Chapter 9: Goblins

Stepping in to the portal, I make sure I have everything ready for combat. Healing potion check, armor check, sword check. I look at my character menu.

Name: Ian Leitch

Level: 2

Health: 75/75 Stamina: 75/75

Souls: 0 Mana: 20/20

_____--:Stats:--_____

Strength: 5 Vitality: 5

Mana: 0 Agility: 5

Corruption: 4

Everything seems like the usual. I have been itching for some stat increasing. While I felt it was important to stay with Lia in her time of grief, I also felt restless seeing my stats stay as they are.

Something I had noticed when I was fighting the four men that invaded Lia was that I was a lot weaker than I thought. I got cocky and if it were not for the quest, I would have died one hundred percent. This means that I have to step up my game with increasing my stats. If I can not even kill 4 average F Rank people, then how am I supposed to defend the people I care about?

I look at Dan with a pleading face. He directly shows discomfort.

"What?"

"You and I are friends, right Dan?"

"What are you after."

"It's not much. I just feel that now that I have been here a few times, I know the layout and stuff, that I should be able to hunt alone for a while."

"You can't be serious! From my knowledge, you have only hunted twice and you are an F rank which means that you shouldn't even be hunting from the start."

"Don't worry! I will be at the goblin camp. I will lure one goblin at a time and if shit hits the fan, I will just run to the portal and wait for you to come back. Didn't you have other things to do here other than just babysitting me?"

Dan covered up his face with his hand, and after a while of thinking, he gave up.

"Sure, okay. You win, but if you get hurt, I wont feel bad for you and you will have to pay for the health costs that comes with it."

"Of course! I knew you would see my side eventually."

Dan's face is full of regret as we start splitting ways. I walk the same path I did with Dan and Ilene until I find the 'Goblin Slaughterer place'. My plan is going to be a little different from this time around. If I wanted to be serious about my development in stats, that means I also have to take risks.

I look over the bushes that both Dan and Ilene used to lure goblins to me to scout the situation. There are quite a lot of goblins which meant that I would have to be more careful than I initially thought. I go back down from the small hill the bushes are located and check my equipment. Everything seems to be in order. I did not use any stamina on my way here so I should be fully prepared now.

I start looking for small stones on the ground I can use to throw at the goblins nearest me. I want to reduce their numbers as much as possible before rushing head in. I find a few and make myself ready. I don't know how many I would aggravate by throwing stones at one goblin so I make some room by cutting down the grass behind the forest opening.

I do the breathing technique before throwing one of the stones at the closest goblin. The goblin don't notice at first but when I hit him in the head with my second stone, he notices and starts rushing towards me. I ready myself with my sword and proceed to kill him with a single swing. I am strong enough to kill kid goblin without much struggle. This was good news. I will not have to use mana to just kill a few ones singularly.

I absorb the soul and instantly add it to 'Agility'. I then go on to kill four more goblins which I put every soul into 'Agility'. I want to be faster so I can dodge all of the goblins attacks when I rush in. My plan is to rush in with 'Haste' and kill as many goblins and I possibly can before returning to safety and recover with potions. This way, I can grow stronger a lot faster and is also the reason why I wanted to hunt alone.

When my 'Agility' got to 10 I got a panel popup.

"Congratulations!"

"Your talent: 'Haste' has been upgraded to rank E."

I close the panel and look at my 'Haste' ability.

"Talent: Haste"

"Description: Increase speed by 25%"

"Costs: 1 mana per 2 second

"Talent level: E".

The mana cost had gone from one mana per second to one mana per two seconds. This upgrade is very good and will be a big help when I execute my plan. I close down the 'Haste' information and focus on the goblins in the camp. From what I can see, there is another 20 or so goblins roaming around the camp area. Some have weapons while some do not.

Most of the goblins which bear weapons are located to the east side of the camp, so I decide that I will run in a straight direction through the camp on the west side to first get rid of all the goblins without weapons. This will definitely trigger the goblins on the east side but I think that if I have the strength I get from killing the west side, It will be easier killing the goblins with weapons.

I once again check my equipment to make sure nothing is damaged. Nothing looks to be wrong so I get myself ready. I count down from.

"3..."

"2.."

"1."

"Haste."

I activate haste which gives me a 25% speed buff and when I swing I let the speed carry my sword into the goblins neck which it slices through with ease. After the swing I take control of the blade again so I can re-adjust it for the next goblin that is just a few feet away from me. I raise my sword once again and I let the momentum slice through the goblin's arm and throat.

About this time, the rest of the goblins on the west side had realized what was going on and was now running towards me while only a few on the east side had noticed. I make sure to collect every soul that pops up with '𝐻𝒶𝓇𝓋𝑒𝓈𝓉' and instantly invest them into 'Agility'.

I stop and decide to let some of the goblins reach up to me so that I can kill them before running into the woods behind the camp to recover my stamina and health. One of the goblins finally reach up to me and I cleanly killed him with one slice. Another one comes up to me from behind, I quickly turn around and thrust my sword in to the goblin's heart.

This is the third time I am visiting this camp to increase my stats which means that I have come to know the goblin's heart location very clearly.

I killed a fourth, then a fifth and noticed that my mana was running out. 40 seconds had almost already gone by so I used '𝐻𝒶𝓇𝓋𝑒𝓈𝓉' on the two souls floating mid-air and ran to the woods.

