"What do mean He's Healing?" I heard a voice speak it was familiar. I opened my eyes to see a male figure clad in ash-covered clothes and wielding a broomstick with a kitchen knife secured to its end making a crude spear.
It was Mr. Johnson, a man who, until roughly five days, was an unassuming family man and Museum Curator who had spent the majority of his life in a small, sleepy town. Now, though he was different, he carried himself differently, and he had grown into a leader of scouts who risked their lives to make sure others could live.
Something about being so close to death made one philosophical. I thought back to myself but five days ago, a boy who had wanted to be a Wildlife Biologist. That boy now had become a killer, a survivor, and the Champion of his neighbors. Looking down at myself, I saw blood, both red and green, covering me; my clothes were damp in my own blood, and my hands were covered in the thick blood of my now-dead enemy.
Mr. Johnson knelt on one knee next to me, his eyes scanned me no doubt seeing exactly as I saw, a young man half his age covered in his own blood and the viscera of an invader from another world.
"Kien, are you okay? What happened one second, I watched as you were bleeding out, and the next, you were healing." He asked me.
"Let me check my notifications," I said. He nodded as I scanned through the messages and I saw the level-up notifications, which signified that I could have been a very dead level-4. Now I am a very much alive Level-3. I needed more agility to make sure that never happened again. The other half-point I was going to split between Strength and Durability. It left my stats looking like this
...
[Available Stats to Increase]
Free Stats Point:1
Strength:1.35
Agility:2
Regeneration:1
Endurance:1.2
Durability:1.75
Mind Status:
Wisdom:1
Intellect:1.6
Memory:1
Perception:1
Intuition:1.2
...
As my agility ascended to superhuman levels my body burned with the wrath of a sun. It surged through me as I felt my body rebuild my tendons and ligaments. The muscles of my legs shifted and bulged. I soon became numb as my body ascended to heights no Earth human had ever been. Next, my upper torso and core swelled with strength as I became as capable as a Pro athlete. My Durability caused my bones to become denser and my skin to grow thicker like a cowhide.
"That looked awful" One of the Scouts muttered. I saw the other agree with head nods and the like.
"It's not, but at least we know the cost of the power," I said raising myself to my feet. The skills and traits I had received grew my ability to keep others alive. I looked down at the destroyed face of the Goblin; raising my hands, I looked down at the body, smiling. I kicked the thing in the head. I bore no respect for the monster's corpse.
Looking around, I saw the child wrapped up in one of the Scout's cloaks. I was relieved that he had made it out without being harmed. Locking eyes with him I gave what I hoped to be a calming smile. He smiled back at me, and I watched as he walked up to me timidly.
"Hey, Sir, thanks for saving me from that monster," he said, his voice becoming slightly hysterical.
Stepping in front of the corpse I looked at him.
"It's okay kiddo it's dead and won't harm you"
...
We spread out looking for the last Goblin Warrior. As we passed through more and more streets our hearts grew heavier and heavier.
Eventually, we saw blood tracks and red blood tracks; they led into a backyard.
To this day it was one of the worst sights I had ever seen. A pile of guts, six human corpses, and chittering goblins playing with their heads. PLAYING WITH THEIR HEADS THE SICK FUCK!! I raged and sprinted and appeared behind it in a flash and my baseball bat smote the fucker.
Like a watermelon, his head exploded, and like that, it had died. As the scouts entered the horrid scene, there was puking and angry meltdowns at the sick display. All we found that confirmed the death of Mr. Gonzalez was his wedding ring, his knife spear, and his wallet containing the most recent photograph of him, his wife, and their adult children.
...
[XP gained]
You have gained XP from killing a Level Two [Goblin Warrior].
-75% XP for killing a Lower level monster
+35% XP for one hit kill
+25% XP for killing an enemy of an Enemy Faction
+50% XP for Revenging a Fallen Ally
...
Soon, we had made it back to the Manor, and it looked exactly as we had left it. Thank God, walking into the front yard after being let in. Members of the scouting party were being tackled by their loved ones, and I was being checked by the Old Man, who had nearly fainted at the sight of me covered in blood and guts.
When Mrs. Gonzalez came out her eyes searched for her Husband.
"Where is he, where is my husband? Is he out scouting" she said. Mr Johnson steeled himself before moving to her in his hands he presented the effects of Mr. Gonzalez.
"Your husband was a good man; he died trying to save a family from the hands of the goblin," he said, his voice cracking. As Mrs. Gonzalez gripped the cloak which held the treasured objects.
"NO, my husband he died,? But Where is his body, how do you know he wasn't captured!" She yelled hysterically tears springing from the widow. Mr. Johnson tried to form the words to express, but there wasn't a body to bring back.
