Chapter 17: Goblin Killers
Arthur nodded, watching the man tap through an invisible interface. It seemed that John had just leveled up after killing those three goblins, so he wasn’t that far ahead of him in terms of EXP.
Curious, Arthur brought up his own status window.
[Name: Arthur Shaw]
[Age: 19]
[Species: Human]
[Class: Mage]
[Title: Child of the Elements (Unique), Goblin Slayer]
[Level: 3]
[HP: 80/80]
[Mana: 150]
[Strength: 6+]
[Intelligence: 9+]
[Wisdom: 8+]
[Agility: 5+]
[Vitality: 4+]
[Elemental Affinity: Fire (Minor)]
[Skills: None]
[Unassigned Stat Points: 2]
The first thing Arthur noticed was his HP. It had increased by 20 this time instead of the previous 10. He still didn’t understand how this point system actually worked. Did stats scale differently after leveling up?
He frowned for a moment, but quickly moved on.
The most frustrating part was staring at his Intelligence and Wisdom stats. They were approaching the double digits, but he couldn’t do anything with them.
In the end, Arthur ignored them and focused on his Strength and Agility lines.
Without any hesitation, he tapped the glowing plus sign beside both stats. This time he didn’t feel any heartache about wasting stats and whatnot. He’d already steeled himself to invest his free stat points.
Instantly, both of them went up by a single point.
Just like before, there was no sudden surge of power or surge of adrenaline. Everything felt the same as when he’d first stepped into the game.
Or... did it?
Arthur narrowed his eyes, thinking back to the moment he’d first faced the Spear-Guard goblin. The effort it took him to close the distance and strike the imp down.
And then he thought about what had happened just now. The speed with which he’d sprinted toward the goblins and the way he’d darted past them and flanked that second level 4.
He still couldn’t tell whether he felt stronger, but faster? There was no doubt about it anymore. Even sprinting away from the camp to bait the goblins had felt easier. The difference wasn’t dramatic, but it was there.
"So boosting my stats does do something, huh?" he thought to himself as the edge of his lips curved up in satisfaction.
By the time Arthur was done with his stats, John seemed to have finished assigning his own free points as well. The burly guy gave his invisible window a final tap, his finger lingering for a second over something Arthur couldn’t see, before he turned with a hesitant look on his face.
"Hey, brother, since you’re a mage and all... you wouldn’t happen to know what this Wisdom stat actually does, right? I was thinking of throwing a point or two into it since it’s sitting really low and all, but it really feels like a waste, you know." John asked, scratching the back of his neck with a sheepish look.
Arthur winced as he looked at the man. He knew John wasn’t trying to mess with him. The guy seemed genuinely curious, which only made it worse. Having his second-highest stat be useful for god-knows-what was really... something.
Arthur suspected this thing would only be useful after he learned a spell or two, which, judging by the way things were going, was still going to take a while.
In the end, he simply shook his head.
"Not sure. Probably something that’s useful later on?" he said with a noncommittal shrug, trying to hide the pain he felt.
"Yeah, I figured as much," John muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.
Then, after throwing one last glance around them to confirm there were no item drops from the six goblins they’d just killed, Arthur turned his eyes toward the trees ahead.
"Ready to move?" he asked the burly man.
John grinned, already heaving the log over his shoulder.
"I was born ready."
...
The next few hours went exactly as expected.
With Arthur and John scouring the forest together, goblin-hunting had become, quite literally, child’s play. Even those level 4 goblins barely lasted more than a few strikes before they were reduced to twitching corpses, their bodies dissolving into faint wisps of light.
Arthur quickly realized the benefits of fighting with a level 4 Warrior, too.
John wasn’t wearing so much as a scrap of armor. His clothes were tattered, leaving his chest exposed, and the massive log he wielded still looked more like firewood than a weapon... and yet none of that seemed to matter.
Even when goblins lunged at him and slashed with their claws or fangs, they left nothing more than a few shallow scratches across his skin.
It didn’t help that the man looked like some kind of bodybuilder who’d just come out of the Mr. Olympia competition, either. John wasn’t overly tall, pretty much the same height as Arthur, but his imposing physique made him look like an adult fighting a bunch of green-skinned children.
"Is this the benefit of playing a physical-based class?" Arthur thought to himself as he watched John charge into a group of level 3 goblins while laughing and shouting, ’come at me’.
Either way, Arthur wasn’t doing too bad himself. He might not have John’s brute strength, but his Agility stat had finally caught up, or maybe even exceeded the big guy’s.
More importantly, Arthur’s reaction speed and situational awareness far outpaced John’s for some reason. More often than not, it was Arthur who ended up spotting the distant rustling in the bushes, or heard the faint chittering of the goblin scouts outside their visual range.
All in all, it seemed that the two of them were a pretty good duo as far as goblin fighting was concerned.
By the time night began to fall, John and Arthur had taken down more than forty of the little murderous imps.
Their bodies had long since vanished into the forest’s soft light, but Arthur’s level hitting 4 was proof of how efficient the two of them had been.
They had also managed to pick up six items during that time, which was a pretty good haul.
Three of them were just plain old [Goblin’s Fangs], while one of them was a [Threadbare Jerkin] similar to the one Arthur had sold to the insectoid shopkeeper. But the most surprising finds came from a level 5 [Goblin Spear-Guard] they’d encountered deeper into the forest.
That thing was a bit harder to take down compared to the others of its kind. It wasn’t overly strong, but it was agile enough to avoid John’s sweeping log strikes and it even gave Arthur a run for his money. Luckily, when it died, it left behind more than just white teeth.
Not only had it dropped a [Scrap-Leather Chestpiece] similar to the one Arthur was now wearing, but also a weapon. The [Fang-tipped Spearhead], those armored imps used when they fought them.
In the end, Arthur and John split the loot evenly.
John took the [Scrap-Leather Chestpiece] and two of the [Goblin’s Fangs], grinning as he pulled the armor over his ridiculous frame, while Arthur took the rest, including the [Fang-tipped Spearhead] that he put over his shoulder for now.
At this point, it was getting pretty late.
Zenith didn’t have a sun in the sky, just that constant, ambient light coming down through the misty treetops, but even so, Arthur could feel the time slipping.
His body was still fine; he didn’t really feel tired even after hunting with John for a few hours, but his mind had started to get a bit groggy.
It was probably the fatigue from the real world finally setting in.
After all, this day had been pretty long. A bit too long, in fact. Arthur didn’t know exactly what time it was back in the real world, but it should already be close to midnight, he guessed.
He glanced at John, who seemed to be just as aware of the creeping hour.
"You wanna call it a day?" Arthur asked.
John gave him a quick nod. "Yeah. Let’s bank this loot before we log out. I’m curious how much we made."