I sit down on a tree stump and bring out my bag. Thankfully the bag that I had brought with me is one that the military used to use so the way it sticks to your body while moving is excellent. I bring out a mana potion and I drink it. While others could not see their mana, if one is experienced in magic and know their limits, they can feel if they are lacking in mana. This is a big reason why a magician at a high rank isn't always as good you think they are.

I bring up my menu again to see how much the potions helped.

Name: Ian Leitch

Level: 2

Health: 75/75 Stamina: 125/125

Souls: 0 Mana: 20/20

_____--:Stats:--_____

Strength: 5 Vitality: 5

Mana: 0 Agility: 15

Corruption: 4

Both my stamina and mana are full. My stamina have also increased a lot because of all my soul dumping into 'Agility'. I think it is time for me to start focusing on mana and strength. Getting my mana up will probably increase my maximum mana which would mean that I can sustain the 'Haste' talent longer.

I close my backpack, stand up and scout out towards the goblins. This time around, they have mixed the goblins of the east and the west which means both sides have weapons. I count up to 20 goblins in total. Some not paying attention at all and some on high alert. Some bigger goblins of the camp have dragged the corpses closer to their hut which they sleep in.

I grab my sword from my belt and make myself ready for action again. I step out from behind the bushes I had been hiding in and three goblins instantly see me and start charging. One of the goblins are holding a small club. As the first goblin runs towards me, I position my sword in a way where if the goblin would try to ram into me, the goblin would hurt themselves by running straight into my sword. In the last second before the goblin did so, it realized the dangers of running head first into a sword and tried changing direction but by that time I had already killed it by swinging my sword. '𝐻𝒶𝓇𝓋𝑒𝓈𝓉'

"Haste."

I activate 'Haste' and rush towards the second goblin with a club and kill him in an instant by first running past him and then cutting his head off. '𝐻𝒶𝓇𝓋𝑒𝓈𝓉'. The rest of the goblins surrounding the west side of the camp had now noticed the combat going on and rushed to help. I kill the last goblin quickly. '𝐻𝒶𝓇𝓋𝑒𝓈𝓉'.

I look at the wave of goblins that is approaching me and I start to visualize the order of which goblin to kill. I want to get better which means I have to intentionally put myself in danger. What I am in right now is danger, but it is manageable.

I run towards the first goblin, kill and go on to the next one. I do this until all of the goblins that was in the close vicinity of the west side of the camp was dead. I then '𝐻𝒶𝓇𝓋𝑒𝓈𝓉' all of the souls and hide in the bushes. The danger that I had expected was more of a resource management game than actual danger. The goblins were too slow to hurt me and they are too weak. They die in one hit.

After consuming the stamina potion, I open my character menu to start distributing my stats. My focus is 'mana' and 'strength'. While I do want to upgrade my survivability, I also have to prioritize my others stats. I increase my strength with five and a panel pops up.

"Congratulations!"

"You have hit 10 strength and gained a new ability: Toughness (F)"

"Toughness: A passive that decreases the amount of damage taken by 10% when under 50% hp Rank: F."

I close down the panel to continue distributing my points. I choose to increase my 'mana' by five. This bumped my mana up to 25. This means that every 'mana' point is equivalent to one soul. Which means that mana is a lot more expensive than the rest of my stats are. I look over my stats one last time before I close the menu panel down.

Health: 75/75 Stamina: 125/125

Souls: 0 Mana: 25/25

_____--:Stats:--_____

Strength: 10 Vitality: 5

Mana: 5 Agility: 15

Corruption: 4

I stand up and make myself ready for one last fight with the goblins. I want to get as much out of this as possible before it was time to head home. I do not know when I will be able to enter another portal, so I have to make this one count.

I got back to the scouting area in the bushes and notice what can only be described as chaos. The goblins are in complete disarray. They are running all over the place, some are sitting next to the corpses of which I recently killed and some goblins have even decided to lay down in the middle of the camp. I notice a larger goblin standing at the door of their hut with a larger club. This goblin looks to be almost as tall as I am. I decide to go kill some of the last goblins on the western side of camp since the hut is on the eastern side.

"haste."

I rush in towards the closest goblin and before I manage get to him, he screeches which alerts the rest of the camp. I ready my stance while the remaining goblins start running towards me. Eight goblins left and the big goblin in the back. I kill four of the small goblins and '𝐻𝒶𝓇𝓋𝑒𝓈𝓉' their souls. The bigger goblin, now noticing that I am a threat to their camp, starts running towards me with big steps. I make sure to kill two more small goblins before having to clash with the bigger goblin.

The big goblin swings his club at me and I manage to block last second. I feel myself being pushed back by the force of the swing but I manage to stay on my feet. I notice that the bigger goblin take a while to prepare another swing so I use this to my advantage to kill the other two smaller goblins which are closing in on me.

I return to my stance once again and block the incoming swing. This attack staggers me lightly but I get back to action almost right away. While the bigger goblin is charging up to swing another time, I swing my sword against the goblin's main hand. The hand gets cut off at the wrist and the goblin lets out a roar. I quickly attack the goblin one last time with all my force aimed at its heart before the goblin finally collapses and dies.

'𝐻𝒶𝓇𝓋𝑒𝓈𝓉', I collect all of the souls floating around and a panel appears,

"Congratulations!"

"You have eradicated your first camp."

"Reward: 1x corruption."

"Title: Kid Goblin Slayer - Title effect: 10% increased damage against smaller goblins."

If it weren't for the fact that the goblins were trying to murder me, I would feel remorse and regret for killing a bunch of young goblins.

Just when I was about to distribute all my points, I hear a roar and sounds of fighting.