"How do I say this? The monsters didn't leave much of a body to bring back," he said, choosing him carefully.
It was a hard day for all of us, me and Mrs. Gonzalez went through two very different types of pain. Mine was that of the body, the mind knows to block it out at a certain point, and most of the time, it was because it transferred to the other type of pain that made it bad. The pain of the mind is more akin to a disease, one without a cure, just medicine that would only elevate the pain the best was time, a costly and unreliable treatment.
That night we held a funeral for Mr. Gonzalez, a humble affair, to humble for a man who had died trying his best to save people. There were tears, and a few of his friends were okay enough to speak without breaking into tears and spoke about their time with the man.
"Mr. Gonzalez and I met back when he first moved here from Texas; he was new to the area but not new to life. In his wisdom, I found solace many times," Mr. Jones said.
After that, we held a meeting to debrief the others who had stayed behind.
"The first [Goblin Warrior] was level 3, and we managed to keep it distracted enough for Kien to come out unscathed; he leveled up to level 2," Mr. Johnson said. There were looks of interest but they kept themselves quiet
"It was at that time I sent three scouts to check on the two other goblins and Homebase that the two scouts came back bearing good news, however, that was the last time we saw Mr. Gonzalez alive as he didn't report back." A voice interrupted him, it was Mrs. Gonzalez.
"Why didn't you send two or three scouts with them?" She asked a hint of accusation in her voice.
"For two reasons, each person we send in a group becomes rapidly more noticeable, and two, if we send out 6 or 9 of our Scouts and we end up being ambushed, we all would have died." He said firmly leaving no room for argument. He pressed on with the report.
"From the evidence gathered at the scene, we concluded that Mr. Gonzalez tried to interfere with a level two [Goblin Warrior] torturing a family. We however hadn't discovered his location until after killing the other [Goblin Warrior] a level five with a poisoned blade that nearly killed Kien bringing him to the brink of death luckily we found a bottle of Antidote on the Goblin corpses" Mr Johnson gave the long-winded briefing struggling to maintain composure as one of Mr. Gonzalez's friends.
It was my time to speak about what I had learned about leveling.
"Leveling up grants you one stat point, which is based on our Species, it can be split amongst your Physical and Mind Stats, but it can't upgrade your soul stat, and if you are on the brink of death, the system will take one level worth of XP," I said. A few nods though this information wasn't the point of this meeting.
"I wonder if Mr. Welton would gain more stats as he evolved right?" Mr. Geriad said
"I don't know doesn't mention it, but that aside Do you know where they set up?" The Old Man asked. Mr Johnson seemed prepared to answer.
"We don't know, but they also don't know where we are, so if we can continue to pick off the warriors that come near us, it strengthens us and weakens them.
There were nods of agreement, from the group surrounding the campfire.
I returned to my room, I changed my clothes. Laying the [Flameborn Jacket on the ground I cleaned and restitched the inner lining. Next, I cleaned my knives from the dried goblin blood and resharpened them again. Next, I cleaned and polished my baseball bat. As I collapsed into my bed, I felt myself getting dragged into the realm of Hypnos.
...
I found myself back in the forest, where, once again, the Two Knights fought. This time, the Spear-wielding Knight fought fiercely. With one lucky strike, his spear point broke through the visor of the hammer-wielding Knight, killing him. This time, the Spear-wielding Knight looked at me and spoke.
"All it takes to fell the greatest of warriors is one lucky hit, one fatal strike." He said, and preparing, I found myself in the body of the Hammer-wielding Knight, and just like the level five goblin, I couldn't hit him. I knew all I needed was one stroke.
Swinging I tried to hit the flighty Knight, but my hammer couldn't catch him as he probed the weak spots in my armor. Soon enough I found a spearpoint in my knee and the next thing I knew busted through my visor and boom. I was watching myself it was painful to watch as I found him completely evading me.
"You must know how not to fall to lucky strikes and happenstance" he said.
Once again I was in the visage of a hammer Wielding Knight. This time I stood stalwart waiting for him to strike watching his movements. Rather than try to hit him directly I played defensively bashing his weapon aside.
It worked for a time until he had fainted and managed to get his first knick in my armor and from their he whittled me away. Until I collapsed from blood loss.
Once again I watched my death. However this time I did way better rather try to predict his movement I predicted the area where he would strike. However my first screw up in that fight was not seeing the faint.
"Good job you're improving Squire" was all he said. Before the flash of light flooded my vision and I was clad in the armor of the Hammer wielding Knight.
This time I minimized my movements to the absolute minimum and when he did faint I didn't slip up. Finally I manged a hit on the elusive Knight.