Author’s corner: HELLO HELLO! Rewards for a difficult battle! Now with 300% more grumpy old men!

ANYWAY… Somehow, for the last chapters, I had managed to make one per day. I have no idea how I did it! I can’t guarantee keeping that pace constantly, but I’ll try to make it as fast as I can, because classes and everything else.

ALSO, I plan to make a small extra chapter after this one telling something from another person’s view point, only for the fun of it. May release it today with some luck. ALSO (2), i decided to underline all the changes on the status table to make more obvious what changed from the last time it showed.

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I didn’t know since when, but after raising myself from the ground, I had a wide smile splattered on my face. For some strange reason I felt so… Refreshed… I probably looked like an idiot… Not that it mattered to me. I patted my chain-mail to clear away the dust that had gathered on it from kneeling and let out a happy sigh.

Finally taking note of my surrounding, I saw that the dog’s body lying lifelessly on the ground. Just when I wondered what I would need to do get my sweet and so deserved loot, a window appeared in front of me.

Congratulations! You just defeated your first enemy. Let the goddess reclaim its body as a sign of your feat and you shall be rewarded.Lay your hand upon the body and say “Reclaim” to receive your reward.

Oh! So that how it works! And it’s actually a pretty convincing reason for receiving loot lore-wise! Widening my smile, I did just like the window said, and sure enough the dog’s body disappeared in a flash of light, leaving behind a small pouch and a chipped fang. I picked the fang and quickly read its description, but to put it plainly, it’s a trash item that can’t even be used for crafting. When I picked the pouch, the number ten appeared in light brown letters, after putting it in my inventory, I saw the number besides the copper coin raise by ten.

Satisfied with myself, I noticed a small icon flashing slightly beneath the map, when I focused my mind on it two new windows appeared.

Due to your repeated action and previous avaiable skills, you have learned the swordsmanship sub-skill: StabSub-skill: Stab [lvl1]

(levels increase with one handed sword mastery)Pierces your enemy with your sword, the concentrated impact ignores some armor.

DMG: 150%, Armor piercing: 10%Cost: 20 energy

Cool down: 10 sec.

Due to taking hits with your armor, you have learnt the skill: Chain-mail MasterySkill: Chain-mail Mastery [lvl 1]

[5%]Your continuous use of chain-mail has increased your effectivity when using such armors:

Extra armor: 1% Extra M.res: 1%Passive

I raised both of my hands in the air in commemoration. One fight and I already have two new skills! Am I awesome, or am I awesome?

For now, Chain-mail mastery was a bit on the low side, but since it is a passive, it should increase on its own, and if I take it to level 10, it will be a whopping 10% increase in both armor and magic resistance that I earn from chain-mail armors! And stab! Look at that beauty! 150% damage and armor piercing on level one! And it’s cheaper than slash! Sadly the cool down is a bit too big, but I think that it serves to counter the high energy regeneration.

Well, at least I think these are good skills… Well, they are skills that I will very likely use for a good time, so I’m not complaining.

Now, for me to be happy, I only needed to have leveled up, but sadly it didn’t happen… It seems that killing one level five mob doesn’t give as much experience as I…

87%? WHAT THE HELL??

If I kill two or three more of these buggers I may even get to level three! Heck! Even if I complete a simple quest, it should be enough for me to level!

Wait… quest?

Oh my god! The old man’s quest! I had completely forgotten about it! I quickly ran back to the old man, who was still leaning against the wall looking at me, but much to my dismay, the smoking pipe on his hand was extinguished... I sighed loudly.

“Looks like I lost… Huh?” As I said that, all my previous energy left my body like it never happened at all. Suddenly my armor felt so heavy… “Do I get another chance, old man?”

The old man stared at me for a long time, making me feel uncomfortable. Finally he let out a loud grunt.

“Second chance? For what?” He asked me, some annoyance in his voice.

I felt extremely depressed.

“Well… You know… take the test… and… skinning…” my voice slowly died down and was barely audible near the end.

“What test?” He complained in a loud voice… So he doesn’t even remember me? Did my evaluation really fall that much from failing the quest that he didn’t even remember me? “There never was any test!” Huh? “Listen here, boy, do you understand why Ah sent you there? To hunt these dogs?”

“Err… To… test my… skills?” best guess ever!

“Nope. Ah sent you there, to teach you a lesson! Ah wanted to show you were being too brash and impatient!” He sighed loudly, then looked at me with a strange look in his eyes. “Ah literally sent you to your death, boy. Ah was expecting you to fall to these pesky mutts so you could understand that there is an order to things around here… But then you come and actually beat the bastard! And with that trashy gear nonetheless!”

