Andrew woke up late today.

He was stiff and sore, but feeling much better than he did last night. The skin on his chest, arms and face was peeling. Some small patches of skin cracked as he stretched, the tight burnt skin separating to reveal the pink flesh beneath. His joints ached, his back was bruised and his skin itched, but the sharp pain in his chest was gone.

Alright. Think positive. No sign of internal injuries. Doesn't really mean anything as I have no experience to base that off of, but less pain on my inside bits can only be a good thing. I'm going to be working slow today.

HP: 298/400

His hopes for an overnight full recovery were dashed, but the amount of damage that he could recover from overnight was still pretty remarkable.

His morning stretch took longer than usual, despite being ultimately less effective. He tried to stretch gently and avoid cracking more of his skin, but it was quickly apparent that that was going to be impossible. He finished his stretch started cleaning up the debris from last night in an attempt to distract from the growing itch spreading throughout all the cracks in his skin. He had to scrape burnt boar steak off his hot rock, and rinse out the lukewarm cauldron of forgotten boar stew. He fought against the urge to douse himself in river water the entire time he worked.

Cold water would be amazing, but I don't want to risk infection here. I think I can trust my passive healing to deal with that issue on a small scale, but the burns from last night are much worse than anything I've dealt with so far. I'm not sure I can trust that judgement with a wound of this size.

I'll have to boil some water. If I'm going to be serious about avoiding infection I'll need actual clean bandages. Dirt building up on all of my newly exposed sticky bits can not be the right way to handle this situation.

Andrew filled the caldron with river water and set it on the stand, then powered the circle up and watched as the water quickly boiled. He let it sit for a minute before he grabbed all his previously made bandages and threw them in the pot. He then grabbed a shirt and pair of pants from the dwindling supply of fabric that now half covered his sleeping pallet. He cut them into wide strips and threw them into the pot as well. It overflowed a little, but he was able to shove all of the cloth under the boiling water using his charging staff.

He poked and prodded and stirred the pot of bandages for a while, before recharging the circle with his staff and then leaving it to cook.

His wounds itched more and the heat emanating from the boiling pot wasn't improving the situation.

That river water is looking better and better. It would be amazing if I had a way to cool it down quickly once it boiled.

…

Shit. Wait. Shit.

Okay, as soon as those have had time to boil I'm going to do something I should've done a long time ago. In the meantime, priorities. I still need to get that helmet done, and I'm not fighting anything anytime soon.

Andrew started the forge up and grabbed the thin sheet of metal he hammered out the night before. He threw it in to warm up before heading to the stone table where he did most of his forging. He took his chisel and carved a little socket near the edge of the stone table and set the half sphere of iron in it. Not ideal, but the best mount he could do at the moment. Then he pulled the glowing sheet of metal from the forge and got to work on the helmet.

The heat from the forge and the hot metal was excruciating on his sensitive skin, but the promise of cold water to sate the constant itching was more than enough motivation to continue pushing through the work.

[Pain Resistance lvl 1-2]

Hammering the helmet into shape took longer than he was expecting. It was a much more complex shape than he had to work for any of his other projects, and more fine detail work was required than he had expected.

When he finished he set it to the side to cool and headed back to the pot of boiling cloth. He pulled the cloth from the water with a long stick and draped it out over a stone table in the sun before tipping out it's contents. He flipped the pot and began to carve an inverted fire mana circle into the metal of the pot, nested outside of the original fire gathering circle.

Cold water is the clear priority here. Rinsing burn wounds with water is important and it's going to make the itching stop, for at least a couple seconds. Definitely worth all this work. I've been neglecting the ability to lower temperatures though. The perfect solution to my food preservation issues has been sitting right in front of my face and I've been too busy experimenting with new ways to blow myself up instead.

Idiot.

Self criticism isn't the important thing to focus on right now, lesson learned, focus on the task at hand, make some cool water to relieve this fucking itch.

This may have been the fastest he had ever inscribed a circle, and his body itched and burned all the while. When he finished the circle he flipped the pot and filled it with river water once again. He activated the fire gathering circle and watched as the water in the pot boiled.

He let it boil for a minute and allowed the small amount of mana he had pushed into the fire gathering circle to disperse before he activated the fire mana dispersing variant. Three points of mana was enough to bring the water down from a boil. After ten the metal of the caldron was cold to the touch. He dipped a finger in and found that the water was pleasantly cool, though warmer towards the center. He poured five more points of mana into the circle and the water turned chilly. He stripped and began ladling the cool clean water onto his skin. It relieved his cracked skin and he reveled in the relief it granted from the ever present itch that had developed since he stretched that morning.

