Kegan’s new lives started to blur together. His kill count and survival time on each restart was slowing ticking up. 131 points, 133 points, 154 points, 147 points, 189 points, 185 points, 206 points, 208 points, 184 points, 215 points, 245 points, and the end was in sight. He had pushed himself on the last life, and the goblins had noticeably thinned out in the valley by the time he succumbed to his wounds and a pursuing group of goblins.

It all added up to 1997 points, and he unlocked and purchased some new perks:

Perk Name

Perk Effect

Experience points required

Achievement to unlock

Dagger User

Retain Dagger skills through restarts

250

Kill 20 enemies with daggers in one life.

Club User

Retain Club skills through restarts

250

Kill 20 enemies with clubs in one life.

Goblin Combat Experience

Retain knowledge of goblins through restarts

1000

Kill 1000 goblins in all lives.

Trap User

Retain Trap related skills through restarts.

250

Kill 20 enemies with traps in one life.

Hand to Hand Combat User

Retain hand to hand combat skills through restarts.

250

Kill 20 enemies bare handed in one life.

Total skill points 15773 after the purchases. He also had magic skills that he was still holding off from purchasing:

Perk Name

Perk Effect

Experience points required

Achievement to unlock

Ambusher

Illusion magic, actively blurs the outline of your body. Makes you more difficult to spot. Burns approximately 100 calories an hour.

2000

Kill 20 enemies with ambush attacks.

Berserker

Body enhancement magic, enter an uncontrollable rage for at least a minute, ignore pain, and muscles are 50% stronger. Burns 500 calories for initial 1 minute activation, and 10 calories for each additional second. Multiple body enhancement perks unlocked.

5000

Fight 20 enemies at the same time and kill at least 10 of them.

Berserker Paint

Shift your skin color to a dark glistening red, making it difficult for enemies to tell where you have been wounded. Can be activated or deactivated with 100 calories.

100

Unlock Berserker Perk

Berserker Biter

Your teeth change to canine teeth, and your your mouth changes shape to allow your bites to rip and tear flesh. Can be activated or deactivated with 300 calories

300

Unlock Berserker Perk

Trainer

Body enhancement magic, muscles rebuild twice as fast, allowing much faster training. Burns 2000 calories over the course of a day.

2000

Unlock Peak Condition perk, and improve your body through 5 consecutive lives.

Blood Mage

Unlock blood magic, multiple spells available, multiple blood related perks unlocked.

5000

Consume the blood of your fallen enemies. Mix their blood with yours. Let them taste your blood. All in one life.

Blood Tracking

The blood of chosen enemy will become vibrant to your senses of smell and sight, allowing you to easily track them. 50 calories an hour. Activate through contact with the blood.

2000

Unlock Blood Mage Perk

Blood Healing

No calorie cost but requires fresh blood from enemies. Blood must be less than an hour old. 1 liter of blood gives 1 day worth of healing. Blood can be absorbed by the skin or consumed. Stacks with other healing perks.

5000

Unlock Blood Mage Perk

Blood Clotter

Instantly clot the blood of an enemy, 500 calorie activation to clot one gallon of blood. Enemy must be bleeding.

5000

Unlock Blood Mage Perk

Blood Drinker

Drinking or consuming blood now has 3 times as many calories and the harmful effects of blood consumption will be negated

250

Unlock Blood Mage Perk

Blood Rejuvenation

Regain lost blood twice as fast. Stacks with other healing perks.

1000

Unlock Blood Mage Perk

Kegan wasn’t proud of how he had unlocked blood mage. He had forgotten the specific incident, but he had made sure to re-remember that it was a very bad idea to drink goblin blood. He was still holding off on purchasing any more magic related perks. He didn’t understand most of the numbers. He knew from experience that once he purchased a perk it would work intuitively and he would understand it, but he didn’t have that knowledge before purchasing. He was pretty sure he had asked the spirit about it multiple times, but the explanations hadn’t been helpful enough for him to bother re-remembering each life.

As he started his latest life he had a very good feeling about things. He had been very close last time. There was maybe only 50 goblins left when he died, and for the last few lives he had hit some patches of bad luck during random fights. He decided to be a little more cautious this time.

He had the weapons skills to fight multiple goblins at the same time. He was more physically fit then he had ever been, his arms were thick blocks of muscle to handle all the different weapons he used, his thighs and calves were lean and fit to keep him running for days, and his core muscles had been built up to keep it all in balance. Finally he had the knowledge of goblin weaknesses.

He’d also figured out how to extend the usefulness of his memory based perks. Knowledge of a weapon included knowledge that he needed to create that weapon. Kegan realized that creation knowledge included where he found the wood to make a weapon. He had a relatively good mental map of the valley based on where he could find good material for weapons.

He had also started naming his fighting styles, and the moves of those fighting styles after important things he had to remember. His club fighting style he had named “The spirit is useless”. This gave him memory space to re-remember other things.

The initial 30 days flew by quickly. Kegan learned exactly when and where they started entering the forest. There was a cave system at one end of the valley that the mountain stream drained into. There were a couple different nooks and crevices that they would crawl out of. They tended to crawl out in large numbers all at once, so Kegan usually avoided being too close to it.

He instead drove a herd of deer in the direction of the cave system. The deer were faster than the goblins, but the goblins used persistence hunting techniques. They’d chase the deer until the deer collapsed from exhaustion.

The herd would split in a bunch of directions and break up the groups of goblins faster. With the goblins spread out and in small groups Kegan could begin slaughtering them.