I felt confused for a moment… Did he lie to me then?

“Then… What about the pipe…?” I asked confused. He simply laughed.

“Ah stopped smoking a long time ago. Just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t try to train before taking the dammed mutt on. Couldn’t teach you a lesson with you cheating your way around.” He sighed and lifted from the wall before walking away from me, leaving me at loss. But as soon as he arrived at the door he turned back and shouted at me. “What are you waiting for? Come here you brat!”

I nodded, surprised and followed him inside his house.

When we arrived at what seemed to be some kind of dinning room, he motioned to one of the chairs with his hands, and I gladly sat there while he disappeared into an inner room. For some time I heard the sound of some rummaging.

When he appeared again, he was carrying something long enveloped in a cloth. He sat at the other side of the small table, put the object on it, before leaning back on his chair, and look at me with curiosity.

“Okay, boy, now tell me. Why would you want to learn skinning when you hadn’t even killed your first animal?”

I blinked surprised, I wasn’t expecting this situation at all. Looking at him, I could see that he was patiently waiting my answer, and I thought whether this was another test of the kind. But it’s not like I had another kind of answer to give.

“I just want to make my own armors, and I thought that learning skinning early on would help me get better material for when I start training.”

The old man looked at me for a long time before shaking his head.

“That may be true, but it’s not all… Right?”

I couldn’t help but form a grin at his words. True, that wasn’t all.

“Well… To tell the truth…” I stopped and thought in a good way to put it in words. “I kind of have this ridiculous dream… You see? My dream is to hunt strong monsters…”

“Isn’t that what all adventurers do?”

“No… By strong monster, I mean monster stronger than me… Far stronger than me… But, instead of simply killing it and going away, I want to somehow take a proof that I beat them… And heck, if I want a proof, might as well make it something useful! And the best way to do that would be making armor and weapons out of them, so I could go after even stronger monsters!”

I might have gotten over-excited near the end, since before I noticed, I was leaning forward in excitement, almost climbing on the table. Noticing this, I calmed myself down, and sat back a bit embarrassed.

The old man snorted, and seemed to think for some time, before sighing.

“Boy… Ah don’t think it would be worth for you to learn what you want…”

“Huh? What do you mean?” His words had confused me. “You can’t teach me skinning?”

“Well… It’s not like Ah can’t… But what you want isn’t skinning, boy… Not the normal kind anyway.” He looked at me and probably saw my confused face because he smiled mischievously. “Any way… Even if it wasn’t a true test, you did beat it, and you deserve a reward.” He pushed the cloth bundle towards me.

I hesitated for a moment, but I’m not one to complain about receiving free items! And if what I was guessing was right… The thing inside that cloth is…

A SWORD! A DECENT SWORD!

I think… It’s actually inside the scabbard so I can’t analyze it yet. It still should be better than my actual sword, so I’m not complaining.

“Thanks, old man!” I said honestly, but for some reason he grimaced at my words.

“Mah name isn’t old man, boy. It’s Wallace, say it right next time or Ah'm going to hit you, you hear me?” He complained loudly before leaning forward. “Now Ah’m going to teach you your skinning, so come closer.”

I wasn’t sure on what he needed me to get closer for, but I’m still new to this whole skill thing, so I wasn’t going to complain. At least until something clinked inside me.

“Wait a minute, old man! But didn’t you say that what I want isn’t skinning?” I asked in confusion, but before I could receive an answer, a vein popped in the old man’s temple.

Alarms ran through my mind telling me to retreat at full speed. But before I could even move, there was an old wrinkled hand holding my head in place. I felt shivers running down my spine when the old man brought his other hand closer and closer, putting right in front of my face.

After that, I’m not sure on what happened….

Firstly, the world spun around me two times… Or was it three? I didn’t really count, I was trying to cover my head for the impact. I’m pretty sure that if I wasn’t a golem my head would have split open right there and then. Also… Actually, isn’t this the outside? Strange… I could have sworn I was inside a house… Also… Isn’t my hp bar really low? I could have sworn it had filled itself again while waiting…

-100 -9 (1/110)

I felt so light headed…

QUEST:

Proving your worthWallace, the leatherworker was surprised by your performance on his fake test, and decided to reward you with a gift besides the skill.Rewards:

You have received the skill: Skinning [lvl 1]

You have received the item: Wallace’s old training sword.

Wallace now respects you a little.