Thank fucking god for that.

He returned to his half-finished helmet and began to work on the finishing touches.

The final product was a sphere of metal padded with wadded up cloth to fit his head. An rectangle was cut out of the front of the helmet to reveal his face. He reforged the cut-out metal into a protruded mouth and nose guard that was held tight to the helm by a pair of wooden straps, leaving only the eyes visible. He empowered the helmet and cloth inside as one whole piece, and it melded into a cushioning that was surprisingly comfortable. It pressed on his ears a little and reduced hearing a lot, but it didn't pinch and didn't shift when he looked around.

[Blacksmithing lvl 5-6]

[Empower Item lvl 6-7]

He inscribed runes on the outside of the helmet. The inside was filled with cushioning and he wouldn't be able to charge the circles individually if he couldn't reach them directly.

He spent the remainder of the day doing light work trying not to aggravate his wounds and periodically dousing himself in cold water to stave off the itch. He constructed a wooden box inscribed with an inverted fire circle and lined it with large leaves that found in the forest outside. He filled the box with his remaining boar steaks and powered it up. When his boiled bandages dried he wrapped the nastiest of his wounds. He empowered a new set of under armor and set it aside for tomorrow. As his wounds continued to feel better and he ran out of busy work he started on an new project to increase his survivability.

Andrew got to work on a shield. It was fairly simple compared to most of the other armor pieces he had to work on, just a plate of metal with a handle really. He made it a fair bit thicker than any of the individual armor pieces. It was shaped like a triangle pointed down, in as close an approximation of a kite shield as he could manage from memory. He wanted something that would provide a fair amount of protection, without reducing mobility too much. The shield would be a little heavy, but that could easily be solved with increased strength and runic inscriptions.

He hammered a couple of metal loops onto the inside of the kite shield and then used them to secure wood straps with which to hold the shield onto his arm. He also added a handle about where the palm of his hand would rest once the shield was strapped on. It was getting dark by the time he finished empowering and inscribing circles onto the shield, and once he was finished charging it he set it alongside the rest of his armor and settled himself down for an early night.

By the time he was finished his back had transitioned from bruised to stiff and the worst of his burns settled into pink sensitive flesh, no longer oozing with each exertion. He laid back on the last patch of his dwindling supply of padded wood and fell asleep.

When he woke up the next morning he felt reinvigorated. He sat up and got to work unwinding his bandages, revealing fresh pink skin underneath. His body felt stiff and his skin was still a little tight, but the absence of itch was euphoric. He stood and stretched before pulling a cold boar steak from his new coldbox and pulsing more mana into it. He threw the steak on his hot rock and started a fire under. Then he pulled on his empowered cloth and started to assemble the rest of his armor.

HP: 394/400

It took him a good fifteen minutes of fiddling to get his entire set of armor strapped on. He imagined he would look a bit silly, but most of his body was protected. There were some obvious gaps in some of the joints, but that was a lot less territory to worry about than before. He cut a little hole in one side of each of the metal plates that made up his portable binding circle and wound a wood strap through it and his belt, empowering it shut. He stuffed his hammer into a similar loop prepared for that purpose, then grabbed the cooked steak and wolfed it down.

It was early morning and he would have plenty of time to make it back into goblin territory. He strapped on his shield, grabbed his spear and headed on his way out of the camp. He also brought his chisel with him this time, tucked into a pocket under his metal kilt, just in case there was an opportunity to set up a trap or something.

The journey through the forest was a little more taxing this time. The helmet made it much more difficult to hear, and he had underestimated how much he had relied on the sense when traveling before. Andrew found himself looking over his shoulder constantly during the two hour walk to the boulders. He was moving slower than yesterday and found himself jumping each time he caught sight of animals passing through the forest on his right.

[Perception lvl 5-6]

He slowed down as he approached the boulders that dotted the territory ahead of him. He scanned the forest and paused to listen frequently. Straining for any sign of that unfamiliar language. He had his spear readied and was on edge, ready to jump into action at the slightest sign of ambush. The faint clinking of his metal kilt was all he heard.

He traveled like this for about twenty minutes, checking around each boulder he passed, before he saw some movement ahead of him. A group of figures was walking from the forest onto the path he was currently traveling, a good distance away. He ducked behind one of the boulders and peeked out.