Kegan first came up on a group that had caught a doe and were ripping it apart. There were 12 of them. Kegan was carrying 8 javelins, a spear, a club, and three daggers. His armor had become much more practical. He used it more for carrying his array of weapons than he did for protection.

He stuck his spear in the ground and gathered his javelins in the nook of his left arm. With his right arm he wound up and threw the javelin. It skewered a goblin through the chest. They all instantly spotted him and started racing on all fours in his direction.

He had gotten good at throwing javelins, and much faster. All but one javelin was thrown with deadly accuracy at the incoming goblins. He could throw them hard enough that the goblins had little chance of dodging.

He got his spear out of the ground and got in a low stance. As the first goblin got close he jabbed forward skewering its face before it could leap. He shifted his weight backwards and swung the spear with the goblin stuck on the end. The dead body went flying off blocking two other goblins for half a second. He had space to skewer another goblin, but another was already getting too close.

He shifted his hands on the spear and used it as a solid bar to cross check the goblin that was leaping at him. The goblin fell to the ground dazed. He jumped back again pulling out his club and one of his daggers. The other two goblins were leaping at him at the same time. He swung his club down on the skull of one of them and skewered the other goblin in its face with the wooden dagger. They were both dead, he pulled out his dagger and plunged it into the dazed goblin that hadn’t gotten up yet.

Half a group down, it was a nice warm up. The stronger but slower part of this goblin group would get here any minute.

Kegan pulled all of his javelins out. The tip of one javelin was ruined, it had gotten wedged in the spinal column and broken when the goblin fell on it wrong. He had a weapons and food cache close by. He decided to restock after he dealt with the other goblins. They were audible now, crashing through the forest.

Just 10 of them. Every one of Kegan’s javelin’s flew true. The stronger ones were always easier to deal with when they were alone. Kegan was able to easily slay the other three with just his spear. They were easier to deal with at a distance since they were slower and stood upright when running. They would try to use their weapons in close combat rather than their claws. If they were able to ever use the weapons they could be more dangerous than the fast goblins. He could always just manhandle the runners, and their claws didn’t do a lot of damage to his skin with his perks in effect.

Kegan spent the rest of the day hunting down goblin groups in the forest. For any larger groups he encountered he would throw 4 to 5 javelins and then take off running to one of his weapon caches. He’d replace the javelins and throw 4 or 5 more. He would then try and circle back to the original location he’d thrown the javelins. He would pick those up and throw them again. He could often just rinse and repeat this tactic until only a few goblins were left and he would easily dispatch them with close quarters weapons.

The most he had ever managed to take on in close combat on open ground and survive was 11 goblins. If it was 6 to 9 he could usually come out on top with only minor injuries. Four or fewer goblins was always a safe bet. He was being cautious today and not fighting any more than 5 at a time.

After taking out four more groups he headed back to his cabin for some rest.

Kegan got some quality rest that night in his cabin thanks to his homeowner perks. The increased healing also erased most of his muscle fatigue. The goblins came into the valley three days in a row. He knew that it was impossible to stay awake for three days straight. Waking up in the middle of an ambush had gotten him killed nearly every time. He’d come up with a strategy in his last life to deal with this problem, and it had worked wonderfully.

He got all of his gear ready and looked out a peephole he’d created in the reinforced door. Sure enough there were 3 or 4 groups of goblins out there, maybe 70 in total.

He opened the door long enough for the goblins to see him and start rushing to claw their way into the cabin. He had a couple holes around the door large enough for him to jam his spear through into the unlucky goblin outside. Once he had a pile of bodies blocking the door he made his way to the opposite side of the cabin. There was a hole small enough for him to crawl through. He made his way through the hole. It was awkward carrying the weapons. The hole angled upward quickly. At the top was a wooden trapdoor covered with grass and dirt. It only opened outward.

Kegan threw open the trapdoor, leaped out of the hole and immediately started sprinting away from the cabin. He made it to the treeline but had about 30 fast goblins chasing after him. That counted as a successful plan in his mind. After all, not being surrounded and murdered after sleeping was a rare victory for him.

He spent most of the morning whittling down the pursuing goblins, first the runners, and then later the tough goblins. They weren’t letting him get his javelins back easily. The javelins were the perfect size to work as spears for the weapon wielding goblins, and they would occasionally try and throw the javelins too, but they weren’t smart enough to throw en masse so Kegan could easily dodge the projectiles.

Kegan kept up the tactics that had worked for him for the next two days. He was expecting some big final confrontation, some kind of gathering of the goblins. But nothing like that happened. Instead he just slowly whittled away the goblins group by group. Until he suddenly realized he couldn’t find any of them.

He went back to his cabin and began cleaning away some of the corpses and resealing his home. Kegan fell down exhausted afterwards, and got some of the best sleep he remembered having.

When he awoke in the morning and looked out of his peephole he half expected to see another horde of goblins. Instead there were just three out there, all of them looked injured and half dead. He walked out of the cabin and quickly ended them.

He looked around and sighed. Maybe it was finally over, he had finally beaten the goblins. The rest of the day was spent dragging the corpses into a pit and burning them.

He went to bed again feeling good. He didn’t desperately need the sleep, but there wasn’t much for him to do at night. He used the food coma perk to partially feed himself.

There were no goblins around when he woke up this time. He went searching in the forest, and quickly realized a problem. There were no wolves no deer, the large fish in the stream were gone, the squirrels and birds were very skittish, and most of the remotely edible plants had also been eaten.

Kegan was now the king of an empty almost lifeless forest, and his future feasts would be comprised of leaves and long naps.