[ ALERT ]

  You have levelled up.

  12 > 13

  [ ALERT ]

  Jack pulled his dagger out of the mutilated buddy of a goblin, before cleaning off the blood on his face and exhaling, walking over to a nearby boulder and sitting down on it. Araneida rummaged through the stuff of the dead goblins, picking up anything that looked out of place and inorganic.

  “System start.”

  [ STATUS ]

  Jack Alfred Gragbone

  Gender: Male

  Level: 13 (1)

  Rank: F

  Class: Tamer

  Stat Points: 2

  Health: 340 / [4]

  Magical Energy: 250 / [2]

  Strength: 160 / [6]

  Defence: 150 / [5]

  Agility: 150 / [5]

  Skills;

  [Interpreter]; Common Skill

  [Combat Experience]; Unique Skill

  [Battle Hungry]; Unique Skill

  [Spider Venom]; Unique Skill

  [Taming]; Class Skill

  [ STATUS ]

  “It’s been a few hours, the amount of monsters hasn’t changed – still very scarce.” Jack thought, before placing the two stat points he had acquired from his level up into magical energy. Araneida moved over to the man as he closed his status window, bringing the items she had found to him.

  “Find something useful?” Araneida looked at him happily, before placing the items she had found down. There were two small orbs – a green one and a red one – as well as a small crystal, with a deep violet colour. Leaning down, he picked the items up, before examining them a bit more closely.

  [ ITEM ]

  Blood Orb

  A small pearl infused with special blood magic. When refined, the orb will increase the user's resistance to curses.

  [ ITEM ]

  …

  [ ITEM ]

  Jade Orb

  A small pearl infused with special healing properties. When refined, the orb will increase the user’s healing magic effectiveness.

  [ ITEM ]

  “Strange, these seem like they’re quite the decent items, yet they were with some low ranked Goblins… Where did these green bastard get these?” Jack looked at the corpses of the goblins, exhaling lightly before placing the two small orbs into his pockets – it was better to keep hold of them. When he gets out of this place and makes it to a town, he could probably get a decent amount of pay for them.

  Afterwards, he turned his attention to the third and last item that Araneida had found with the goblins — the crystal with the deep violet colour.

  [ ITEM ]

  Crystallised Wyvern Blood

  A crystallised sample of Wyvern blood. The item pulses with a deep purple colour, as if it has a beating heart.

  [ ITEM ]

  “That’s it? That’s all the information I can get for this thing?” Jack sighed. Seemed like the item that was the most different was also the one of the least use to him. However, the man didn’t throw away the crystal and instead slid it into his pocket as well – who knows, maybe it can come in handy in the future.

  “Wyvern blood huh? The orbs were one thing, but how on earth,” Jack eyed the goblins again as he got up onto his feet again, “Did these things even get something like wyvern blood? Something tells me that there might be more to these goblins.”

  Jack moved over to the largest of the goblin corpses, kneeling down and examining its dead body a bit more closely. Upon a closer look, he managed to find something that had definitely been out of place — just on the back of the goblins head, was a strange engraving - a symbol.

  The symbol wasn’t anything he could recognise and looked to be some ritualistic one. Upon touching it, the symbol felt like dried up blood – as if it had been drawn onto it with blood. Only, the blood was definitely human, not anything else's. Jack had spilled enough human blood as a mercenary to know its smell and appearance perfectly.

  “Hm…” Araneida watched the man with curiousity for a bit.

  After a bit, Jack stood back up and gestured to Araneida to follow him. “Come on, let’s keep going.” The spider let out an excited squeal, quickly skittering to his side, as the man began to move away from the corpses and further on.

  The duo moved through the dungeon for a while, not encountering any monsters as they moved forward. While moving, Jack kept his gaze down and was a bit lost in thought. “How long have I been here already? A day?” He shook his head, “No, can’t be a day.”

  The man looked down at his stomach, placing his right hand lightly onto it. “I haven’t felt any signs of hunger since coming here – if it had been a day, I would surely be starving by now. It must have only been a couple of hours.” Jack sighed. Keeping track of time when you were inside a deep, massive and expansive cave with zero indication of the sun passage outside was nearly impossible. While he usually had a good sense of time – even he couldn’t help but feel a little lost and confused about the time he had spent in this place by now.

  How many hours has it been? Who knows.

  Does anyone really care? Not really.