One of the goblins was standing in the center of the trail he had been following, looking back in his direction intently. Behind the first goblin two other pairs were ambling along the trail away from him, each pair carrying a boar between them.

Okay, there they are. Heading away from me so I won't be able to set up a circle. Most of them are occupied with the boar they're holding. I'll try to talk to them first, make sure they're definitely 100 percent hostile first, then deal with whatever as it comes. Their arrows barely pierced my empowered clothing before, I should have no trouble handling this group now.

Lets go.

He stepped out from behind his boulder and waved to the one looking behind them calling out, "Hey there! My name's Andrew! Those boars are pretty good right?"

The goblin jumped back and began yelling in it's unfamiliar language. The two pairs dropped their boars and quickly formed up, drawing clubs. One of these had a stone dagger, the trail watcher had a bow.

He slowly approached with his hands extended to either side. The trail watcher pulled an arrow from it's quiver and began to draw. The goblins on either side began running towards him.

Andrew pulled his shield up and in front of him and began to run forward and slightly to the left, aiming to weave through the boulders between him and the group.

Definitely preparing for a fight. If that's how its going to be then that's how its going to be.

The first arrow passed to his right as he cut behind a cluster of boulders. When he passed around to the left of the boulder he could now see the archer backing up and the other goblins forming up in front of it, just outside of the cluster. He weaved past one boulder, then another, not giving the archer a chance to fire before he closed the distance.

He came around the final rock spear already half outstretched. It caught the first goblin in the throat, and he stopped short, pulling the spear out and ducking backwards around the boulder again. An arrow pinged off his chestplate, leaving a small scratch. Another goblin charged at him as he backed around the boulder, club flailing. As he stepped around the boulder he swept the spear downwards and into the feet of the goblin, knocking it and the one following closely behind to the ground. He stepped forward and stabbed down repeatedly at the chaotic mass of limbs attempting to disengage and stand up. They didn't make it. The goblin with a knife had circled around to the right of the pileup and brought his shield around to block the oncoming swing of the knife.

He felt the impact across his forearm, but the metal was only lightly scratched. He slammed his shield into the goblin and it went flying to the ground, splayed out for a moment before scrambling to regain it's feet.

[Goblin level 19]

Seriously? This thing is a higher level than I am? Why is it so much weaker?

He stabbed out twice with his spear, it dodged the first strike but the second caught it in the stomach. One more quick jab to the throat of the downed goblin and it moved no longer.

There is no way this thing has more vitality than me, and it hasn't used any mana so no reason to think it had more wisdom or intelligence. It was faster, but not by much. Do the increased attribute gains from Pioneer really make that much of a difference?

He took a small step forward to balance himself as an arrow pinged off his back and he turned to face the last goblin, who was now starting to back away. He threw his spear full force at it, and was almost as surprised as the goblin when it made contact with it's legs and tripped the goblin up. It slowed down and gave him an opportunity to draw his hammer and strike it in the back of the head as it began to run.

This, is pretty dark. I mean yeah, these are goblins, typical fantasy monster and all that, but still. If they didn't all attack me on sight I don't think I would want to kill any of them. Hell, if I didn't see those people chained to that cart when I first got here I wouldn't be attacking them even now. I think I'm going to need a lot more levels if I don't want to end up like them though. The little I saw of that fight made it clear that those were on a different level to these goblins, and the giants that attacked them still won by a significant margin.

[Goblin Level 15 defeated]

[Goblin Level 15 defeated]

[Goblin Level 17 defeated]

[Goblin Level 19 defeated. For defeating an opponent above your level you gain additional experience]

[Goblin Level 18 defeated]

[Scavenger Level up]

Alright level 19 now. Things are already starting to slow down compared to those boars, and it seems like this Pioneer title gives me a pretty serious boost compared to most things my level. I should probably be shooting for things five or ten levels above me. Haven't even had to spend any of my free attribute points yet or anything.

Andrew pulled the bodies all within the cluster of boulders. He wasn't sure if there was a good reason to hide them, but it only took a second. Better safe than sorry.

He headed out following the same trail again. The goblins had been heading this way, so they probably had a camp of some kind in this direction. The single archer, four fighter configuration they had going on suggested a reasonable level of organization. He guessed the two boars they were carrying would be enough to feed a fair number of goblins. He would have to be careful not to get overwhelmed, no matter how strong his armor was.

