Chapter 2

* * *

I deliberately postponed checking my status. It's like birthday presents: waiting is sometimes much more pleasant than the gift itself. Instead of sorting out the gifts I received from the System, I began to skin. In the role of maniac and lover of guro - poor me, as a test subject of my butchery skills was already a dead bear without heels.

After an hour, I admitted that I am a terrible taxedermist. I must have ruined everything - the skin, the meat, my own clothes, which, though still stripped, were covered in blood. The sight of what must have been a bear loin brought tears to my eyes. And it wasn't because of the stench that rose from the gutted belly and the filth that crawled from it. If the skill of tannery existed in the System, it was not given to me, apparently because they considered my actions a mockery of the craft.

Deciding not to mess around I knocked out the bear's teeth with a pebble tore out (almost overstrain in the process) the claws, and thought about taking out the heart that was shining in alchemical perception, but after looking at myself and the goblin knife clutched in my hands, I gave up and went for a swim second time.

Surprisingly, no underwater creeper came at the smell of blood this time and I calmly washed the blood off, washed my clothes, which were dead to the ground, and walked forward. Not far, a hundred yards, just to get away from the dismembered carcass and the nasty smell. When the breeze stopped bringing the smelly ambiance of the slaughterhouse to me, I decided to unpack my present.

As I expected, my basic shadow control ability has really grown, becoming really useful. It was cool before - poor fish, goblins, and faggots would confirm my words from the other side - but now it's become really awesome.

Shadow Control: 3/5

Allows you to masterfully control shadows in your field of vision, giving them tangible physical embodiment; shadows can freely take solid form and are of limited suitability to create obstacles and barriers; range and speed of control are increased.

Now I have a full-fledged weapon to fight those opponents I can't stab up close. If it weren't for my energy reserve showing the bottom, I wouldn't have been able to resist trying to do something like that right now. Alas, my strength was only enough for physical actions. If I tried one more session of special street magic, I'd faint down right here.

I feel like I was grossly deceived about the purpose of my classes. So far I haven't seen any use for the Dreamwalker class. Unless you count the lack of nightmares and the ability to get two hours of sleep as superpowers, it's useless. On the other hand, my shadow class, so far, has been nothing but a pleasure to me and a pain to my enemies.

The shadows allow me to hide from the enemy, which has already saved my skin at least once, the shadows serve as a universal tool without which I would die of hunger, and the shadows help me kill and gain levels. Virtually all of my achievements were due to them. Now a question for the experts: What's the use of the dreamwalker class? It would be better to really give some healer or a normal combat mage. So, once again I ask, why the fuck do I need a sleepwalker?

Alchemy, of course, is very useful, because only with its support I did not die from the typical dangers of a novice survivalist: gnat, poisoning, and pneumonia. But even the basic one point in the basic ability is enough for my continued existence in the world of the living. More would be more useful, I suppose, but I'm fine as it is!

However, this is lyricism.

I still have a mythical class, even if it's useless. I'm not sure whether it's useful or not, depending on whether or not I can survive in the forest. I'm not talking about getting out of the forest, because I'm not sure if I should leave it at all. I know very little of this world, though-a book of accounts of fallen Heroes is not a detailed encyclopedia. But I do know that we, Heroes, are not very loved here. Or rather, they do, but not as much as I would like.

And if I have a chance of fighting off a tribe of goblins or, say, a pack of wolves right now, then fighting the state machine, being at, - look at the status, - the sixth level... Well, there are nicer ways to commit suicide.

So as not to fall into the abyss of self-pity, I always preferred to do something useful for me and unpleasant for others. Alas, the forums, with their delightful zoo of psychotypes, were nowhere to be found, and the goblins would not understand my trolling. So I had to get down to business.

“Status.”

Name: Konstantine

Race: Human

Level: 6

Titles: Hero; Silent Assassin

Feature Points: 25

Class Points: 3

Characteristics (standard):

Power: 15

Dexterity: 23

Endurance: 12

Perception: 21

Concentration: 11

Energy: 24

Characteristics (class):

Shadow: 6

Dreams: 1

Inspiration: 2

Class: Lord of Shadows

Rank: 1

Basic characteristics: shadows, dexterity, perception.

