Solo Progression

When the Window said [START] three beings spawned into existence in the middle of the cavern I had found myself in. The beings were short and stout, with sickly greenish skin colour. Their nearly completely bald heads were shiny and splotchy at the same time, though a couple of them had patches of grey-white, stringy hair.

They had big thin ears that pointed upwards sharply and twisted around as they studied their surroundings. The ears twitched as they each grunted as they looked at each other next.

I noticed their dark, dull yellow eyes next as they scanned the area where they appeared in. Luckily, they still hadn't noticed me near the wall, quivering in my shoes with excitement and fear.

They were all holding primitive stone axe weapons, though the stone they used as the blades had a sharp shine on them. They would hurt if they hit me.

Under my breath, as my voice quivered, I said softly, "Paradigm, scan those creatures."

The System quickly scanned one of the three humanoids and after a split second, the search results came up on a Window in front of me:

[GOBLIN (BASIC)

LEVEL RANGE: 1 - 3

BASIC GOBLINS ARE THE WEAKEST AND STUPIDEST MOB THAT PARADIGM CREATES TO INHABIT ITS DUNGEON QUESTS. THEY FOLLOW A BASIC HIERARCHY BASED ON STRENGTH, AND SHOULD ONLY PROVIDE A SMALL CHALLENGE FOR ADVENTURERS DURING THEIR QUESTS.]

From what I could remember of Saizo's dungeon quest stories, I guessed that these were goblins, I just had to make sure. I swiped my left hand softly and slowly to turn on a setting and the standard information appeared above each goblin. Their Health Bars, their Mana Bars and their Levels.

Thankfully, all three goblins were only level one. Although, with my damage debuff, it'll still be a challenge for a level two like me who wasn't even a proper Adventurer.

I gritted my teeth and I stepped forward, closer to the three goblins in the middle of the room. Room 1A. The name didn't make sense to me, but I didn't have the luxury to think about that yet. I had to survive through five waves of enemies it seemed.

My movement finally caught the sight of one goblin who grunted and alerted their peers. They all turned to face me and cackled. It was this piercing, high-range and strained that caused shivers to run down my spine.

I stopped my advance when the three goblins started to rush towards me with their short, thin legs all in a single file. Seemed like the goblins didn't know how to surround their prey.

As the front goblin came within my reach, I swung my blade and managed to slash its torso whilst dodging its clumsy swing. It wasn't too hard since they telegraphed the swing pretty noticeably, but the way that the stone blade embedded itself into the ground where it looked like I was heading displayed the strength that the thin short arms of the goblins had been capable of.

The goblin staggered at the damage that my slash had on it. The bar above its head goes down by around 75% and I growled. If I had been able to use my dominant hand and didn't have this damage debuff, I could have defeated these creatures with one swing.

Goblin One had fallen on its knees, its free hand grabbing at its chest, almost as if it was trying to stop the wound from bleeding with just its palm. Goblin Two ignored its peer and beelined right towards me and attempted its swing that forced me to dodge backwards, only missing the end of the stone axe by a few centimetres.

I regained my balance and as Goblin Two was struggling to get its weapon out, I slashed at Goblin Three who was tripping over Two.

Before Three managed to get up, I managed to slash at its back and its health bar was depleted.

At this point, Goblin Two had given up on its stone axe and lunged toward me. I instinctively blocked it with my left arm and it latched on and bit down hard on my arm. The lightning jolted up and down my arm and as the tears started pouring down my face, I shifted my grip on my hunting blade and shoved it right into one of Goblin Two's eye sockets.

That caused Two's health bar to disappear all in one go and the pressure on its jaws went limp as I pulled its dirty teeth out of my arm.

I fell backwards awkwardly a couple of metres away from Goblin One who seemed like it was struggling to keep its innards inside. I hadn't realised I had slashed its torso that deep. Before I could finish it off, however, I had to deal with my wound.

I fumbled into my hunting satchel and dumped its contents onto the ground. I managed to find a bandage I had prepared and wrapped it as tight as I could around the part of my left arm that was bitten. I ignored the Status Window that warned me that the Nerve Degradation on my arm had gotten worse.

I tied the bandage tight and clumsily placed the contents of my satchel back before placing it back on around my waist. A task made way harder than it used to be because of my current wound.

My body stiffened when I heard a soulful and angry cry come out of Goblin One as it willed itself to stand back up, though it could not grab its stone axe as it was using both of its hands to hold close its wound.

It turned around and growled weakly at me and I realised that my slash had managed to nick where its stomach and spleen would be if it had similar organ placement as humans.

I grabbed my hunting dagger once more and stood up shakily and approached the last goblin. It looked up at me helplessly and whimpered.

