“Now, there are many ways I can find this place. One option is to give a mark to the sky like smoke and kill myself, then make my way back here. That’s the worst plan, though, obviously… so… what else…” Harley pondered, mindlessly venturing deeper into the forest.

  “Actually, I’m supposed to kill 100 goblins, yet I don’t even know where their village is. This is either poorly designed or it just is supposed to be so ridiculously stupid that it becomes hard.” He turned his back to Tas. “What do you think?”

  “Hmmm!!!!!!!!” He mumbled, shaking his head uncontrollably.

  “Oh god! Shut it, you sound like your pooping perpetually.”

  Harley continued on with no clear destination. Some thoughts, like climbing higher up the tree, came to mind, but anything that resulted in leaving Tas was really inconvenient. Though it was not exactly to his one hundred percent expectation, Tas could have gone so insane he would swallow the cloth and bite his tongue to die.

  After a while, he had nothing more in his mind and decided to stop. “Let’s take a break.” He released his grip on Tas’s hair and sat on his stomach. “Hmmm.” He looked to his right. “It seems you don’t wanna retaliate with your legs. Have you finally calmed down?” Harley’s smile could kill.

  He took a knife and placed it on his own neck, then he removed the cloth from inside Tas’s mouth. “If you bite your tongue, I’ll kill myself.”

  “What an insane threat. You think I can’t kill you! You caught me off guard!”

  “Then kill yourself.” Tas flinched.

  “...”

  “Anyway, what happened at the tutorial? You changed so much.” Harley smiled, while the other was the complete opposite.

  “Everyone died.”

  “Haha! If everyone died, then how are you alive?”

  “When I woke up, I was alone, in the dark.”

  “What the fuck happened to you then? Did seeing everyone you love die reveal a hidden narcissistic personality? For some-”

  “I am the chosen one!” His face smiled, yet tears fell from his eyes. “I can not die! I’m immortal! My trait is fucking immortality!” His scream rang through the entire forest, halting at the crack of his voice.

  “Hmmm, well that’s cheating.”

  “No! It’s a curse- no- a gift- a curse- a gift- a curse- a gift- aghh!!”

  “So you’re…” Harley slowly lowered his back to the ground, laying down on Tas. “... the guy who has gone insane one.” He twisted his head to the left, facing the screaming Tas. Shadowed by the endless scream, he talked without him even hearing himself. “How about me… am I insane?”

  Harley raised himself up and placed the cloth back. “Let’s go. Oh wait, now that I think about it, can’t he just stop breathing?” He immediately pulled the cloth back out, the screams coming back without change. “Are you here with me, Tas! Keep breathing, okay!” He just screamed to the end, not even hearing what Harley was trying to say. After a few seconds of annoyance, he smacked Tas’s head, making him unconscious.

  “Oh well, should I just wait for goblins here? Oh wait, I never noticed cause I was not focusing on it, but my injury is back, along with my ripped clothes. Huh… so basically, I heal fully when I go back to the lobby, but as soon as I get back, every injury… comes back. I knew it. That’s why I didn’t even hope it was overpowered.”

  He talked to himself a bit more while casually trying to climb on the tree directly above. Anyway, I broke Tas, so… I don’t really have a point of killing him repeatedly for now, and if he’s really immortal, then… can’t I just- basically use him as bait? It would have been better if I knew where the spawn was. For now, I’ll stop wasting time; someone might have already completed floor 2 and is monopolizing the market.

  ***

  Tas’s scream soon did the obvious, from the constant loud noises that shook even the trees, goblins soon arrived. A pack of 5 goblins appeared.

  Once they arrived, they surrounded the unconscious body. Three were around Tas, forming a triangle, while the other two looked in the opposite direction of where they came from, guarding from any intruders.

  They poked the body a few times, making sure it was dead. When the third tap came, Harley jumped down from the tree. Both his hands held a knife directed at the two away from the body.

  “Krrrk!” The three immediately noticed the blood that flew over their skin. They raised their knife and launched at Harley.

