Karolina had thought that finding which direction the monsters were in would be difficult. When she and Thomas left the center of camp directly after Buckley’s speech, she had suggested that they just head into the woods and wander around until they found some monsters. Thomas had then said that she was being an idiot, and suggested that they look around the periphery of the camp for some direction before “going out into the woods in some random direction and hoping that we will maybe be able to get back at some point.”

Which led to now, when they were both staring at a sign at one of the edges of camp which read “Forward barracks this way” and had an attached arrow. That arrow pointed to a poorly maintained trail which led deeper into Halsted Forest.

“I told you so,” Thomas said, smiling.

“Yeah, yeah, you were right,” Karolina smiled back as they started off into the woods. If she was being honest, she had known that just running off in a random direction in the woods was a bad idea. She just wanted to hit something as fast as possible to get some of her anger out. She still couldn’t believe that James Buckley had stolen her opportunity from her.

She knew that she didn’t really have a right to be angry. Buckley had no idea that she even existed, much less that she had just worked up the nerve to address the crowd. He had just seized the opportunity that he had seen, just as she had wanted to. And what he was advocating for, from what parts of the speech she had listened to anyway, wasn’t the worst option he could have picked.

Getting everyone to work together to try to get out of the tutorial was better than everyone fighting amongst themselves. She just knew that it wasn’t even close to the best route. They should all be trying to get the most out of this new world, not just trying to get back to their old one. Everyone’s old lives were gone forever, after all, and trying to get them back would just lead to disappointment.

Anyway, now was definitely not the best time to be thinking about this. If she had to list the worst times to be distracted, walking into a monster infested forest was at the top. She started looking around, trying to keep her eyes on everything around her at once.

The forest was beautiful, despite its dangers. The trees were close together, making it hard to see farther than a few feet into the woods. She could certainly make her way through the woods without the path, but she was glad that it was there. The afternoon sunlight shone through the leaves, creating the occasional patch of sunlight that briefly warmed them as they continued walking.

She kept looking through the numerous gaps in the trees, eyes peeled for anything besides the seemingly endless trees. She still didn’t see any movement however, no matter how much she strained her eyes. Finally, she decided that she needed to ease her tension somehow.

“I’ve never really liked the woods,” she commented. Thomas looked over at her, and then returned to examining the woods before he replied.

“Really? Me neither. It’s nice occasionally, but I’d much rather be inside than going on a trek into the wilderness,” Thomas replied. “There’s so much to do inside, and so little to do outside.”

“For me, it’s always been about the bugs. For some reason, I’m a magnet for mosquitos, and I can never enjoy myself when I’m being attacked by those imitation vampires,” she said.

“Well, who knows? We might find some real vampires out here somewhere. Would that bug you less?” He smiled.

She chuckled. “Seriously? A pun? I might need to reconsider being friends with you.”

He gave a short, almost imperceptible start, and then his smile came back bigger. She thought back on what she said. That was the first time that she had called him her friend out loud, wasn’t it? Maybe she wasn’t the only one without many close friends back in the old world.

They continued to walk forward in a comfortable silence for a few more minutes. Thomas tripped over a fallen branch and almost fell, and she did her best not to laugh at him, but besides that they faced no obstacles as they headed further into Halsted Woods.

They finally stopped moving when they saw the clearing. They had been traveling for maybe half an hour in total, and the trip had been fairly monotonous—walking on the same overgrown dirt path, seeing the same types of trees. The clearing was the first different sight that they had seen since they started walking.

Karolina pointed at herself, and then pointed at the clearing. She then pointed at Thomas and pointed at the ground where they were standing. Thomas nodded, serious. She didn’t know if there was anything in the clearing, but thought it would be better for him to wait until she had checked it out.

She edged closer to the clearing, nervous again. The long, peaceful walk through these beautiful woods had lulled her into a false sense of security. She and Thomas were here to fight, to kill, and that didn’t come without danger. She needed to be careful.

Finally, she got close enough to the clearing to see what was inside of it. There was a single green creature sitting in front of a burned-out campfire in the center of the clearing, poking it with a stick. The creature was one of the ugliest creatures she had ever seen. It was small, maybe three feet tall, with a flattened face that looked like it had smashed itself face-first into a wall a few dozen times. It was, thankfully, wearing a rough woven loincloth.

She froze for a few seconds, but luckily it didn’t look up from the dead campfire. Once she had regained her wits, she quickly inspected it, not sure what she was expecting.

[Goblin] - Level 3

While it was higher leveled than she or Thomas, there were two of them and only one goblin. They needed to do this, she needed to do this, to start taking advantage of the incredible opportunity that was this new world. She looked back at Thomas, held up one finger, and then nodded. He nodded back, and started moving towards the clearing. Once he reached her, she took a deep breath and then started running towards the goblin.

The clearing was very large, maybe sixty feet across, which meant that she was at least thirty feet from the goblin when she started running. As she got closer to the goblin, she started to hope that maybe it wouldn’t notice her at all, somehow—that it would be so fascinated with the campfire that she would be able to brain it before it had the chance to do anything.