  Though keeping track of time was important, Jack was more focused on surviving in this place as well as finding an exit so that he could leave this place.

  Getting distracted would only get him ambushed.

  And as if hearing his thoughts, a flurry of darts and arrows were fired towards Jack, quickly unsheathed his dagger and swung it at the projectiles, deflecting the ones aimed at him, while Araneida easily reflected the ones targeted at her with her armour like front legs.

  Jack looked up at the attackers – on an elevated cliff stood tall, slender figures with shining red eyes – some were holding bows, others blowdarts. Jack sharpened his gaze.

  [ Creature ]

  Grey Goblin

  Rank: G

  Level: 15 (2)

  Long and slender versions of the usual goblins. While they possess a weaker build and less physical strength, they move more swiftly and possess greater intelligence, often using elevated surfaces and high grounds to attack with projectiles.

  [ CREATURE ]

  Jack smiled. “Looks like I found something else other than weak ass goblins.” He thought, before spinning the dagger in his hand and tossing it at one of the Grey Goblins, blowing its head off with his thrown dagger. The other goblins seemingly panicked a bit as they leapt back, before firing another flurry of their ranged attacks.

  Jack leapt to the right side. “Araneida, take the left flock!” The spider nodded before easily blocking the incoming projectiles with her front legs and dashing to the left side.

  Jack sprinted forward as the grey goblins continued their relentless ranged attacks. After quickly leaping behind some cover, Jack threw a look around – spotting an easy spot to climb onto the elevated cliff from. He dashed for the spot, with the grey goblins communicating to one another to continue their fire — however before any one of them got to shoot any more projectiles, Araneida leapt onto the biggest one and absolutely tore it to shreds with its fangs and legs.

  The other goblins aimed their weapons at the spider, firing off rapid shots — however not a single one of them was able to pierce Araneidas skin. The Tarantula gave the tall, slender critters a deathglare, which sent shivers down their spines and caused some of them to start running, only for Jack to block their path, with a sinister smile and shining, amber eyes.

  “Going somewhere?” Jack snickered, cracking his knuckles. The goblins quickly loaded their weapons, about to fire, however Jack extended his left arm out towards the creatures. “Spider Venom.” He said calmly.

  A cloud of purple gas shot from his palm and quickly encased the goblins, causing them to cough and start dropping to the ground, unable to resist the poison. Jack looked impressed and a bit scared. “So that’s what it does…” He smiled more widely. “Sick.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  He thought before calmly walking over to the suffering goblins and smashing his right leg into the ground – the dagger that he had thrown falling down from the ceiling and into his right hand. Jack spun the dagger around, looking at the creatures with shining eyes, as he stood over them.

  The goblins looked absolutely terrified, while Jack snickered, with Araneida beginning to approach from the other side, also snickering to herself. The goblins looked beyond horrified now.

  “Alright, time to put you out of your misery.” He stated, before lifting the dagger into the air and slashing it down at the first grey goblin.

  [ ALERT ]

  You have levelled up.

  13 > 15

  [ ALERT ]

  …

  [ ALERT ]

  Familiar ‘Araneida’ has levelled up.

  3 > 7

  [ ALERT ]

  Jack cleaned the green blood covering the dagger before sheathing it up and brushing his face off as well. The goblins had proved to be a decent exp source, giving enough for two levels for him and an entire four for Araneida.

  “These things really weren’t that special in the end.” Jack sighed, silently opening his status and distributing his four stat points to Strength, Health, Defence and Agility. Afterwards, he walked over to one of the dead goblin corpses, before searching the quivers that they had on their back.

  [ ITEM ]

  Flint Arrow

  Rank: F

  [ ITEM ]

  “About thirteen by the looks of it… While they aren’t amazing, they could prove useful at some point. Better take them with me.” He commented to himself in his mind, picking the arrow quiver up and throwing it onto his shoulder. Afterwards, he picked up one of the bows that the goblins had used, examining it closely.

  [ WEAPON ]

  Pale Wood Bow

  Rank: G

  [ WEAPON ]

  “It’ll do.” Jack sighed, before standing up and looking over at Araneida, who was in the process of devouring one of the goblin corpses. Jack chuckled lightly, walking over to the tarantula and crouching down beside her, petting it lightly.

