“” Grabbing the side of the goblin’s skull, I only slightly dodged some of the attacks. I was getting better at estimating damage, and took 12% more damage. A puncture and tear along my side, and future bruise on a leg, my sudden shout had disrupted them for a moment. Naturally, the goblin I was after didn’t escape with so little damage.

Its head suddenly dropping in temperature and slightly paling, in a moment I withdrew the old spearpoint from my Inventory and rammed it through the eye socket. With a spasm it stilled.

One down, but the rest weren’t about to let up. Keeping hold of the corpse, I shielded myself from a sword strike and thrust it forward, lodging it onto one of the spears. As for the incoming claws I did nothing to stop the goblin that leapt forward. Another 7 and 4%, I clasped the goblin to my chest, using it as another shield. It flailed about, causing slightly damage by tearing at my chest, but a few severe hits from its comrades had it escaping.

Without a weapon and with poor physical traits, I just had to suffer through several more attacks, only able to try and minimize the damage. Calling my robe tattered would be gracious, and it became more red than grey. Less than half health, and the club goblin came swinging.

“”

I whipped my arm out, getting blood in the eyes of the sword goblin with the aid of spellcraft. Hitting the blade with the back of my hand, a little more damage was dealt to me, but it was redirected towards the club user. Their claws already hindering their ability to grasp, and with the weapon being one based on momentum; my further intervention had the weapon change hands once again.

The banded metal branch was a large and unwieldy weapon for a goblin, but just a slightly heavy one for myself. Some constant Stamina expenditure would be needed to use it well, but I needed to finish things anyhow.

It might not match exactly up to a sledgehammer, but that weighty feel in my hands was enough.

A third of my health left, and bit less than half my stamina. I was a caster, but with the club I was unstoppable against vermin like goblins. Level 1 caster, or hundreds and hundreds of hours of practice with my weapon?

The wounded and unarmed goblin that charged forward with claws had its status as a solid revoked. Transforming it into a splatter of red and yellow fluid, my lengthy arms built up an incredible amount of force like a gigantic flail. Marginal damage to myself resulted, it seemed my new body couldn’t take as much strain as I was used to. The amount wasn’t much though, and the results were definitely worth it.

Having transformed one goblin into chunky salsa, the others were momentarily stunned by the display of brute force from my thin limbs. I did not let up, they were just goblins. Attacking us forfeited any chance I would reevaluate these as anything other than fodder.

The sword goblin tried making an attack as I approached, but the broad nature of the club made it easy to parry. Making use of the momentum, the club continued its arc far above my head and swung back down. A heavy pendulum with my arm as a rope swung from behind me, to my side, and from below. The sword goblin could move faster and tried dodging, but I leaned over. Like spinning with a dance partner, as I went one way, the club went the other and pulverized the arm and chest, sending the creature skidding a few feet.

Like an unstoppable force, the club continued a now upward arc. Only one spear user and two now unarmed goblins remained. Thinking they could move faster than I could recover, they charged in to attack. Against most that would probably be the best line of thinking, but this was the brother of my favorite weapon.

Bolas, yo-yos, ice skating; I can’t say that I’m particularly good at all these things, but the balance of momentum between two objects is so fascinating. Of all the weapon styles I’ve played over the years, while the sword may be graceful, and magic the most versatile, hammers have captivated me more than any other. There are the occasional discrepancies when actually playing, but the dance of unstoppable force is what I am most comfortable with.

Yanking the handle with one hand, I redistributed its momentum to help me dodge the incoming attacks, landing only a light attack. Relatively speaking at least, because a few dozen force still isn’t something for mortals with relatively normal bodies to take casually. An unarmed goblin howled as it stumbled to the side, but the arm still worked, so I don’t know what it was whining about.

Thrusting again with the spear, the club had already been set up. Being mostly wood with only a few bands of metal, with as much practice as I had I matched the spear up with my swing. Hammering down on the point of the spear, the rough haft was pushed through the goblin’s hands, tearing them and filling them with splinters. A slight adjustment on my part let me crush part of the skull.

The dance of unstoppable force was overkill for the two remaining unarmed goblins, but I dispersed the remaining momentum into one to not waste it. From there, I straightforwardly smashed them without any application of skill. After all, it was the numbers that really made them dangerous.

“*Ahahahaha! Be crushed! Crushed by my monumental strength! Numbers? A thousand of you could not stand before me! Should a mountain of you worms charge against me, all that will be left is a river of blood! The fragments of your bones fall like snow! Ahahahaha!*

“*I am smarter and wiser! Tougher and stronger! Who dares think they can stand before me?*”

Despite lacking any status conditions, I let out a large gust of air and then inhaled deeply. A profoundly euphoric sensation, releasing any inhibitions left me shouting some chuunibyou lines. Okay, so I think the bone fragments like snow one actually sounds pretty cool. After all that shouting, I got a hold of myself and returned to my fantastical reality.

I was just about to run over to the woodsmen, but other than the fact that Troy was supporting himself against a tree with Ross at his side, they looked fine.