Abilities:

Shadow Control: 3/5

Allows you to masterfully control shadows in your field of vision, giving them tangible physical embodiment; shadows can freely take solid form and are of limited suitability to create obstacles and barriers; range and speed of control are increased.

Shadow Sense: 0/5

[undisclosed]

Bonuses:

Shadowborn: stealth skills grow five times faster; in case of danger, shadows will shelter you as their counterpart.

Dexterous: Dexterity grows faster.

[undisclosed]

Class: Master of Dreams and Reflections

Rank: 1

Basic characteristics: dreams, concentration, perception

Abilities:

Create a dream: 1/5

Allows you to control the dream you are in, with limited influence on the passage of time.

Sand a dream: 0/5

[undisclosed]

Bonuses:

Dreamer: The social and magical skills associated with the class grow five times faster; no one has power over your dreams but yourself.

Undeterred: the concentration grows faster.

[undisclosed]

Class: Mystic Alchemist

Rank: 1

Basic characteristics: inspiration, perception, energy

Abilities:

Creating a compound: 1/5

Allows you to create alchemical compositions from available reagents by instinctively understanding the creation process

Reagent breakdown: 0/5

[undisclosed]

Bonuses:

Understanding of the essence: the ability to see and, with reservations, understand magic in things and reagents; all craft skills related to alchemy grow five times faster.

Attentive: perception grows faster.

[undisclosed]

Special:

Limit of Excellence (from the title Hero): raises the maximum limit of characteristic development to 50 (Now: 60), accelerates trainability and increases the amount of experience gained.

Hero's Will: Thought-affecting skills ranked below your class have no effect.

Hero's gaze: allows you to see a certain amount of information about others; depends on your level.

Mythic: Limit of characteristic development raised by 10 (Now: 60), allows you to choose three classes at once.

Silence in the hall (rare; from the title Silent Assassin): active skill that completely silences sounds in a small area. Duration and area of effect depend on user level and energy value.

Skills:

Provocation: 4 (apprentice)

Running: 6 (apprentice)

Stealth: 27 (journeyman)

Swimming: 5 (apprentice)

Alchemy: 23 (journeyman)

Herbalism: 16 (journeyman)

Fishing: 13 (journeyman)

Spear Mastery: 3 (apprentice)

Infiltration: 13 (journeyman)

Danger sense: 4 (apprentice)

Deathstroke: 12 (journeyman)

Dagger Mastery: 17 (journeyman)

Not bad.

It's not bad at all.

Once again I am faced with the question of characteristic distribution. With basic stats I'm of the same opinion: wait until I reach my maximum of natural growth. Then it is possible to start more fruitful leveling, but not before. There is a simple pattern here, which is that the higher the stats, the harder it is to grind. It's much wiser to save points now, getting maximum return in the future, than to waste precious capital of free points at the very start.

And my encounter with the lolihunter only convinced me more. No matter what they might say, I took the bear down. And my strength was enough. Of course, I'd better have everything I needed in case I found myself in the middle of a giant asshole, so I could just fill up all my stats quickly and easily and start full Sue-mod. But I'll leave that option for last resort.

But it's not so easy with the class points. I'd even say it's a lot more complicated than with basic stats. The problem I have is that I'm pretty good at what I do, but my common sense tells me to use my points and increase my fighting ability. The task is also complicated by the limited number of class points - there are only three as, in fact, so are the classes. Either one for each, or, Uncle, pick whatever you want, but then don't cry.

Elections, elections, candidates fa... Nah, that's a different story.

Choice.

Yes, choice.

I have to choose very carefully so as not to screw up my character, or they won't let me make a new one, bitches. But I like my character - smart, handsome, charismatic, and fucking awesome! There's no way I'm giving up that devil, I swear on my Kinder toy collection!

