After eating lunch with Gino, Fernando(doctor/Kaezar’s Father) and Kaezar, Gino and I decided to hunt together and we are on our way to the forest.

“Hey Gino, what is your current level?”

“Wait let me see… Level 8 you?”

I am surprised by how fast he manages to attain level 8 when we started at the same time. No, I work for the tavern for about a week so maybe he gained that level when I am gaining my daily expenses.

“For your information, I hunted after a week after we are transferred here you know. I dedicated my first week on gathering information and learning some [Crafting] skills.”

It’s no use on denying.. We started on the same day yet he has a higher level than mine. I hung my head down due to that fact. Before he would feel down every time I finished a game before him, even though he was the one who gave me a copy and now, I think I know how it feels.

Noticing that I am feeling down, Gino patted my back and said.

“I bet you are just hunting those critters right? Don’t worry, we will not hunt those thing today. We will hunt goblins. By the way, I killed a goblin for the first time when I am level 1. Aaahh… It’s quite hard you know? They are small and fast. I can’t land a hit if I don’t predict their movement. Hahahaha”

He boasted about killing a goblin on level 1 which seems to be strong but even I killed someone who was strong, it was a level 3 thief named Greg.

“Hey, can we really hunt goblins by our level?”

I ask since I am worrying about it. I mean, from the tavern they say that goblins are stronger than wolves.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry… This is just a dream. Even if we die here, it’s not that we will die for real right?”

This guy still thinks that this world is a dream huh.

“Although it’s quite weird since a whole month already past yet I didn’t wake up. Am I in a comatose state at real world?”

Gino was saying his thoughts aloud so I involuntary, take note okay? IN-VO-LUN-TA-RY, smack his head with all of my strength. Knowing this idiot meat shield(tank), his stats build will be like this 1 STR and 2 CONS stat build.

“WHAT WAS THAT FOR?”

He faces and shouts at me while patting the portion of his head that I hit.

“Are you now awake? Oh idiotic meat shield(tank) of mine?”

“I am awake! At least here in the dream.”

This idiot.

The reason why I hit him because I want him to realize that this isn’t a dream yet in the end he didn’t realize it.

Well, I know that it is hard to believe that this is our new reality..

Maybe time will make him realize that this is definitely his new reality.

We are almost at the forest and I see some rabbits hoping peacefully.

Some of them run away when they saw me. I wonder why.

“Look, you are hated by the rabbits because you hunted them before.

I really can’t believe that you killed critters for EXP.”

“You can’t blame me! I don’t know where a level 2 villager can raise its level!”

“Ohh.. I thought that you investigated a bit but you didn’t huh.. As I said before, there are goblins inside the forest. Not only goblins but there were also wolves there. Hunting them will yield more experience than these critters.”

I already know about them since I heard about it at tavern.

If this is a game then I probably.. No. I definitely hunted goblins rather than rabbits.

But I’ll just pretend that I didn’t know about those monsters since I will be getting some crispy trash talks if I tell him.

“Oh, is that so? Then are we going to hunt those monsters?”

“Yeah since it will give us more EXP. Don’t worry, I’ll tank agro them so you can comfortably shot them.”

Saying those words, Gino tap his round shield with a smile.

“Of course, that is the right thing to do since you are a meat shield.”

“Hey you know, can you please stop calling tank roles as meat shield. It’s rude!”

“Yes yes”

After walking while chatting for a while, we are now inside the forest.

The trees are thick and you can lose your way in here if you are not familiar with it or if you didn’t play enough games, surely you’ll be lost.

In our case, as long as we didn’t take some weird turn we won’t have a problem.

Familiarizing yourself with one look at the scenery is a must in an RPG games. Because of that, I develop a habit of remembering some land marks whenever I walk into unfamiliar places.

For example, there is a big rock on the feet of one of the trees inside the forest near the entrance, once I see that when I go back I will automatically know where the exit is.

Anyways, we enter deeper in the forest and we encounter a little green humanoid creature.

It is as small as an elementary student, it has a big nose and two fangs are peeking out of its mouth. Its ears are triangular with a color yellow eyes and it is carrying a tattered round shield and tattered spear on its hand. A piece of cloth is hanging on its waist.

Base on its appearance, it is a goblin.