By impressing Wallace, the leatherworker, you have earned the gathering skill: SkinnerSkill: Skinner [lvl 1]

[0%]Allows you to earn extra rewards in the form of leather from the monsters you defeat by skinning them.Passive

You have leveled up.

Since you are in a safe area, your HP has recovered.

After these windows passed in front of me, I suddenly felt the light headedness go away and I finally understood what had happened here.

THE OLD MAN FLICKERED HIS FINGER AT MY FOREHEAD!

AND NOW I’M STUCK WITH MY HEAD IN A WALL! WHAT KIND OF POWER IS THAT?

Seriously, I’m surprised I’m not dead right now! I had literally 1 HP left back there! After finally recovering myself, I started to try push my body away from the wall, but to no avail.

Suddenly, I felt the old man’s hand grab me by the shoulder, and with one move he yanked me out of the wall like it was nothing before holding me up in the air with one hand. For some reason he had a really annoyed face.

“Brat! What did Ah tell you to call me?”

Really? That’s the reason he did that?

“Wa… Wallace?” I said, now suddenly insecure, he grunted in satisfaction and let go of me. Really? What the hell is this guy? “You know… You could have just warned me! I was almost dead back there!”

“Ah wouldn’t make such an idiotic mistake like that!” He said without even turning back. “It wouldn’t be a lesson if you died.”

“Wait… Then you dealt the exact amount of damage… So I wouldn’t die before crashing through the wall?” He simply grunted in response. “How the hell did you do that?”

“Experience boy… It makes wonders…” He said mysteriously. “Going back to our previous talk. You wanted to know why simple skinning wasn’t enough right?” I blinked in surprise, but finally nodded. “Then go out there and kill two more of those dogs. But don’t reclaim them, bring them here.”

QUEST:

Beyond simple SkinningWallace, the leatherworker has promised to teach you the skill you asked of him, but first you must get the bodies of two wild dogs and bring them to him.

You can’t refuse this quest.Rewards:

A lesson.

With that, he kicked me out of the house.

Not literally, mind you, after that flicker, I’m not sure what would happen to me if he were to kick me. Who the hell was this old man after all? I looked back at him once again and surely enough he was sitting at the tanning rack while stretching another piece of hide on it.

For some reason I really couldn’t bring myself to get mad at him. How could I say it… He kind of gave-me the feeling of these masters that you see in manga… And with a strength like that, I wouldn’t be surprised… I’ll ask him about it later.

Now, I had two things to check, and first of all:

Wallace’s old training swordDamage:13-15Extra:(none)Quality:CommonDurability:30/50Description

Wallace’s old sword. The blade is strangely heavy and has a large guard, but is much sturdier than normal. Still, it shows heavy signs wear due to prolonged use.

STR +2, TGH +2

Old man, I love you. To think that the sword was so much better than mine!

I immediately exchanged the sword with the one I had equipped and called my status window.

NAME:

Wargon (Gondorrer Gravelheart)TITLE:

(none)Class tree:WandererClass:NoneRace:GolemGender:Neutral (male)Level:2Experience:13%

STATUS:

Remaining points (2)Health Points:120/120HP regen (out of combat):1/secEnergy:100/100Energy Regen:10/secSTR:12(10)TGH:12(10)AGI:10VIT:10INT:10MND:10ATTK: Phys: 14-16Extra:(none)DEF46M. Res.:17Satiety:93/100 (Satisfied)

SKILLS:One-handed Sword Mastery [lvl 1]

-Slash (Active)

-Stab (Active)

Shield Mastery [lvl 1]

Scale-mail Mastery [lvl 1]

Chain-mail Mastery [lvl 1]

Skinning [lvl 1]

Racials [max]

-Nature’s bastion (Active)

-Rock Eater

-Sedimentary skin (Active)

-Nature attuned

Seeing that I have two points to spend, I took some time to think. My plan of hunting strong enemies didn’t change, even after almost suffering that fiasco with the dog. And I would also need to tank sooner or later. Taking both of these in account, what I needed most now was survivability, so I should focus my point in defense, even if my battles end up being long drawn it’s not much of a problem for me.

On short term, the best investment for me would be vitality, I guess. This way I can take even more damage.

Without thinking much I dumped my two points on vitality and saw my HP jump to 140. Now I can take two or three extra attacks from the level five dogs.

But… Thinking about it, isn’t the sword equals to two levels then? Since it gives four status points? And it’s still the basic tier! No wonder Cygnas said that equipment will make more of a difference than leveling.