  Preparing it in advance, he threw the knife at his right hand at the one closest to him, the middle goblin. Using the falling body as a distraction, he took the chance to attack the left goblin, taking a hit at his abdomen in the process.

  Taking in the pain by biting his lips till they bled, he counter-attacked the other goblin, blocking the knife with his left hand, then pulling the knife in his abdomen, slicing the head in one fell swoop.

  “Fuck! Am I good, or are they stupid?” Harley’s teeth grinned, fully exposed. His laughter came tight and strained as if forced through clenched jaws.

  Tas woke up from the stabs in his chest, looking dead at the sky.

  “He’s gonna die, isn’t he. It's still a surprise he’s holding on till now. That’s some insane will. I wonder why he didn’t just kill himself. Was he scared of me? Really? Me? Why?”

  The body soon corroded quickly. Pixelated dust fell from the body, and it disappeared. At the same time, a golden beam from the sky landed at the far right of Harley.

  His eyes widened. “That’s the spawn!” Suddenly, a pain ached at his sides. “Shit…” He took his shirt off and tightly strapped it around his stomach. “Fuck! That kind of hurts more, hahaha! But at least it stops the bleeding.”

  Harley threw a knife in the direction of the beam and started to take all the cores of the goblins on the ground. “Do the goblins see that beam… cause if they do… well, it’s a good farm. Hahaha!” He sliced the goblin’s front skin straight in the middle, ripping the top and digging for the magic core.

  After gathering all five of the magic cores, he opened the door back to the lobby and threw the cores inside. “Hopefully, it doesn’t magically disappear. Close.” The white door shrank in the middle until it completely squished into nothing.

  “Now, onto the spawn.” Taking three knives with him, one just placed at his pockets, Harley made his way in one straight line.

  The moment he arrived, goblins were prying onto the dead body, it’s soulless eyes sucking even the goblin’s minds. Their relentless efforts to stab the man lying down soon succeeded. The same process concluded, skin crumbling, corroding through the air and disappearing. A golden beam struck the same ground, Tas appearing once more completely uninjured.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “His pain tolerance is something, or is he… still unconscious, just has his eyes opened? I don’t get it. Just, huh? He can handle that much pain, yet he doesn’t wanna fight me. Don’t tell me… he’s kind?”

  Thirteen goblins surrounded Tas, while a few more were spread out around the area, covered by the trees. There is no way to defeat all of them without dying. I don’t know how much life I have, but I can try to kill them all while repeatedly dying. Though… He shook for five seconds straight. I don’t wanna feel that type of pain. I fought stone termites, but just five of these are enough for me to take only one at each life. At the same time, even if I do have the right amount of extra lives, I wouldn’t exactly know if I actually do. Shit!

  Death lingered everywhere. It was neither visible nor audible. Harley’s skin crawled, his feet shaking, calling for a retreat. He took a deep breath and retreated back a few steps. In the blink of an eye, he bolted forward without much thought of what could come next.

  After reaching a single tree away from a goblin, he jumped, stabbing it in the eye and struck it down. “Krrrk!!!!” Many yelled as every goblin launched themselves. Eight goblins were near him, surrounding him in a crescent shape. I’ll take one before I die! He threw a knife past the goblins, hitting close to Tas. As his eye neared a blade, he stabbed a goblin through the chest, cleaving it up to the head while a knife struck his eye. Harley screamed, his lungs breached past their limit, dying as his head split.

  [9 Lives Remaining]

  The moment he got back, he reached for the knife on the ground and stood still, taking a stance. Shit… that was so instant that I still can’t open my left eye. Never noticed this in a dark cave! Hahaha! The goblins all ran to him, backup arriving behind.

  The moment he noticed two goblins behind him, there was no time to think—only move. Harley’s mind raced with time. His heart pounded with indistinguishable emotions, fear or joy, it didn’t matter.

  Harley reflected the goblin at the right, shoving its knife to the ground. He then jumped, taking the hit from the left back to his abdomen. In the same second, his knife landed on the skull of the first goblin. He pulled it free and smashed his head into the other goblin, blood spraying from both wounds.

