Opening my eyes and groaning I started to swear up a storm.

 

Artoria: “Stupid fucking wolf, stupid fucking ice. Hurr Durr look at me, I can one shot a tiny ass fairy. I am so great.”

 

As I was bitching about the wolf an alert was suddenly displayed in front of me.

 

 

Artoria: “Oh? I should be able to take on some Goblins pretty easily. And while I am taking them out, I’ll get stronger. Hopefully enough to be able to take on a Hob. But damn, there are a lot of Goblins though…”

 

Getting up off the bed I just shrug my shoulders, fly to the door, and leave my Realm.

 

‘Right, so it said west. I wonder how far though?”

 

Thankfully it had only taken me about an hour to get near the village. I wasn’t even really that bored on my way there, as I managed to kill three wolves, and two rabbits. I assumed I was near it anyway, as I had just run into my first goblin scouts.

 

As I was hiding in the branches of a tree above the 2 scouts, I took a look at my prey. And they were just like your classic goblins. Short, green, ugly and child-like body. Skinny as hell too. All they had on were their disgusting looking loincloths and a pointed stick for a pole arm like weapon.

 

‘Well, time to see if they are weak, or are bullshit strong like everything else so far in this world.’

 

Summon my sword, I quickly jumped off the branch and swung downward while activating two-fold slash. I landed with a light ‘pomf’ on the ground in front of the goblin who I attacked, but he was just standing there, looking off into the distance. 

 

The other goblin, though, jumped back in fright and pointed its stick at me. I tilted my head as I looked at the goblin I attacked in a bit of confusion.

 

‘I know I hit him, so why isn’t he… oh?’

 

Before I could ponder more, two red lines started to appear in the middle of the goblin. And then with an interesting “shlick” sound, three different parts of him fell three different ways. The middle part fell forward towards me, while the sides flopped outwards.

 

‘That was cool. But why? The wolves didn’t act like this when I cut them? Maybe because they have better natural defences than goblins?”

 

Shelving that line of thought for now, I quickly used charge at the remaining goblin and aimed my sword swing at his neck. I was moving a bit faster than he was able to react thankfully, and was easily able to dodge his shameful thrust attack and I cut off his head in one swing.

 

Learning my lesson from the blue wolf, I flew back up to the tree branches and quickly hid from anything nearby while I brought up my status. 

 

 

Artoria: “Wow. Goblins are fucking lame as shit. Able to kill them in one hit, and overkill most likely. And they were only worth 5 SE a pop? And very little EXP as well. Well, it’s basic bitch Goblins, what was I expecting?”

 

With a sigh, I continued on westward. As I was flying I thought back to how the goblin was sliced in 3 so easily. And the only thing I can think of, is that he had no defence whatsoever for my attack to do that.

 

‘The wolves take several attacks to bring down, at least two of those slashes to cut through their necks. I guess that’s what happens when you have a weapon that has B2 penetration and they have zero armour.’

 

As I was flying, I suddenly got a small foreboding feeling. Quickly flying to the nearest tree, and de-summoning my sword I hid in the leaves while looking for what was giving me this sudden feeling.

 

I got an alert from my display, but thankfully it only appeared as a small red “!” in the bottom right of my vision. As I was considering opening the display, I suddenly heard two voices from below me. As quietly as I could, I peeked down at what was talking.

 

Below me, there were two humans, one female and one male. They looked like adventures from their gear. And not very high ones by the looks of it. Their gear was about as good as mine, minus my sword naturally.

 

‘I can’t understand them, it's annoying. But why am I getting such a bad feeling? It’s not from them, because they look like they are about my level in po-’

 

Before I could finish that thought though, a warlike yell attracted all three of our attentions. A short distance away there was a much bigger goblin with a lot better gear than the two scrubs I killed.

 

‘Hobgoblin maybe? The feeling I am getting is definitely from him.’

 

The two humans yelled something to each other, and the male started to charge the Hobgoblin. He was using a two hand sword, much larger than mine when it was human sized, while the female had an oak looking staff.

 

‘Compensating for something there dude? Heh. Also, a staff huh. Mage? Or maybe a healer?’

 

My question was answered soon when she soon let out a fireball that flew past her partner and slammed into the chest of the Hobgoblin. But he just straight up ignored it, it seemed and continued on unimpeded. Soon the male and the Hobgoblin clashed weapons and started the fight proper.

 

While the skirmish was going on, the female would try and pepper the Hobgoblin when it broke away from her partner, while the male was doing his best to defend and attack at the same time. 

 

The fight lasted for several minutes, but it would be over soon I thought. The female is panting heavily while the two melee fighters are covered in wounds and blood.

 

Suddenly, a great idea came to my mind, and a cruel smile appeared on my face. As quietly as I could, I flew down the tree I was hiding on, and made my way to the back of the female. As I was raising my sword to attack her exposed neck, she suddenly jolted her head, and started to turn it towards me.

 

I quickly used my project sound to imitate the battle cry of the hobgoblin to her front. Sadly for her, she fell for my little trick, and her head snapped back to the front while she brought up her staff in the direction of the sound to block the expected blow.

 

Activating my two-fold slash, and swinging with all my might, I cut through her neck like it was butter. It felt like when I cut the goblin in halves, which confused me for a moment. But I put it in the back of my mind, and used Charge to close the distance on both the Hobgoblin and the male who were both looking at me in confusion.

 

Before they could do anything I activated my Flame Slash and again swung with all my might. My two enemies were both engulfed in purpleblack-red flames. My attack had managed to cover an area of around 3 metres wide and 9 metres long. I felt around 10% of my mana chunk away using the ability.