In some MMO games, golins are considered as the weakest creature and it didn’t have any intelligence despite being a humanoid type monster. I hope that this is also the case in this world.

Gino suddenly rush at the goblin with his shield leaving a trace of yellow light as he run.

Maybe it is a skill since it has this showy effect.

The goblin got hit on its head and got push back a little but it didn’t move for a while.

Does that skill have a stun effect?

Anyway, this is a chance so I quickly draw an arrow from the quiver at my back and nocked it at my bow.

I aim between its eyes releases my grip at the string.

The arrow flies straight my mark hitting the place between the eyes of the goblin.

* * *

EXP acquired 150.

* * *

This is sweet, gaining 150 EXP just for one goblin!

Certainly, it has a higher level than mine but I didn’t expect it to give 150 EXP.

Because of that, a smile appears on my face which Gino didn’t fail to notice.

“It gives a better EXP than the rabbit right?”

“You’re right. With this, I can catch up with you if you slack off even the slightest.”

“Well, it can’t be help right? If I stop hunting for a day or two since I have production skills and I need to level them up.”

Gino said while picking up the tattered shield and tattered spear.

I thought that after picking up the shield and spear we would continue to hunt but he draws his sword and sliced the chest of the goblin.

I am dumbfounded by the next scene.

Gino puts his hand inside the opened chest and he seems to be finding something inside.

Blood spurts everywhere while he keeps on messing the inside of the goblin.

When he pulls out his hand, it was covered of blood and meat and he is holding a shiny thing on his hand.

“I like gore and violence but I hate this part of hunting.”

Gino said while wiping the blood and meat on his hand by the cloth of the goblin.

“What.. did you do?”

I ask him since I don’t understand what he did.

“Oh… I collected some money.”

He said while showing a crystal shaped like a human heart.

* * *

Goblin’s Heart

[Material]

It’s the heart of the monster called goblin it contains a small magic.

* * *

When he shows me the heart-shaped crystal, a window appeared describing the item.

My mouth hangs open when I read the description and some question floated in my head.

“How can it pump blood if it is crystalized? Why do you need to open up a corpse of a monster to gather loot?”

I ask Gino while he put the goblin’s heart inside his bag.

“I don’t know. And this is a dream. You’ll lose when you start using logic here.”

He got up and looks around the surroundings.

Maybe he is searching for another monster to hunt.

“But… This isn’t a dream you know?”

I said while I tried to pick out my arrow that I used.

It lodged itself too deep and I got trouble on pulling it out.

I pulled it with all of my strength and the arrow broke.

I sighed and throw away the broken arrow.

That’s one arrow gone.

“Hah?! What the hell are you saying? Of course this is a dream. There’s no way that this is reality! I mean, there are monsters and this world is like the light novel I read.”

Gino strongly denied that this is reality and gives some proofs that this is a dream.

I can’t blame him since I also thought that this is a dream before.

I hope that time can make him realize that this is our new reality now.

“Okay if you think that this is a dream then okay. I hope you don’t regret the things you did when you realize that this is our new reality.”

I scratch my head and we continue to hunt again.

I said hunt but we are just walking at random places.

If I were to compare our situation now to a game, I guess we are now walking at tall grasses to encounter wild monsters.

As we are walking in the tall grass, I mean in the forest, when I see three goblins surrounding a bonfire.

They seem to be grilling something.

“Hey, Gino, three goblins ahead! They seem to be cooking something.”

I whisper to Gino since it will be bad if the goblins hear it and started to attack us.

“Huh?”

“I said there are three goblins ahead.”

I repeat what I said since I think Gino didn’t hear me.

“No no.. I can hear you. But I can’t see any goblins ahead.. Are you sure there are goblins?”

I nod as a response to his question.

“What the… I thought your eyes were starting to become blurry? What happen?”

Gino asked me while pinching my cheeks saying ‘Are you really Jasper?’

“I don’t know, somehow when I got the [Archery] skill my eyesight become clearer. And now I can see farther than before.”

I said while brushing off his hand.

Actually, my eyes was in the bad state before I came here and back then, I am thinking of buying some glasses. My eyesight become bad because I played too many games since CRT monitor are commonly used at computer than today’s LED monitors.

