1.03 New Disciple Who Dis?

Chapter 3

I managed to kill the first two goblins before they even noticed that I was in their camp.

Most of them were far too preoccupied in gambling their time away, or rolling around in their own refuse to really pay attention to the surrounding forest. They probably didn’t even think it a feasible idea that anyone would be attacking them in the first place. Let alone a solo human.

I doubted that these goblins were ‘real’ anyway. There was no possible way in or out of this little sandbox map, so they were probably just spawned in by the System for the tutorial.

Later, humanity would discover that was exactly how most dungeons functioned, most, but not all.

But that’s a topic for another time.

“Gaaah!” The third goblin managed to squeal out before I killed it, my blade catching it high on the chest instead of at its neck. It still died shortly after, but that mistake meant the entire area now knew they were under attack.

Dozens of eyes focused themselves my way.

I sprinted forward, burying my sword into the next goblin closest to me and tearing the blade free with a torrent of green blood. Another was jumping at me with a dagger clutched in its clawed hand. I was on the backswing with my sword so I simply shifted my weight and kicked it square in the torso instead.

My shoe sank a bit into its body before its momentum stopped entirely, dropping to the ground in a groan.

Another slash of my blade ended its life.

[You Have Reached Level 8]

I mentally began pumping my dexterity with my new free points even as four more goblins closed in on me from different sides.

“Let’s go you piggly fucks!” I yelled out at them.

Then they came.

A dodge, a back step, duck, block, a thrust into an exposed side, then a quick slash. I began fighting the goblins in a horde, many bodies pressing in to try to claw and bite their way towards me. It was easy enough to keep them from surrounding me by staying on the move, my dexterity stat being simply too high for them to keep up.

I kited them through the camp, slashing and chopping. A goblin hand was lobbed off by the campfire, and then a leg severed by the tent. Arms, heads, limbs of all kinds, all were cut free as I danced my way through the fight.

Even back at level 3, I was a bit faster and stronger than these things. At level 8, the gap was simply widening. This was especially so as I began learning the proper way to use my sword. It was almost pitiful.

If one could have any sort of pity for those wrinkly, green-skinned cancer rejects.

Have I made it obvious I hate these things yet? I did? Good. Because I do, a lot.

Anyway, greenish blood now nearly covered my vest and labcoat, the slick substance dripping from my arms in a pitter patter. Only a couple of the scouts and a single warrior remained, and I closed on them just as a new cry broke out over the settlement.

“Wagooooli!” I didn’t know the damn language, so I couldn’t say for sure what the things were saying, but the tone gave an indicator of anger.

I turned as I cut down the final scout, seeing that the two bodyguard goblins, along with the chieftain, were now stalking toward me. It looked like my boss fight was finally coming.

No new level came from those last few kills, so I had to stick with the stats that I had. It wasn’t much of a bother, I was confident I could take them. At the time, I doubted the chief or his two goons would be that much stronger than the warriors.

The guards attacked me first, their own swords flashing in from the sides in fast slashes. I jumped back, avoiding both blows and then lunged forward quickly, aiming my blade at the neck of the one on my right. I expected the attack to kill it quickly, but the damn thing brought his sword up and blocked me.

The one on the left thrust his weapon at me at the same time and I had to twist my body and turn to avoid getting skewered. Just as I regained my footing, I practically fell backwards, stumbling, to dodge the axe blade that was aimed at my face from the chieftain.

“Holy shit,” I muttered, “you guys don’t play, huh?”

“Wabbibili Guutobi,” was the answer I got in return.

“Wabby Gooby your fucking mother.” I ran forward again.

A feint to the left, and a downward cut from the right was enough to catch the first guard by surprise, my sword biting into his arm all the way to bone. I wrenched my weapon free and kicked him away, sending him sprawling into the dirt.

The second guard aimed high again, and I ducked the attack, stepping forward and grabbing him by the furrs around his torso. His breath was fucking horrid, but I ignored that and pulled on his small frame, yanking him off his feet and directly into the path the cheiftain’s incoming axe.

“Aaah!” the goblin screamed as his own chieftain nearly cut him in two, his torso split open from shoulder to hip from behind.

I stabbed my sword into his gut, for good measure, then pushed him aside.

The chieftain seemed barely concerned that he had essentially killed his own guard. His beady black eyes were simply trained on me. The anger in them was obvious, but it seemed like it was just a blanket rage, without focus.

The axe came again and I stepped to the left, knocking the weapon away with my own. The impact sent a jarring reverb up my arm, but nothing painful. He began raising the axe again, but my sword was already in motion, catching him just below the armpit as I pulled upward as hard as I possibly could.

A squelch resounded through the camp as the chieftain’s arm fell, severed completely.

“Oh, terribly sorry. Let me even up the other side there for you,” I said.

There was no way the goblins understood me, the same way I couldn’t understand them. But even to this day, I argue that the Dungeon fuckery allows them to understand the basic gist of our meaning.

The chieftain puffed up in fury, his remaining arm shaking as he hefted his axe. “Bluik ek bitzu.”

“Sure, sure.”

The first guard had stumbled back to his feet by then. Cradling his injured arm, it looked to me, then its chieftain, then the dead body of the other guard at my feet. It almost let out a whimper before rushing at me, one good arm clutching its sword and swinging out as if wanting to cut me in two.

It only took a shift of my weight, a block, and then a follow up thrust before my weapon’s tip was buried into its skull the same way it had been for Perez. The guard crumbled. And I received another notification.

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