The Dreamwalker (or is it the Reflector?) is fucked, at least for now. I don't give a fuck what modifications it abilities have, but for now it's useless. Starting point it’s enough to get me to sleep, so I'll leave one point there. I'll upgrade when I'm sure of tomorrow.

The Alchemist, unlike Mr. Useless, is quite helpful in life. This class is already useful, even with just one point. And I don't need more than that, just for diarrhea treatment. And in general, for alchemy you need at least some kind of resource base and a semblance of a laboratory. Without these two things I can only create the simplest compounds that are not sorry to lose. I had a buffing elixir, and what happened to it? It all poured out, just for lack of any suitable container!

And, of course, my favorite shadows. I can't tell you how much effort it took to keep from putting all three points into this class. I had to max out my shadow control and go slaughter goblins like blind kittens! The only things that kept me going were the legendary greed of the isekai and the classic thirst for amassment. And some common sense too.

I didn't want to throw away all my trump cards at once, but it would have been stupid not to use them either. In the end, I decided to put one point into the shadow class. You might be surprised, but it wasn't shadow management, it was the remaining shadow sense that wasn't unlocked. As I understand it, it is quite possible to grind already unlocked skills, even if it involves a lot of difficulty. But to unlock a skill that is at zero will be much more difficult, simply because I have no idea how to develop it.

I spent a class point with a firm (it’s a lie, I was sorry to tears) hand.

Sense of Shadows: 1/5

Allows a vague sense of all shadows within a small radius of oneself; gives a limited ability to sense the movement of shadows and, at the limit of concentration, their belonging.

A sensory skill that is far from perfect and has certain shortcomings. And this conclusion I drew even before I read the system reference. Yet the sudden realization that I have acquired additional sensory organs raises certain questions and leads to very obvious conclusions.

For example, about the fact that I have to learn to walk again. Seriously. My head felt so dizzy that I involuntarily fell to the ground, clutching onto it as hard as I could. It seemed to me that I was now not only a set of arms-feet-head, but something ephemeral, splayed out around me-most of it. It didn't take me long to realize that this was how I felt the shadows. And almost immediately it became easier, as if the knowledge of every shadow in my realm of perception had gone into the cords of my subconscious.

It took me another half hour to get used to moving around. It's hard to put into words, but I was, in a way, the center of a sphere created from the shadows I cast (a hemisphere, if you consider the lack of shadows underground). Every step I took moved the boundaries of that sphere, leaving me in the center. I wasn't moving, my sphere was moving, the shadows were moving, and I was only following them, giving them direction.

In short, it's a “bad trip”.

It wasn't until late afternoon that I was sufficiently familiar with the skill to be able to move and navigate no worse than I had before I received this peculiar enhancement. I was glad for the ability itself, even if not as much as I would have liked. The remaining two points were burning through my imaginary pocket, demanding that I spend them as well, but I stifled that urge. I had to get used to what I had before I could move forward.

All of a sudden I realized that walking through the woods became much easier and... clearer, I guess. I knew where and how to step in order to leave as few traces as possible, to make as little noise as possible, to remain as inconspicuous as possible. My stealth skill, which I had the highest (not surprisingly), worked continuously, even without my direct involvement. I only realized this when I decided to climb through the dense bushes (the other routes were even harder) and braced myself for the noisy crunching and twigs clinging to me.

And I heard almost nothing.

And the branches were much less of a problem.

I continued on my way, surprised to myself. Yes, I had become a badass stealth-GI (hussars! you know...), but compared to the miraculous things that had happened to me and were still happening to me, it was not so surprising. But at least it is useful.

I stopped for a rest, still near the river, and began to arrange my lodging and dinner. Moreover, my powers have already managed to recover, and now is the time to try new tricks. But first I will collect firewood for the fire and try to catch fish. Because I'm very hungry.

Leaving the fish to bake in the clay on the coals, I started testing different funny things with my power. The longer I practiced, the wider my smile grew, threatening to make a Cheshire Cat cosplay. The shadows responded like family, literally rushing to do my bidding. Even the energy expenditure was clearly less, and noticeably less. It was only at that moment that I realized that the word "Lord of Shadows" and the capitalization of the word "Lord" were not added for pathos and a cool name.

