"Not a single spellbook or scroll. I guess I won't be using as much magic as I thought." I said as I looted the last body. Out of dozens of goblins and orcs, I only got one uncommon item. Mae had explained as I was looting that the item box's backgrounds were color-coded by rarity. I hadn't even noticed until now, but the uncommon item stood out from the grays and whites. The system was gray for junk items or materials, white for common items, green for uncommon, blue for rare, purple for ultra-rare, gold for legendary, and the best loot was a cosmic tier that she said I would know it when I see it.

"These are all low-tier enemies so they will all have mostly low-tier loot," Mae explained to calm my nerves. She could see how excited I was to use magic, "You'll start getting more magical items, spellbooks, and scrolls as you get stronger and face stronger enemies."

I had found the uncommon item on what I assumed was the leader of this camp who was much stronger looking than the rest. When I looted his body I found a small bottle filled with red liquid, a common sword that was nothing to write home about, and an uncommon ring. The ring gave +2 to the Brawn attribute when worn. I mentally equipped the ring and it appeared on my right pinkie finger almost instantly.

"I'm still amazed at this inventory system. It is so intuitive," I said as I looked at the ring on my finger. Looking at my attribute page confirmed the additional points were applied. The ring didn't look magic, but what would I expect my comatose mind to make something magic look like?

I had gotten a few shoddily-made pieces of armor, but they showed up as junk items and weren't about to be equipped. There were also more arrows, a small wooden buckler shield that was equipable, and a couple of uncooked meat chunks. The meat smelled fresh and didn't degrade when in inventory according to Mae. I stood there looking through what was mostly junk for a few more minutes.

Pain shot through my calf and up my leg. I doubled over in pain now staring at the arrow protruding from the edge of my right calf as a second arrow whizzed over my head from behind me. It was close enough for me to feel the air off of it. I was thankful to have invested the extra points into being lucky, but as I turned towards the direction of arrow fire I guessed that my luck had run out. Two goblin scouts had returned to camp and were firing at the idiot standing in the middle of the ruins of an enemy encampment.

I thought of my bow and an arrow in quick succession and aimed for the goblin that now had a second arrow knocked. I let my arrow fly, but in my panic, I missed by at least a foot. The only saving grace was that it made the goblin flinch and his arrow also missed. I had no cover to run to so I just kept firing arrows and sidestepping. After a few missed arrows from both parties, I decided to switch tactics which had nothing to do at all with the arrow that had grazed my left arm and sliced a gash as it flew by.

I thought of the common sword and buckler and they equipped as I ran toward the two monsters. The buckler deflected one arrow and the goblins both drew daggers as I ran towards them. The close-quarters combat was just barely an improvement over the ranged combat. I learned a lot from that first fight. First, I learned that running towards two goblins with daggers is a dumb undertaking for one person not overly skilled in combat. Second, I learned that I was not great with blades although I was becoming somewhat of an expert at being cut by them. I don't know what I was expecting, but it was not to get owned by two goblin scouts.

My saving grace was the reach of my arm and sword gave me the advantage over the shorter arms and daggers of the goblins. The whole fight only lasted a couple of minutes but it seemed like an eternity. I suffered a few scrapes and stabs, but nothing debilitating. The goblins lay before as I finally got their HP to zero. Health functioned more like a video game which was good since I would have not been able to continue fighting with my wounds if I wasn't whenever I am now.

"Took a stab at a new skill, did you?" said Mae as she flew up and sat on my shoulder laughing at her ill-timed pun.

"Did you just make a joke about my multiple stab wounds?" I said as I took inventory of my multiple stab wounds, "I feel like I should be more freaked out than I am. I think it is the lack of blood. Why am I not bleeding."

"There is no blood here, Teddy. When you take damage it goes directly against your HP. Which I'm guessing you haven't looked at or else you would be more freaked out." Mae said.

I hadn't been looking at my health bar because I was so focused on the fight and I haven't had a health bar for the last 25 years. "Holy Crap!" I said as I looked at my precariously low HP. "I almost died."

"Technically you are already dead, but I understand the confusion," Mae said nonchalantly. "You will regain HP when you sleep, when you eat food, or through the magic of magic."

I realized then that I needed to pay more attention to my health. I still don't really know what is happening, but this was confirmation that I suck at whatever this is right now. I need to get better and also stabbed less.