 2 skill points, 10 attribute points and 50 crystals, and the title gave +1 to all skills while protecting. With that, I was less frustrated at the missed XP.

Another thing I did was to check the chat. While it had no use regarding the social aspect, I could view various events there, which could prove useful. The combat messages weren't very useful, as they simply informed me of the damage I dealt and took, though I did notice that there were several critical hits that I've dealt, which lead to double damage. What was more interesting was the system message category.

To be honest, calling them system messages felt wrong, but it wasn't my choice. Usually, there would appear messages regarding server downtime or promotions and such, but in my case, it seemed to show a character progress log. It included whenever my attributes and skills improved, and during the battle my Basic Attack with the club and rocks increased, along with rewards such as the Local Hero title. But the main thing that caught my attention were three messages.

You have defeated your first Goblin (Level 1)! Awarded 1 attribute point(s)!

You have defeated your first Goblin Chieftain (Level 3)! Awarded 3 attribute point(s)!

You have defeated a horde of goblins! Your dexterity has increased by 2. Your Strength has increased by 1. Your constitution has increased by 1. Awarded 5 attribute points!

Obtaining a total of 19 free attribute points and an increase of 4 to my attributes was an amazing reward, and seemed to be the best method of obtaining attribute points, as the quests I had so far only offered skill points.

Though, the attribute points wouldn't matter for now, as I intended to save the points until I had a better idea of how I want to develop my character.

I found out that titles can be used as either a suffix to the name, so I could be "Shop Assistant, the Local Hero", or I could use the title as a name, so I could be "Local Hero". That's an or, not a xor. I could set them as both, and end up being "Local Hero, the Local Hero", but that did seem somewhat excessive, and probably suspicious.

Knowing that it would probably be odd if neither name nor title changed, I decided to replace Shop Assistant and become Local Hero. With that, when I told my parents that I wish to focus on training with my new sword and stop working at the shop, they accepted my declaration with a proud smile, so I didn't have to hide it anymore.

They probably still thought that I was only earning a few copper coins in the store, so the loss didn't seem big. I wasn't sure why I wasn't questioned by them regarding my fighting abilities, but I was thankful for that. Perhaps it was some form of protection provided by the system.

Word of my deeds spread to the city, and Highgate's lord has sent a reward of a gold coin. I pretended to want to give the gold to my parents, but this time they refused it even more than with the silver, which played out well for me, since I didn't really want to give away that much. It was agreed that I'll save it for the future, and they also added that if the family won't have trouble by the time I decide to leave the house, the 30 silver that I gave them will also be returned to me.

It was a large sum for a man starting his independent life, so it would have been hard for me to refuse and I ended up accepting it.

When Hunter returned, he was shocked by the event and surprised that the village survived with no damage. Finding out that I was the one responsible, he was very insistent on training me, but I was too scared to accept his offer. As a hunter, his specialties were the things I feared most, stealth and archery.

I noticed that his disposition was friendly, so I decided to inspect him. Ah, that was another thing I learned during the last four years. If the NPC is neutral, inspecting them would only reveal their resistances and vulnerabilities. I didn't know if the same would apply with hostile NPCs and monsters, as I was too far from the goblins to inspect them, and didn't think of doing it while attacking. But with friendly NPCs, I could see their stats completely!

Even now, being Local Hero, only my parents, along with Owner and Peddler, were considered Friendly, while the rest of the villagers were considered neutral. It probably meant that I need a certain degree of intimacy before an NPC is considered friendly, but seeing how fast Hunter became friendly, it couldn't be too much.

Anyway, I found out that Hunter was somewhat skilled with sword and dagger, even having two related physical skills, so as compromise I asked him to train me with those, to which he readily agreed. Whenever he had free time, we would train with a wooden swords and daggers.

The Basic Attack skill was shared between them, even though the attack methods should be quite different. It seemed that the category was something akin to "bladed weapons", even if made out of wood. It felt wrong, considering how little was shared between the two in terms of actual combat, but if a lot of different weapons shared the same skill proficiencies in the system, it would only be beneficial to me, so I couldn't complain.

Within a year, Hunter helped me raise my Basic Attack with bladed weapons to 3 (a 20% increase to attack) and I learned Slash and Double Slash.

Slash used 1 SP (Stamina, not Skill) to increase my attack by 20%, with critical chance increased by 5%, and critical damage by 40%. It wasn't a large increase, but the skill was only level 1, so it wasn't that bad.

Double Slash used 2 SP and allowed to make an attack with two weapons instantly, or two fast attacks with one weapon. It also increased the attack damage by 10%, with 5% increase to critical chance and 20% to critical damage. It was half the bonus from Slash for double the cost, but being able to attack twice was more than worth it.

Double Slash was usually used with a sword and dagger combo, but I found it just as efficient with two swords. When I asked Hunter about it, he said that I'm the odd one. Being able to use both hands with the same precision and strength was odd in my previous world and here as well, which is why the dagger, or sometimes a short sword, was used in the weaker hand. Being able to wield a sword in each hand and use them with equal mastery wasn't unheard of, but was fairly rare, so Hunter was very impressed.

Since Hunter wasn't skilled with Magic, I didn't bother asking him, but I wasn't certain if being able to dual wield longswords would be helpful to me, who wanted to take the magic swordsman path. If I had to use a hand to cast a spell, then the chances to use two swords would be few.

Having skills that use SP allowed me to answer a very important question, and I found that using up SP didn't tire me at all, even when I had none remaining. I also discovered that SP would recover during combat, and after not using SP for 5 seconds it would recover at about 5% a second. Leaving combat entirely would increase the recovery to 20% a second.

Sparring seemed to count as combat, but it would end as soon as both sides wished to end the session. While we only trained while Hunter had time, the sparring sessions and tutoring provided by Hunter helped increase my attribute growth greatly, which I was grateful for as it was stagnating recently.

Hunter, being level 20, had quite high attributes, which were focused on dexterity, constitution and wisdom, at 30, 15 and 25 respectively. When I asked him about it, he actually told me directly, which meant that the numerical values weren't something that was exclusive to me. He told me that he got 3 every level, which was average (in the way that most people got that many points. It was rare to get 4 and very rare to get 5. Getting 2 was rarer than getting 4, but not as rare as getting 5). His Strength was at 5 and Intelligence at 3, with Charisma at 1. In total, he got 60 attribute points from levels (awakening levels up from 0 to 1, which gives attribute points), so from pure training he only gained 13 points. I knew that my growth was faster than the average person, but the difference was still shocking.

In a direct clash, he was not able to match with me, which left him very flustered, so our battles were focused on evasion and reflexes, which meant that my Dexterity and Wisdom rose rather quickly, which left me satisfied even though I was defeated repeatedly.

Training, solo or with Hunter, the last year before I could Awaken was quickly coming to an end.