The shadows just obeyed me. Maybe I was progressing in some kind of mental disorder, but it even seemed to me that the shadows were looking at me. Not the ones that were flat and clear, but the ones that I was controlling. It was as if they, at that moment, were becoming not only three-dimensional and thicker but also deeper. And it was there, in that depth, that something was looking at me. It was quite a creepy feeling -I had a growing sense of danger- and I didn't want to look back there at all. Some part of me knew that it was too early for me to venture into something like that.

So far.

Creating shadowbags, bouncers, and nets became much easier, too. I could even get my shadow to shoot out a few sharp spikes, and at considerable speed. I was standing there, and then, boom, you had two stakes sticking out of your shadow! After that, though, I wasn't kidding, I felt exhaustion coming on.

I tried to create a barrier and throw pebbles and twigs at it with the rest of my energy. I created a barrier and even left it, but my head hurt too much on the fourth throw. I was sure that I would be able to circle the attack and the defense, but I wasn't going to exhaust myself. I didn't want to fall asleep so that I wouldn't be able to fend off a surprise attack if anything happened.

Well, to hell with it! This is not paranoia, just only common sense and caution.

I wasn't going to stay in one place for long, and in the morning I will hit the road. I really, really wanted to get to civilization. Or at least a cozy and warm cave, where I could set up a normal camp and not be afraid of waking up every night with my throat ripped open by someone's fangs.

Alas, I couldn't even find a suitable place to camp, let alone a path to civilization. There may have been comfortable campsites and caves somewhere in the woods, but I was afraid to leave the river, simply because I was afraid of getting completely lost. The river gives me food and water, and without it, I would be in dire straits. So it was better to stick to the route than to wander through the woods as an Internet ghost.

On the way I still collected weeds (no, not that one), but practically abandoned the long alchemical experiments. The only really valuable ingredients I had were bear fangs and claws, which I had nowhere to grind. And it was a pity to waste them, because there was a lot of magic in them. The rest was just useless stuff, half of which I threw away.

I paid much more attention to practicing my new class ability. I shouldn't have been so angry about it, because it's a very useful thing. Both for creating a perfect three-dimensional picture of the world around me, and for keeping track of that world. I could feel the movements of the shadows. Extremely vague, delayed, and only the most obvious ones, but it was enough. Anything that casts a shadow will move it along with its movements. I'm sure high stealth skills would allow the user to bypass such observation (at the very least, stop casting shadows), but at my level, it was enough.

Determining, as the reference said, the "belonging" of the shadows was a pain in the head. I'm not kidding, the longer one tried it, the more my head hurt. Conclusions were drawn more from the shape and size of the shadows than from an incomprehensible sense of "belonging. However, I managed to distinguish trees, bushes, birds, squirrels and one fat chipmunk. But I wouldn't do it again if I didn't have to.

As a reward for my efforts, I used the shadow, and raked out a supply of hazelnuts from the chipmunk's hole. I did not rob the beast of anything but took only the nuts. It wasn't that I was so kind, just that the other grains were unfamiliar to me, and I didn't know how to prepare them.

According to my calculations, I was already close to my first camp, and the terrain was recognizable. I wanted to go and spend the night at the old place, or at least look at it if there were still a pile of corpses lying there, but night was getting closer, and I didn't want to go through the darkness. The high perception and moonlight made me feel good at night, but not so good that I could run free through the woods. And the phase of both moons was such that light was in short supply, especially in the woods.

The day was quite warm, but I made a fire for the night more out of habit than necessity. In addition, lately, the coolness has been felt more and more tangibly from the river..

The warmth from the quietly crackling fire, the fish from yesterday, baked in the same clay I'd picked up for just such an occasion, and the general goodness of the surroundings put me to sleep much faster than I expected myself to do.