Anyway, since the old man forced another quest into me, might as well go and complete it, but… I opened the quest window once again… But what the hell is the reward? A lesson? Really? Well, I really don’t want to make the old man angry again, so I might as well try and get it done.

Running back to the field, I approach the closest dog, excited to test my new sword, but I stop myself on the last second. I’m too excited… Even if I have leveled up, the dog is still stronger than me, so I can’t take this head on like I was doing before.

Remember! Monster hunting… Monster hunting…

After finally calming myself down, I finally took my stance against the dog, the same as before, my shield in front with the sword at my back.

I started the fight much the same as earlier, bashing his head upwards with my shield, But instead of following with a simple swing, I activated an upwards slash. Different from before, where right after the bash I stopped charging, this time I kept going, so even when the dog was flung mid-air I still kept up with it.

Now that I knew this combo trick, there’s no way I was going to let him go all that easily. So before he started to fall back down, I pummeled him back to the ground before finishing it with my strongest kick.

-3 -20 -5 -7

Combo!(x1.2)

-42 (148/190)

The dog winced loudly in pain before quickly lifting himself back up. My gamer’s instinct was telling me charge ahead and keep pressuring the dog, but that would only end up giving him openings, so I slowly started to circle around him.

This dog seemed a lot more cautious than the other one from before, since it didn’t attack me right away.

From what I could gather from the last fight, these dogs had at least three attacks. A head-on charge that I need to crouch to block, a jumping charge that I shouldn’t block and that double charge where he goes to another direction before jumping at me.

There may be some other skills that he can use, but for now these are the ones I should be on the lookout.

The dog suddenly dashed to my right before doing a sharp turn in my direction. The last time I had side-stepped in half-panic, but this time I put my shield in front of me at the last moment, and when the dog hit the board, I swung it sideways launching the mutt.

-2(146/190)

I ran towards him and tried to slash him before he recovered, but the skill missed its target when the dog jumped away and my momentum carried me, taking away my balance. The dog bit me before I could recover.

-14(126/140)

The pain stung me and the little balance I had left failed me, and I fell flat on the ground. I tried to free myself from his grasps by bashing his head with my shield, but the bastard let go of my leg at the last moment and got hold of my shield arm.

-30 (CRITICAL!)(96/140)

GOD DAMMIT! THE PAIN!

WHY DID THE CRIT HAD TO LAND RIGHT NOW?

After somehow getting hold of the pain, I rolled myself over the dog. The bastard still kept his mouth closed on my arm, and I could see my health quickly decreasing over-time.

I activated stab followed by two slashes, spending the rest of the remaining energy I had leaving me with only twelve points left.

-21 -20 -18

Combo!(x1.1)

-64 (82/190)

The dog let go of my arm in pain and took some distance from me. I stood up and also stepped back.

God dammit. I get a bit too complacent one time and the little bastard takes away a third of my health!

Well… It’s not much different from monster hunter in that part, I guess… Hmm… suddenly I few a bit more motivated…

…

I feel that I really should stop getting distracted. Noticing my mistake I recovered my focus just in time to see the dog jumping at me and I instinctively stepped aside, barely managing to dodge his attack, however just as he landed he made a quick turn around and went for my leg.

I hopped back as I did not have a good position to attack and the mutt stopped right in front of me, biting thin air. I smirked as the dog looked confused for a brief moment, giving me a much needed opening.

I swung my sword before kicking him away, giving myself some time to recover energy.

-14 -5 (63/190)

When he got up, he growled angrily at me for some time and started circling me, giving me enough time to fully recover my energy and for stab to come out of cool down.

It still took some more time for him to attack me, clearly more wary of me now that his health was so low, but in the end he came charging at me, aiming for my leg. I crouched down and put my shield in front of me, waiting him.

At the last moment, a glint passed on the mutts eyes, and he suddenly crouched down and jumped at me.

To think that the bastard would change his attack at the last moment… I saw his paws grasping at the top border of my shield and felt as he put all his strength behind them, preparing to jump over me.

Well, let me give you a small help with that!

Just as the pressure behind the shield started to increase, I used all my strength to stand up and swung my shield upwards in synch with the dogs impulse. He barked in surprise when he saw himself being thrown upwards, but it was far too late for him.

I made sure to adjust his launching angle to one that would make him fall directly on top of me, but I can say that this was 30% skill and 70% luck to get it this right.

I pointed my sword upwards and used stab, piercing the dog still in the air. I felt a heavy impact on my arm as the dog hit the handguard, and a small number appeared.

