Encountering A Frog

Once I see their sheer numbers, I immediately jump down from the wall and run a distance away from it. Later on I might be able to stand against them but right now, there's no way. So I make a tactical retreat.

'I will train my skills and raise my level in the coming days until I feel confident. Then I will attack them.'

After putting a fairly safe distance between me and the village I see a tree longer and wider than those around it. It is also surrounded by tall bushes. Perfect to hide. This tree will be where I will increase my skill levels and learn new spells. I mark the tree's bark with a small fireball.

The first spell I want to learn is Shield. So far I was successfull in sniping all goblins from afar before any of them could locate and attack me. However as their level increases I'm sure I will come across more special goblins that will pose danger to me.

The spell Shield is my guarantee. My trump card. I start circulating my mana through my bones. As I continue, my perk, magical intuition, keeps giving me tips on how to guide the flow so that the desired effect comes to fruition.

I keep focusing for a few minutes when- Snap!

The flow of my mana gets interrupted. I couldn't catch what caused this interruption. I start the same flow again. Once more, it gets interrupted. But this time I see what the problem is.

What happens when an air current blowing north and an air current blowing east crash into eachother? Can they still continue going north and east as two separate currents. I don't know. But they will probably either go haywire or combine and flow in the same direction.

In these two previous attempts I failed to control the combined flows direction which caused the spell to go out of control.

I keep trying while sitting on the grass, leaning back on the tree. A few tries later;

[You have acquired the skill Mana Manipulation.]

Nice! On the next try I think I will succeed.

The mana begins to circulate from the head and goes to the chest. From there to the arms and legs. Then it makes a u-turn makes circles. Now I get to the tricky part. The two currents combine and smoothly flow in the same direction.

A spherical shield appears around my body. I can tell that the spell has succeeded.

[You have successfully casted the spell "Shield".]

[It will be shown in the Spells section.]

Next I have to learn Heal, Detection, Ice Bolt, Wind Blade and so on.

I continue learning new spells. When I get bored, I walk around a little and hunt the goblins near the tall tree. Sometimes curious goblins who hear the sound of my spell approach the tree to check out what is going on. With my new spell Detection, which I regularly cast, I can see them before they even appear and ambush them.

After this period of training my status looks like this:

[Name: ---

Age: 7 days

Race: Skeleton

Titles: Goblin Slayer

Level: 21

Stats

Health: 100%

Mana: 68%

Strength: 15

Defence: 13

Agility: 14

Magic: 15

Intelligence: 31

Stat points: 0

Perks

Magical Intuition

Spells

Fireball 5, Shield 3, Heal 3, Detection 4, Haste 2, Strength 2, Defence, Ice Bolt 2, Wind Blade 4, Laser Beam 4

Skills

Spell Casting 6, Ambush 3, Snipe 3, Stealth 3, Mana Manipulation 4]

From all my hunting I gained a title called Goblin Slayer. From it I learned that titles are actually very useful.

[Goblin Slayer: Word has spread that an enemy has been hunting them while they are away from their village. This has caused some of them to feel fear towards this being.

+10% damage against goblins.]

Just like that, I can now more efficiently deal with goblins.

Right now I am focusing on leveling up the laser beam spell. It is by far my fastest spell and instantly pierces all targets. A perfect spell for ambushes. Skills level up faster when in action. So I need to hunt some more goblins.

I had looted a nice and hard stick from a goblin. I pick the stick up and start walking into the forest.

...

In the goblin village.

A muscular and tall goblin is walking towards the chief's tent. The goblin has a scar in the shape of a claw strike on his face. There are also many scars across his body. This goblin is the goblin chief's right hand man, Taluk.

He enters the tent and sees the goblin chief eating well-cooked meat. Almost everytime he sees the chief he would be eating meat. There are rumors going around that the chief has a perk which allows him to get stronger the more he eats meat.

Of course, as second in command he knows that this rumor is true. The chief himself had confirmed it to him. Taluk does not know when Chief Orio was born. However he had recently showed explosive growth. His growth was so terrifying that the previous chief had sent an order for him to be killed.

Instead it was the chief who had been killed. Orio killed the goblins sent to kill him. Then he ate them and went straight for the village chief's head. Afterwards the village chief only had his bones remaining.

He kneels on the ground and pays respects to the chief. In the goblin's language he says:

"Long live Chief Orio."

The chief stops his eating and looks up, then immediately loses interest.

"What is it? I'm eating my meal right now."

He continues enjoying his meal, not knowing that Taluk has brought him some troubling news.

"Chief, our goblins soldiers at the south side have reported that the scouts they sent out have not returned. So they sent out an investigation team. The team searched the southern part but they couldn't find anything that could pose a threat. The only thing they could find was the corpses of the scouts and low level soldiers. There were also many newly spawned goblin corpses. Should you order it, I will take a team with me, find the cause of this incident and eliminate it."

While listening to Taluk, Chief Orio stops eating. As his second in command continues, Orio's face gets darker. After he hears all of it, the chief thinks for a moment, then answers.

"Take ten mages and twenty warriors. A threat like this needs to be dealt with as soon as possible."

"Yes, Chief."

Taluk confirms the order and gets up to leave. He gets out of the tent and goes around the village to gather the strongest ten mages and twenty warriors and immediately departs with them.