 

Both of them screamed for a few seconds before they settled down on their backs, looking like nothing but burnt statues of themselves.

 

*Thud*

 

Looking back at the female, it seems her head finally slid off her body. Turning back to the BBQ statues I made, I gave an impressed whistle. This was the first time I used one of my sword abilities. So far I have been just using it as a normal sword along with the Evil Light buff.

 

Bringing up my status and the display, I couldn’t help but smile.

 

 

Artoria: “Those humans were worth a lot of EXP and SE! 50% of that level, and 50 SE, what the hell?! Didn’t they die a little too easily to give that much? Oh right. There was a Hobgoblin in the mix as well... ”

 

Looking back to the dead female, I floated over to her, and started to rummage through her belongings.

 

‘Not to mention, this one has armour. But why did it feel like when I had cut the Goblins? Wait. Does armour actually function like armour and only provide protection where it covers? Shit, I know the first trait I am going to pick for my armour if it’s there…’

 

While I was looking through her shit, I brought up the other notice I had gotten.

 

 

Artoria: “Nice. This is always a great passive to have!”

 

Having collected all of the shit off the corpse and putting it in a bag she had, I opened the door to my Inner Realm, and floated through dragging the bag. After arriving, I floated over to my chest, and tried to dump my entire spoils in at once. Much to my delight, it all went inside easily enough.

 

My total spoils were three health pots, a shitty oak magic staff of B1 rank, and three silver and 50 copper coins.

 

I made note that the money didn’t take up a slot in my inventory, but had its own counter near the button right of the window. And the currency was apparently called “Kins.”

 

Shrugging my shoulders at the more than likely useless money, I head back outside. Once returning, I head towards the goblin village again. About half an hour, and with no more things to kill, I arrive at the outer edge of the village.

 

Looking down from my view top in the trees, I was able to count six archer posts with two goblins in one post each. It looks like there is only one entrance, and that is the closed gate in between two archer posts at the “front” of the encampment. There were a lot of huts, and a cave entrance in the cliff at the back of the village it seemed.

 

‘This just screams “classic goblin camp” to me. Now, I should wait for nightfall. But I don’t want to. This grass is really tall, and I want to see if I can cheese a stealth like ability.’

 

With a plan of sorts in place, I float down behind the tree, and land on the ground. The grass is taller than I am by several centimetres. I slowly make my way towards the wooden wall that surrounds the camp trying to make the grass move as little as possible.

 

Reaching the wall relatively quickly, I start to sneak around up and down along it. After a few minutes of my make shift prowling, I got a display alert.

 

 

‘Well, 1% is nothing really, but I assume it’ll eventually be a 100%. I was hoping for stealth, but I am going to assume that’s more magic inclined. I do have illusion magic, so I assume stealth would be in the cards at some point. I really am making a lot of assumptions… But what can I do about it? Shitty god did jack shit for explaining anything.”

 

With a bit of disappointment and annoyance, I move left, away from the gate, along the wall so I come to the end where it meets the cliff face they are built near.

 

‘For the most part, this wall is pretty well built. But there is more than enough room for me to squeeze past between the wall and rocks here.’

 

Slipping through, I hovered just a bit so I could see past the long grass and into the camp proper. The whole thing, as expected, was crawling with goblins. I was getting that uneasy feeling again, but I couldn’t see any Hobgoblins. Double checking, and making sure the area was clear of hobgoblins I started to slowly fly up to the archer post.

 

Getting close to the gate, I slowly peeked up and into the post. Both of the goblin archers were facing slightly away, looking at different parts of the forest with their backs to me.

 

‘Here goes nothing.’

 

I quickly flew up behind the goblin on the right, summoned my sword, and used two-fold on his neck. Without pause, I did so again to the other goblin who still hasn’t reacted to his friend dying and repeated the action.

 

‘I am honestly surprised that it worked.’

 

The head on the fist goblin started to slide off after my musings. I floated over to it in a hurry, and grabbed the head and set it down on the floor. I did the same for the other head that started to slip as well.

 

‘Don’t need these rolling out of the post and getting attention now. Luckily they don’t weigh too much so the bodies didn’t make much sound when they plopped down.’

 

Walking over to the corner and peeking out, I was glad no-one seemed to hear the guards or notice them killed off.

 

‘Hrmm. Not a lot of grass on this side to hide in. But it should be enough if I crawl a little in the short patches. Well, no time like the present, time to get to work. Hup!’

 

Quickly floating down to the ground, I hid back in the grass, and started to make my way to the next post. While I was skulking to the next bit of EXP sacks, I got a notice that my Suppress Presence levelled to B2.

 

‘Nice, my first B2 skill level up. And as expected it’s now a 2% decrease. Maybe I should focus on levelling some skills soon.’

 

My musings came to an end when I reached the next post. Looking around and seeing no-one looking towards me, I flew up to the top again.

 

‘Take two I guess. No reason to change what is working after all.’

 

A quick repeat of the first post, and I was back in the grass making my way back to where I entered. While I was passing through the rock and wall, I got a notice that both my Suppress Presence and Danger Sense levelled up.

 

‘Nice. Now, I should repeat what I did on this side, with the other before I attack the posts connected to the gate. I just know something will go wrong, and I’ll have to fight since the two posts are so close to each other.’

 

Sometime later, I finished off the fourth post, and brought up my quest detail while I was mulling over what to do.

 

 

I then brought up my status page.

 

 

 

‘Goblins really are worthless. Hardly any EXP or SE from them. Oh well. Now. How do I want to go about these last two archer posts…’