3 The first of many battles

Moving through the dead trees there were only dead plants. After a while he got to the end of the forest. On the edge of it there were no more grass or dead trees. Just barren waste land until the eye could see. Far away in the edge of the visible world there were mountains, but before it there wasn't even a hill. It looked like someone ran the whole place over with a bulldozer and destroyed everything in it's way. Or actually almost everything.

To the left from where he was standing in a few hundred meters away there was a small village. Several streaks of smoke came out of the place, like some people lived there. But after closer inspection he saw that the houses were decrepeted and really old. The villagers were little green people, which he assumed were goblins.

'Oh no! I can't let them see me!'

He hid behind a dead tree and then looked around. He did not see or hear anything around him so he started to look into the wasteland once more.

To the right from where he was far away from the forest, there was a fort of some sort. But it looked barbaric and "evil", with all sort of symbols made from red substance, which he assumed was blood.

'Not a place, where a sensible man would live at.'

The last place he saw was sort of in the middle of the two places he looked at before, but further away. It looked closer to the mountains, than to the forest. It was a castle like building, but he wasn't sure about it. Above it was a giant moving dark cloud, which looked like, it was made out of several hundred creatures flying in circles.

'A hard no on that one. It is a castle straigh out of a horror movie!'

He looked around again looking for an other place, but there was nothing more.

'This won't do it at all. At this rate I have to turn back! ... But the wolves!'

He turned back and looked at the forest. His stomach rumbled.

'Ahhh... It's still better then a wasteland without food!'

Before going back he inspected a few dead wood and searched for a few branches that would suffice for spears. After a few minutes of searching, he found 5 which were good enough. He spent some time making them sharp and then went back to the living part of the forest with the spears in his hands. He searched for bushes which had elastic branches and made some quiver like item from them, then placed the spears into it.

'Ths should hold out. Now for the food.'

He ate some of the berries found on bushes and thought were good, then continued on his journey.

After walking for a while he saw a goblin in the forest sitting between the trees and doing something. He did not see what it was doing, but he did not wanted to disturb it.

'It should be fine, if I would just take a route around it. '

'...'

'Or wait! I could kill it and gain some exp!'

Then he shivered at the thought.

'Killing a creature, which was just minding it's own business. Why would it be ok? Even if this world has a game like system it's still killing. Those things are not humans, but they have "high" intelligence and feelings. Just killing it without a reason would be a sin.'

Then he stopped with this line of thought.

'Sin? There is no sin in survival. If I kill to survive, it's not sin.'

Fortunatelly the goblin was immersed in whatever it was doing. So he went a little closer, as sneaky as he could. He looked at what the goblin had.

'A crude stone knife, a spear and really gross pants. Nothing? Not even food, or water? Then I guess I should just leave.'

Just as he had these thought, the goblin seemed like felt his presence and started to look around. He quicly hid behind a tree and looked out through the leaves. After that he saw what the goblin was doing. It was eating an other goblin. His mouth and hands were filled with *omited*. He quicly pulled his head back behind the tree.

'OMG! This is a cannibal! It's eating it's own kind!'

Though he did know that some races even ate it's own kind for food, if there was nothing else, but it was just too much for him to handle. He started to sweat and looked out once more.

'The goblin is gone? Where did it go? It didn't make any noi...'

He couldn't even end the thread, he fellt pain in his back.

'He got behind me?'

He jumped forward and turned around. The goblin looked at him, like it was suprised.

'Why can't I see my health, or his, or his level? What is wrong with this system?!'

As he pulled out his makeshift spear and hit the goblin's, he got suprised as well. Even though the goblin didn't looked like it, it was strong. His spear couldn't move the goblin's.

It quicly stabbed back, but he was far enough, so that just stepping back got him away and the spear missed him. Then tried to stab the goblin, but it was to fast. After they both missed the target, they froze for a moment, but the goblin charged at him angrily.

"You little piece of XX!"

He jumped aside and the goblin barely missed him. Then hit it with the spear as he was turning around to face the goblin again. It made it even more angry and it threw the spear at him. The spear landed in his shoulder, causing incredible pain. It was even worse than the stab in the back.

