Noah and Ayden stood next to each other. Noah held the makeshift shield, the head-plate taken from the giant boar, in front of his body. He was trying to protect himself and his friend from the Goblin standing just a few meters away from him.

“What the fuck...? The boar was weird enough, but now it’s a goddamn Goblin?” Noah exclaimed with a wry smile on his face, looking at the creature in front of him.

It had dried blood on its arms and thick mud on its legs. Its eyes were pitch black. At least it wore something like a loincloth so that Noah and Ayden didn’t have to see it naked. Beyond that, it was holding a cracked-up, rusty knife in its right hand. The Goblin bore its fangs at the two men standing in front of its home.

“Grragh! Ragha hagr! Graghaggr!” The Goblin growled at the two men as if trying to chase them away. Noah stared at the short green figure and watched as it started to run toward them. It was flailing its arms around as if this was its first time attacking someone. But clearly, that wasn’t the case, considering the cadaver inside the tent had been killed by this creature.

Noah held the shield between himself and the Goblin before the short green being’s rusty dagger hit against it with a sharp clang. The moment this happened, Noah pushed the shield forward, smashing it against the Goblin’s head. It stumbled backward and fell down, stunned through that sudden head-trauma.

“Ayden, what should we do? Should we just run away?” Noah asked, his mind completely blank. He had been in plenty of fights before, but they were with highschool bullies. Or every once in a while, a piece of racist scum trying to mess with Ayden. But in none of those situations, the one in front of him genuinely wanted to kill him.

They weren’t ruthless, mindless beasts like this Goblin, although those racists sometimes came close to it. Right now, it was the first time in quite a while that Noah was faced with someone, or something, that wanted to kill him. It made the rabbit tattoo on his wrist scratch to an uncomfortable degree.

“I think we need to... kill it...” Ayden muttered, “In this world, it’s normal to hunt these monsters. Even humanoid ones... At least that’s what the bestiary suggests. And the spirit won’t be able to move on until its killer is dead.”

“But-“ Noah replied immediately. It was a different thing to hunt animals. Killing something like this that might as well be a person just felt wrong to him. Before they could continue any more, the Goblin stood back up. This primal, raw fear rose within Noah’s center. Ayden was feeling the same thing, but he knew how to put this feeling into words.

“Uncanny valley. The discomfort that comes from seeing something close to human, which is not really human.” Ayden explained, and Noah laughed with a wry smile, “Y-Yeah, sounds about right...”

Noah could see the Goblin approach in slow-motion, adrenaline running through his body. His heart felt like it was about to explode at any moment. But then, as if out of his control, Noah’s left hand pushed forward. It was like the rabbit on his wrist pulled on him.

The spear-like tusk soon approached the Goblin’s chest. With ridiculous ease, the sharp tip penetrated its dirty green skin. Noah thought it would be harder. There was some resistance at some point, but it quickly disappeared with a loud crack.

The Goblin tried to scream out in pain, but the sound was suppressed by the thick brown, muddy blood that now filled its throat. The next moment, it fell down onto its knees with the tip of the tusk still stuck inside of its body.

Ayden was staring at it as well, seeing a silvery mist rise off its body.

---

[You have slain a foe]

[Your Class is now level 2]

---

Paralyzed, Noah stood there as he let go of the tusk, staring down at this Goblin’s dead body. Meanwhile, Ayden was more focused on what was happening with the spirit inside of the tent. It raised its head, staring at the creature’s corpse.

Slowly but surely, the spirit grinned, and a flood of flies rushed out of the tent. Once they settled down again, Ayden looked into the tent once more, realizing that the spirit was now gone. Its killer disappeared, so now it could move on.

---

[You have completed the Class Acquisition Quest!]

[Your 1. Class is now Medium!]

[You have gained the Medium Class Skill !]

---

Ayden turned around, away from these silver, floating windows, and proceeded to lock eyes with his friend.

“I got my class.”

“I just leveled up.”

They both said at the same time as the other. Ayden looked back at Noah, surprised, “You leveled up from killing that Goblin?”

“Apparently so...” Noah replied, his face pale as he turned away from the Goblin’s corpse.

“Did your attributes increase?” Ayden asked since that was what he expected to happen.

“I’ll take a look...”