It wasn't the nighttime chill from the extinguished fire that woke me up, nor the mosquito bites (did I use bad repellent or something?), but the quiet tingling in my whole body, signaling a working sense of danger. Sleep was relieved, more effective than any alarm clock and even cooler than a bucket of ice water poured down my pants (my father had a peculiar idea of how to wake up).

I get to my feet gently and quietly, without making any noise, and then start listening to my surroundings. The answer comes almost instantly. First I sense, at the very edge of my shadow sphere, the organized movement of a group of humanoids, who could not be anything but goblins. It was only then that the sounds of their footsteps reached me, barely audible (if I hadn't listened, I would have missed it).

So much for "bang, good evening," Kostya.

Is it time to retreat?

Or not?

There are quite a few goblins, even in the shadowy perception. At the very least, there are more of them than there have been in the past. I've developed my skills quite tangibly lately, including stealth, so that I can hide freely from the Goblins and go my own way. Except there are a few little, like the corruption problem in my home country, but.

Most importantly, even if my stealth is enough to get away without leaving traces, the goblins aren't going anywhere. And I'd still have to build fires if I didn't want to eat raw fish (I hated it already, damn it), which would automatically allow the savages to find me. Time after time, and probably in much larger numbers, so that I'm sure I won't get away.

I thought about this as I moved between the tree trunks, stepping behind the back of the goblins. The darkness was undoubtedly disturbed, but I used the shadows to feel my way. Not so much probing as using them for spatial orientation. It helped, and it helped a lot. I think I would have been able to move with my eyes closed, especially since it was pitch [censored], but I decided not to show off and to use all my senses.

About three minutes of very careful sneaking on the part of the nocturnal visitors, and the goblins were in the clearing with the barely smoldering fire, and I went behind them, ready to stage a grim nightmare. Apparently, the goblins could see in the dark, even if it wasn't very clear. It's some sort of racial skill, I'm sure.

Well, that means I have to be much more careful about what I do next.

The action, by the way, was already quite obvious. I had already had time to get rid of my piety for the xenocide of the vile runts, but looking at the way the camp was organized and prepared for an assault, I no longer doubted my decision at all.

The cannibals, who were on the hunting trail, rushed forward toward the pile of driftwood on which I'd recently slept. And it was only the most highly ranked fighters who came forward, and the rest did not even move from their seats. After a few seconds, the attackers realized I wasn't there anymore. But the bedding itself was still warm and held my scent (if they were guided by the sense of smell). The leaders were still grumbling at each other, but I was already in action.

In one motion, I jam my trophy knife into the back of the bastard's head, sending him to his ancestors instantly. I held the body back from falling and stepped forward and slightly to the side. I grab the neck and plunge the blade into his temple, again trying to be as quiet as possible. The main thing is not to disturb them, the main thing is not to let them see me, otherwise, they will trample me. Or else I'll have to spend reserves, using up the characteristic points I'd saved.

I realized that if I continued to stay here, sooner or later someone would notice if not me, then the corpses of their fellows, so I stepped back, waving my blade across the throat of another freak. This time there was blood and gurgling, but by the time they noticed it, I'd already gone around the other side of the squad.

Some of them screamed, some started wailing at him, and then the whole bunch started barking together, making the already crooked speech completely unintelligible. I wasn't really listening to them, so it's okay.

While the highest-ranked green tried to organize a crowd of associates, I attacked again. The same dagger to the back of one's head and a broken neck to the other. No one heard the crunch of vertebrae in the noise. They didn't hear the crunch, but the general panic made them look around, and one of the runts saw me retreating back into the darkness.

A shadow that rose in a loop instantly wrapped itself around its owner's throat, tearing downward with all its might. Another proud owner of broken cervical vertebrae fell to the ground, and I walked away unnoticed.

One more lap, searching for the best possible angle of attack, and I had to admit that the goblins were not as degenerate as they seemed. When they realized that they were being killed one at a time and connected that fact to the still-warm bed of their failed prey, they began to gather near the fire, forming a circle.

