Blood Goblin

(A/N: Will rewrite this chapter soon to match the ending of Chapter 2.)

It was a thick shrubbery that looked kind of out of place.

He started to compare it to the surrounding shrubbery and he couldn't almost notice any difference if not for how it seemed as if it was artificially glued together.

Mirage approached the bush and parted it with his hands.

What greeted his eyes after that was a huge stone castle with several goblins patrolling around the area.

There were also quite a few stone watchtowers with at least one or two goblins holding a bow on every tower as they kept tight surveillance on the castle's surroundings.

He was stunned at such an eerie sight and was just about to retreat when he saw a red small creature that came out of the castle walls while being surrounded by malevolent air.

'What is that thing?' he had a tight frown on his face and took a closer look at it.

The strange creature was not that tall, probably around his waist length. It had yellow eyes and pointed ears. It was also holding a bone dagger in its small hand that had a sharp gleam to it.

"That's... a goblin, right?" he asked himself in disbelief.

Although he was still several meters away from the creature, Mirage's senses were already screaming for him to run away from this place.

He didn't dare to take a deep breath as he retreated with light footsteps while monitoring the red goblin's movements.

Just as he was about to leave the area, he saw the creature's head turned to look at him, the corners of its eyes were curled into a smile, its jagged yellow teeth cackling in amusement. 

Mirage's eyes widened in horror as he screamed in his heart, 'It knew that I was hiding here all along!'

He already felt the dread that the creature gave off even with such a long distance between them.

Thus, without hesitation, Mirage turned to run away from the red goblin as fast as he could.

Mirage was panting hard as he tried to run as fast as he could.

However, he didn't even manage to run that far when he suddenly heard rustling sound that was getting closer to him.

He turned his head to look behind him and saw that it was the red creature running after him with a wide grin on its face.

Mirage's eyes twitched seeing it getting increasingly closer to him as time passed by.

He gritted his teeth, 'It's only a matter of time before it would catch up to me!'

Seeing the creature lunging towards him, he rapidly retreated to the parted shrubbery, he thought that it is unwise to fight the creature while he was on its territory.

He got out of the shrubbery and not long later the creature exited too, it looked around before eventually finding Mirage, it got excited seeing Mirage, and it instantly lunged towards him its sharp bone dagger slashing towards his abdomen.

'It's quick!' Mirage was shocked by its speed while he readied himself to receive its vicious strike using his short sword.

The sharp dagger came so fast that in the blink of an eye, it was already a few inches away from his abdomen but before it could get any closer, it got deflected away by a short sword, the collision resulted in a resounding clang, Mirage and the strange creature was also knocked back by the collision of their weapons.

It was so loud but he did not have to worry about it reaching the castle as they were already outside the goblin castle's periphery.

He was exalted that he had successfully parried the dagger away but then he suddenly heard a notification that made his expression grim.

[ Durability of < Beginner's Weapon > decreased by 1. ]

He was shocked and fearful at the same time, he was shocked by the bone dagger's sharpness and felt fearful about his tragic ending if he had let that dagger reach him.

He solemnly looked towards the red creature, he was cautious of its fearsome weapon, but it all depended on how well would its user wield it, thus he had to be observant of the creature's changes.

'That shabby-looking bone dagger must be made of high-quality materials..' he silently thought while urgently suppressing his greed.

It's inappropriate to feel greed in times like this, this negative feeling would only get in the way and might put him in danger.

The red creature did not give him any time to relax as it ferociously lunged towards him again, this time the creature became much more agile, it occasionally attacked his blindspots and tricky angles.

He couldn't, well, he did not dare to parry the creature's attacks as it would make his weapon's durability drop at an alarming rate.

He instead waited for an opportunity for the creature to reveal its weakness while at the same time carefully analyzing its attack patterns.

He had managed to see through its attack pattern after their several exchanges, thus he had gained a breather and could even launch a counterattack at the same time.

He viciously slashed his short sword towards the creature's armpits, it panicked upon seeing the approaching short sword, it clumsily parried away his weapon which in turn reduced the durability of his weapon yet again, but after it deflected his attacks, it had inevitably revealed a flaw on its defense.

Mirage saw this rare opportunity and immediately seized this chance.