And when I acquired the [Archery] skill, my sight became clearer. If I were to compare it to video resolutions, it is like I am watching a video with a resolution of 480p to suddenly become a 1080p(HD).

“I’ll lure them here so prepare for battle.”

I said as I draw the bowstring as far as I could. I also adjusted the angle so that it will hit the target. It is 20m away, even though they were hidden by the bushes and trees, I can see them clearly.

I released the bowstring and the arrow flew hitting the nape of one of the goblin, killing it on the spot.

The other goblins look at us and they hurriedly pick up their weapons.

The remaining goblins have a rusted spear on their right hand and a tattered round shield on the left.

“Oohh!”

Gino prepared his shield to receive the goblins which are running towards us.

I draw my bow again and released another arrow.

This time I aimed at the feet of one of the goblins.

As the arrow flew towards its feet, the goblin tried to block it with his shield but it was too late.

The moment he lowered his shield to block my attack, the arrow already pierced his left foot slowing him down.

The last goblin look at his comrade but didn’t stop running towards us.

Gino also charges in and used his skill [Shield Rush] skill, it is the skill he used before.

The skill hit the last goblin, stunning it.

Gino slashes the goblin from upper left to lower right of the goblin, leaving a deep wound on it and I can clearly see the crystal heart pumping blood.

I shot another arrow aiming at the head of the slowed goblin.

It hits and killed it.

You might think that we are overpowered right?

Since we hunts goblins even though we are still villagers.

Actually, if you aim at the vital spots of the enemies, you can kill them instantly.

Even if they survived, we can easily kill them since they would be weaken.

We keep on hunting goblins until dusk and I gained a decent amount of level.

* * *

Name: Jasper Perez

Race: Human

Profession: Villager

Title: None

Alignment: Neutral

Fame: 0

Health: 210

Mana: 108

Level: 9

Experience: 37/900

- - - Status points - - -

STR: 20

DEX: 20 (+9%)

INT: 14

CONS: 18

- - - Equipment - - -

Head: None

Torso: Leather Shirt

Leggings: Leather Shorts

Gloves: None

Feet: Leather shoes

Ring(Left): None

Ring(Right): None

Necklace: Rabbit’s Foot

Left Hand: Short Bow

Right Hand: Short Bow

- - - Status - - -

Damage: 21 (+3% when using bow)

Defense: 6(+3)

Magic damage: 0

Magic defense: 0

- - - Resistance - - -

Fire: 0

Ice: 0

Water: 0

Earth: 0

Lightning: 0

Holy: 0

Dark: 0

* * *

I got 4 levels and my [Archery] skill also leveled up. I don’t know why it didn’t level up when I was hunting rabbits but now it is level 3 which gives +9% DEX and 3% damage when using bows.

I also got 5 [Crystal Heart], 2 [Tattered Shield], and 1 [Tattered Spears].

The shield and spears must have the same number of the Crystal heart but some of them got broken when it receives an attack from Gino.

We are now walking back to the village when I heard some rustling at our back.

So I look back and found nothing there.

“Hey what is it now?”

“I don’t know. I heard some rustling of the leaves at our back, but when I turned around, there is nothing there.”

“It’s just a wind.”

Gino said while he shrugged his shoulders.

He may be right but…

I feel something is wrong…

I did feel some presence when I heard the rustling sound. It is, as if, observing us.

I grip the sheath of my sword just in case that “that” thing decided to suddenly attack us.

I look at Gino, he looks like he doesn’t care about it.

His hand is in the back of his head as if he’s just walking around his neighborhood but I see his left hand ready to use the shield, which is hanging on his back, in case of emergency.

We remained vigilant until we reached the village.

Somehow I feel disappointed.

It didn’t attack us or pursue us.

It just observes us once and vanishes into the shadows.

“What a letdown… I thought that we are going to fight it but it didn’t show itself.”

Gino voiced out his complains and I also feel the same.

If this is a game, I would chase it regardless if it’s a player or not.

Killing players are more enjoyable than killing mobs.

Even if I fight boss class mobs, I find it quite boring since once I found out its pattern, it will be too easy.

But in contrary of that, players don’t have a specific pattern, they fight based on the move of the other player so it’s quite fun.

Note:

Thank you for Ayskrimm (my friend) for editing this chapter :D

Also i will be quite busy at school works so new chapters will come slower than before.