If I'd chosen to sleep in the clearing, that would have been a problem. I couldn't have hit the natives in the circle from behind. But in the middle of the small clearing between the trees, there was simply not enough room for them to take up a defensive position.

And brains as well.

And most importantly, they began to be afraid.

When they came here in hordes, they expected easy prey, perhaps even a battle with the enemy. But not to be killed by something they couldn't see or understand. Not even a smile spread across my face, but an angry and anticipatory grin. Today I'm going to take revenge on those little creatures for all my misfortunes.

How does that old song go?

Ten little [censored] boys went out to dine

One choked his little self and then there were nine.

I accelerate sharply and hit the spearman who had strayed too far out of the crowd with my hilt in the solar plexus. My increased strength, multiplied by the inertia of the blow, causes the goblin to spurt a fountain of blood from his mouth, falling backward onto his companions. I accelerated even faster, giving up on my useless eyesight in the darkness, trusting instead in my sense of the shadows, guided solely by their position. I am the center of the sphere, everything outside it is unimportant. I walked around the panicked crowd in a long arc.

Nine [censored] sat down under the slope,

One of them fell asleep - and there were eight of them left.

The emptiness in my chest begins to eat away my insides, but the shadow of the goblin standing in the very center - armed not with his usual spear, but with some kind of club - strikes him sharply in the back of the head, fracturing his skull. He falls quite silently, which is why his loss was not immediately noticed. But when they noticed, they began to look at the branches of the forest giants overhanging them.

That's a good idea, by the way!

I accelerate again, switching to a half-run, without fear of making a fuss - all the terrain, along with the position of the shadows, have already been imprinted in my memory, allowing me to maneuver much more effectively in the area I've studied.

Eight little [censored] boys travelling in Devon.

One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.

I strained the muscles of my body and my magical abilities as hard as I could, literally throwing myself up with my own shadow and hooking my arm into a branch, and sitting down in the wide crone. It may not have been a completely silent act, but in the warlike clamor of the goblins demanding to prove themselves and put up a fair fight, you could miss a lot more than that. Another strenuous effort and the emptiness in my chest erupted with renewed vigor, but the most vocal goblin, the one no one was looking at that very moment, soared upward. The shadowy lash of a tree branch around his neck stifled a scream, and his own shadow prevented the twitching legs from catching the turned-away comrades-in-arms from attracting their attention.

I'm pulling the undersized guy up.

Crunch.

Seven silly [censored] decided to climb the oak tree,

One of them fell - and there were six of them left.

The shadow of the tree literally hits the dead goblin as a tennis racket on a ball. A drop of blood drips down his nose, but it's lost in the bloody splatter where the unwitting ball landed. The three bodies, besides the projectile, don't even move. The goblins are already one step away from running, but still reflexively raise their heads up. I'm no longer there, though, for I've jumped down in time. I tumbled down and gently got to my feet, punching the throat of the witness who'd noticed the shadow that had fallen next to him.

Sixlittle [censored] boys playing with a hive.

A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.

I broke off a twig from the nearest bush and rubbed the strongest poison I had on the sharp edge, sincerely hoping that I was lucky enough not to cut myself. The poison isn't very strong, but given that the twig had stuck a goblin retreating slowly toward the river in the neck, puncturing his jugular vein, it was not so important. And the [censored]-skinned man's frailty played a part, making him cramp and froth at the mouth instantly.

Five little [censored] boys going in for law.

One got in Chancery and then there were four.

The goblins are panicking for real, sticking together only because there is no one who dares to run first. Or maybe their instincts are different, requiring them to stay in a pack rather than scatter. More importantly, one of them, in his panic, saw a silhouette approaching him and, shouting something audible even in the general background, struck the human figure right in the belly. The weightless shadow returned to its place, and the comrade-in-arms stabbed in the back, standing right behind it, muttered something perplexingly, blowing bloody bubbles. The traitor was literally torn apart by his frenzied comrades.

Three little [censored] boys walking in the Zoo.

A big bear hugged one and then there were two.