Her foolish hopes were dashed when she got around ten feet from it and it suddenly looked up, sniffing its flat nostrils and locking its beady red eyes with hers. After that, everything happened very fast.

The goblin quickly reached beside it and grabbed a rusted dagger, and then leaped to its feet, bellowing a war cry.

She got closer to it, readying her gloved fists to punch the suddenly armed goblin.

A blue ball of mana slammed into the ground next to the goblin, startling it and causing it to look from her to Thomas, who had just entered the clearing.

She was finally close enough to the goblin to swing at it, her Unarmed Combat Mastery guiding her in the proper technique. It wasn’t enough, as the goblin ducked under her blow and swept its blade at her knees.

Time seemed to slow as the blade approached her, and she realized that she had instinctively activated Combat Perception. Some combination of Combat Perception and Unarmed Combat Mastery worked together to show her the path of the blade and how to jump over it.

Another blue ball of mana crashed next to the goblin, closer this time. It took its eyes off of her to look at Thomas, which was its last mistake.

She swung at its head again, this time imbuing her punch with Strong Blow. Her entire arm glowed with red energy and moved faster, fast enough that the goblin didn’t have time to duck under this blow like it had her last.

She felt a disgusting crunch under her fist as the goblin’s face caved in under her blow. It staggered back, and she leapt forward, punching it in the face with another Strong Blow. Then another. Finally, it seemed that that was enough, as the goblin collapsed to the ground, face a pulped mess. As she continued to stare at the broken body, she could see the exact moment that it died as its soul suddenly disappeared.

You have slain [Goblin] - Level 3. Experience has been awarded.

You have leveled up. You are now a level 2 [Human (F) / Monk].

She felt a familiar warm sensation come over her, but it wasn’t enough for her to get her breath back. She mentally cleared away the messages and then she bent over and put her bloodstained hands on her knees, breathing heavily. It had all happened so fast: The goblin noticing her, dodging her attack, swinging its weapon at her, her jumping over the blade, and then finally ending the goblin. It had all taken maybe ten seconds.

Thomas jogged over to her, going around her so that he was standing in front of her. “Sorry that I wasn’t able to hit it. You were so close to it, and I was worried about hitting you—”

“What are you talking about? You distracted it at the crucial moment! Without you, I’m not sure if I would have been able to kill it!” she exclaimed, standing up and wincing at the bloodstains on both her gloves and her white gi.

“You mean that?” Thomas asked, staring directly into her eyes.

She nodded, laughing. “You definitely helped, Thomas. We did it. We killed the goblin.”

Thomas stared at her for another second, and then he brightened. “We did, didn’t we? We did it. We did it!” He laughed. It seemed the post-combat exhilaration was finally hitting Thomas, too.

“I leveled up, in both my Monk class and my race. What about you?” she asked, still breathing heavily. She hadn’t even done that much, but she was breathing like she had just run a marathon.

“No, I didn’t level up. I got the message about slaying the goblin, but I guess I didn’t contribute enough to get the necessary experience,” Thomas replied, looking down.

“Well, that doesn’t matter. With how easy this was, we can just go and find another goblin. I can distract that one, and you can kill it,” she replied. Her breathing was finally starting to calm down.

Just as she finished talking, she saw something moving out of the corner of her eye. She turned and saw a group of four loincloth-wearing goblins carrying firewood entering the edge of the clearing from the woods. They saw her and Thomas standing in the center of the clearing over their fellow goblin’s body, and, as one, roared in anger and dropped their firewood.

“Shit,” she muttered.

She felt her breathing begin to pick up again. What could they do? She didn’t fancy their chances of outrunning the goblins on the rough, overgrown trail that they had used to get here. She didn’t like their chances in a direct fight, either, as they had just struggled to kill one goblin, and now there were four of them.

She stood stock still as Thomas began to gather another ball of mana and the goblins began to grab at the weapons that they had strapped to their backs. As one of them pulled out a bow, she sighed. Their chance at escaping without injury had just gone from low to zero. Looks like they had no other choice. She charged at the goblins, releasing a roar that rivaled any of theirs. Well, if she was going to die, at least she was going to die fighting.

The goblins had finished taking out their weapons before she traveled five feet. Turns out that standing still during combat was a bad idea. The goblin archer nocked an arrow and aimed at Thomas as the three other goblins headed directly at her, waving their rusty weapons at her menacingly.

She risked a quick glance back at Thomas: he had finished forming his ball of mana and released it at the goblins charging at her. While she could understand why he would want to protect her, that was definitely the wrong target for him to aim at.

The goblin archer released its arrow at Thomas. There was no way that he could dodge the arrow—people just couldn’t do that. Thomas was going to be hit, and maybe die, and there was nothing that she could do.

No.

She refused to accept that.

Time slowed around her as Combat Perception kicked in, and she saw the arrow moving rapidly towards her only friend. It was going to pass just to the side of her, or at least it was until she reached out and plucked it out of the air.

