In a battle of strength, I was never going to back away.

I jumped at the Ogre, ready to swing my staff downwards at him. The Ogre brought his club up to block my attack, but in the collision between my black iron staff and his wooden club, the club didn't stand a chance. Upon impact, it was shattered into a million pieces, making the Ogre fall on his butt.

The ogre had a look of disbelief in his eyes. He was still not ready to have someone beat him in terms of strength.

He came running at me barehanded and threw a powerful punch at me with his massive arms. His arms were big enough to be similar in size to an adult man.

I threw a punch right at his incoming punch while activating Power Punch. Upon collision, the shockwave sent dust on the ground flying.

The power of my punch was strong enough to immediately crush every bone on the Ogre's arm. Without the bones supporting his arm, it turned into a sack of skin.

The ogre screamed in pain. Finally, I could see a terrified look of fear in his eyes. He made a weird sound, looking at the hobgoblins who were rushing into battle to fight my group.

But after listening to the Ogres call, the 6 of them all changed their course and started running toward me.

Hobgoblins were nothing to worry about for the current me, but I wanted to check how much stronger I was compared to my last fight with a hobgoblin, so I choose to put my staff in my inventory and fight bare-handed to make it easy for the hobgoblins.

The first hobgoblin came running with his axe aimed right at my neck. With the increase in my agility, I was able to easily catch the incoming axe with my left hand and throw a punch at the hobgoblin with my right.

I punched his face, breaking all his teeth and his nose upon impact. But he was still not dead yet I threw another powerful punch, this time breaking his facial bones, and his eye popped out of his eye sockets and fell down to the ground and blood squirted out of his ears. After this, he fell down on his back lifelessly.

*Hobgoblin Lvl 7 Killed*

*+350 Exp*

I was able to easily deal with the rest of the hobgoblins in the same manner, at the end of it all 6 hobgoblins were lying lifelessly on the ground.

Some had their faces completely disfigured from my punches, while the others had my hand size holes in their chests.

*Hobgoblin Lvl 8 Killed*

*+400 Exp*

*Hobgoblin Lvl 7 Killed*

*+350 Exp*

*Hobgoblin Lvl 7 Killed*

*+350 Exp*

*Hobgoblin Lvl 7 Killed*

*+350 Exp*

*Hobgoblin Lvl 7 Killed*

*+350 Exp*

*Level Up*

*+6 STR*

*+7 VIT*

*+2 DEF*

*+1 AGI*

*+1 WILL*

*+5 Attribute Points*

*+1 Skill Points*

*Class Unlocked*

*Racial Evolution Unlocked*

When I turned to deal with the Ogre, it was running away at full speed. The funny thing was he was much slower than me.

I caught up to him easily in one dash, "What's up, slowpoke?".

The Ogre was terrified and started running in another direction.

Without delay, I caught up to him and swung the staff at his back. With one swing I heard the cracking sound of his spine breaking, he spasmed on the ground for a few seconds before dying.

*Ogre Lvl 10 Killed*

*+1 STR for killing a monster stronger than you*

*+5000 Exp*

The instant the Ogre died, all the goblins started to run away. It was too much of a waste to lose so many experience points.

"KILL THEM ALL", I shouted, ordering everyone.

They all responded by roaring, “KILL” “KILL” “KILL”.

Everyone started running after the goblins. I was doing the same, although it was only 50 experience points but I won't say no to free experience points.

After around 10 more minutes, we were done with most of the goblins, but some of them were able to escape into the forest.

It turned out to be a great raid for our group, no one was seriously injured and almost everyone was able to get to level 3 with few others getting to level 4.

Lily and Walter also did great, with Walter actually getting to level 4 and Lily getting to level 5.

After we made sure to finish every goblin in the settlement, we went to the cages and freed the captives. Walter ran to his parents and hugged them with a face full of tears.

After they were done crying, Walter’s father asked him if the school was teaching us martial arts or something. To which Walter smugly took out his daggers and started rolling them on his fingers, “Haha Father, your son is strong now. You don’t have to worry”.

While he was doing this Walter’s mother smacked the back of his head, “You should not play with knives, son”.

Everyone started laughing looking at this, but there was also a look of longing in their eyes, to meet their own family.

Walter started touching his head as if he was hurt by his mother's smack on the head. He had his head down in embarrassment, “Mother, please don’t hit me in front of my friends”.

After the happy reunion between them, we asked them how they got into the hands of the goblins.

When I asked this to Walter’s parents, their faces were back to their serious looks. Walter’s father looked at me with a confused face, “Aren’t you Robin… you should not take steroids at such a young age son, look at your head there’s no hair left.”

After telling me about all the side effects of steroids, which took around 10 minutes, he finally decided to say how they got kidnapped by the goblins.

As per what he said after the buildings disappeared, those people who survived in their neighborhood decided to stay together. But immediately afterward, they were attacked by the goblins. They all scattered and fled in different directions, but the goblins were able to catch most of them and brought them back to their camp.

Among the people in the cage, 4 were already killed and were put in the cooking pot.

With the people rescued we were all ready to set out but when I went to store the bodies of the hobgoblins and the Ogre in my inventory, I used Identification to check on the items the Ogre was wearing.

*Goblin Chief's Crown (Common)*

*A Symbol Of Respect Among Goblins*

*Robe Of Betuga (Rare)*

*???*

*???*

*???*

I was surprised to see a rare piece of equipment here, but I was not able to inspect it with my level 1 Identification. So I decided to store everything along with the corpse inside my inventory and planned to ask Ratha in the Village to Identify them for me.

There was something more that I was dying to check, it was the notification for the class and the race evolution that I got when I reached level 10. But when I took a quick glance at them, there were too many options, so I decided to hold onto that for later when I get to the village.

After storing all the loot, we took the 25 people who were captured by the goblins along with us. The group mostly consisted of older people, with only a few with aged below 35.

***

The group of 30 that we came with returned much stronger, when they came almost all of them were at level 1, but now the average level was 3.

When we met with the rest of the group who did not join the raid, they were all shocked to see everyone coming back alive. Apparently, they were already discussing what to do if none of us were to return.

Their shock was amplified by 100 when they heard that almost everyone was now at level 3. One of the guys was so devastated after hearing this that he, clutched his chest and started crying.

I could see Jessica looking at me from a distance. She did not have the face to come talk to us after not believing in us before. Lily still went to ask her to join us and chat while walking, which she agreed to do.

On the rest of the way, we did not encounter any more trouble. Lily and I were talking about random stuff on the way, whereas Walter was accompanying his parents. Jessica was silent all the time throughout the whole thing. Lily tried to start up a conversation, but Jessica didn’t seem interested.

Although I had feelings for her before, I probably still do right now. But after my level-ups, I was in love with the feeling of being the strongest. The stronger I got, the bigger my ego grew, and I didn’t have a problem with it. If someone had a problem with it, they had to be strong enough to deal with me.

Other than my hunger for power and the constant encounter with deadly events, my heart was turning numb for Jessica. When I looked at her before, I used to get soft on the heart but now although I still found her attractive but the novelty was wearing off.