He was moving slowly, continuing to check his surroundings periodically, and ducking behind boulders at the earliest sight of life ahead, though most of the time it was just an animal.

The trail he was following started to become more worn in as he traveled, and he encountered another group of five as he followed it. This group only had a single boar between them, and was about as challenging as the last. A few more bodies dragged and a few more scratches on the armor and Andrew was ready to move again.

[Goblin level 15 defeated]

[Goblin Level 16 defeated]

[Goblin Level 14 defeated]

[Goblin Level 12 defeated]

[Goblin Level 17 defeated]

This armor is seriously paying off. A few of those hits would've sent me home if I didn't have it. At this rate I'll be able to go all day though.

He eventually slowed down when he heard the distant murmur of a crowd ahead. He creeped his way forward through the boulders until he got sight of a fairly large congregation of goblins ahead. There looked to be four of the groups he had seen before, all clustered around a cave entrance. They were gathering wood and sticks and leaves from the forest around and piling them into pits dug into the ground, already filled with ashes. Occasionally a goblin would come out of the cave and speak to a goblin outside before going back in.

Mostly the goblins were milling about sqeaking in their unfamiliar language and boxing each other with firewood logs. Andrew watched from a distance for a short time, trying to keep track of the total number. It was a ways off from sunset still, but he would have to get some prep work done if he was going to try and take on this many.

He retreated up the trail a good distance and spent about an hour carving three binding circles in the dirt, before throwing his metal circle down. They were placed two across, two deep on the trail. He powered all of them and carefully stepped around and up the trail.

Pretty sure those will only work on one at a time, but four goblins out of the fight is still pretty handy. Might make them more cautious about charging me too, buy a little time.

The goblins were still milling about, there were more now and they had set up six firepits. There were wooden spits built above each and two boars were already loaded across two of the pits.

Okay one more thing.

He grabbed a stone a little bigger than his two fists and hid behind a boulder as he began carving two runic circles on it. One for gathering air mana, one for gathering fire mana.

He finished both, and started to pump mana into the air rune. He stopped at around forty mana. The stone was now almost chalk white, and so porous it almost looked like pumice. He started to pump mana into the fire rune and stopped around twenty mana in. He thought it could probably hold more, it wasn't even warm yet, but he didn't want to push his luck playing with firecrackers.

He peeked out from behind the boulder and saw that the goblins had gotten a fire going under the two boars, and seemed to be waiting around expectantly for more to arrive. They were more alert now, and seemed to be suspicious of the late arrival of the other hunting groups. Probably the ones he took out earlier.

He tossed the rock in his hand a couple times.

Way lighter than usual. Fair amount of float time. Those fires are pretty big, hopefully I don't fuck this up.

He stepped out from behind the boulder and tossed the stone directly at one of the lit campfires. It landed just on the edge of the pit but that was enough.

He watched as the boulder lit in a super bright flash before exploding outwards. Burning pieces of wood and shards of rock went flying out from where it hit. The boar above was shredded and the most of the goblins massed around the firepit were knocked to the ground. He could see many of them were bleeding from little shards of embedded rock. A couple were on fire. He grabbed another rock and tossed it at one of the standing goblins. The creature was dazed and the rock hit dead center, knocking it to the ground. It started shouting and the goblins who had been standing on the edge of the crowd looked over and spotted him. They grabbed their weapons and began to charge at him.

He ran away down the trail, circling around his binding circles and preparing his spear.

That worked a lot better than expected. An excellent opener as long I'm lucky enough that the enemy has a big ol firepit built up.

There were about ten goblins that had found their feet and were charging down the trail towards him. Three stopped up short and began shooting arrows his direction. He dodged from side to side shield raised, wanting to trap some goblins in his circles before getting to cover. It wouldn't do if they circled around wide and didn't enter the circles at all.

He was only partially successful at blocking, as several arrows hit his armor anyways. They all bounced off. One got caught in between two plates of his iron kilt but the layered metal prevented it from cutting into any of the wood bindings. It stiffened up that part of the kilt however and reduced his mobility a little.

The leading goblins entered the circle and were slowed, several of the goblins behind had to skid to a stop to avoid running into those in front. One dug into the earth enough to break the inscribed runic circle and the goblin trapped within was freed.

Shit, really should've expected that.