  “Take your time to eat up. You’re still a juvenile, you need all the energy you can get.” Jack said, with Araneida looking at him with a joyous expression before continuing her meal. The man then stood back up and looked around. He had heard the goblin footsteps earlier, however hadn’t paid any attention to them as he thought they’d show themselves.

  They must have come from somewhere. Looking around, he searched for any paths that the critters may have taken to get to this place – however most spots he found seemed too narrow and small for them to fit through, especially with bows and quivers.

  As he looked around, he found a small tunnel, which led into a deep darkness, with very faint noises of something moving on its other side. “Maybe this is where they came from… May as well check it out.” He looked over at Araneida, “Araneida, come on buddy – let’s keep moving.”

  The Tarantula, who had just finished her meal, squealed lightly before skittering over to him and looking into the tunnel. After sniffing the air a bit, Araneidas body shivered as she backed up a bit. “Everything alright?”

  The spider looked at him and then

  back down the tunnel. Jack, despite not being able to communicate with her using words, understood what Araneida was trying to tell him. “Let me guess, there are a lot more of them at the end of this, right?”

  Araneida nodded.

  Jack sighed, before smiling. “Good, then I think we’ve found a bit of a gold mine for exp, my friend.” He stated, before stepping into the tunnel, with Araneida, though shivering, following closely behind.

  Though the tunnel was quite narrow and didn’t have a lot of room to move in, Jack didn’t find it uncomfortable at all to move through it. In fact, despite his height and bulky build, he was able to move through the tunnel as if he was covered in oil and slipping through it — it was as if his size just did not matter.

  As he and Araneida moved through the tunnel, the faint noises became louder and louder, turning into gargled laughter and language that Jack could not understand at first — however, as he listened more to it and got closer, the words slowly got clearer and clearer, eventually turning into a comprehensible language he could understand.

  “King want us to find more prey to reproduce, but green goblins refuse to give their females.” A Gargled, monotone and distorted voice said. “Indeed,” another voice, one that was more deep than distorted, responded. “It look like we will need to kidnap them again.”

  The earlier voice agreed. Jack narrowed his eyes. Kidnap? Females of another goblin kind? That’s… interesting. From the stories he remembered reading as a child, goblins usually were feral creatures that didn’t have female members for their kind and usually used the females of other races — most of the time, human or elves, to reproduce.

  It seems this world was different to those stories in some ways.

  As he approached closer and closer, the two voices started laughing together. He eventually reached the end of the tunnel, staying slightly in its shadow while looking out of it. The source of the voices he had heard turned out to be two more tall and slender Grey Goblins, only these ones gripped spears in their hands, rather than bows or blowdarts.

  “Guess they can use close ranged weapons as well.” Jack thought, before exhaling and taking out two arrows out of the quiver on his back and aiming them at the goblin on the right - closing his right eye while sharpening and narrowing his left eye onto the goblin. “Better catch them off guard.”

  After a bit, Jack took in a deep breath, before exhaling and firing the arrows off. The arrows flew with incredible speed and instantly killed the goblin he had aimed at – impaling its head and causing it to fall to the ground.

  The surviving Grey Goblin immediately took a defence stance. “Attack! Intruders—” Before he got to shout any more, Araneida dashed at it and with one swing of her front legs, she sliced the goblins head cleanly off.

  The goblins body fell to the ground, while blood spewed all over the ground from its neck. Jack moved out of the tunnel and looked at Araneida with a bright smile. “Well done.” Araneida squealed happily in response. Jack then turned his attention to the scene in front of him – there were large wooden walls blocking his way, with large wooden gates standing in front of him. If he had to guess, this most likely was a ‘camp’ for these goblins and the two he had just taken out with Araneida, were the gate guards.

  “Seems like we really did hit a gold mine.” Jack smiled lightly, before exhaling and walking up to the gates, placing his right hand onto them. While a stealthy entrance would most likely be the better approach, he couldn’t spot a place from which he’d be able to sneak into the camp from.

  So instead of stealth – He was going to resort to the next best thing.

  Taking in a deep breath, he looked at Araneida, who nodded lightly, preparing herself for battle. Jack smiled before exhaling and lifting his right leg up before kicking the gates — the wooden doors flying out of their place and smashing into pieces as they crashed into a group of five goblins, killing them all instantly.

  The other goblins within the camp all gathered, looking at the gates with curious, yet defensive gazes, while Jack and Araneida moved inside the camp.

  “Who that?”

  “Human? Is that human!?”