The bear claws, especially if it's a harsh fantasy faggot, are quite long. If you stick a pair of them in your eye or neck, you can easily kill. Especially if you're talking about a creature less than a meter and a half tall (a teenager or something?) and with a very thin neck. I pulled the agonizing body up with a sharp jerk and gave it a savory kick, tossing it right into the spears of his comrades who'd noticed something.

Two little [censored] boys sitting in the sun,

One got frizzled up and then there was one.

I had to distract the goblins who spotted me by sacrificing some more of my insides to the void, shadowing the remains of the fire, and hurling still hot embers into the face of the tallest goblin, who had never once lost his guard or come out from behind his subordinates during the slaughter. The bastard squealed like a circular saw when it caught the charge of my warmth, and the surviving goblins scattered in every direction. Apparently, after the loss of their leader, they'd lost their sense of pack.

There weren't many goblins left, only five of them if you count the leader who was blindly wandering around.

I took a step toward the two of them, who had not yet had time to scatter in opposite directions, and I was forced to leave the knife in the skull of one of them. I'm too valuable a time to waste on digging out a stuck weapon. The second one gets a swell kick to the chest, feeling his ribs crunch. I pushed away from the crouched body, breaking his back as well, and landed on top of another fugitive. I had to help myself by shadow, but not much. I didn't even feel a little weakness.

I cut off the scream with the shadowy noose, and then, with an effort, turn the noose into the thinnest thread, slicing through goblins throat. I was almost off-balance from my weakness, and then I let go of the shadow, and the thread disappeared without a trace. It's not a bad way to get rid of the evidence! I'll have to keep that in mind if I decide to become an assassin.

The last running goblin has almost left my realm, so I'm going to extreme measures. It's good that at least I didn't get back to my feet, otherwise I would definitely have fallen. I was very exhausted. I can still demonstrate something, probably, but the line is already frankly close. However, the sharp shadow blade, which only manifested for a split second, performed an exemplary traumatic castration of the runner. The distance does not at all hide the dreary and gradually dying out howl.

What do you expect? In the groin are some of the most important arteries, so the wound is guaranteed to be fatal.

The only surviving goblin had stopped howling, though, looking around warily and rubbing his dirty paws over his eyes regularly. He could probably kill me, and I wasn't hiding right now, and the weakness that gripped me was very unpleasant. He might have killed me if he hadn't been blinded at that moment-the goblin's night and light-sensitive vision was unable to move away from the hot and, more importantly, bright embers.

I calmly get to my feet and go back into stealth mode.

I stepped behind the back of the leader, who had not blinked, and who had not even thought to lean against the trunk of a tree.

I put all my remaining heroic magical power into the shadow control, making the shadow from the branch snap a noose around the leader's neck and hang him up. So that his feet can't touch the ground. The strength goes and goes quickly, but I'm confident enough in my reserves now that I don't have to fear losing consciousness. And the goblin himself, even though he's a level seven, is no bear to tear my shadows like paper.

The twitchy movements of the hanged humanoid falter, and I find enough sarcasm in me to fatiguingly recite the ending of a classic poem:

"One little [censored] boy left all alone; He went and hanged himself and then there were none..."

I limped with difficulty to the nearest tree, which has no corpses nearby, and, curled up in a ball in its roots, I fell asleep as a baby. I will deal with loot and system messages tomorrow, and preferably not in the morning. And I won't use my sleepwalking skill to get a fast sleep, either. I think I deserve a good night's sleep.

I woke up this morning because of the damn flies.

And no, they weren't bothering me although I'd used two doses of repellent their buzzing was so annoying that it was nerve-racking! Add to that the stench of dead bodies, and you can see why I thought I could sleep elsewhere. However, I could have started to sleep after I had collected all the loot of last night's battle.

It didn't take me long to collect the loot, because the goblin stuff was still primitive and useless. I threw away all the meat, including a few goblin arms and legs. I threw away most of the weapons, too, for their quality was about the same as that of the previous batch. Some of the weapons even looked suspiciously like those I had left once before.

