Tilting her head in confusion, she said “Huh? A small world? What are you talking about?”

“Oh, it’s nothing.” I said, quickly reading through the notifications I got while in combat, and the new Skill I got when I Leveled.

Ranger's Dash increased by 2 Levels. Turning Arrow increased by 1 Level. Archery proficiency increased by 1 Level. Perception increased by 1 Level. You have learned the Skill: [Ranger’s Stride]. Ranger’s Stride: Taking longer and longer strides, you naturally find yourself moving faster. Gain 1 Agility per Level.

“Ooh, a Skill that gives me free points into Agility.” I thought to myself, happy with the Skill.

“Hey, I’m sorry for endangering you, it’s my fault for letting those goblins get away from me, and because of that, that goblin rider almost killed you.” She apologized earnestly.

I chuckled, and said “It was a close one, but that goblin rider wasn’t gonna kill me. He only got that close so I could get a clean unblocked headshot on him.” Showing her my drawn bow and arrow. “But I should still thank you anyway, Lavie.”

When she heard me call her by her name, she got into a defensive and cautious stance, “I haven’t met anyone since appearing in the middle of the forest, how do you know my name?” Lavie asked, holding a half broken round shield in her right hand and a chipped short sword in her left hand.

“You spawned in the forest? No wonder you’re so high Level already, you must’ve been fighting almost nonstop since we got here or something, but couldn't you find the town? It's not that far away you know?”

“Really? Which way—wait, stop trying to distract me, and answer my question.” She said, pointing her sword towards me, but her suspicion of me just made me laugh, “I don’t know what’s so funny, but I’m not looking for a fight, we can just go our separate ways.”

“Oh yeah? And what if I’m looking for a fight?” I asked in a serious tone, quickly standing myself up tall and staring down at her.

“I’m sorry to say this, but if you struggled to kill those 2 goblins and that wolf, I don’t think it’s the best idea for you to take me on, you could really get yourself hurt.” She said, staring up at me and grinning as she tightened her grip on her sword and shield. Standing only a meter away from each other, I noticed that she was quite a tall woman—being at least 5’10” maybe taller—who seemed to have a slightly toned physique. Then deciding I shouldn’t mess with Lavie too much, I put both my hands up, and laughed again. “What are you laughing about now?” She asked, still being wary of me.

“Sorry, I’ve just been messing with you Lavie. You probably can’t recognize me without my Ranger armour and cause my face is covered up, so let me show you.” I then removed the cloak I still had wrapped around my face.

And as I did so, Lavie’s body relaxed, her grip loosened, and she said “I can’t believe you, I thought I was actually gonna have to fight you.” Putting away her sword and shield right beside the double-headed battle axe on her back.

“Yeah, I thought it was a good idea to stop early, I didn’t wanna turn out like that guy.” Pointing to the goblin rider with the javelin hole in its skull, “But anyway, let me introduce myself.” Putting my bow into Infinity, “Hi, my name is Eyes, and it’s nice to properly meet you Lavie.”

Smiling, Lavie said “Well Eyes, it’s nice to meet you properly too.” Taking off her helmet, “And I guess I go by Lavie now, but you already knew that. And by the way, are you just gonna keep those sticking out of you?” Pointing at the spear that was still in my chest cavity that Level Up looked to have healed around, and then flicking the 2 arrows stuck in my back.

“To be honest I didn’t even feel them after the Level Up, but I guess I gotta take them out at some point, so if you could.” Turning my back towards her first, knowing the arrows would hurt less than the spear getting pulled out.

“Sure thing, but just to warn you, I’m not gonna be gentle about it.”

“Yeah go for it, it’s sad to say this, but this is the second time this is happening, and worst of all it’s basically the same place.”

“Okay then, 1, 2, 3!”

Lavie then ripped both arrows out of my back, and shouted out “Mother F—” I stopped myself from swearing, grimacing at the pain, as I saw I lost 96 Health and I could feel the blood slowly dripping down my back.

“You alright?” Lavie asked, handing me the arrows.

“I think so, usually it would be dangerous to pull out arrows from someone’s body, but I think I’ll be fine with the regen from the System. Now go ahead with the spear.” Turning around to face her.

