Chapter 10: The Beginning - Safety & Monsters (2)

Daichi noticed something move as a few pebbles tumbled down behind Ava. “Eh?” Daichi said the word out loud

“Goblins?”

The words had barely left his lips before he noticed that they were surrounded by a group of them. “How could this have happened? How could they have been so quiet?” Daichi whispered to no one in particular.

Kaden was the first to hear him “What are you talking abo-“ but before he finished his sentence his gaze must have noticed something behind one of them. He also yelled out “Goblins! Hannah! Ava! Get behind me!”

“Ah! What are we going to do??” Hannah voiced out while Ava stood up next to her and her hands started to glow.

Daichi told myself to calm down and started focusing on every detail around himself. He focused on all of the goblins in the area. Their skin was extremely dark green, their mouths had protruding canines and teeth jutting outwards in random directions. Their eyes were a discolored yellow with red veins running through to their black irises.

All of them had weapons. Some had blades that were hunting knives to humans but short swords to them. They were all fairly small. All of them about 3-4 feet tall. No hair on their heads no clothes on their bodies, not even wearing loin clothes to cover their privates.

These goblins must have spawned recently. Normally goblins while not being a higher race will still try to cover themselves with some clothing or something to increase their survivability. On top of which their skin is a dark green which is a clear indicator of their strength. The darker shade of green the lower the level.

“If we’re lucky they might just be at a low enough level we could fight our way out of this.” is what Daichi was thinking while staring at each of them individually. “There’s only about 11 of them. A small group. We can do this. Everyone… These goblins are low leveled, we can kill them if they att-“ Ugh! Daichi was mid sentence when a goblin from behind jumped on his back and lifted his arm over his head and tried to bring down a knife towards Daichi’s chest.

Luckily Daichi reacted in time and caught his wrist while flipping him forward. He placed his other hand on his wrist and twisted to the side forcing his palm to drop the knife and face outwards from his chest at past a 90 degree angle and tried to snap his wrist. It worked like a charm. Surprising Daichi as much as everyone else around him. As he immediately grabbed the knife and slit his throat and looked around himself.

Daichi had never formally fought before but he enjoyed reading up on martial arts. It had been part of the key to his survival against the first foe that had tried to take his life. The other part, was Daichi’s lack of hesitation to kill someone or something trying to do him harm!

Three of the goblins had gone after the girls and two were trying to cut Kaden with their knives making slashing motions. One in front of him and the one from behind.

Leaving Daichi to deal with five goblins coming after him. He ran towards the girls, thinking it best that they were together, but before even reaching them, two goblins had their heads melted through to the brain by Ava.

While in a state of amazement, in that second the third goblin sliced at her back making her double forward onto her her knees. Daichi ran straight at him and tackled the little bastard to the ground and stabbed the knife he was holding straight through his forehead.

In that instant Daichi felt a huge swell of energy as he felt his muscles contract in pain for a moment before the feeling faded. It didn’t take more than a few seconds for Daichi to recognize the feeling for what it was, a level up! His physical body had gotten stronger at that moment!

Grabbing the other knife that fell from the second goblins hand. Daichi looked back to see Hannah grappling with a goblin and Kaden struggling with a goblin on his back. One trying to bite him, one still slashing at him and one laying dead nearby with a knife sticking out of his head.

“Two more approaching us” he assessed as thinking it was lucky that only one of them seemed to have a knife.

“Ava take the one coming at you, no knife” Daichi rushed at the one with the knife and made a stabbing motion at the same time as him. Fortunately he took into consideration that his body is much smaller than himself, and he therefore had a much longer reach. Daichi’s knife stabbed into his shoulder while the goblin’s knife merely swung at air. Which gave Daichi enough time to grab his wrist with his left hand. Swinging his arm with the knife outwards he pulled the knife out of his shoulder and start repeatedly stabbing him as blood sprayed all over him.

Daichi continued to stab until he feel his whole body slackening.

“DAICHI!”

Hearing his name brought his attention back to the others as he saw Ava had melted her goblin’s neck clean off so that its head was lopped off looking even more gory than his own handiwork and that Hannah was fine somehow. Her goblin was just not moving any more laying dead next to her. Kaden on the other hand was struggling a lot. He picked up the dropped knife and rushed over to him.

He ran behind the one slashing at Kaden and stabbed it right in the back of the head making it drop like a sack of rice.

Then using the last knife in his possession he stabbed at the one that was latched on to Kaden’s leg and stabbed him a few times in the back while grabbing his neck and pulling him off. Then tripping backwards in the following second and pulling him down on top of himself while stabbing him in the chest for good measure.

That feeling of pain coursed through his muscles even stronger than before. A feeling of a lightness followed soon after but it still made Daichi exhale a few times. Every time his body ‘leveled up’ it would still bring some measure of pain. After all.. It was still a physical change!

After Daichi had handled those goblins it had left Kaiden only one to flip over to the side. Kaden picked up a rock barely big enough to fit in his palm and started bashing it against the goblin’s head until its head had caved in. Leaving him panting for air “huff… huff… Well that went… We’re alive, so well?”

“Eh..” Daichi couldn’t help but start laughing at that comment. “hahhahahha”

They’re all looking at him like he’d lost his marbles but this was the first time he’d killed something. This had actually been the first time he’d gotten into a fight. If it wasn’t for the fact that aside from reading, reading instructional manuals for different martial arts (since his dad refused to let him learn), and watching the martial arts club members practice after school on most days out of boredom. Daichi thought he might had died with just this much action. “This was the most exhilarating experience of my life!” was his only thought.

Looking at Daichi like he was crazy, Kaden looked at Hannah next to the corpse of a goblin and Ava looking shaken before finally settling down. “Hannah are you okay? I lost track of what was going on for a moment mid-way when I noticed that one goblin had gotten you. How’d you kill it?”

“I don’t know… It was trying to choke me and I couldn’t move it’s hands away *sniff* and I. I don’t know. I started channeling mana and *sniff* suddenly it felt like his grip was getting weaker and weaker and then he just kind of toppled over on top of me.”

“Are you serious? Is he dead then” Suddenly becoming alert again Kaden walked over to Hannah. Cautiously reaching down towards the goblin beside her with one of the goblins knives in his order hand just in case. He grabbed it’s shoulder and turned it on it’s side and took a step back ready to lash out at it all in one movement.

“He’s dead.” Hannah spoke, voice soft and unsure of herself but certain of her statement.

“Yeah he is… No wounds… How’d you do it?” Kaden looking back at her confused by the entire thing but glad his sister was okay. She was his family. His everything. They had gotten through worse and they were certainly going to get through whatever came next.

“Eh. Everyone…I think I have some answers.” Ava was staring into space ignoring her wounds and it took me a second to realize she must have been looking at her status screen!

“Answers?” Daichi heard himself say the word but didn't remember saying it. Answers seemed like a foreign concept to him at this point. "How great would those be?" he thought.