He swiftly stabbed his short sword towards the creature's side, a puchi sound could be heard as he had successfully injured his opponent.

He pulled back his weapon and was about to attack again when he felt something thus he abruptly retreated swiftly.

The creature was wounded, its red blood rapidly flowed down from its injured area, the creature froze for a brief second, it suddenly raised its head and as if possessed by a vile ghost, it shrieked sharply, sounding extremely horrifying.

Hearing its horrible scream made Mirage feel various negative emotions such as fear, confusion, and panic.

These negative emotions did not come from him but were induced by the shriek of the strange creature.

[ You are affected by < Howl of Terror >. ]

[ You are in a state of fear. Unable to attack for 5 seconds. ]

[ All stats decreased by 10% for 5 seconds. ]

He saw these notifications but he did not panic, he was only deprived of his ability to attack but he was still able to move and defend himself albeit weak due to the decrease in stats imposed by the < Howl of Terror >.

The creature stopped howling and instantly dashed towards Mirage.

Its attacks extremely ferocious and deadly, its attack pattern had completely changed thus he had to rely on his weapon to parry its attacks occasionally, which in turn made his weapon's durability reduce at a frightening rate.

He was not flustered by his precarious situation, he was unusually calm despite his rapidly worsening situation instead.

The sudden aggression of the creature made its attack feel more predictable thus it did not take too long for him to get used to its crazed state, not long later and he was able to dodge but he still could not attack as he was still affected by its < Howl of Terror >.

His stats reducing means nothing to him, it was laughable, as it seems that the lowest a stat could get was 1, and other than his intelligence which was slightly affected, all of his other stats weren't affected at all!

He did not know if he should thank this 'weakness' or resent himself for being this 'weak'.

Five seconds quickly passed by and the debuffs imposed on him have now been lifted, he was now able to counterattack.

As time passed by, the wounds on the strange creature rapidly accumulated to a frightening degree, making its attack more weak and slow.

The creature became more feeble and weaker as he keeps slashing it using his short sword. It did not take too long for the creature to drop on its knees.

He gazed down on the creature and tightly held his short sword before decisively cutting off its head.

Red blood sputtered on the ground, a strange round object flew in the air and rapidly fell on the ground with a thud.

The strange red creature was killed.

He breathed a sigh of relief, which was extremely dangerous, if the fight had lasted longer, then he would've died first due to exhaustion of stamina.

It was fortunate that the creature did not last long under his constant onslaught.

It was quite strange though, he could vividly feel fatigue and weakness while inside this game, as if he was in reality, shouldn't fatigue be like in the form of a debuff notification instead? He shook his head and cleared these useless thoughts away and analyzed the important things.

Earlier, he felt that the behavior of that strange creature was quite weird, he could not accurately put his finger on it.

The creature looked intelligent and yet it was easily provoked by him, it even became irrational and aggressive after it got injured by one of his attacks.

It would've been fine if it's just that, but its sudden changes had also bought an increase on its stats, it suddenly became fast and strong while in its crazed state.

It is not even a boss nor was it a mini-boss for it to possess a berserk state, it was quite strange indeed, but he needed to collect more clues before he could come up with his conclusion regarding the strange creature.

He had assumed that maybe the creature's strange berserk-like state was just its latent talent or its racial talent, he's not quite sure and he still needs more clues.

He did not dwell on this matter that much and checked his overall state instead.

His body had a few wounds here and there, but they weren't life-threatening, what he was quite sad about was the miserable state of his weapon.

Due to its repeated use and its occasional parries, it eventually became badly damaged and is on the verge of breaking apart.

He was upset by this, how could he possibly use this damaged dagger to confront his future enemies? Who knows if it might suddenly break halfway while he's in the midst of a fight, right?

His emerald green eyes suddenly brightened as he had suddenly remembered the weapon that the creature had used.

He looked down and immediately found the bone dagger quietly lying on the ground.

He picked the bone dagger up and skillfully held it in his hand, the hilt felt rough for him but the blade was quite sharp and durable so he nevertheless fell in love with it.

He was quite satisfied with his weapon right now, the details and attributes of the bone dagger were displayed in front of him.

