I look over, and Jared has a small arrow sticking out of his bicep. It looks to be several inches deep.
A small screaming green creature charges at him with a spear from his right side.
My blood starts pumping faster, and I quickly reach down to pick up the spear still stuck in the undead's head. It pulls free with little resistance as I hear another screech from my right.
I turn my head to see another small dark green humanoid charging at me this time, spear held out in front of it.
It’s about three feet tall and gaining speed quickly as it pumps its little legs to run me through.
My grip tightens around my spear as I put the point of it in the way and brace for the goblin to run into it.
Two loud cracks echo throughout the forest, one right after the other.
The sudden noise causes me to jump, almost losing grip of my spear.
Daniel must have shot his gun behind me.
I keep watching the goblin charging me, even through the surprise of the gunshot. I see it stumble and fall to the ground, clearly not ready for such a loud noise to happen so close.
It falls down in front of me onto its belly. It tries to scramble back up as fast as it can, managing to get to its hands and knees.
I need to kill this thing, fast.
I shoot forward as fast as my legs allow me, aiming my spear at the goblin.
The spear connects with the goblin completely uncontested, being pushed with all the force my arms can produce. The spear point stabs into the side of the creature's neck with a surprising ease, sinking in halfway to the other side.
The green humanoid goes limp immediately, falling to its knees as I still hold up part of it with my spear.
I brace one foot on its shoulder and pull my spear out with a sharp yank, spraying blood all over me.
I look over to Jared, who is using a stick as a bat to beat the goblin in the ground in front of him.
That thing is definitely already dead. Are there any more? Where is Daniel?
“Are you ok, Jared? Where is Daniel?” I shout to the other man, who stops what he is doing and looks over at me.
“Yeah, I’m good. The little fucker scared me, but it was pretty weak. You?”
“I’m all good. Mine got scared by the gunshots and fell over, making it easy to spear.”
Daniel takes this time to walk around a tree, dragging the corpse of a third goblin by the foot.
“Got the archer. What the fuck are these things?” He asked while putting his kill down next to Jared's.
“An easy way to check is just to look at the kill message.”
[You have slain a creature.]
[Level 7 forest goblin]
[You have leveled up to level 2.]
They really are goblins. Well, that pretty much determines we are in a fantasy world. Magic, undead, big-ass bears, and now goblins.
Yup, a fantasy world for sure.
Daniel walked over and grabbed the goblin I killed, dragging it to join the other two.
I walk over to get a good look at them, now that they aren’t trying to kill us.
All three of them are roughly the same size, between three and three and a half feet tall. They are wearing simple animal skin loincloths, tied around their waists with what looks like leather strips. All of them have dark green skin covered in fresh blood and dirt, and they stink. Not as bad as the undead, but like, really bad unwashed bodies. Their faces are sunken in, with large beady eyes, and tusks poking out of their mouths.
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What horrible little creatures. They are skinny too, barely more than skin and bones. That's probably why Daniel was able to move them so easily earlier.
“The archer's bow broke, so I left it behind.” Daniel says while checking the bullets in his revolver.
“I’m just glad you killed it. It might have been a lot worse if my [Danger Sense] didn’t warn me of the arrow coming.” The injured man tells us as he pokes at the arrow, wincing each time.
“Let’s go back to the bus,” I say. “I’m pretty sure there is at least a first aid kit for someone to look at that wound.”
Both other men nod their heads, and we start walking back to the bus.
When we enter the clearing, nearly the entire bus is outside looking in our direction.
I shouldn’t be surprised. They did hear two gunshots after a man screamed. All after someone already died over there. And we haven’t even been here an hour yet.
We walk over under the watchful gaze of everyone.
The woman from earlier who I thought was a nurse walks up to Jared after seeing he was injured and leads him into the bus to treat his wound.
I follow Daniel to the large group of people waiting for us. He starts talking before they can bombard him with too many questions.
“We were just attacked in the forest. We managed to fend off all of the attackers, but there could be more.”
Most people react with shock and disbelief, still not getting that this isn’t Earth anymore.
“Everyone listen up! I don’t want to repeat this.” He said as a few people from inside the bus came out.
“We need to stay near the bus at all times. The forest is too dangerous right now.”
“What was in there? Was it what killed that guy earlier?” Someone shouts out.
“They were three creatures called goblins. And to be honest, they are exactly like the goblins you are thinking of. Small and green. And no, I don’t have any fucking idea what is going on here. Or why goblins and ghouls are popping up out of nowhere.”
He had an annoyed look on his face as he kept giving out the same answer. I don’t know.
The group split up as Daniel stopped talking, most people heading back to the bus.
I join them, taking the seat at the back of the bus and lying down with my backpack under my head and spear leaning on the wall next to me.
I finally get a chance to sit down and completely calm myself.
I close my eyes and fall into meditation, controlling my breathing as I clear my mind.
Ten minutes later my heart rate is back to normal, but I can feel something in my chest.
I focus on the sensation, trying to feel where it is, hoping it’s not some kind of heart attack. It feels like a pulsing coming from my chest.
What could it be? Something to do with a skill?
I spend several more minutes running through theories before I finally realize what it is. It’s mana.
It’s coming out in small pulses from my heart, timed with my heartbeat. Each wave is getting absorbed by my body nearly as fast as it comes out. That's why it's so hard to notice.
It feels strange to ‘watch’ inside my body like this. I feel like some ancient Chinese master, feeling my chi or something.
Each wave of mana is getting absorbed by whatever part of my body it reaches, it seems. My heart is by far the most saturated part and is still taking in most of the mane from each pulse. My chest has small amounts, from what I can tell.
[You have leveled up a passive skill.]
[Mana Sense] lvl 2
My mana sensitivity gets slightly stronger as I feel the skill level up.
Can I control my mana? Do something with it, maybe? I doubt I have it for no reason. I just need to figure out how to use it.
Daniel wakes me from my meditation with a shake of my shoulder. He has a serious expression on his face, telling me he probably has bad news right now.
I look up at him, a sigh escaping my lips as I try to think of how this situation could get any worse.
A horde of undead or goblins would do it. Or if that bear showed up. Or any other too-big predator.
Now that I’m thinking about it, there are a lot of ways this situation could get a lot worse.
“What is it?” I say with concern in my voice.
“The kids from earlier found a new [System] page. It’s causing people to freak out even more. Many think we are trapped in some kind of hell.”
“A [System] page did this? What’s the page?”
“It’s the [Quest] page.”
“[Quest]”
Primary Quest
Leave the island of First Landing.
Time remaining
[364 days 23 hours 14 minutes 14 seconds]
Completion Reward: Continued survival, ???, ???, ???
Punishment for failure: Instant death
Secondary Quest
Survive one day.
Time remaining
[23 hours 14 minutes 14 seconds]
Completion Reward: Full development of one active skill
Punishment for failure: No punishment required
Oh yeah, that'll do it.