  “Not possible! A Human deep here! Not possible!”

  The Grey Goblins began to run all over the place before picking up their weapons and arming themselves with whatever they had. On tall towers and cliff edges, goblins with bows stood, aiming their arrows at Jack. Meanwhile, he was surrounded by many other goblins – which were dressed in light armour and wielded much more impressive looking close range weapons — stone spears, swords and even axes.

  Jack and Araneida were very much outnumbered. Jack looked at all the armed monsters, their red eyes shining brightly as they glared at him. “About ninety… No, a hundred of them. Forty or so archers and the rest are ready to take me on close range combat…” Jack snickered, before tossing the bow in his hands to the side and taking out the arrows in the quiver he was carrying – before tossing them at the furthest archers, the arrows flying like a barrage of bullets – taking out a lot of them.

  Afterwards, Jack unsheathed the dagger on him before grinning widely, looking at the army of Grey Goblins in front of him with an excited, battle ready expression, which was enough to send shivers down the spines of the slender monsters.

  “Alright ugly, grey bastards — let’s see what you’ve got.” He stated, before dashing towards the goblins armed with close range weapons, while Araneida leapt up into the air and then onto the ceiling, before dashing towards the closest archers. The goblins, though initially shocked and surprised by the speed at which the two intruders moved, quickly regained their composure and let out a loud battle cry.

  “Kill human! We feast!”

  The goblins announced, before charging at the approaching Jack, who continued grinning widely, his amber eyes shining brightly.

  In the Capital — Roria.

  The students followed after Alicia, walking through another hall in the castle. After the King had finished his explanation, he ordered Alicia to bring the students to their mentors at once, stating that the sooner they start their training, the better. So, at this moment, Alicia was leading the summoned students towards the meeting hall, where all the mentors who were going to take the students under their wing, had gathered.

  Aihara was lost a bit in her thoughts. The King had explained that they were at constant war with a being known as the ‘Revenant Sovereign’ or ‘The Undead Monarch’ — the leader and ruler of the undead kind. Apparently, the being was a force of evil that had appeared out of nowhere in this world and managed to take over around a fourth of it within just two days – destroying a different kingdom in the process.

  So far, they had been able to hold off the army forces of the great being and the Undead Legion that the Sovereign led, however, in recent times – the war has become a lot harder to fight. They are losing a lot more soldiers than usual and the undead are beginning to grow more powerful.

  This led the King to resort to the decision of summoning individuals from another world in order to gain more powerful individuals on their side to aid them – and hopefully push back the Undead Legion.

  While moving through the hall, Alicia was chatting light heartedly with some of the students, talking about her life here in the kingdom and how she believes the students would be of great help – calling them this kingdom's last hope. These kind of words seemed to play on the ego of some of the students, making them feel and think of themselves a lot more highly than usual — however, Aihara wasn’t having any of it.

  “Honestly, how can everyone be so calm after that so-called saint showed her real face by sending the poor old man to his death..” A female voice spoke up next to Aihara. It was the other girl that had stood up for Jack when he was about to be sent away — Yurika Sasaki.

  Aihara eyed her and sighed. “I don’t know…”

  “Simple, they just don’t care. That’s obvious.” A male voice spoke up. This was one of the boys who had stood up for Jack — the boy with short, brown hair, Gaku Iwamoto. Within the class, he was a mystery and a half – often being called a walking contradiction.

  “Yeah – that much has been made obvious,” The boy with the black hair that covered one of his eyes added, “Painfully obvious.” This boy was Shinsuke Kida – in the class known as the ‘Overachiever’. He had consistently top grades and excelled almost at everything he did – and if there was something he couldn’t do, if he put his mind to learning that thing, eventually, he’d get so good at it, that it just made anyone wonder if he had some innate super power.

  Aihara didn’t know what to add so she remained silent, while the others just eyed the other gossiping students.

  “Hey Alicia!” A deep, rough voice roared through the hall from behind them. Alicia stopped, the students following suit before looking back. The students immediately froze up in shock, as in front of them stood a tall, muscular figure with a large beard that was sharp and hung from his chin.

  The male wore almost primitive clothing, with his torso only being covered by a sleeveless coat, which looked to be of a bear pelt. The man looked down at the students with deep, amber eyes – intimidating them a bit. Alicia scuffed.

  “Hello, Andrius.” Alicia stated, with a cold gaze thrown at the tall man.