...

Meanwhile, the goblin slayer, I, have been hunting goblins. I hunted so much of them that now, the only goblins I could find in this region were low level ones. There weren't any of those armored goblins anymore. So I go back to my tree, say goodbye and leave for the forest on the east side of the village.

I know the goblins in the village will eventually retaliate, since no one would just wait as a threat keeps killing their kind. Maybe it will be better to move a bit further from the village this time.

I go further east until I can no longer do so. Eventually reaching the wall of the cave. I continue going north while keeping the wall on my right. The wall curves to the left a little and opens up into a tunnel.

I look around for a little and then enter the tunnel. Staying in the goblins cave after slaughter many of the weaker goblins is too risky. The village must have sent someone strong to investigate the problem and I don't know how strong they are. So, I make another tactical retreat and go out of the goblin cave.

...

The team, with Taluk as their leader, had looked everywhere in the south part but they couldn't find anything suspicious. The only suspicious thing was a tall tree and it's surrounding which was hidden from sight by tall bushes. The tree had been hit with several spells and it's bark had fallen off. Of the surroundings, some parts were frozen, some parts were burnt, some had deep gashes.

None of the goblins in the outer region could have caused this spectacle so they had reached the conclusion that the one who did this was the killer of all of those corpses strewn in the forest.

One of the mages casts a tracking spell and finally, they have a lead in finding the bastard that killed hundreds of their kind.

"Keep tracking him. We need to kill the bastard before we return to the village."

'Otherwise who knows what the chief will do to me.'

...

While running through the tunnels I kept casting spells to increase their proficiency. The one I used the most is laser beam which has already reached level 5. I have also learned a new spell to illuminate the surroundings, Luminous Sphere.

Probably because I am a skeleton I seem to never run out of stamina. So I keep running and running and running until...

RUMBLE!

The whole tunnel starts shaking. I stop running and look around. I immediately spot the problem. Because I kept casting spells while running through the tunnels I damaged foundations. That is why the tunnel is now collapsing.

I need to escape from this spot or I will get buried under rocks. Who knows how long it will take to get out afterwards. That is, if I can even survive the crushing weight of the rubble.

-Haste-

I cast haste and put my leg bones into overdrive. In these tunnels, there are lots of connection points. I ignore all of them and keep zooming forward. From one of these intersections jumps out a small, pink frog that has a pattern on it's skin in the shape of flowers and hearts in a slightly darker shade of pink. The frog is wearing a monocle and has a small ring on one of it's fingers. It carries itself with poise, jumping in the tunnels with grace. As it sees a running skeleton it decides to follow it as that was the only safe path to choose anyway.

A few minutes pass with them running in one direction and finally the rumbling stops. It seems the tunnels behind had collapsed and settled. The frog stops jumping and looks back.

'Phew. That could have been dangerous. Luckily, I had time to take the most valuable stuff. Now, let's see what kind of skeleton this one is.'

The frog looks forward again, only to see the empty and boring tunnel.

-Detection-

It casts a spell to find the skeleton. Turns out the skeleton didn't that far away. But it seems to have kept running even after the rumbling stopped. The frog casts haste once more and tries to catch up to the skeleton.

Once it can see the skeleton's back it casts another spell.

-Telepathy-

~Hey.

The skeleton turns his head to the side then turns it back forward.

The frog gets a little bit annoyed.

~HEY! You bastard. Just because I'm small, are you ignoring me? Huh? Stop running and look back.

The skeleton stops and looks back. Then it raises it's hand. The hand starts glowing red and a magic circle appears.

-Laser Beam-

'Shit!'

-Shield-

The laser beam shoots out of the magic circle and reaches the shield. It then harmlessly slides off to the left side. Continuing the trajectory it hits the wall of the tunnel.

Boom!

The frog thinks that the skeleton would stop after attacking once. But the bastard keeps the spell active and even increases it's power.

The beam moves to the center of the sphere where it can deal most damage. This causes it to spilt into multiple different directions after it fails to pierce the shield. All those smaller beams hit the walls and after the first explosion start melting in.

Crack.

A few seconds into the standoff, a sound is heard. A crack, like something is about to break.

They both look up and see a crack spreading on the ceiling.

~You lunatic! You're gonna get us both crushed! I'm not even your enemy. Stop attacking.

The skeleton continues the attack.

Crack. Crack.

The cracking sounds keep getting louder and more dangerous.

~Fine. I thought you would be a more intelligent one. But I guess one can't change their nature.

The frog starts jumping around the tunnel and the laser which loses it's target hits straight into the ground.

Boom! Crack. Crack. Rumble!

The frog jumps towards the skeleton and casts a spell.

-Shockwave-

The skeleton stops casting the laser beam and switches to;

-Shield-

This time the frog attacks and the skeleton defends. The shield barely disperses the effects of shockwave. But the frog's attack isn't over with just that. It jumps on the wall and bounces back behind the skeleton.

-Gale-

The shield stops the skeleton from getting harmed but the purpose of the spell wasn't to deal damage anyway. The skeleton gets pushed back. Sliding and eventually flying back towards the direction he had been running away from.

Collapse!

The ceiling collapses right at this moment and everything gets buried.