The party was sitting in the cave entrance after the fight has finished. There was some minor loot on the goblin; about 12 gold in total between the five, and some tier 1 clubs and daggers. They weren't sure exactly what they could do with the gold, but it might have so use so they decided to collect it.

The group was still in shock from the fight they had just witnessed between Brandon and the goblins, and most of the enthusiasm that they had experienced earlier was gone. They all knew that this world was like a game, but after that the words the man said when the first arrived was now on all of their minds. " I can ensure you all that while this world may work like a video game, it is no game". Brandon was so caught up in the game-like system, and mechanics that he hadn't considered how real this world still was.

The rest of the group began to realize this too, and needed a moment to process everything. Everyone was sitting around in the cave entrance, but nobody was sitting next to each other, or talking.

Cillian had laid down next to Cass, and Cass began to pet his head. However, she still had a somber look on her face. Trinity didn't have anything to say either. She just sat on Brandon's shoulder trying to figure out what to say. All of them were beginning to reconsider how they should approach things now that this was real life.

Brandon looked around at the rest of the group, and could tell that they were demoralized. "I have to say something." He thought to himself. "My actions are the reason they are all like this, and even though they were justified it still freaked them out... in fact, it kinda freaks me out to. I never thought I'd be capable of that before, but it happened so now I need to move on."

Brandon stood up while the rest of the group was still pondering what to do. "I know exactly what you guys are thinking." he stated. The rest of the group turned their heads to look at Brandon as he continued to speak. "We live in a brutal world; one that is probably far more brutal than the one we used to live in. Scenes like that are unfortunately going to become a lot more common for us, and we are going to have to fight to survive."

As Brandon continued to speak his tone suddenly got a lot more serious. 'None of us have homes to go back to. We have to make a new home for ourselves in this world, but in order to do that we are going to have to clear out this cave. If we want to survive we are going to have to grow stronger, and honestly..." Brandon paused for a moment, and he made a long sigh. "And honestly, we may have to do things that seem brutal, harsh, or that we would have never done before if we were back in our own world."

What Brandon said hit home with the rest of the group. They knew that they didn't have much of a choice. At the moment it was survival of the fittest. They had no walls to protect them, no roof over their heads, and nobody was going to fight their battles for them anymore.

None of them could get the gruesome scene out of their heads, and even though the goblin corpses had disappeared already along with all the blood stains on the ground they still felt like they could see them exactly where they had fallen.

"Well Brandon." Tenjin got up and began to speak. "You really called it like it is. We don't really have a choice, so I'm with you. Let's clear out this cave."

"Hey man, I might have been a little shocked by how brutal of a world this is, but I still planned on clearing this place out even if the rest of you chickened out." Felix asserted.

Now Cass stood up and began to speak. "Well, I'm no stranger to hunting to survive, so I'm in."

Everyone then turned towards Ava, and she stood up to speak as well. "I'll be honest I'm a little scared. This world seems like a cruel place, but if you guys are willing to look out for each other then I guess I'll do the same." She said agreeing to come along with the others.

"Okay then." Brandin said feeling a little hopefully that things might actually work out. "Let's take care of this cave."

The cave began to get a lot more narrow right away; to the point where they had to go single file. Felix lead the group, followed by Tenjin, Ava, Cillian, Cass, and Brandon who was guarding their backs and had Trinity on his shoulder.

Before they proceeded Brandon decided to use his stat points and increase his strength and constitution again. Even though he had planned on balancing out his stats he wasn't sure he could use any magic or abilities yet, and he didn't want to linger here to much longer to find out.

They slowly began moving their way through the cave going single file. Luckily, they didn't come across any forks in the road, and they only had one way to go.

After about ten minutes of walking through the cave Felix spotted a faint light up ahead, and Cillian began to quietly growl from where he and Cass were. Once he saw this he immediately stopped, and signaled the others to do the same.

He told Tenjin to let the person behind him know that there was light up ahead, prepare for a fight, and pass it down the line. The message made it back to Barndon and he turned around and went into his fighting stance just in case something came up behind them.

When the group began to move forward Cass tapped Brandon's back to signal him that they were moving. He continued to face the path behind them while still moving with the group.

The group slowly approached the lit area with Felix leading the way, and when he was within a couple feet of the light he could see where it was coming from. There was a decent size cavern that was about 50 feet long and 20 feet wide with three torches on each wall.

Felix also saw three goblins sitting around a small campfire in the middle.

He decided to make the first move, and not wait for them to see him. Felix rushed in at full speed and moved to the right side of the room to give Tenjin room to move out of the narrower part of the cave so he could engage in the fight as well. Felix was going for the goblin that was furthest on his right, so he circled around from behind, and made two quick strikes killing the goblin almost instantly.

Once Felix moved out of the way Tenjin saw his opportunity to strike as well and rushed toward the goblin in the middle. He brought down his hammer onto the goblins head as hard as he could and saw the notification Critical Hit: goblin defeated; +30 EXP.

After Brandon's fight in the cave entrance Brandon told him that they could score critical hits against enemies if they went for a vital spot, and would receive bonus EXP if they killed an enemy this way, so Tenjin made sure he would go for one of these vital spots whenever the opportunity arrived.

Ava was the next person to step into the room, and she saw a third goblin that no one was going for. She reacted instantly casting her vine whip spell, and sending it towards the third goblin. The first whip didn't kill it, but it was easy enough for her to use the spell again and take it out one more time before it had a chance to move. The first whip had stagger it, and before it could respond another one came right at it killing it.

Everyone received a notification that they had gained EXP, and everyone, except for Brandon, received another notification that saying that they leveled up since he already had.

Each of them looked at their notifications, and decided to open up their character menus to see the changes, except for Tenjin who decided to guard the other entrance of the small cavern while the others looked at their stats.

When Ava and Felix opened up their character menu's they each received a message regarding relegating one of their new stat points to one of two stats.

Ava had a choice to relegate one of her stat points to either magic or agility. Naturally, since she was going to be a magic user she relegated it to magic increasing the stat from 11 to 12. She decided to place her other stat point into constitution. She also noticed an alert that said "1 skill point acquired". She opened up the magic/abilities tab and saw 1 skill point in a box on the upper right hand side of the screen. She decided she would see if there were any spells she could learn that would allow her to heal an ally. Under the nature category where vine whip was located she saw a spell called Nature's Gift which was able to restore 5 HP in exchange for 5 MP every time it was cast.

Once the others were done leveling up Tenjin started to distribute his stats. He had a choice between constitution and magic, and went with constitution. He spent his free stat on strength increasing that to 11 while his constitution increased to 12. Tenjin also selected an ability called hammer smash that let the user expend 3 stamina to make an area of effect attack with his hammer. Just like a regular attack any target hit by this ability would received damage based on the difference between the users strength and the targets constitution

Once everyone was done leveling up they felt more confident then before, and the groups moral began to slowly return to what it was before they had entered the cave.