"I'll kill you for this!"

He was just as angry as the goblin and charged at it, but the goblin grabbed his spear and twisted it out of his hand. Then jumped on him and tried to bite his neck, but he was just fast enough to stop the goblin in midair and held it in his hands.

"Now I got you!"

But the goblin instead of despair felt only more anger. It digged it's nailes into his hands.

"Aaaahhh...!"

He let go of it because of the pain. It took advantage of that moment and jumped on him and started to strangle him.

He tried to hit the goblin, struggled with all his power, but it wasn't enough. Then he realized, that something was in his pocket. He grabbed it and stabbed the neck of the goblin.

The knife went in deep without a problem. Blood flow on his face, but instead of letting it go, he started to move it through the goblin's neck. It had no time to respond and fell on him dead.

Joseph caughed for a while and took deep breaths. He pushed the body off of him and sit up.

"This... it must have been... a high levelled one..."

He looked at his wounds, but surprisingly all the wounds got better, there was almost no signs of the wounds, except for that, his skin was red on the spots. After a little break collected the spear of the goblin, it's crude stone knife and cleared as much blood of of himself and his pocket knife, as he could. He looked at his status and was really supprised.

Name: Joseph Smith

Race: Human

Age: 21 Gender: Male

Job: None

Level: 1

Experience: 5/100

Health: 6/50

Manna: 160/160

Strength: 6

Dexterity: 8

Constitution: 5

Intelligence: 16

Wisdom: 14

Charisma: 10

Abilities: Imaginative Magic F, Examination F

Titles: None

"FIVE EXPERIENCE POINTS?! Only FIVE?"

He started to caugh again from the shouting.

'Was it just a level one mob? Then why was it so strong?'

He looked below it.

'???'

'Health 50 and Constitution 5? Why did they change? I did not level up! ... Maybe I got points just doing stuff and not levelling up?'

And he finally saw the new ability as well.

'Oh yes! Some usefull ability! Though it is still low levelled. Let's see the description!'

Examination F

You can examine everything you come across. After examination, you can see all the information about them that you got from somewhere, even if you only read it once and forget about it.

"This is useless! All the abilities I got are useless! I'm gonna cry! Every part of my bodie hurts! I got only useless abilities and I have to survive in this wild world!"

Then he realized what he should've as soon as he saw all the new informations.

'Wait! Actually my stats are getting better, even if I don't level up. Maybe I could get some more with excersises. Also this ability, even if it seems useless, I might actually get some good things out of it, if I read more books, or just listen to new things.'

He looked around and got depressed.

'Where would I even get new information, when there is nothing around me, just this forest?!'

He sighed and looked at every items description he had.

'First the makeshift quiver.'

Makeshift quiver

It is a bad quality quiver which is good to hold spears in it. It was made by you.

'Of course... Now the spears.'

Makeshift spear

It is a really bad quality spear made out of a dead tree's branch. Also made by you...

'Is it mocking me or something?'

He took out the crude stone knife.

Crude stone knife

As far as you know, it is made from stone and it lookes like a knife. It was made by rubbing two stones together. It has a sharp edge, but it has a really bad durrability.

'"As far as I know"? Is it a person who is making these? Also the informations are a lot more than the other stuff had. Though I got all this info from some TV show, but that one part was actually usefull. I did not even looked at how it was made. It was basically grinded with a grinding stone. Huh.'

Last thing was the spear.

Crude spear

Made by goblins, for goblins, of goblins. This spear has a tree as a handle and a goblin bone was used for the head of it. It is well balanced, though a little bit short for you. Still far better than the ones you made.

For some reason he got angry at the last part.

'It is definetly someone making these descriptions! If I find them I'm going to slap them!'

He did not realize, but the one who was making the comments on the stuff was actually his subconscious...

'Sigh... I should look for a place to rest for the night. Also I'm getting really thirsty. All these berries help a little, but I need something more nourishing and some water.'

After a little while he has found a tree he could rest on and climbed on it. He did not realized it, but it was the same tree he rested on in the morning. He made a circle in the forest, just to get to the same point, he started on.