Peeking through the blinds, Jason saw nothing outside of the room. But the scent inside the pantry was agonizing. The smell of dead goblin children wasn’t the best type of fragrance for a small-size room like this.

“Ugh,” Dan winced in pain. Claw marks were evident on his legs. His energy guard was long gone over the assault of the many goblins.

“Don’t move,” Jason said. He reached out his hand and a green glow brightened the darkness.

Seconds later, Dan’s legs were healed.

“Thanks,” said Dan as he still couldn’t let it go of how Jason had a healing skill.

“Shit, they’ve got my night vision, I can’t see a thing in this darkness,” said Dan.

Their last bout with the goblins brought a monumental loss. Dan losing his night vision goggle was one of them.

“Here,” Jason reached out inside his bag and handed over something to Dan.

Dan who couldn’t see scrambled his sense of touch at the thing he was holding.

“Night vision goggle?” Dan asked.

“Use it, I have my eyes,” said Jason.

Dan didn’t stand on ceremony as he wore it on his head. He adjusted the goggle to snuggled it fitly on his big head. Then his vision returned back. He didn’t want to decline considering how important sight was in this operation. He couldn’t be a liability at this point onward.

But as soon as he got his vision back, he saw a person hugging her knees just across him. Her head was facing down as Dan couldn’t see Pixie’s face. Then he noticed something odd.

“Pixie why are you naked?” Dan asked as he was still ignorant about the situation.

Pixie’s body jerked a bit and Jason bumped his fist at Dan for his ignorance. A meaningful glance directed at Dan as Jason shook his head side to side.

Dan whispered besides Jason’s ears.

“What’s going on with Pixie? Why isn’t she wearing anything?” Dan asked.

“The goblins wanted to rape her and well, you get the gist of it,” Jason said as his eyes kept on peeking through the blind.

Dan was shaken as he looked at his comrade with shaking eyes. He wanted to comfort her but he didn’t know how. Dan turned back to Jason.

“Did they really rape her?” Dan asked one more time.

“No, I’ve saved her before that happen but I guess it’s still a traumatic experience,” said Jason as he saw first-hand of how a group of goblins readied to gave it a go at Pixie the helpless soldier.

He himself saw it as disturbing but seeing there were goblins, it wasn’t as surprising. He guessed that fictional stories about them were quite true considering how lust bound these creatures were.

Dan on the other hand, even after knowing Pixie hadn’t gone through such an explicit situation, he still didn’t know how to comfort this friend in arms of his. This delicate matter was out of his hands. Once more he turned to Jason.

“What are we going to do?” Dan asked.

“Save the girl of course. We’re on the tenth floor and there’s another eleven floor before we reach the panic room,” Jason paused for a while staring at the expression on Dan’s face.

“So what are you going to do? Follow me or what?” Jason asked once more.

Dan didn’t know what to answer. His mission was to retrieve the important personnel trapped in the panic room but now one of his comrades was out of commission and might possibly be a liability. He didn’t know what to choose.

Jason could saw the conflicted look on Dan’s face.

“Give me the key card,” said Jason.

“What?” Dan asked in confusion.

“I’m not going to wait around for your answer, so might as well get the job done,” said Jason striking a chord on Dan.

“I can do this alone, there’s no need for you to tag al…” but before he could finish his words, someone else cut his sentence.

“I’m going,” it was Pixie.

Both of them turned their attention to Pixie. They could visibly saw how she was trembling from top to bottom and although they couldn’t see it through their night vision, Pixie’s eyes were red after an awful lot of silent crying.

“You sure about this?” Dan asked as he saw the sight of his comrade who was naked. The only thing that covered her skin was her panties and her boots.

“Yes,” she said with a confident but trembling tone.

Jason couldn’t believe it. Usually, when a person underwent such a grueling and traumatizing experience they wouldn’t be able to pick themselves up and continue on. But for Pixie, rather than crying and wanting to run away, she opted for the other part, she wanted to fight on against her demons. Jason couldn’t help but be impressed by this woman.

I guess there’s a reason why she’s in the military.

A rather bias opinion on Jason’s part since no one in the military was the same as the others. But for Pixie, she knew she had no other options at the moment, and rather than wallowing it away, she chose the path of vengeance.

“But you’re naked, you can’t…” Dan wanted to say something but Jason cut him off.

“Here,” Jason unclothed his clothes and handed over to Pixie.

She grabbed in her hands as her eyes kept shifting between this man and the military uniform in her hand. She didn’t know what to say at this man other than.

“Thanks,” said Pixie.

Regret was a feeling most people felt in their life and Pixie was having it now. This man saved her from the brink of death and humiliation, and now he also lent an arm by giving the top of his uniform. She was in debt to him, no doubt.