  As soon as he landed on the ground, the goblin’s imbalance dragged his knife to the side of Harley’s guts; in just a second, he would die. Failing in his plan, forgetting just how sharp the knife was, he threw the one he held to his back and died.

  [8 Lives Remaining]

  He then arrived, surrounded by the goblins, his knife far behind the goblins. Shit! This is what I was afraid of. Eight lives left… fuck!

  Unexpectedly, in the middle of such a crisis, words mumble from beneath him. “That’s exactly what I experienced. It’s a curse.”

  Harley, having no other choice, dives into a goblin in front of the knife he threw, taking a quick hit to his shoulder. His palm reached to the neck, strangling the goblin till both of them died.

  [7 Lives Remaining]

  Arriving back once more, he rolled down to the ground, in reach for the knives, taking grazes to his face, sides, and legs. “It get’s unmotivating, you know. You may be alive, yet you know full well how powerless you just are.”

  His body rolled, his back being skinned by the knife on the ground. He picked it up immediately and tried to stand up, just halfway a goblin’s knife was at his head. Harley barely turned, the knife hitting his shoulder, opening a way to kill another goblin.

  In that split second, he tried to jump back, pointlessly landing on another knife to his neck. One… more! He raised his arm, driving a blade to the head of the one behind him.

  [6 Lives Remaining]

  “Then, at one of those ‘lives,’ you just think to yourself, I’ve died so many times, yet I’m still alive?”

  Because he had run a few inches away from the exact spawn point, he was allotted a second of breathing to run, going in the direction of his first two kills, where two or three knives lay. However, taking all three would be impossible, the goblin being a single hair strand away.

  Once Harley was a step away from the knife, a goblin launched itself off the ground, directly aiming at his head. At just the exact time, Harley had also jumped. The goblin sliced through the air, and instead of losing his life, Harley felt a void of air as his left arm was cleanly severed.

  Hissing the pain away, as his hand grabbed onto the knife, he quickly turned his body mid-air with the force of his shoulder, impaling the goblin’s temple. Then, as another goblin was on top of him, having a free ticket to his head, he threw the knife through the legs of the goblin.

  [5 Lives Remaining]

  Eight goblins remained, all screaming in front of him, while one other person was just casually talking below. “How many lives were that? You only had ten. It’s a clear sign. You’ll die, and I’ll just be here dying… till I want to live again.”

  “Shut up!”

  “I still feel pain, you know.”

  Harley, having five lives left when there was such a clear disadvantage in numbers, and that’s not all, he even needed more of those for the second floor’s mission, had absolutely no other solution than to kill all in just two lives. That was the best he could leverage from.

  The goblins had gathered in one pile, just a single one in the front, three at the back, and four more at the furthest. They unintentionally formed a triangle. I could run… but I’m an idiot! Okay! Harley rushed in, getting the free goblin at the front by grabbing its knife with his hand and striking its head.

  He quickly removed his hand, leaving a gaping hole. Then he grabbed that same knife, holding it by the blade. Taking every risk there were, he took two stabs at the stomach and one close to his heart. In one swift strike, he stabbed two in the head in exchange for one struck in his head. But even with death grabbing him, his body pressed on. Two more died, his body moving even when his life had already gone.

  [4 Lives Remaining]

  “Hahahaha! Three left!” The goblins started to shiver, even they knew that their numbers had already reduced by too much.

  “Wow… seeing you continue makes me feel shit at myself.”

  “I’ll poop on you after this, shit.” He spat on Tas’s face and ran off to the two goblins, gladly letting go of one more life.

  Harley ran straight at the goblin in front, taking the blade one last time to his diaphragm. “You guys really suck at aiming at the head!” He barked, grabbing the goblin’s neck. The other two flanked him, thrusting at both ends of his sides. The first goblin snapped, his hand immediately moving to the other two. In those fleeting seconds, he was sliced at the torso, hanging by his upper body like a piece of clothing. Veins bulged, fury fueling his limbs, killing the other two as his head sank to the blood-soaked ground.

  [3 Lives Remaining]

  “Fun, is it not?” His butt falling straight at Tas’s face. “Now stop being a wimp, bitch-ass.”