“Okay, but brace yourself, this looks like it’s gonna hurt.” As she counted to 3 again and pulled the spear out, I couldn’t help but look closely at her face as I screamed out in pain—losing 177 Health.

Without her helmet on, all of Lavie's long, beautiful, slightly wavy light red hair perfectly framed her surprisingly ordinary face; though being ordinary, there was something indistinguishable unique about the beauty of her simple looking face. I figured it must have something to do with her naturally thick slighly-auburn eyebrows, the many light freckles on her cheeks and nose, and her strangely alluring heterochromia eyes—with her right iris being a baby blue colour, and her left being a light green colour.

“Oww, that really hurt, but thanks for the help Lavie.” Soaking up the spilling blood with my cloak.

“Don’t mention it, but I’m keeping this spear if you dont mind.” As she placed it on her back with her other weapons.

“Keep it, and by the way, you have amazing eyes, were they like that before you picked your Race or after?” I asked, walking towards the wolf’s body and taking off the Guild Bracelet and then covering it with the blood soaked cloak.

“They were always like this before, and I don’t think anything changed about me after I picked to stay Human." Lavie replied, collecting the sword and shield from the goblin rider, and the javelin she threw.

"So only the Players who changed their Race look different." I thought to myself, crouching down by the wolf, and starting to collect its eyes.

“Woah!" Lavie exclaimed, "What are you doing?” Watching the ethereal tendrils pulsate around the wolf's eyes.

“Uhh...to put it simply, I'm adding to my collection.” After about 10 seconds, the ethereal tendrils retracted from the wolf’s eyes and came back to me, as a message appeared with it.

You have collected the [Eyes of a Wolf]. Eyes of a Wolf: Meant for hunting prey, your keen eyes are quick to detect the slightest of movements.

“Your collecting eyes?” Lavie asked, staring curiously at the eyeless dead wolf, “That’s one of your Seer Class Skills? Collecting eyeballs?”

“Yeah, I think it’s weird too.” Walking towards the goblin archer for its arrows and bow that Lavie didn’t pick up, “What about you, Lavie? Got any weird Valkyrie Skills you wanna show me?”

“Not really, the Valkyrie Skills are pretty straight forward, and they just make me stronger and better at fighting.” She said, sounding pretty honest to me, “Like how I was able to throw you so high in the Tutorial.”

Remembering, I pointed out “What about when you made that whip grab the man’s foot in the Tutorial? I didn't think that was something a Valkyrie could do.”

“Oh, that? That wasn’t a Valkyrie Skill.” She said, putting on her helmet again, as I then watched the dark brown horns of her helmet start to glow with a bright red colour, and the short sword on her back started to float around her. “See it’s just my Kinein, and I assume it’s like that quiver of yours that made that bow disappear earlier.”

“Wait, that’s so unfair!” I stated.

“What is?” She asked, returning the sword to her back, with the red glow dissipating from them.

“All my Infinity does is store inanimate objects inside of it, but your helmet gives you telekinesis? I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty unbalanced to me.”

“Well technically Kinein is just the horns, and it doesn’t say anything about it being telekinesis, plus I can also only move inanimate objects.” Lavie stated.

“Same thing, and it's way stronger than just storing stuff.” I pouted, collecting the eyes of just the goblin archer because the rider’s eyes were destroyed by the javelin throw.

You have collected a pair of eyes to add to your [Eye Collection(42)].

“Oh, and about the Tutorial, can I see your Earring of Salvation?” Lavie asked, taking off her helmet again. “I wanna see if it’s the same as mine.” Tucking the right side of her hair behind her ear, I was shown an identical hoop earring with a ball hanging by a chain; though unlike my all black earring, Lavie’s was an all white earring.

“Just to let you know, mine’s a bit different,” Showing her the earring on my left ear, “because I didn’t pick Salvation like you did.”

She sighed, “I thought so, I had the feeling you might've picked Annihilation.” Looking disappointed at my choice, she still grabbed it to see to the Stats, and I did the same to hers.