He stepped forward to press his advantage before they could figure out how to break the rest free. He was stabbing out wildly at the mass of goblins in front of him and they were responding in kind, swinging clubs and stone knives at him. He trusted in his newfound armor as he cut and stabbed into the goblins from behind his shield, taking each one down with only a few thrusts. He could already tell he was going to be heavily bruised from the encounter. Arrows continued to ping off of him and a small pile of goblins began to form in front of him. He felt a sharp pain in his ankle and looked down to see one of the goblins he had stabbed earlier survived, and was using a dagger to dig through his empowered pant leg where it was bunched up and tucked into his boot, past the protection of his leg guards.

He kicked out and winced as he felt the dagger pull out of his skin as the sharp kick ended the goblins efforts. Finally it was down to just the three archers. One had run out of arrows and had pulled a knife from it's belt. The other two were still firing, though they caused little more than bruises at this point.

He could see several goblins had managed to pull themselves up from around the exploded firepit and were limping either into the cave, or bravely in his direction. He stomped towards the archer goblins, ignoring the growing pain in his ankle and the arrows impacting his armor. He easily dispatched the knife wielder, before taking the other two out with a swift thrust of his spear.

The goblins from the fire pit had stopped advancing toward him. When he killed the last of the archers they turned and began quickly hobbling back towards the cave.

They're running?

His gut twisted as he felt a wave of self-hatred and revulsion come over him.

What the hell am I even doing out here? Sure these things attacked me first, but this is fucked up.

There was a literal pile of goblin corpses in front of him.

[Adaptive Weapon Mastery lvl 3-4]

[+1 Vitality for facing a crowd of more than ten enemies for the first time]

[Goblin level 15 defeated]

[Goblin Level 16 defeated]

[Goblin Level 14 defeated]

[Goblin Level 12 defeated]

[Goblin Level 17 defeated]

[Goblin Level 19 defeated]

[Goblin Level 14 defeated]

[Goblin Level 19 defeated]

[Goblin Level 20 defeated. For defeating an opponent above your level you gain additional experience]

[Goblin Level 15 defeated]

[Goblin Level 13 defeated]

[Goblin Level 18 defeated]

[Goblin Level 19 defeated]

……

[Scavenger leveled up]

[Scavenger leveled up]

[Scavenger leveled up]

I'm calling it here. Who cares if they attacked first. It'll be close to dark by the time I get back home. I got my levels, I tested my armor. I'm done out here. As soon as I can smith out the rest of that iron into something useful I'm hitting the road. Searching for people. Something better to do than crash goblin parties and stab boars.

He turned around and started to jog away. Putting distance between himself and the slaughter behind him.

It makes sense. Kill things to get levels. Get levels to become strong enough to travel without worrying about those giants or slavers or whatever. In practice though….

The difference that armor made in that fight was significant. I might be better off just improving my equipment and inscribing skills enough to build more power that way. Better than ambushing a bunch of goblins just feasting on boars.

He continued to jog, the adrenaline of the fight was starting to wear off and he could feel the cut in his ankle and the bruises across his body more and more as he continued down the trail.

The pain doesn't matter, healing in this world is insane. Ignore the pain it'll all be healed by morning anyways.

[Goblin Level 14 defeated]

[Goblin level 16 defeated]

He continued to run.

[Goblin Level 15 defeated]

[Goblin level 13 defeated]

His legs felt like lead by the time he returned to his crevice. His arms and chest were bruised.

Nothing compared to the explosion, and that was fine after a day. Ignore it.

It was dark out but he was familiar enough with the area by now to find it easily. He stumbled his way inside and pulled the wall shut. Blood had pooled at the bottom of his boot. He took each piece of his armor off and carefully set them on his stone table. They were all coated with goblin blood.

[Goblin Level 12 defeated]

He pulled the last oversized shirt from where it was laid out on his sleeping pallet, now little more than a collection of rough planks spread across the ground. He grabbed his armor from the table and piled it next to the riverbank. Took off his boots and stuck his feet in the river to wash them. It was freezing cold.

He washed each part of his armor in the river, scraping the dried blood off with his fingernails and drying it with the shirt. By the time he was finished it was pitch black in his camp. His hands and feet and arms were numb.

[Goblin Level 19 defeated]

Shit, natural healing really isn't working out for them huh.

He built a fire and laid his armor out around it to dry further, trying to warm his hands and feet. He had thrown his socks, his only socks, away when he took his boots off earlier. The bloodsoaked one had floated down the river, the other was laying in the mud on the river bank. He didn't really care.

It seemed colder out that night. He stayed up late trying and failing to get warm by the fire. He eventually leaned back against the stone table and found himself drifting off.