-8 (88/140)

I would have gotten mad at myself for not thinking that something like this would happen,

-63(Critical!)(Brutal!) (0/190)

WHAAAT? 63 damage points in one hit? What kind of sorcery is this?

And what is that brutal? Do I get a bonus for specially strong attacks? From the looks of it, it’s also a multiplicative bonus!

But most important…

DIDN’T I LOOK REALLY BADASS BACK THERE?

I mean! For goodness sake! I finished my enemy by piercing him from skyward, and now his body is hanging on my sword! Luckily there isn’t blood in this game, or things would have gotten really messy.

I couldn’t help myself. I started to laugh loudly before I could even hold myself back. I swung my sword to let the dog fall to the ground, and with my inner chuu-nii running free after such a scene, I couldn’t hold myself, striking a pose by stepping on the cranium of the dog and opening my arms as if saying ‘Come at me!’ while I looked at the other dogs around the area.

“TREMBLE IN FEAR OF MY MIGHT, YOU PUNY, INFERIOR KANINES! FOR I, GONDORRER DOGSBANE HAVE COME TO SLAY YOU ALL!”

By provoking your enemies with a shout, you have learned the skill: Taunt [lvl 1]Skill: Taunt [lvl 1]

[0%]Taunts all enemies in the area with offensive words, greatly increasing their hatred for you and forcing them to attack you for some time. Taunted enemies won’t be affected by another taunt for 1 minute.

Taunt area: 10 meters. Taunt duration: 5 seconds.Cost: 0 energy

You have used taunt!

Ooh! Not only did I beat the dog, I also got taunt! This is awesome!

Wait… I used taunt?

When it finally sunk in what I had done, I felt all the blood draining from my face… Wait, if I’m a golem, does this mean I have petroleum for blood? Any way… I saw that not one, not two, but four of the closest wild dogs that had just been peacefully watching me slaughter their brethren suddenly started to gnarl at me.

Cripes…

Of course, I ran away. Even if I had my health full I wouldn’t last more than a few seconds against them.

It took me almost twenty minutes, two laps around the village and 53 health points to lose the dogs.

Well, I learnt two things after that. First, the mobs have an awfully large pursuit area, or rather, it seemed more to me that they would hunt me for a fixed time before going back to their starting area. Second, I really needed a defensive skill. I will start by working towards rolling for now, later ill think about something else.

Being sure that there isn’t anyone around me, because it would be really embarrassing if someone would see me doing this, I launched myself forward, and when I was about to hit the ground, I rolled forward, landing on my butt. I did this all the way back to the dogs’ area, hoping that this would generate the skill I wanted.

However, by the time I got back, the body had already disappeared.

I killed two more dogs, this time avoiding the mistakes I did earlier, and saw my experience bar reach 54%, only losing 65 health on the process... It feels like they are giving less experience now…

I took their bodies and carried them back to the leatherworks, where the old man was still in his seat in front of the rack, calmly doing his job.

“Hey, Wallace! I’m back!” I said with a happy shout.

The old man jumped from his seat surprised and looked at me in shock for a moment. Then he grimaced and shouted at me.

“God dammit boy! Don’t go around using stealth! Ah’m old and it’s bad for mah health!” He threw a piece of hide at me, but I barely managed to move my head out of the way.

“What stealth? Have you gone senile? I just got to level 2, did you forget?” I shouted back at him, making him look surprised for a moment before clicking his tongue.

“God dammit… Then am Ah really losing my touch?” He mumbled more to himself than to say something to me. “Anyway, took you long enough! What gives?” He asked annoyed.

“Well… I… Ran into some complications on the way…” I said awkwardly, then showed him the bodies. “So, what do I do with these?”

He looked at the bodies for a moment, as if analyzing them before grunting in satisfaction, then walked to a table filled with instruments and cleared some space.

“Put them here.”

I followed his instructions and let go of the bodies in the table with a clang. Then I looked back at him expecting some directions, but he was busy looking for something.

I took my time to eat a piece of dried meat since my satiety had dropped below 60%, it had a bit of a bland taste.

By the time he got back, he passed me a small, sharp looking knife that I took a bit confused. It seemed a bit too frail for it to be in use for combat. He pointed at a bench beside the bodies on the table, so I sat on it while looking at him curious.

“Well, brat. You earned your skill earlier, so now I guess I should explain how it works…” Then he let out a long sigh. “And maybe teach you a certain trick to it…”

With that he pointed back to the bodies, and started my lesson on skinning.