“Aww, you guys had me worrying for nothing. How bad’s that gash?” I looked around the area they were fighting, but only spotted one goblin corpse. “Where’d the other one go, did it run away? Do you know if goblins live in tribes and are looking for backup or something?”

Seriously, if this provokes the wrath of the protagonist of one of those monster evolution stories, I won’t know what to do. This world already seems to dislike me quite a bit, I don’t think I’d be able to pull a fast one on the real MC of this place.

A silence was building up and I scratched my head. As my hand passed by, I noticed it was red and had a slight smell.

Right, covered head to toe in blood and guts, and the top of my robes have suffered a critical blow. I’ve gone from looking from a slightly shady wizard, to having just executed a Mortal Kombat fatality. Hehe, executed.

“Whoopsies. Give me a sec. , ,. *Man at least I looked epic before.*” After cleaning myself up I muttered a bit. I’d gone from sexy, shoe-d, god of war to mildly good looking, but a bit too thin, shirtless guy. I tried moving some of the tattered cloth back over my chest, but then I just looked like a beggar. “Are you guys going to say something?”

Ross stammered a bit before managing to speak, his brother just leaving his mouth open to catch flies.

“I thought you were a mage, not...whatever it is you did there!”

“I am a mage, it’s just over the years I picked up a lot about the warhammer. I guess I can mention that in my home country I taught Cacame how to use the hammer. Well, I gave him a few pointers.” Saying that wasn’t just a reference I knew he wouldn’t get, top player of Underworld of Armok, Cacame, leader of the Losers Guild is actually why I started playing Underworld. We met in another game where I was famous as a hammerlord—well the story isn’t that relevant. Just know that it’s true, technically. “Wait, not that you would know Cacame. He’s the most powerful warrior in the realm. In fact I went to *Underworld* just to teach him. Getting off track, Troy’s wound, let me see…” Mouth moving a thousand miles an hour, it seemed impossible to not talk. I just felt so pumped, punch a hoverboard, eat a swingset, adderall in a meth pipe, contents under pressure!

This did not adversely affect my treatment of Troy, which essentially amounted to grabbing the Callus ointment from Inventory after ing the wound clean. He didn’t do anything babyish like wincing or whatnot, and once I finished with that, the goblins and everything belonging to them vanished into my Inventory.

“*Clean up, clean up, everybody do your share~ Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere!*”

…

“Achem. Thank you for waiting. I seem to have returned to normal now.” The euphoria passed rather quickly, but unfortunately that just meant I’d made a fool of myself rapidly in a short period of time. Not that I regretted a single action, releasing restraint meant whatever I did I wanted to do, it just made me more...thematically fractured.

The more important question was what had made me act like that just then, and did I really want to do it again? I had a strong guess, and the answer to the second was yes, yes, a thousand times yes…

Merely recalling that state is enough to make me smile.

It didn’t last forever, and so I properly turned to Ross and Troy, having returned to a more zen demeanor. The tension from being covered in blood had been completely vaporized by the string of antics. Two faces were petrified in confusion, before the sniggering started. Then they burst out laughing.

“What in the world was that?”

“Were you dancing right now?”

“No wonder the kids weren’t afraid of him, he’s one of them!”

“Troy, if you don’t stop laughing you’re going to bust a gut!” Frowning mildly, I couldn’t help but feel enlivened myself. “You...you two…” I tried acting indignant, but ended up laughing myself as well. Truly ridiculous, facing death in the eye to return to normal life moments later. But since we lived, we lived, and there wasn’t much else to do other than keep on living.

As lightened as our spirits were from the none-too-light heckling, the sun was still setting. Setting off for the village, since we wouldn’t stop on the way back the trek went by much faster. Troy’s injury didn’t amount to much, and would heal soon. The few hour walk back still provided them plenty of time to cool off and think. Which resulted in asking questions. The questions weren’t bad though.

“Twig, are you really alright? You were pouring out blood by the end of that, and were cut up more than any goblin.”

“That cut’s because you paid too much attention to me. Didn’t I say beforehand that as long as I didn’t die, I’d be fine? With a couple hours of not too much activity, I can pull myself together. Look, all the smaller claw marks have faded.” With the top half of the robe in tatters, it fell below the waist, revealing my torso. As we walked it was actually kind of fun being able to watch some of the smaller wounds visibly shrink.

“That’s good, but can you keep doing that? Travelling preachers always seem to talk about how we should balance our exchanges with the Flow of Life.”

“Not everything is the flow of life! Isn’t that why the church doesn’t like mages?”

“Er, I don’t really know.” Ross ended up backing down quickly, his theological education was sorely lacking. I didn’t really want to debate him in the matter so all was well.

Without further incident, we returned to the village. Unloading the logs, Ross and Troy wanted a few days before heading out again. They did need a bit of time to recuperate, and there was no rush. Besides, I had my own materials to work with.

A sizable pile of alchemical roots, leaves, stems, and petals…

And more than a few corpses.

A/N: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

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