Poko’s Rise To The Top

Chapter 2: The First Floor

[Get ready to start the next floor in]

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A bright light hits Poko’s eyes and as he opens them he sees a meadow with a forest surrounding it, a small creek meanders through the meadow and into the forest. In the distance there are mountains and behind him is a closed door that seems to go nowhere.

“CREEEEK”

All of a sudden from the thick grasses pops up the ugliest green head poko has ever seen, the head starts to charge in Poko’s direction. As it parts the thick grasses poko sees a small glint of metal in its hand. It’s at this moment that poko realizes that his sword is still somehow shoved into the backpack, sticking out awkwardly, and he has no idea how to cast a spell…

‘Fuck!’

Poko jumps back and began trying to grab the sword but as he grabs it poko realizes, the backpack would not let go of it! The annoying creature is already upon him, it’s to late now.

‘Well I guess I’ve got 5 lives so…’

As the ugly little creature lunges at poko with a crude dagger, there comes a flash of light as a person suddenly appears before him. The creature is just as surprised as poko and the random person, but nobody has the chance to react before the dagger plunged into their chest.

Before the person can even scream their body turns into particles that disappear quickly, leaving behind his backpack.

Poko quickly shrugged his backpack off and launched the sword and backpack at the creature as the creature try’s to swing its dagger at him again. The dagger pierced Poko’s arm but the creature got smacked by the bag-sword causing the creature to squeal and roll to the ground.

Poko quickly got the sword loose, cutting his backpack even more in the process, and swung down at the creature. The creature tried to block with its dagger but it could not do much from its position and low quality weapon. The creature can’t handle the blow as it’s arms give in, slicing the creatures neck and killing it instantly.

[Congrats on being the first of your race to  kill a monster! 5 ap has been awarded]

“5 AP!! That’s almost double what I started with, I’m going to be so much stronger than others now and if I can get more firsts then I’ll continue to be the best. Time to snowball!!“

‘10 health is not enough, put 2 points into that and 2 points into mp, then 1 point into strength. Idk if it’s bad to not specialize and my mana is low but I got that meditation so hopefully that offsets it.

The creature doesn’t vanish like the person but leaves behind 5 copper, a dagger, and surprisingly a skill tome!

“Wow I didn’t know it was so easy to get skill tomes! Or maybe I’m just lucky? Either way I’ll take it!”

When poko picked up the skill tome, a notification popped up.

[Would you like to learn piercing strike?]

“Yes!”

Poko picked up the other persons pack and inspected it, neither swords came with a sheathe…

“Damn that’s annoying, when can I get a sheath? There might be more people coming so I guess I better tidy this up or it might look like I killed someone for their pack”

Poko quickly tried casting storage and was amazed at how simple it was, just think about doing it and it’s as if someone takes control and moves your body for you.

After shoving everything inside, using up his little bit of mana in the process poko stops his casting as he runs out of mana.

‘Damn that takes a lot of mana to keep up!’

As the spell ends and the portal disappears everything that was put into the storage suddenly flings out!

“What the fuck! There’s no way I’m supposed to keep the spell going to keep the stuff in it… how does that make sense?? I knew it was to good to be true that was a useless skill slot, I could’ve gotten blink instead!! Fuck you tower”

“ Damnit, well time for plan B I guess”

Poko quickly packed all his belongings into his new pack, if anyone asks it was the challengers pack that got destroyed…

“Some free copper, sword, and a potion. Seems like everybody gets the same. I can’t hide the sword though and if I lie I’ll probably be outed if that person comes back, hmmm”

Poko decided to place the ragged backpack on the ground, he drank the potion since he’d rather drink it then let it go to waste. He was missing 5 hp after all. But this was not a game, it wasn’t just an HP bar that gets lowered, his arm was in constant pain and it was hard to do much with it.

[Health potion consumed]

[Potion cooldown: 5 minutes]

[Restored 5 health]

[Cured lesser infection]

“It was infected already!? That bastard must have put poison or something on it! Good thing I drank the potion, I wonder how much the potion can heal for?”

Poko watched as his wound seemed to mend itself in a few seconds.

‘Wow potent potion’

Poko put the empty bottle into the destroyed bag and stomped on it many times before the glass finally broke.

‘That’s some hard glass, it might actually be valuable… oh well.’

Then he put the sword next to the pile.

‘I’ll uh “safeguard” this copper until he comes back hehehe’

All of a sudden a flash of light appears and a person is standing about two feet from poko, a beautiful young lady with long brown hair and lightly tan skin. With beautiful deep brown eyes she looks around noticing poko standing there.

‘Damn this girl is beautiful! The most dangerous creature of all… I’ll have to be careful.’

“Hello, careful a monster has already killed someone”

Poko points out the bag and creature. The girl looks surprised and takes a step back, already holding her sword.

‘Smarter than me haha’

“It came from the meadow grasses, it was hiding in there.”

As poko points out the area they see 3 more heads entering the meadow at the opposite side, the monsters clearly crouch low and plan to attack more subtly. As the ugly little things disappear into the meadow. The girl backs away from the meadow and stands slightly closer to poko.

She says “What’s your name?”

‘Shit I can’t say poko she’ll laugh at me! I should have thought of an alias!’