< Item Information >

[ Blood Goblin's Bone Dagger ]

[ Rarity: Common ] [ Type: Weapon ]

[ Description: A crude dagger made from bones of an unknown creature. It was sharpened to be suitable for killing through piercing or slashing. ]

>> ITEM STATS <<

— [ Physical Attack: 5 ]

— [ Strength: 1 ]

>> UNIQUE ITEM EFFECTS <<

— [ Bleed (Passive): 15% chance to inflict bleed status effect on enemies that deals 1% damage based on the enemy's maximum health for 3 seconds. Cooldown: 10 seconds. ]

— [ Heavy Blow (Passive): 80% chance to reduce equipment durability of parrying enemies by 1. Cooldown: 1 minute. ]

[ Durability: 100/100 ]

[ Conditions of Use: Level 4 ]

He closed the item panel and went to check the kill notification that he had received after killing the creature.

[ You have killed a level 5 "Blood Goblin". ]

[ 23 EXP has been awarded as a result. ]

He was very pleased by his rapid growth, but upon hearing the name of the creature, he gave an odd look towards the carcass of the said blood goblin, not knowing where is the goblin part of this red abomination.

The creature just looks hideous, comparing the green and red goblin would only make the green goblin look cute instead.

He could not bear to look at the carcass any longer thus he directed his gaze away and gazed towards the direction of the goblin castle, his expression extremely solemn and even had a hint of fear.

Just one blood goblin gave him a hard time, who knows how many of these creatures resides in that castle.

Just thinking of the possible massive number of blood goblins inside made him shudder violently, he might've been torn to shreds if he had entered the castle recklessly.

There's also the possibility of wealth accumulating inside the castle but being fearless was vastly different from that of recklessness, he knows his strength very well and he knew that he could not conquer that horrifying castle.

At least not yet, maybe he would be able to conquer it in the future but not now.

It would've been nice instead if there are only green goblins inside, but he couldn't rule out the possibility of the red goblins occupying the castle when a red goblin just came out of that castle.

Thinking about the countless number of red goblins while in their enraged state made him break into a cold sweat.

He could not possibly conquer this castle with his current strength, there's also a big possibility of stronger red goblins residing inside the castle.

He did not hesitate any longer and rapidly retreated to where he came from while thinking of how he would raid it when he got stronger in the future.

'Not good, this castle is seriously dangerous for me now, maybe I can raid the castle after I change class to a mage.' Mirage thought while tracing back his footsteps.

This time, he cleverly left various markings to navigate inside this vast forest.

***

< Character Information >

[ Name: Mirage ]

[ HP: 52/52 ] [ MP: 110/110 ]

[ Race ]

— [ Human ]

[ Class ]

— [ None ]

[ Title ]

— [ None ]

[ Level ]

— [ Level 4 (70/160) ]

[ Attributes ]

— [ Strength: 1 ]

— [ Agility: 1 ]

— [ Intelligence: 5 ]

— [ Stamina: 1 ]

[ Usable Points ]

— [ Attribute Points: None ]

— [ Skill Points: None ]

As usual, he allocated his free attribute to his intelligence stat, he would stick to this kind of reckless allocation for now until he changed class to a mage.

The sun had set, night descended in this terrifying forest and occasional howls could be heard from the distance which terrified Mirage greatly.

He greatly worried for his safety while in this forest, but it's already night time and it's extremely unwise to continue his travel.

Thus he reluctantly relented and went to find an appropriate resting spot that was quite obscured.

He did not worry about the green goblins but he's worried for the other creatures, especially those blood goblins.

He wasn't trained in the military thus he could not half-sleep, half-awake, he could only be vigilant in his surroundings while occasionally taking short naps.

The night inside a terrifyingly vast forest alone was quite a fearsome experience for him, not knowing when the monsters might attack him while he's napping made him extra vigilant.

Not being able to sleep straight at night made him look tired and haggard, he tiredly looks towards the rising sun in the distance.

Then he suddenly had a crazy idea of following the direction of the sun, he just had this thought that following the sun might lead him back to where the town was.

With this lingering thought in mind, his past lethargic self became energetic once more, he once again resumed his search for the way back to town, but this time in a more reckless way than ever, relying on the unknowing sun as the source of navigation.