She shouted, “Target the archer!” as she threw the arrow at the approaching goblins. It didn’t manage to hit them, but that didn’t matter—it distracted them enough that she was able to get close enough to land a blow.

Just as before, the Strong Blow wasn’t enough to kill the goblin that she hit, but it was enough to stun it. She charged after its staggering form, ready to kill it as she had killed the other goblin, when she felt a burning pain in her left thigh and was abruptly reminded of the presence of the other goblins.

She jumped back, eyes watering. That hurt. As the pain increased, she kept retreating, hobbling backwards while wildly swinging at the air in front of her. That really hurt. That hurt more than anything she had ever experienced in her life.

She saw that the goblins were hanging back, staying well out of reach of her wild blows and waiting for the goblin that she had hit to recover. One of them smiled at her, revealing yellow pointed teeth, and waved a bloody rusted knife at her.

She looked down at the cut on her thigh. Blood was oozing from it onto the now smudged white gi. She wondered absently how she was going to repair or clean it. She couldn't go around wearing a dirty gi, after all. Also, when was her last tetanus shot?

She realized that she was going into shock. She had read about it once, wondering how accurately TV shows portrayed it, and she was certainly displaying the symptoms.

“Karolina! Snap out of it!” Thomas shouted at her. That’s right. Thomas. She needed to protect Thomas. She needed to protect herself. She didn't want to die.

She charged forward at the goblins once again, ignoring the pain in her leg for the moment.

While she had been gathering herself, they had been doing the same. The goblin that she had hit was back with the group, clearly a little injured but still ready and able to kill her. They spread out, moving to surround her.

She swung at the goblin closest to her, but it backed out of her range as the other two goblins moved to her sides.

The goblin to her right, with the bloody knife, got a little too eager and stepped forward to slash at her before the other goblins were properly in position. As it did so, she also stepped towards it, easily tracing the path that the blade would take as she focused her Combat Perception on it.

She dodged out of the way of the slash, aiming a stamina-infused punch at the goblin’s wrist, hoping to disarm it. She missed, however, grazing its forearm instead. It was only a glancing blow, but everything counted at this point.

She stepped to the side just as the goblin that was now behind her attempted to take advantage of her distraction to stab her. She had learned from her earlier mistake, and wouldn’t lose sight of the larger situation again.

She backed up again, staring down the three goblins as they finished surrounding her, ready for whatever move they would try to make next. What she hadn’t expected, and they apparently hadn’t either, was for a glowing blue ball of mana to slam into the head of the goblin that she had punched in the face earlier.

It collapsed, and from the way that its soul disappeared, she didn’t think that it was going to get back up. The other two goblins quickly backed away from her and looked at Thomas. Karolina did, too.

He had a red, oozing cut through the left sleeve of his robe and looked tired, but he still managed to look extraordinarily pleased with himself. It seems that he had won his battle with the goblin archer.

The two goblins seemed to realize that the tide had turned, as they both turned to run away. Karolina quickly tackled the goblin that she had hit earlier, skillfully avoiding the bloody knife that it was still holding in its hand.

She drew her fist back, and hit it in the face with a Strong Blow. And then another. Her hands were starting to hurt, so she got up and stomped on its chest, hearing a final crunch and then watching the soul vanish.

She looked up to see the last goblin still attempting to run away before being hit in the back with one of Thomas’s balls of mana. That staggered it enough that Thomas was able to hit it again, and with that it died. It was done. They had done it.

You have slain [Goblin] - Level 5, [Goblin] - Level 3, [Goblin] - Level 4, and [Goblin] - Level 4. Experience has been awarded.

You have leveled up. You are now a level 3 [Human (F) / Monk].

You have leveled up. You are now a level 4 [Human (F) / Monk].

Suddenly, all the pain that she had successfully been ignoring came rushing back all at once. She almost collapsed, but managed to sit down instead, holding her hands to her left thigh and trying not to cry—not only from the pain, but from relief. She couldn’t believe that they were still alive.

She examined her injury. It was a deep cut, but it wasn’t gushing blood and wasn’t preventing her from walking, so it probably wouldn’t kill her.

She slowly got back to her feet as she saw Thomas rapidly approaching her. He was holding onto his cut left arm with his right, and he was slightly limping for some reason as well.

“We survived,” she croaked. Apparently, yelling as loud as you could at goblins resulted in a sore throat. Who knew?

“So we did,” he replied.

“Nice job with your balls, by the way,” she croaked, trying to get across how helpful he had been.

“My what?” he asked.

“You know... your mana... ball... things?” she managed to get out, realizing what she had said.

“My mana bolts?” he asked.

“Yeah. Those.” She waved her hand weakly at him.

“Thanks, I guess,” he replied.

They both just stared at each other for a little bit, and then burst out laughing. It really wasn’t that funny, but for some reason she couldn’t stop laughing, and apparently neither could he. Eventually, when they were both fully laughed out, they looked at each other and started to walk towards the trail back to camp.

“I really hope that someone in camp is a healer, because otherwise I think we’re screwed,” she said, and with that hopeful thought they both began the long trek back to camp.