---

[Noah Christoph Hastings][Human][19 Years]

[Health – 15/15][Mana – 15/15][Stamina – 15/15]

Attributes

[Vitality - 15][Strength - 13][Endurance - 15]

[Agility - 17]]Intelligence - 9][Wisdom - 10]

[Heart – 11]

Personal Skills

[Eye of the Heart – Lvl 2]

Classes(1/3)

[Heart Seer - Lvl 2]

-Class Skills

-[Heart Theft – Lvl 1]

---

“Eh... Yeah, some of them increased, I think. Wisdom for sure, my vitality and endurance as well, I think. Oh, and agility too. Even my heart attribute increased by one...” Noah explained, trying to distract himself.

“Could you write down what exactly your status is at right now? I think it would help to figure out what happens each time we level up.” Ayden said, flipping to one of the last pages of the book he was holding. There were many free spaces to take notes for oneself, so Ayden used it to take notes of these things for now. Until they had something else to use, at least.

And while Noah did that with shaking hands, Ayden looked at his own status window to see if anything changed. His Mana went up by half of what it was earlier, but besides that, nothing really changed. With one other exception. Ayden also had a new attribute. It was called ‘Spirit’, and currently sat at 10.

He was disappointed that he already ended up with a class despite not wanting to for now, but at least he got something out of it.

---

[Bonus Stat – Spirit]

[Description - The Spirit stat determines the strength of your ability to communicate with the dead. The higher this stat is, the more easily Spirits will be affected by your words, and the greater the extent to which you can call spirits to be perceived by others.]

---

“Wait... ‘the higher the extent to which you can call spirits to... be perceived by others’?” Ayden asked, looking at Noah, “Seems like our skills are similar... You can make abilities be seen by others, and I can make the dead be seen by others.”

“For real? I mean, I guess that’s what a medium is, right?” Noah pointed out as he handed the book back to Ayden. He quickly nodded his head, “You’re right. And if my guess is right, this skill that I got, ‘Spirit Conduit’, really is...”

---

[Spirit Conduit – 1/10]

[Description – Gives the user the ability to make a spirit perceptible to others by using their own body.]

---

Ayden conveyed the information to Noah and then crossed his arms, “But I’ll have to use my own body for it. I’m basically letting myself be possessed.”

“Urgh, sounds uncomfortable...” Noah pointed out. He glanced to the side and scratched the back of his head, “Should we continue? There’s nothing else to do here.”

“Sure. But you should clean up the tusk first. I doubt it's healthy to walk around with that blood on it.” Ayden said, pointing at the tusk that was still lying on the ground.

“We should find a river or something then, right?”

“Yes, I think there should be one around here. We should get to it if we just keep heading toward the mountain.” Ayden explained to his friend, trying to remember the rough map he had seen of this area in one of the books.

“Then I guess the only thing we can do is keep walking, right?”

“Right. Just another day or two.”

“Yeah... Just another day... or two...” Noah groaned loudly as he carefully picked up the tusk again. It was still partially stuck inside of the Goblin’s chest, so it felt a bit weird to pull it out.

The two friends started to walk through these plains again. Surprisingly, Ayden was the one that did the most talking this time around, while Noah stayed silent. Usually, it was the other way around. Noah was outgoing and vocal, while Ayden was held-back and silent. The two of them did have regular conversations, but Noah did often take the lead in them. He always knew something to talk about.

However, suddenly, Noah became silent. He did hunt animals quite often, but killing that Goblin probably made him think quite a bit.

Noah and Ayden finally reached the river in question around dusk, and Noah quickly cleaned the tusk up. At the same time, Ayden began to prepare their camp for the night. It would be too dangerous to keep walking here in the dark, as it was hard enough to see the ground through the tall grass even during the day.

“Ayden?” Noah asked. The young man slowly turned around and looked at his friend, “Yes? Is something wrong?”

“Do you think that was murder today?”

“...No, I don’t.” Ayden replied in a blunt voice, “The Goblin’s spirit instantly faded away. Like an animal’s. A person's spirit usually lingers around for a little while, even if just a few seconds, but the Goblin faded away instantly. As if it did not care for its death.”

“...So it was basically just an animal?” Noah nervously asked. Ayden thought about it for a moment, “Just think about it this way... If there was a feral ape that just killed a man in such a vicious way even his spirit was scared like that, would you have let it live although it was trying to attack you?”

Noah stopped for a moment and looked at Ayden, “I guess you’re right. Maybe it really was just like an animal.”

Trying to get rid of his nervosity and guilt, Noah took a deep breath as he looked at the horizon where the sun had barely just set, “It’s not like I would kill a person like that, anyway.”