The Earring Of Salvation

Common

A seemingly ordinary earring, it symbolizes your decision of Salvation.

Requirement: Lavie En Rouge

Letting go, I chuckled a little and said “Oh, don’t look at me like that, the man was just part of the Tutorial Quest, he wasn’t actually real, and that was the only reason I thought it was okay annihilating him.”

“What? He was? How can you be so sure?”

“Come on, I’m the Seer, don’t you think I’m sure about what I see?”

“I guess so, but don’t you think picking Annihilation could lead to something bad in the future?” Lavie pointed out.

“Maybe, but maybe not, it’s all about how you wanna interpret Annihilation, and you never know, Salvation could also lead to something bad.” I replied, walking towards the mine entrance and putting the Guild Bracelet back on my wrist, with Lavie following close behind looking to be lost in her thoughts. Then standing by the entrance—not wanting to go inside the mine—I shouted “Hey Mr.Hensley, all the goblins are dead, you can come out now!”

A few seconds later, I saw Mr.Hensley smiling and guiding the horse behind him. “It’s good to see that you're okay Eyes, and who’s your friend?” Mr.Hensley asked, waving hello to Lavie and with her waving back.

“Oh, just someone who was lost in the forest.” I answered.

“I see, well before I start gathering the bodies, why don’t I help you with that.” Mr. Hensley said, pointing to the bloodied wound on my chest.

“You can help?” Kinda surpised he could.

“Of course I can, were you even listening to my stories?” He asked, sternly staring at me.

“Uhh…” Mr.Hensley then chuckled at me and placed his hands on the wound, and I noticed that he didn’t have any injury where he was shot by an arrow earlier, just a slightly bloodied hole in his shirt. “He must’ve already healed himself.” I thought.

“Healing Touch.” He uttered, as a magical warm green glow emitted from his hands, and I could see the wound slowly healing itself. I watched my Health slowly increasing back to full, but just before it did, Mr.Hensley’s healing magic stopped, and he said “Sorry Eyes, I couldn’t completely heal it, I’m already out of Mana.” Removing his hands from the now small wound on my chest.

“No, that was already more than I expected, thank you Mr.Hensley.” Feeling basically no pain from the wound anymore.

“Well you’re welcome, now let me get started gathering the bodies so we can head back to town right away.” Mr.Hensley said, tying the horse back to the cart, before heading down the mine.

“Who’s this person? He’s not a Player, right?” Lavie whispered to me.

Quickly explaining that Mr.Hensley was an Npc, and how I was doing a Guild Request for him, I then asked “So are you gonna head back to town with us, Lavie? I know you're looking for it, and it looks like you could use some new armour and weapons.”

Looking herself over, and seeing almost all of her armour and weapons wrecked from her previous battles, she said “Yeah, it's probably best I go with you.”

“Alright then, but I need you to do me a favour, and I’ll make sure to pay you back by showing you the best Blacksmith shop in town when we get there.”

“A favour? What sort of favour?”

“I just need you to help out Mr.Hensley collecting the bodies, I feel bad he’s gonna do it by himself, and I would help him but I’m still feeling a bit woozy from smelling my own blood, and the stench inside will only make it worse.” Seeing that I couldn’t use my cloak to cover my face anymore because there was a lot of blood on it now.

“Weird favour, but sure, I can do it.” Lavie said, smiling and making her way inside the mine.

Lavie and Mr.Hensley then spent the next few minutes bringing up all the miner’s bodies inside the mine, and piled them into the back of the cart. While they did so, I stayed away from the cart and just kept a look out for any more goblins or monsters in the area, and thought to myself “I know I would’ve survived even if Lavie didn't come along, but if there were more goblins, if they were stronger, or if the smell of my blood activated my trauma while I was fighting, things could’ve ended really badly for me. I gotta get stronger, not just physically, but also mentally.”

Seeing them finish, I let Lavie ride on the cart with Mr.Hensley—not wanting to be near the corpses on the back—and just walked ahead of the cart. Though already starting, Mr.Hensley began retelling the same stories he told me earlier, but unlike me, Lavie happily listened to all of them, as we made our way back to town.