Pixie wore the clothes and as the clothes were a bit bigger, she adjusted it a bit. Dan observed from afar as he was still thinking of how to handle the situation, he didn’t know whether this was a good thing or not to let Pixie into the battle.

But a hand rested on his shoulder. Dan turned and saw Jason.

“Relax, she can handle it,” said Jason. The man who could obliterate anything in his hand was naked with only his brief, boots, and backpack on his back.

A sight to behold and made Dan wondered how this man adapted so well in these circumstances. Jason didn’t even bother of how naked he was considering he was only wearing his brief and boots.

But then Dan flinched as he heard those words.

“Incoming,” said Jason as he saw something while peeking through the blinds.

Dan was becoming more nervous but not as nervous as Pixie. Although she said she wanted to push through, her body was shaking like mad. Both of them knew of how weak these goblins were but their numbers overwhelmed them. It was a quantity over quality type of situation.

Jason glanced over at these two and saw how nervous they were.

“Come on guys, you’re soldiers for crying out loud,” said Jason trying to rile them up.

They were soldiers but right out of the academy. Season veteran was definitely not them.

“Listen up, I’m going to go full assault mode and both of you are going to finish the leftovers. So, don’t worry about the numbers, I’ll handle it,” said Jason.

Both couldn’t believe their ears. The man who acted like a dick the whole time was becoming warm-hearted out the blues. Unknown to both of them, Jason had a slight flashback of the time when he was trapped in a hotel in New York City. The situation was oddly similar considering how he was in a building of all places. He remembered the lives that were lost back then and for once he couldn’t let the same thing happened to these two.

“Follow my lead,” said the half-naked man. He opened the door and rushed out with a shout.

“Oraaa!” Jason shouted. He always wanted to shout like that while charging towards the enemy. Seeing how their presence was known already he might as well make an entrance out of it.

The goblins who were wandering around the floor took action as they saw the incoming half-naked man. All of them went rowdy charging straight towards Jason while some leaping over the office cubicles, while some fallen tripping over the LAN wire cable on the floor.

Jason unleashed Blood Edge Strike killing a row of them in a single swipe bathing the office floor with fresh goblin’s blood. He was unfazed by the sheer number of these smelly greenish creatures. A few went passed him as he intentionally let them.

Three goblins ran towards the two who were at a distance away from Jason. Dan gritted his teeth and rushed.

“Fuck you goblin!” Dan shouted as he let out his vexation over these goblins.

His machete was swung and the goblin blocked with its arm. The machete stuck halfway over the goblin’s arm as it screamed in pain. Dan kicked it right at the belly button flopping it over the floor. Then he went for the kill, hacking the goblin right at the neck.

He finished his kill and turned over to Pixie. Two of them were running straight for her and he saw how visible her trembling was. From the way he looked at it, Pixie wasn’t going to step up to the plate.

“Pixie!” he shouted.

Pixie who was staring at the incoming two goblins felt the nightmare all over again. Her hands were shaking hard as her legs grew weak. But then, she heard Dan’s voice snapping her out. She bit her lips until fresh blood flowed. The pain jolted her out from that trembling trance.

She gripped on the combat knife in her hand and rushed straight forward to the two goblins.

“Dash!” she said as the glow on her feet accelerated her movement as she caught the two goblins off guard. She stabbed one right at the neck and the other was kicked right at the groin. It fell on the floor clutching its nether region and Pixie mounted on top of it as she kept on stabbing the goblin until blood spurted out from the goblin’s body like it was a damn fountain.

Fresh blood drenched all over Pixie as she stared the dead goblin. She felt empty for some reason.

“Pixie?” Dan looked worried seeing Pixie like this.

“Incoming!” but Jason’s words prompted Dan to looked to the front. More goblins were coming and worrying about Pixie should be put on hold for now. Pixie and Dan clashed against more goblins as they joined Jason’s bloodbath killing every goblin on sight.

Soon, the whole floor turned into a bloody battlefield even much more worse when compared to the SAW franchise. Dead goblins bodies littered across the floor as the stench was even more unbearable, but there stood three people huffing for their breaths as all of them were mostly covered in the reeking blood of the goblins.

The amount was over a hundred and if it wasn’t for the narrow path of the office, they wouldn’t have been able to handle them. But to be more exact, Jason took the brunt of the majority of them.

Nonetheless, Dan and Pixie did it. Both of them reached level six after a battle of a lifetime.

Jason on the other hand only smiled seeing the floating window.

Blood Edge Strike level up to level 9

Grinding like this never felt so rewarding for Jason, just one more level until his attacking skill went up another notch. He turned to the two who were resting on an office chair.

“Come on, there're eleven more floors to go,” said Jason.