Christopher was standing over the body of the young man.

“Don’t we need to bury them?” he asked stupidly.

The young woman who was looting a body close to them answered with incredulity “Did you say bury them? Do you mean in the ground? What kind of madness is this guy on about, why would you put a body in the ground?” Even Tinos looked at him as if he had somehow misheard.

“Uh, never mind, let me put on these clothes and armor” He began using his right hand to fiddle with the clasps of the armor. He seemed to have said something stupid. It was so easy to forget that he was not on earth any longer. It seemed that burying the dead was an earth custom that this world did not share.

Something he had rather not learned was that it was very difficult to undress a dead body. To make matters even worse, he was not really able to use his left arm without any sharp pain.

Christopher sighed. Had he even been here for an hour? It was difficult to track time here. Things were not off to an easy start.

His efforts had not been fruitless though. It was likely that at least some of his new companions would have died without his intervention. And now that he thought about it, had he not received some soul points already?

He opened his interface while he worked.

[Soul points: 360]

Hmm, he wondered if that was enough to buy a skill or an item. He would love to have some kind of combat ability, maybe then those Goblins would not have been quite as big of a struggle. He would take a look as soon as they were moving. He wanted to be prepared for another potential attack.

He ultimately managed to change into the leather armor with a lot of strange-looking and painful movements.

He heard the young woman’s voice calling out behind him.

“Hey you, gramps told me to give you some weapons. You clearly do not know how to use a sword, is there anything you can use?”

He turned around and took a closer look at one of his apparently new companions. He guessed that the woman was a few years older than his 21-year-old self. She was scowling angrily at him for some reason. had he not kind of saved them just earlier? Although her clothing and face were covered with dirt and soot, she was clearly quite beautiful. She was slender and had raven black hair, brown eyes under thick eyebrows, and smooth tanned skin. Yep, clearly way out of his league. Around her neck, she was wearing a fancy looking medallion. depicting a man lifting a hand up to the sky. Maybe some kind of King or religious figure? Christopher thought.

“Hey, I admit to having no experience with weapons, but I took out those goblins did I not. Clearly, I must be brimming over with latent talent.” He said it with a clearly jokingly arrogant expression.

He spotted a twitch of a smile for a fraction of a second. “Hmph, with those wide swings it is a miracle that you did not simply get stabbed with a knife, luckily Goblin’s are not the smartest monsters of the Blight. So, what do you want? I have a few swords and knives. I have a single bow, but I don’t suppose that you are a prodigy with one of those.”

The only weapon he had ever held was that sword earlier, and a knife to cut vegetables, but that hardly counted towards mastery of a weapon.

“I’m afraid not, just give me a knife and a sword, and maybe I can get another lucky hit in”

She spread out her knapsack on the ground and let him have his pick. Many of the swords and knives were holstered. He did not have a good eye for choosing a weapon. He picked out a sturdy hunting belt, that had a simple knife sheathed into it. He put the belt around his waist. Not bad, this would allow him to quickly pull out his knife at a moment’s notice.

He then picked up all the different swords to get a feel for them. He ultimately chose one of the lighter ones and not one of the fancier ones. It might not look amazing, but he liked the swiftness of his swings. He looped it within his now new belt and took a few steps. He needed to adjust its position in the belt to make walking easier.

Now that he looked the part of a warrior, he was feeling quite satisfied with himself.

The woman laughed, “I am not an expert myself, but that does not seem quite right, but I suppose it will do.”

“By the way, I don’t think I managed to catch your name” Christopher replied. He clearly had not been told yet.

“My name is Tamas, and that runt over there is my younger brother Menos, your name is Christopher is it not.”

“Indeed, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintances, despite the horrid circumstances.”

“Although your fluency is perfect, you sometimes speak Velos in a somewhat peculiar way, could it be that you grew up in the Kingdom of Bentor?”

They were speaking so effortlessly, he had forgotten for a moment that they would not speak his language, yet he was hearing everything as if it were in English. That Linguist skill was really working wonders. He wondered how his words sounded to Tamas. Maybe he should tone down a bit on the expressions and figures of speech.

“I have to admit, I hardly remember anything, I think I must have been hit in the head some time ago.”

“That’s what gramps told me, how strange… hmm, I suppose I did hear of something similar happening to people before…”

Tinos yelled for them to gather around him. Christopher, Tamas, and Menos gathered around the old man.

As they gathered, Tinos was standing over the body of the now lifeless horse that used to pull the wagon. It seemed that the wrath of Goblins was not exclusively reserved for humans. Although now that he looked closer, it was not really a horse at all. It looked somewhat similar, but it had some kind of natural plating over different parts of its body. It was also stockier than a horse, with a snout that was much shorter. A blue tongue lay rolled out of its lifeless mouth. ‘How strange, are animals all different here?’ he wondered.

Tinos spoke to him “very good Christopher, it seems that you have a good eye for quality weapons.”

‘Huh, did I actually pick out good weapons’ He thought.

“As you can see, we are not going to be riding by wagon anymore. We need to evade the Blight at all costs. I suggest that we move deeper into the forest while we make our way for Lumen. Any disagreements?” All three stayed silent.

“Good, then let’s divide the load and get moving. We will take turns carrying the twins.”

So, they were twins. He had to admit they did look alike, despite their different genders

Excluding the twins, all four of them would carry a bundle of items. This included all the food and water from the cart. Christopher was handed a sack that contained a mixture of weapons and leather armor.

Tinos was probably thinking about how they were going to provide for themselves when they reached Lumen. Some of those swords looked quite expensive and should fetch a pretty penny. And Tamas and Menos had looted for coins and jewelry earlier. He wondered if he was included in any of their calculations. Well, that was a problem for another day.

Tinos spoke once again. “Please you guys move ahead, I will quickly finish things up here and join you all shortly.”

He saw no point in arguing and he followed Tamas and the others away from the path and deeper into the forest. They were joined by Tinos around five minutes later.

Together they left that dreadful place now full of death. The smell quickly receded and they returned to that scene of peace and serenity. The forest really was very beautiful. For a while Christopher tried to not let his thoughts stray from that beauty, it was difficult.