"I'm sorry. I have to do this." I mumbled, not even sure if dungeon creatures can understand the human language.

It lowered its head as if in understanding and I stabbed into its neck. The Health Bar above its head emptied and when I pulled the dagger out, the goblin toppled over.

There was a silence that laid its tight grip over me as I looked over at the three corpses that lay in the room. There was a scary amount of blood spilled on the ground as well. Both mine and the goblins.

One part of my mind knew that what I had done was somewhat like self-defence. The goblins acted as if on instinct and attacked their perceived intruder — me.

And even though I know that Paradigm constructed fantastical creatures to occupy as dangers in its quests, it was still nothing like killing an animal for food out in the real world. These creatures seemed more than animals. I mean, the three goblins seemed to have communicated some basic information to each other in grunts before they started to attack me.

I never really thought of it before but where do these creatures come from? Do they exist somewhere in Paradigm before being forced to become dangers in dungeons? Or were these implications of civilisation embedded into the creatures to give adventurers a bit more of a compelling danger in their quests? Something to differentiate them from simple animals that hunters hunt?

A Window popped up interrupting my spiralling descent into the existentialism of dungeon creatures. The three corpses and the weapons they were using also disappeared when this Window appeared.

[WAVE 1 OF 5 COMPLETED

You have received 15EXP from clearing the wave.

WAVE 2 OF 5

STARTING IN 5...]

I paced back a few steps and took the defensive stance once more as the counting went down. This time, when the wave started, five goblins spawned in the middle of the room.

The five creatures looked practically identical to the first three that appeared in the first wave and once again, they grunted at each other when one noticed me standing there waiting for them. They used the same rush technique, all in a single file once more.

I managed to recognise their familiar attack rhythm however and was able to slash at whichever goblin was nearest to me, dodge the telegraphed swing, and slashed once more. The second wave only took me a minute or so to complete and once it was over, my mind was blank as another Window popped up.

[WAVE 2 OF 5 COMPLETED

You have received 25EXP from clearing the wave.

WAVE 3 OF 5

STARTING IN 5...]

***

All that I could guess was that every wave would be harder than the previous one and whenever I did something, a respective skill would gather EXP and improve.

I developed a passive "Slash" skill that affected the amount of damage I did with each slash. And there was a passive "Dodge" skill that was added to my repertoire.

An innate survival instinct took over my body and made me feel like something else was controlling my every move whenever the enemies started to attack me. I had always been so careful to not be in any dangerous situations even when I was hunting that I never really experienced my body moving in the way that it did, but as I went through the waves, I realised that the stories that I had lunged at the bandits that fateful night might have had some truth in them.

Wave three spawned five basic goblins and one ranged goblin that had a short bow and quiver of arrows. Dodging the ranged goblin was kind of awkward, but I managed to clear that wave quite easily and received 35EXP for my troubles.

Wave four went by not as quickly and easily. The dungeon had spawned five ranged goblins and it had been a hassle to dodge all of their shots, but by the end, I was rewarded 50EXP and had managed to increase my overall LVL to three.

Each time you levelled up your overall LVL, you're gifted with three Stat Points to improve any of your five attributes and since I had one spare Stat Point before I levelled up, that meant that I had a total of four.

After a quick deliberation as the countdown to wave five got closer and closer, I decided to put two points on Strength and Agility each and I immediately felt a subtle change in my body. My muscles felt slightly stronger and I felt lighter on my feet. It seemed like the smartest choice to defeat waves easier.

I grabbed my water bottle and took a quick sip of it as I prayed that my stamina would refill enough. The dodging had started to take a toll on my Stamina Bar.

Once Wave five started, a level three Goblin Chief spawned in the middle of the room. I gulped. I knew it was a Goblin Chief by the name that appeared above its Health Bar. Before I could scan the creature that stood at about three times my height and was a more bloated, scarred, and sicklier green than the basic goblins so far, the Chief noticed me and started roaring. A Window popped up.

[GOBLIN CHIEF USES MOVE: RALLY CALL]

At the end of Rally Call, five level one goblins spawned around the Goblin Chief.

Okay, basic goblins, I can handle easily. That was when I saw that the air around the Goblin Chief started to stir, and a subtle warm glow started to cover his whole body.

The five goblins seemed to have noticed me finally as the glow grew more intense and at the apex of the glow, it gathered all in the Goblin Chief's palm. He thrust his arm forcefully in my direction, and the glow left his palm and formed a massive ball of flames about the size of my torso. A Window popped up once more, telling me what I already guessed.

[GOBLIN CHIEF USES MOVE: FIREBALL]