Austin’s mind was racing. The new ability that he had just unlocked was a game changer.

“Giving people around me extra experience is a ridiculously overpowered ability. If other people found out about it, I’d probably have an army of Crawlers banging down my door to have me in their party. Maybe this is a good opportunity, I could form a guild, keep my training methods a secret, but build a group of strong Crawlers to help protect humanity.”

Austin hadn’t even considered guild life before this point, however it would be a waste to not use this ability.

“Actually isn’t that how I became Savior? I got an ability that I felt would be wasted if I did nothing with it? Well that, and the fact that I want to kill monsters so no more kids end up alone…”

He would think more on it later, starting a guild requires a lot of money and pull. Austin McKenna had neither.

“I wonder if I can get more famous as Savior, then endorse my own guild…”

Shelby was giving him a strange look. “Austin? Is there something wrong?”

He jumped, “Oh, um, no!” he sputtered out, “It’s nothing, let’s just get moving.”

She nodded, finished gathering the crystals dropped by the scouting party, and the two of them once again set out for the line of smoke in the sky signaling the goblin encampment.

When they got close to it, Austin began thinking about strategies, but then he realized that in his empowered form he could just steamroll the entire camp.

“Hey Shelby,” he began, a devious smile forming, “I want you to hide behind this rock outcropping here and don’t come out until I come get you.”

“Ah, um, alright.” She responded, obviously confused. It seemed she trusted him after the display with the group earlier though, so she did as he said.

The outcropping he had her hide behind was about 50 meters or so away from the camp, so she wouldn’t be able to see what was going on inside that well.

Austin walked towards the camp openly, not even bothering to try and hide in the grass.

“Avatar, activate!” He called out, drawing the attention of every single nearby goblin.

A golden light wrapped around Austin, and he was in his armor. An arrow came flying towards his head, but he nonchalantly slapped it out of the air.

He charged into the camp, bisecting goblins left and right until something caught his eye, a length of rope laying by one of the tents.

He dashed to the rope and began tying goblins up. He killed those that resisted too much, but he had caught 6 goblins so far. He saved the rest of his rope for the chief and any hobgoblins that may be accompanying him.

Killing the rest of the goblins around him proved no challenge whatsoever. Even if their daggers struck him he didn’t feel it, he was just too far beyond their level. The only downside to this was that Austin was receiving almost no experience for this whole thing, hence his plan of tying up the goblins to leave for Shelby to kill.

The ruckus he was causing had drawn the attention of the chief by this point, and Austin spied him approaching accompanied by a single hobgoblin.

Not wasting a second, Austin rushed forward and swept the legs from beneath the hobgoblin, and swiftly wrapped him in rope as well.

The chief was not so lucky however.

Seeing as Austin was now out of rope, he had to get a bit more “hands on.”

The chief charged at him, blade at the ready, however he seemed to be moving at a snail’s pace to Austin’s enhanced senses.

Austin reached out and easily caught the goblins arm, spinning him around and bending its arm unnaturally behind his back. This caused it to drop its blade, and it was already over for it. Austin placed the goblin in a chokehold with one arm and sheathed his claymore with the other.

“Avatar, release.” He muttered, before the chain broke and he was in his street clothes once more.

“Come on, let’s go.” He said to the goblin, leaving the hobgoblin and the rest of the fodder tied up in the center of the camp.

Dragging the chief along by its neck, Austin called to Shelby. It wasn’t long before he saw her head pop out from behind the boulder in the distance. He beckoned her over to him, and when she got close she jumped in surprise, seeing his new companion.

“Made new friends?” she asked skeptically.

“Um, something like that, haha.” Austin said, scratching the back of his head nervously.

He pushed the goblin forward, still keeping a firm grip on both of its arms and neck.

“Go ahead and finish him, this one’s the boss so you should get a fair bit of experience from him. I’ve got some more goblins tied up in the camp for afterwards.”

Shelby looked at him as if he’d grown a third head. “Perhaps you don’t realize how ridiculous what you just said is. Oh well, whatever…”

She raised the dagger but as he got close the chief tried to kick at her. Thankfully he missed, but Austin wasn’t happy with that. He kicked the goblin in the back of the knee, forcing it to the ground.

“Kill him now.” Austin commanded, and Shelby complied, though it took a few thrusts to get the job done as the chief outleveled her by a fair amount.

After the deed was done, Shelby’s eyes lit up.

“How many?” Austin asked.

“3 Times!” Shelby shouted excitedly.

Thankfully, because she was a novice, she didn’t realize that the amount of experience she was receiving was abnormal. This was good because Austin would have had a tough time explaining to veteran Crawlers what was going on.

They collected the dead chief’s crystal and moved on towards the camp. They found all six goblins and the hobgoblin tied up exactly where Austin had left them, and Shelby once again turned to him.

“You really are ridiculous, you know that?” She said, before sighing and moving from goblin to goblin. After killing each one of them, Austin used Warrior’s Sense on her to check her progress.

Shelby Williams: Level 14

Class: None

“It’s not nearly as fast as I was, but still, this is amazing.”

They collected the dozens of crystals from Austin’s slaughter of the camp and began to make their way back towards the Door.

They didn’t encounter any more patrols on their way, so it was pretty uneventful. On their march the two conversed about inconsequential things, such as the weather, who they thought was the strongest Crawler, et cetera.

Shelby, of course, carried most of the conversation with Austin stuttering his way behind her, but she didn’t seem to mind all that much.

After arriving at the door, they stepped through back onto their home turf. Austin drove Shelby back to the diner, and it was all quite uneventful. He told her that he would exchange the crystals and drop by with her cut the following day, to which she thanked him.

Matthew came out to greet them, hugged his daughter, and thanked Austin for bringing her back unscathed.

“Overall, I would call this endeavor a rousing success.”

Austin drove home with a smile on his face, already planning on their next training escapade, and how he would set up his guild.

Things were going quite well for Austin, he just hoped that he could keep it up. Last time things were going this well, his parents were killed in a dungeon break and he became an orphan.

Shuddering at the sudden flashback, he put it out of his mind.

Austin had tried his best to move on from that experience, to try and be a Crawler so he could help others.

He would not let it bring him down.