I took another dagger, also obsidian, but enchanted only for strength, without sharpness. I took another spear that belonged to the hanged chieftain, and it, too, had a tip made of a piece of ore.

I also found a normal bag (it didn't even smell!) I threw in some little things, like talismans made of stones and bones that had magic in them. Maybe I could decompose it for reagents, which would be useful.

That's all trophies.

Somehow it's not very profitable to hit goblins.

On the other hand, I’ve grown a lot, and the levels in this crazy world are still much more valuable than some goblins' trinkets. I would even say that there is nothing more valuable in this world than levels and skills that are always with you.

As I pondered, my gaze fell against my will on the tattered and spattered goblin - the one that had served as the tennis ball - and it suddenly dawned on me. The giblet's guts, like the bear's guts, were an alchemical reagent. For a moment I wondered if I should play pathologist.

The squeamishness took over, albeit by a small margin.

In the future, when I grow my skills as an alchemist to an acceptable level, and at the same time set up some kind of laboratory, I will have to work with such ingredients as well. But until then, I prefer to keep the rest of my squeamishness to myself.

At least I picked up the bear's claws and cleaned them from the blood. I was too sorry to throw them away, especially since I can make a necklace out of them and I can have fun telling a story in taverns about how I'd killed the beast.

Unless, of course, I get killed first.

Before I began to admire the status, I noticed one more funny thing. I almost didn't notice it, though I'd been using it for a long time. It was about my new ability from the shadowy branch. Obviously, fighting at the limit of what I could do, with my vision completely off and maximum emphasis on shadow sense, was enough to level up a skill.

It's not that surprising, really, because I really squeezed everything I could out of the first ability point. The system, I've noticed, only boosts class abilities after this kind of stress at the limit and beyond it. And trivial training doesn't help much, even the most exhausting ones.

Shadow Sense: 2/5

I didn't even notice that I killed the penultimate goblin without even looking in his direction! And even before that, I'd been able to tell with impossible accuracy which way the goblins were looking, and where to look for gaps in their lines. It was only now that I realized the radius of my shadow perception sphere had grown to a hundred yards, too. And this time there was no dizziness and no long adaptation to the changes in perception.

The night battle was not about trophies, but about development. Don't think I'm crazy, but I'm even a little glad that there are so many goblins here. Killing people for the sake of experience, albeit the same bandits, would probably be a bit hard for me. At the very least, because human warriors would be more serious than goblins.

That's good news, very good news.

I put my status checking on hold again until I was far away from the scene of the massacre. It wasn't that I stank, but my sense of danger told me that the smell of blood had caught someone's attention. And that someone is too dangerous for me to face.

I'd even say that someone will finish me off. My sense of danger screamed long before he appeared. So as soon as I felt cold needles all over my body, I immediately gathered up the rest of my belongings and headed in the opposite direction.

And then I went very quickly, thanks to my stealth skills, which jumped to the rank of master, allowed not much noise, even in a hurry, as if for the funeral of a beloved tax inspector.

After a few minutes, I stopped worrying about stamina depletion and ran as fast as I could to maintain my disguise, as if the taxman's funeral I was in a hurry for had been joined by the funeral of my superiors and my upstairs neighbors.

Gradually, the feeling of the [censored] bodybuilder's sweaty hands on my ass began to fade, and I, accordingly, began to relax slowly. My breathing was a little labored, my heart was beating too fast, my adrenaline was surging, and all that.

I may have imagined it, but in the distance - and I had run at least a couple of miles - there was an ominous chugging sound, along with the audible crunch of bones being chewed.

Whoever came to dine on the fruits of my night's battle found a different target than one skinny isekai.

For today.

Quietly swearing, I trotted towards the place of my first appearance in this world. I'd have to check my abandoned camp, too, and see if I could find anything interesting there.

I'd be much more comfortable among the good old goblins than in the company of that unknown fuckin' thing that's left eating corpses behind my back.

Already on the move, not risking to stop even for a few seconds, I whisper a keyword:

“Status.”

* * *