“Uhh”

“My name isss….”

“Oko”

‘Well it’s slightly better I guess’

The girls raises her eyebrows at Poko’s stuttering and unusual name.

“My name is Abby, are you a close fighter or a ranged fighter?”

“I guess close”

‘Since I haven’t recovered my mana yet, better to not rely on it. Besides keeping a hidden talent is always good.’

“Ok I’m a healer and mage so how about you stand in front of me?”

“Idk, how do I know you won’t shoot me in the back? I’m not a very trusting person, especially when the first thing I see is someone dying and him dropping his stuff for anyone to grab…”

“For all I know it could’ve been you who killed that person, but how do you expect to deal with the monsters then?”

“When they come out of the meadow I’ll take the front, but just remember that we have multiple lives, I’ll remember your face.”

Abby looks like she remembers something, seems she forgot about the multiple lives in all the commotion.

“And the same goes to you”

They both share a knowing smile and a small amount of trust.

“Fair enough”

After another minute of tensely staring at the meadow looking for any movement another person spawns, a giant of a man with thick muscles. He looked about the same age as everyone else.

‘Seems we are all about the same age I guess.’

As the guy looks around, the girl speaks first.

“Hello, some monsters are coming from the meadow, there were three.”

The giant looks at them and then the tattered bag and corpse. Eyeing them suspiciously.

‘Seems we share a trust problem.’

Poko explains to him

“There was one earlier who killed someone, now there is three more coming.”

Just as poko finished his sentence the three monsters suddenly sprung from the grasses. But it was too far of a distance and the group was ready before hand so the surprise wasn’t very surprising.

Poko looked to Abby who immediately started casting a spell, Poko and the giant stepped forward with their sword, although muscles was further back from the start.

The creatures saw Abby casting and immediately focused on her, poko slashed at one as it lept back, defending with its dagger. The other two tried to get around poko but he used his new skill to target one in the back with a piercing stab to its chest killing it instantly. Abby cast the spell, a water spell targeting the creature that poko just stabbed, hitting it on its way down and nearly hitting poko.

“Hey!”

The other creature rushed at Abby but luckily the giant stepped in, blocking the creature long enough for poko to catch up and stab it in its back. The last creature ran up quickly trying to get poko before he could turn around, luckily the giant wasn’t to bad and managed to cover Poko’s back for him. The blow was blocked and poko turned and immediately swung his sword, hitting the creatures dagger out of the way as the bulky man finished it with a stab to its chest.

“You nearly hit me with that!”

“Why did you hit the one I was targeting! Go after the other one!”

“How was I supposed to know! You should have told me before what you were targeting, why do you think I waited and looked at you before I ran in but you just started casting!”

Abby looked surprised at hearing this. After the adrenaline and frustration from the battle subsided a bit, she knew she was in the wrong this time.

“Sorry, it won’t happen again”

“Ugh it’s alright, the first few battles are bound to be a bit rough anyway. As long as we learn from them and don’t get hurt that’s what matters most.”

Each body drops a copper coin.

‘Wow maybe killing the first one really does get good stuff, is it cause of the achievement? It didn’t say that as the reward though so… hm’

“One for each of us”

Poko asks ”By the way what’s your name?”

“Felsen”

His gruff voice sounded for the first time

‘Seems like the quiet type’

“And I’m Abby”

“Oko, nice to meet you. Thanks for having my back, you seem pretty skilled have you fought before?”

“Don’t remember”

Abby responds “I guess none of us do, well what now wait for more people?”

Oko says “idk I guess numbers might be safer, we should watch out for more of those things though”

Abby responds “Alright everyone keep a lookout, I used a third of my mana on that spell so I don’t know how much more fighting I can do”

Poko says “if to many come we will have to retreat, but we should stick together if we can. How much mana did that spell cost?”

Abby hesitates as she says “uh well…”

“It’ll probably be common knowledge soon anyway”

“5”

Poko responds “damn that’s a lot, I only have 5 mana”

“Well your not a mage so that makes sense”

“…Right I’d be an idiot to put points into mana haha…”

“Still it is a lot. I can only cast 3 spells and it takes about an hour to get 5 mana back.”

‘An hour to get 5 mana back? It hasn’t been an hour so how does she know that?’

Poko quickly looks at his stats and tries to look for any hints about mana regeneration but finds nothing. In fact he had yet to get a single point of mana back despite it being about 5-8 minutes since he used his mana.

‘She must also have a knowledge skill on magic… interesting so she probably went full mage then with 2 points into mana and probably one point into mp. So I know about three of her skills and probably all of her ap. I know nothing about Felsen though.’

‘I need more first kills.’

Abby asks “So what do you think those things are? Is it the mission to kill them?”

Felsen surprisingly speaks up and says “Those creatures are called Goblins”

“Oh thanks! Better then calling them creatures, anyways I think I’m gunna head out, no more monsters are coming so there seems to be no point in waiting here”

‘And I need to get to those other first kills before anyone else hehe’

Abby responds “You don’t want to wait for more people? There could be hundreds of those Goblins out there, it’ll be safer with numbers”

“Nah I’ll be careful, I’m not good with big groups anyways. See you later guys and good luck! I’m sure we will see each other around.”